Mideast Crisis Igniting a War of Words on College Campuses

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Now, protests have been spilling out onto U.S. college campuses over the crisis in the Middle East between those who support Israel and those who support Palestinians. Jack Stripling is an investigative reporter at “The Washington Post” covering higher education. And he joins Hari Sreenivasan with that story.

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HARI SREENIVASAN, CORRESPONDENT: Christiane, thanks. Jack Stripling, thanks so much for joining us. You are an investigative reporter in the higher ed beat in “The Washington Post.” And over the past week, we have seen so much activity on college campuses, protests and counter protests, students in support of Palestine, in support of Israel. What are you seeing play out across the country here?

JACK STRIPLING, HIGH EDUCATION INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER, “THE WASHINGTON POST”: Well, this really is a continuation of a long-standing phenomenon within higher education. I mean of course, protest around international conflicts are part and parcel of the experience of academia in the United States, but particularly the Israeli Palestinian conflict has generated over decades enormous amounts of protests, political pressure, pressure from students for colleges to do any number of things related to the conflict, whether that’s to divest from Israel, whether that’s to boycott study abroad programs in Israel. So, this is a long-standing issue that that has, of course, had a flashpoint because of the current circumstances in the conflict.

SREENIVASAN: You know, last week, we saw pictures of a billboard going around Harvard with the names and photos of students that were members of multiple groups on campus. Let’s kind of unpack that. What did those students do to get their faces and names on a billboard?

STRIPLING: It was really interesting. The — early on there was a statement that was put out by a group of student groups at Harvard University that held Israel solely responsible for the violence occurring in Gaza and Israel. This immediately was met with tons of public backlash. There were efforts, I think, to identify who the students were that their organization’s names were there, but not the names of the students. And I think things really ratcheted up when Larry Summers, who’s a former president of Harvard and also a former secretary of treasury, went on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, and really condemned Harvard for its slow response to the Israeli Palestinian conflict. By that point, a lot of universities had already put out public statements and specifically condemning these student groups. And so, that generate a lot of interest in them. And then, in the ensuing days, as you note, I think there have been numerous efforts to identify who these students are. Some of them appear to have suffered some professional consequences as a result of this. So, that’s kind of how this began. But that statement really attracted a ton of attention.

SREENIVASAN: Now, there were some very prominent CEOs, Bill Ackman, the head of a large hedge fund being one of them, that started to call for the names of all the student members so that he says so that he didn’t have to hire them. I mean, and then there was an issue at NYU where one of the students that was a member of these organizations had — what is it their job offer rescinded?

STRIPLING: Yes. So, there have been a few incidents like this. I know there’s a prominent law firm that initially said it would not hire some of the students who were affiliated with these groups. There’s been more recent reporting at saying, well, we’re going to hire some, but not all of these students, depending on their level of involvement. But it’s an interesting phenomenon, because I do think that in the history of student activism around any number of issues, but particularly this one, which is so divisive around the world, you know, I think 20 years ago, a student could go out and protest about something like this and a future employer would be none the wiser. Of course, now, they’re performing on a world stage through social media and the pressure points and the consequences are far more profound as a result.

SREENIVASAN: When I talk about this with my friends, what’s interesting is, is that there’s, you know, a group of folks that say, listen, when you sign your name on something, kind of be ready for it to be in the front page of “The Washington Post” and “The New York Times.” I mean, you’ve got to take responsibility for what you’re signing your name on to, and maybe this is a life lesson. And then, I also hear people saying, gosh, this has a little bit of a smell of McCarthyism. You know, who’s a card-carrying member of which group, and am I going to blackball them or not hire them?

STRIPLING: I think these are great points, and it’s something that the colleges themselves really struggle with, right? They want to, by design, be, to use a word, safe spaces for students and faculty to express themselves on any number of issues, but they are living in an environment where people can be doxed, people can be found, there can be efforts to snuff out who said what. And I think that college leaders are really struggling with that from a safety standpoint. There’s a great concern that students have put themselves at risk by taking hard line positions on this issue. And I think that the university leaders are legitimately flummoxed about how to allow the free exchange of ideas and then free expression that institutions of higher education value and hold so dear while also recognizing that 18- to 20-year-olds may say things that are more strident about a nuanced issue than they might, you know, 10 years later.

