At the forefront of apologetics for Israel is the US-based group StandWithUs, a thoroughly obnoxious lobby that harasses students and professors critical of Israeli policy and US participation in it. StandWithUs is deeply involved in the persecution of William I. Robinson at University of California-Santa Barbara, and, I understand, one of the students who instigated the affair is an operative for StandWithUs.
Those who support the persecution of Robinson have made arguments to which I want to respond. Exploding these exposes the real agenda here. The international president of StandWithUs, Esther Renzer, says, “This case is a litmus test of whether professors can exploit their positions of authority to impose their political prejudices on students or whether the university truly will remain a place where all points of view can be comfortably and responsibly discussed.”
First, all students imposed views on students in the sense that failure to answer a question declared true in relation to a point of view results in negative outcome. These are often political charged truths. Suppose a students decides to skip all questions pertaining to natural selection on a biology test because she is a creationist. Should she be allowed to pass on those questions without consequence because of here theological beliefs? Is she being punished because of her point of view? Or do we say that she suspends her belief in the supernatural in order to answer questions the premise of which she rejects just so she can have a positive outcome? Is this not imposing views on students? Damn straight it is. It’s called education. She agrees to this by remaining enrolled in the class.
In social science class, which is no less scientific than the natural and physical sciences, professors nonetheless take great care not to impose their political prejudices on students because they recognize that they are held to a different standard. In any case, Robinson did not connect his email to any possible negative consequences in terms of evaluating the students. When a student asked the question, Robinson reassured her that the e-mail carried on consequences. This has been twisted into a claim that Robinson admitted that the email was irrelevant to class. No, he said the e-mail was for her interests, therefore she did not have to do anything with it, and therefore there was no consequences for dismissing the claims in the e-mail.
Here’s the real world: Professors present political and other positions in class, germane to the subject at hand, that students can either agree or disagree with, or dismiss altogether. Part of a university education, specially learning how to become an informed and engaged citizen, is learning that one routinely confronts political opinions with which one either agrees or disagrees or is indifferent and that one is free to openly disagree with opinions with which they do not agree or ignore them altogether. It’s called life in an open society.
The e-mail over which Robinson’s opinion was sent was open to all participants in the class to use how they saw fit. It was for their interests in the context of a sociology class on global issues. All students had an equal opportunity to debate the merits of the email. Two students chose not to debate the merits, but instead to participate in a campaign to suppress academic freedom, thus harming the interests of the professor and the other students who enrolled in the course. They did not sign up for a class the content of which was constrained by outside forces. They signed up for a sociology class on global issues.
Israel’s invasion of Gaza is a global issue or great interest to the American college student. The comparison of any current state policy to the policies of past oppressive regimes is the bread and butter of historical social science, which rests on a comparative methodology. Second, it is not possible in a sociology class on global matters to comfortably discuss all points of view on account of the obvious fact that certain points of view will inevitably make some persons uncomfortable. There has never been a requirement that only those points of view with which every participant is comfortable may be discussed. If this were a requirement then the university classroom would have no purpose.
Christians who believe in creationism who attend biology classes have to participate in judgments premised on the truth of natural selection, a point of view diametrically at odds with the biblical account of life on our planet. Those who believe a supernatural being compels objects to fall confront in physics class judgments which operate on the theory of gravitation. The demand that we only discuss things with which we are all comfortable forces off the table any discussion the origins and development life or the reasons why objects fall. Yet, even in times where such matters were taken off the table, those who wanted to know but couldn’t were made to feel uncomfortable. Those who knew from other sources but were not allowed to speak up were made to feel uncomfortable. The curious were silenced, misdirected, punished.
Not discussing the killing of Palestinian civilians by Israeli military forces makes a lot of students who know what’s going on feel uncomfortable. Why is their discomfort any less important than those who defend such oppressive policies? Life is not about always feeling comfortable, especially in intellectual and political endeavors. Pursuing knowledge and justice often requires afflicting the comfortable. Life is about disagreement over things. If disagreements can’t happen in the context of a college classroom, then can we realistically expect them to happen elsewhere.
