A Problem of Their Own Design?
Universities have always been hotbeds for political discourse and disagreement; however, in the past few months, university presidents have found themselves saddled
with the blame and pressured to resign. Since Hamas’s October 7th attack on Israel, higher education has been in crisis as institutions attempt to address the geopolitical conflict in the Middle East without creating offense. With an issue as complex and nuanced as that of Israel and Palestine, university presidents are unable to make the same broad condemnations through emails and official statements that they have for other topics in recent years, such as the murder of George Floyd or Russia’s war on Ukraine.
This precedent placed university presidents in an impossible position: make a statement that will almost certainly miss the necessary nuance required and will in turn anger large portions of their student bodies or stay silent? Silence, however, is no longer a route that leaders in higher education can take due to recent trends of university activism. Universities have spent the better part of the past decade making themselves political in their issuing of statements to address current events and now find themselves forced to take a stance on Middle Eastern politics. In addition to becoming increasingly reactive to crises, universities have shifted towards a politically progressive image. Such behavior can most clearly be seen through anti-racist and decolonization initiatives that are characterized by land acknowledgments and other shows of social justice. At Cornell University, President Martha Pollack issued not one, not two, but three statements about the aftermath of October 7th, faultily addressing the violence and angering both Jewish and Palestinian groups across campus.
Not only do these mediocre messages from university presidents serve to further divide their student bodies, they create larger, external consequences on the national level, with the most notable instance being the December 5th Congressional committee hearing for “Holding Campus Leaders Accountable and Confronting Antisemitism.” During this hearing, Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) asked the presidents of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), and Harvard University whether calling for the genocide of Jews violated free speech policies at their respective institutions. MIT’s Sally Kornbluth answered that the university would investigate such speech as harassment if it were “pervasive and severe,” and, upon facing public backlash, MIT released a revised statement two days later. Then President Liz Magill of UPenn repeatedly declined to answer yes or no to Stefanik’s question definitively, ultimately deeming the permissibility and punitivity of such speech as a “context-dependent decision,” only explicitly stating that such rhetoric was forbidden when it translated into harassment. In the day following the hearing, Magill finally answered definitively in a video statement but was unable to restore the faith of alumni and donors, leading to her resignation the following weekend. Claudine Gay answered similarly to Magill at this hearing, agreeing that such speech was context dependent. Upon Stefanik’s continued probing for a clear answer, Gay responded that “antisemitic rhetoric, when it crosses into conduct, that amounts to bullying, harassment, intimidation. That is actionable conduct, and we do take action,” essentially implying that antisemitic rhetoric on its own, even that which calls for the genocide of all Jews, is permisable at Harvard. Just like the now former President Magill, Dr. Gay faced backlash and calls to resign. Despite the quick resignation of her counterpart, President Magill, Gay maintained her position through the new year, ultimately stepping down on January 2nd amidst growing outrage over both her remarks and alleged incidents of plagiarism.
In the aftermath of both Magill and Gay’s resignations, many of their supporters have placed the blame at hands of wealthy donors threatening to pull funding. While these donors undoubtedly had some influence in these decisions, had UPenn and Harvard not politicized themselves, their presidents would not have needed to take the stand or the coinciding fall for such a situation. However, this recent conflict is part of a larger, concerning trend. In the eight years after 2015, Gallup research found that confidence in higher education within the US had plummeted from 57% to 36%, placing it “on par with the presidency as the most politically polarized institution in America”. Universities must return to being safe places for political ideas and discourse across the spectrum, including radical fringes, instead of themselves undergoing politicization as an institution. Universities also must realize that they cannot play the part of revolutionary progressives while still relying on and expecting donations from their more conservative Wall Street alumni, only to feign outrage when such donors disagree with their faux-activism. Universities can no longer have their cake and eat it too; they must learn from this crisis and depoliticize before America loses all her faith in higher education.
