<html>
<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite><font size=3>"The debate is
distorted, poisoning the academic environment."<br><br>
------- HF: HILLEL-FACULTY -------<br><br>
Mideast conflict boosts tensions at U.S. colleges<br>
Schools fear rise in
harassment, stifling of debate<br><br>
By Ron Grossman, Chicago Tribune, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2002<br><br>
When the University of Chicago brought in counselors from the<br>
Anti-Defamation League this fall to train dormitory advisers in<br>
sensitivity to ethnic and religious minorities, it was one of many
signs<br>
that another front in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has opened
on<br>
America's college campuses.<br><br>
The highly unusual move came after allegations that supporters of
Israel<br>
had been harassed on the Chicago campus and reflects similar
concerns<br>
reported by Jewish students and professors nationwide. Meanwhile,
some<br>
scholars of the Islamic world said they also have become targets of<br>
intimidation.<br><br>
Although most of the skirmishes have been rhetorical rather than<br>
physical, university leaders are increasingly concerned that the
Middle<br>
East has become such a bitterly charged topic that legitimate debate
is<br>
distorted or stifled, poisoning the academic environment.<br><br>
Last week, more than 300 college and university presidents issued a<br>
statement through the American Jewish Committee saying they feared
that<br>
hostility over Israel threatened to erode the tradition of
classroom<br>
civility and rational discourse upon which scholarship and learning<br>
depend.<br><br>
Indeed, on one North American campus, the subject virtually has been
put<br>
off limits.<br><br>
Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was to speak at<br>
Concordia University in Montreal on Sept. 9, but his appearance was<br>
canceled after several thousand pro-Palestinian demonstrators laid
siege<br>
to the lecture hall. Tear gas was used to subdue protesters who
broke<br>
windows and stormed the building, and a number of students were<br>
arrested.<br><br>
Declaring that the university needed a cooling-off period, Rector<br>
Frederick Lowy proclaimed a moratorium on events relating to the
Middle<br>
East, including "public speeches, rallies, exhibits and
information<br>
tables."<br><br>
The university presidents' statement expressed concern over how
Jewish<br>
students and supporters of Israel have been treated in recent
months,<br>
citing various threats and defacement of property.<br><br>
On the University of Colorado's Boulder campus, for example, a
sukkah,<br>
or festive holiday booth, set up by the Jewish student organization<br>
Hillel was defaced with swastikas. Anti-Semitic graffiti were
scribbled<br>
on a Jewish fraternity house.<br><br>
But the leaders also said something more insidious is
occurring.<br><br>
"We are concerned that recent examples of classroom and on-campus
debate<br>
have crossed the line into intimidation and hatred, neither of
which<br>
have any place on university campuses," the statement said.<br>
<br>
At Harvard University this fall, President Lawrence Summers
publicly<br>
noted that professors and students have a perfect right to question<br>
Israel's policies. Discussing thorny issues, after all, is at the
heart<br>
of what universities are about.<br><br>
But too often, he said, that criticism is now betraying simple<br>
prejudice. "Profoundly anti-Israel views are increasingly
finding<br>
support in progressive intellectual communities," Summers
said.<br><br>
Activists feel like outcasts<br><br>
Jewish student activists said the kind of campus climate Summers<br>
described-- which includes growing demands that universities divest<br>
their portfolios of financial holdings in Israel--has made them
pariahs<br>
while silencing others.<br><br>
"It has become fashionable to be extremely anti-Israel on
campus," said<br>
Talia Magnas, a recent graduate of the University of Chicago who
pressed<br>
the school's administration on the issue. "I felt that by
publicly<br>
supporting Israel, I took myself out of the academic
discourse."<br><br>
The Council on American-Islamic Relations said it has received<br>
relatively few allegations--about a dozen--of discrimination
against<br>
Muslim students and professors in the last year. One student at
Central<br>
Missouri State University alleged that after a heated classroom<br>
exchange, a university administrator called the Muslim student<br>
"un-American."<br><br>
But John Woods, director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at
the<br>
University of Chicago, said some Jewish activists have unfairly
targeted<br>
scholars, assuming that someone who studies Arabic is automatically<br>
anti-Israel and potentially anti-Semitic.<br><br>
Woods particularly objects to the Web site
<a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/" eudora="autourl">www.campus-watch.org</a>,
where<br>
scholars who back Israel have posted notices since September about<br>
professors and university departments considered anti-Israel.