SREENIVASAN: Yes.

STRIPLING: And that’s just something that colleges confront, I think, all the time.

SREENIVASAN: It’s not that we — you know, you shouldn’t be held responsible, but it’s also very strange because old people like us, I guess, it kind of assume that college is the point in your life where you are mentally experimenting, trying, you know, kind of different things on figuring out parts of yourself, and attending a protest for whatever side of whatever argument seems like something that you do in college.

STRIPLING: Yes. And I want to be, you know, careful to say that having talked to college students over, you know, 20 years of covering higher education you know, these are people who are often very well educated on these issues.

SREENIVASAN: Yes.

STRIPLING: And I don’t want to give the impression, you know, that these poor experimental students have whoops, you said something that they’re going to regret later. These are deeply held beliefs that I think a lot of the students will stand by for years to come. And I don’t want to infantilize the activities of students who are engaging appropriately and difficult discourse about a really hot topic.

SREENIVASAN: You know, as you’ve covered this, what’s happened to the ability for different points of view on college campuses to be expressed? And there was a survey recently where students were asked about whether or not it’s OK for them to shout down a speaker who had differing points of view, and I think more than half, 60 some percent of the students said, yes, it’s OK to do that. Now, explain, you know, how that happens, considering what you might have seen on campuses when you started this beat.

STRIPLING: This is a difficult discussion for college campuses. The way that students express themselves and will call attention to things is often to disrupt an event in various ways. What I think has drawn more attention in recent years is what the phenomenon you’re describing, the shouting down where you can’t invite a speaker at all who has a controversial view and they’re able to speak. I mean, we’ve seen several incidents along these lines, and I don’t know that colleges have found clear answers around this. I mean, what academics do is they policy it to death, you know. And so, they’ve tried to erect policies around this, but it is a phenomenon within higher education. And it’s something that conservatives in particular seem to get very fired up about that people who have views outside of certain liberal orthodoxy can’t get a fair shake and discussions on college campuses. I think your mileage may vary about the veracity of that claim. There are a few incidents like this every year that get a ton of attention, but there are plenty of controversial lectures on college campuses that you never hear about.

SREENIVASAN: Prior to the events in Israel over the past week, there was an event at Penn, writers gathering or festival of some sort, and there have been fallout, there has been fallout from that because it was including speakers who profess support for Palestine and were considered antisemitic. What’s — what are the repercussions, whether it’s the events at Penn or at Harvard or other places? Are there financial consequences now?

STRIPLING: Well, we have seen — this is always a worry for college leaders that when they stick their toe in a conflict like this people are going to have a reaction as to how they have comported themselves in these public statements. And, you know, I hate to keep going back to Harvard, but it is a really good example of this. So, what happened after the conflict arose, there was a lot of pressure on Harvard to respond. The president and all of the academic leadership of Harvard put out a statement that was long, but also not forceful enough in the view of many professors on the campus. The professors responded with an open letter saying, this is a milquetoast response and, you know, doesn’t adequately condemn the actions of Hamas. The president of Harvard then issues another statement that is more forceful it’s getting hard to keep track of these. I think she also put out a video statement point being that the Wexler Foundation that has given a lot of money to Harvard over the years has said they’re going to cut ties with Harvard over its response to this, and it probably points to the fact that, you know, no matter how people approach this, it can be difficult to satisfy all the different constituencies on this subject.

SREENIVASAN: So, are universities then forced to start taking stands on their views on Israel and Hamas? I mean, is that something that now universities have to do as almost part of the brochure? What are we going to do with students on campus or we will — I mean, it seems like adding a layer of complexity to what’s already a difficult space for institutions to inhabit.