Roberta P. Seid, StandWithUs education and research director says that Robinson’s e-mail was anti-Semitic because it “demonized Israel, its founding, and its history. The university should be concerned about the degradation of academic standards when professors present such polemics as reasonable analyses.” Demonizing Israel is not anti-Semitic (and the State Department asserting that it does has no bearing on the truth of the matter).
Anti-Semitism is prejudice or especially discrimination against Jews based on their real or perceived Jewishness. Demonizing a nation-state, whatever its alleged ethnic character, does not inherently involve prejudice or discrimination against one ore more ethnic groups living within those borders. Was opposition to apartheid in South Africa demonstration of prejudice against the white ruling class? No, it was opposition to its oppressive public policies that caused the horrible treatment and conditions of the blacks who suffered under its control. Did people demonize the state of South Africa? Yes, for good reason. Seid said, “But that is not the case against him. [So why bring it up?] The case is that he inappropriately used university resources to impose and promote his personal political prejudices, stifling students’ ability to critically examine controversial issues. I’m sure he would be glad that the Code of Conduct safeguards are in place if a homophobic or racist professor took the liberties he took to influence students.” Note how the language is almost identical to that used by Renzer, so the same points I made above apply.
But let us examine the analogy Seid tries to draw about the homophobic or racist professor. Suppose that a biology professor states that she does not believe that homosexuality is genetic, that after a careful review of the evidence, she concludes that homosexuality is a learned behavior. Some students might find this uncomfortable for political reasons, namely, the desire to construct homosexuality as biological in order to legitimate identity. Some would suggest that even saying this is itself homophobic. But why should any of these statements be homophobic? A person can be strongly pro-gay and lesbian, believe that human beings should be free to be homosexual, even believe that the claim of genetic origin stigmatizes homosexuals as having defective genes from the point of view of heteronormativity, but that nonetheless the question it open to exploration—a person can be and believe all this and still argue the position that homosexuality like heterosexuality is learned behavior. If I were a biology professor making this argument should I be persecuted? If I am a professor who exposes the racist policies of any country, including my own, am I to be persecuted for being a racist? I say a lot of uncomfortable things about whiteness. Am I a racist? Should I be persecuted for discussing the history and consequences of whiteness in the United States?
Roz Rothstein, StandWithUs’ international director, said that StandWithUs launched the petition to provoke UCSB to persecute Robinson “to protect the right of students to register grievances against faculty without fear of hostile faculty reactions.” Speaking about those who are defending Robinson, Rothstein said that “’Robinson’s supporters’ assault on the students’ complaints could disempower other students with grievances and intimidate them into silence.” Talk about twisting oneself into knots. Rothstein said, “The politicization of academia is a serious problem today. We applaud the UCSB administration for trying to uphold standards of academic freedom and responsibility. They are under a lot of pressure, and our petition lets them know that tens of thousand of people support them and their commitment to ensure that the university remains what it should be—a place for the critical examination of ideas, facts, and values.”
What Rothstein wants is the depoliticization of science, a form of political correctness that will stifle critical examination of ideas, facts, and values. Life is political. The classroom, a place where life happens, is political. The academy is political. This is a welcome fact of social reality. The attempt to remove politics from academia is guided by a desire to render the university classroom a sterile environment where “truths” learned outside the classroom cannot be challenged in the classroom. The attempt to remove politics from academia is guided by a desire to reinforce indoctrination via a conspiracy of silence in the one place where critical examination fo ideas, facts, and values can take place.
Is it not ironic in some way that Americans who participate in StandWithUs’ witch hunt trample upon their own Bill of Rights to silence their fellow citizens who would criticize Israel? Why would any American tell another American to shut up about Israel? I have found that those who object most strongly to criticisms of Israel have no problem with criticism of US foreign policy, except where it pertains to US’s participation in Palestine.
This is the United States of America. Here we allow free and open discussion and debate about ideas, facts, and values. At least we’re supposed to. We could do a lot better job if those who represent StandWithUs engaged the discussion and debated Robinson on the substance rather than organize campaigns to suppress his academic freedom. If ever the defenders of Israel are silenced in the classroom, what will they be able to say about this? If they are consistent, they will have to take their medicine. But, for them, free speech is not the principle in operation here. For them, I am free to say whatever I want, just so long as StandWithUs agrees with me.
freedom and reason 