Thinking<br>
the enterprise smacks of McCarthyism, Woods recently sent an e-mail<br>
alerting colleagues to what he considers an intimidation
campaign.<br><br>
Amy Newhall, executive director of the Middle East Studies
Association,<br>
noted that Campus Watch urges students to report on their
professors,<br>
potentially discouraging lecturers from talking freely--especially
those<br>
not protected by tenure.<br><br>
"Now, professors have to worry that someone is secretly
monitoring<br>
them," Newhall said.<br><br>
Campus conflict over the Middle East began to worsen toward the end
of<br>
the previous academic year. In May, when the Hillel chapter at San<br>
Francisco State University attempted to hold a peace demonstration,
San<br>
Francisco police officers had to escort Jewish students off campus
after<br>
a threatening crowd surrounded them. A similar clash at the
University<br>
of California at Berkeley, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, led to the<br>
arrest of 79 pro-Palestinian demonstrators.<br><br>
The Berkeley administration also felt obliged to take a hand in the
case<br>
of a controversial freshman course offering, "English 1A: The
Politics<br>
and Poetics of Palestinian Resistance." The last line in the
course<br>
description read, "Conservative thinkers are encouraged to seek
other<br>
sections"--implying that dissent from a pro-Palestinian position
would<br>
not be tolerated.<br>
<br>
The English department later acknowledged "a lapse in oversight of
its<br>
reading and composition courses," and the university stressed
that<br>
students are not excluded from any courses on the basis of
political<br>
persuasion.<br><br>
`Reduced to silence'<br><br>
Some Jewish student activists at the University of Chicago alleged
that<br>
a similar pro-Palestinian, anti-Israeli bias has crept into course<br>
offerings there. They said the university doesn't offer a course in
the<br>
history of Israel, which, they said, only shows up as a
"problem" in<br>
courses dealing with other Middle Eastern countries.<br><br>
"The Israeli perspective has been reduced to silence," said
Yehuda<br>
Halper, a third-year student active in the campus group Chicago
Friends<br>
of Israel.<br><br>
When an alumnus took the issue to the administration, Provost
Richard<br>
Saller took a hands-off approach. "The university's long-standing
policy<br>
does not call for the central administration to take an active role
in<br>
presenting different views for the sake of balance," he wrote in
a<br>
letter.<br><br>
Halper and other student activists also presented a list of other<br>
complaints, which prompted the invitation to the Anti-Defamation
League<br>
to offer sensitivity training. Yet Saller said only a few of the<br>
students' allegations could be substantiated.<br><br>
"We have had a couple of incidents, in the form of defacing of
posters,"<br>
Saller said. "In other cases, we were either unable to confirm them,
or<br>
they were impossible to verify."<br><br>
Yet Woods said the campus has not been immune to the tensions other<br>
universities have experienced. Last spring, an Israeli student came
into<br>
his office and broke down crying.<br><br>
"He said that another professor had equated Israelis with
Nazis," Woods<br>
said. "I called a town meeting of the [Middle Eastern studies]
center to<br>
discuss the need for civility."<br><br>
He added that the professor in question later left the university
for<br>
unrelated reasons.<br><br>
University officials and Jewish students are now engaged in
dialogue<br>
aimed at reducing tensions on campus.<br><br>
Similar motives inspired the college presidents' recent statement,
said<br>
one of its principal organizers, Stephen Trachtenberg, president of<br>
George Washington University.<br><br>
"Those of us who are old enough to recall World War II,"
Trachtenberg<br>
said, "know that it's better to get into a defensive mode sooner
rather<br>
than later." <br><br>
<br>
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