STRIPLING: Well, I think you’ve hit on the central issue, which is, what is the role of an institution of higher learning in weighing in on the Dobbs decision, the Israeli Palestinian conflict, et cetera? There are certainly a movement within higher education that colleges need to be just politically neutral on this. But I think we underestimate the vast amount of pressure on these institutions to say something. And then when they say something, it’s never enough. And an interesting phenomenon that’s occurred in this circumstance is that we’re now even seeing college presidents going after each other about whether their statements were good enough. Ben Sasse, who’s the president of the University of Florida and a former United States senator from Nebraska, issued his own statement saying, these weak-kneed equivocation from my colleagues in higher education, you know, is not good enough. And we need to be more forceful in our combination of Hamas. So, this is an interesting phenomenon within the sector, where even college presidents criticizing each other. I hadn’t seen that before, I don’t think.

SREENIVASAN: So, is there a chilling effect on the climate on college campuses? If students, if professors, have to figure out how to navigate these waters in addition to just being students or faculty or part of the community?

STRIPLING: I think that that’s always the question, right? Can we talk about these issues and not imperil our futures in one way or another? And I think that that’s a very real concern on college campuses about speech in general. I’ve done a ton of reporting on college professors who have been, you know, either fired, forced out, suspended or sanctioned after events related to extramural speech that they did on Twitter, et cetera. And you will often hear them say that, you know, I’m concerned that anything I say could be used against me. And, you know, all you can say is that we have the First Amendment in this country. We — the colleges need to have policies to deal with these situations as a general rule. First Amendment experts will tell you that, you know, things you say on Twitter and social media are generally considered protected speech. Classroom behavior is sort of a different phenomenon that you cannot target a student based on race, ethnicity or religion within a public university classroom. And if that happens, as has been claimed, at least at Stanford in one case as related to the Israeli Palestinian conflict, you know, that may be a tougher case for an instructor in that situation. Because if you’re targeting students based on these identities, that’s a problem.

SREENIVASAN: Tell me a little bit about — you know, we’ve talked a little bit about the Ivy’s. Tell me what’s happening at the University of Florida.

STRIPLING: Yes, I thought this was an interesting example because one of the things that you’re hearing right now is just the degree to which this conflict has put so many people on edge at home. So many people in the United States have either family connections to folks who are in the conflict zone or deeply held religious or political views that connect them to that. And so, there was a vigil at the University of Florida not long after the conflict broke out. And a strange misunderstanding where somebody got ill and fainted and there was a call for 911 prompted a huge stampede at this vigil. People ran, running. I’m told that somebody dropped a water bottle and people thought it might have been a gunshot. Several students were injured and taken to the hospital because of this. It’s lucky it wasn’t worse. This was a big space where people could get out and I think exit fairly well, even though they were running. But you can imagine this could have been a profound tragedy. And I think it is something that college leaders across the country paid attention to because it really shows just what a highly volatile situation this is when you have people in large groups gathered around at a tense moment like this.

SREENIVASAN: Where do we go from here? I mean, how do college campuses, how do students and faculty navigate, you know, taking positions or biting their tongue about the issues of the day, especially. ones that are so sensitive and personal?

STRIPLING: Well, the answer for higher education cannot be that everybody should shut up. That can’t be the answer. That would be completely antithetical to what higher education in this country is meant to stand for. So, that’s not an option. So, the only other option is to find safe and civil places for this type of dialogue to emerge, to allow for the free exchange of ideas and to allow for protests. And colleges are going to have to navigate that. The good thing for them is they have a heck of a lot of practice. This has been the nagging issue, I would say, certainly of the last decade for college and university leaders. And I think that that these institutions are very much primed for this. It would be a dark day if students and faculty felt that they couldn’t express themselves on an issue that they care about as deeply as this. And I don’t think anybody wants that outcome.

SREENIVASAN: Investigative reporter for Higher Education from “The Washington Post,” Jack Stripling, thanks so much for joining us.

STRIPLING: Hey, thanks for having me. I enjoyed it.