Since Hamas’s terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, higher education can no longer hide from the deep rot in civil discourse on campus. Colleges across the country are spending the summer taking stock. At Harvard University, for example, one task force has focused on combating anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bias and another on combating antisemitism. In June, both released their preliminary, short-term recommendations, and a more complete report is expected for the fall.
The reports identify discrimination on both sides and the need for “constructive dialogue” and “freedom of expression.” But parts of the recommendations could fall back on practices that caused a deterioration of discourse in the first place, by further siloing speech or by relying too heavily on ideologically driven diversity, equity, and inclusion departments.
The not-so-simple first step to restoring order is to model civil discourse. Dartmouth College took this approach early on, hosting discussions with faculty members with a variety of opinions on the Israeli-Palestinian debate. Meanwhile, activist academics across the country further polarized their campus narratives. At Columbia University, for example, Professor Joseph Massad praised Hamas’s attack as “awesome.” The antisemitism task force at Harvard called on the university to foster “spaces for productive dialogue on difficult subjects in ways that support and affirm the ability of all students to participate.” It suggested “a high-profile series of talks, attended by the President or Provost, between pairs of individuals who disagree vehemently on controversial issues but do so respectively and productively.”
Such an approach doesn’t assume a right answer or take sides — it creates space for debate. Yet the anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bias report says “it is crucial that statements from University and School leaders express solidarity for all groups equally, without overlooking affected groups,” adding that “leaders should learn from past mistakes and aim for adequate balance in their responses, taking care not to give the impression that they are taking sides on contentious issues.”
Harvard Medical School professor and free speech advocate Jeffrey Flier believes this may be a tough line to walk, not least because “there are students from 80-plus countries at Harvard. … There are people being subjected to all kinds of mistreatment,” he said in an interview. The line between “solidarity” and taking a stance is one that has been trampled many times over the past year.
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Harvard’s multiple fumbled responses to a student group letter that came out after Oct. 7 minimizing the attack led to waves of outrage from students on both sides of the debate, with neither feeling satisfied with the university’s placations. Should it heed the report, Harvard would face the impossible task of evenly distributing its feelings of “solidarity” across all groups.
Open venues of discourse help to break down the siloed speech that has been radicalizing students on campus, where one-sided teach-ins and encampments replaced tough conversations. The only productive conversation I’ve seen covering protests across Harvard, MIT, Columbia, and New York University was when an a young Israeli and a Palestinian student at a protest outside NYU chose to discuss their shared suffering instead of dwelling only on differences.
For this reason, I was concerned when the Anti-Arab/Muslim bias task force called to increase “the representation of Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian faculty on campus.” It’s one thing to call for a more robust Middle Eastern studies department — which the report also advocates — but asking to hire faculty on the basis of religion and race is different. “I think that kind of racialization of teaching and academic specialties is just highly inappropriate for universities to be engaging in, and is part of what has led us to our current problems,” Princeton professor and free speech advocate Keith Whittington said in an interview. “I worry that it’s going to wind up entrenching these divergent views rather than really encouraging people to rise above their differences.”
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While civility is important, universities must also be careful that they don’t over-police free speech. While Columbia protesters storming a university building and menacing custodians merits reproach, does using a highly polarizing phrase like “from the river to the sea”? The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s Jordan Howell wrote about this phrase, saying that “feeling offended is hardly adequate cause to circumvent First Amendment protections for freedom of speech.”
A high bar on free speech yields healthy discourse only if it is applied evenly. Both reports recommend more transparency and consistency about how the university responds to discrimination and carries out disciplinary actions. The anti-Arab/Muslim report highlighted “the need for greater clarity and transparency in the communication and enforcement of policies.”
But I still have doubts that the institutions tasked with overseeing these concerns can carry out these recommendations, especially when it comes to antisemitism. The universities in question are dominated by a progressivism that pervades DEI departments, where the world is divided between the oppressed and oppressors, unprivileged and privileged. Jews don’t fit into the DEI “oppressed” category. And a 2021 Heritage Foundation study of 741 DEI officials’ Twitter pages found that 96 percent of their tweets about Israel “were critical of the Jewish state.”
Unsurprisingly, the antisemitism task force found that there was a “lack of follow-up” after complaints about antisemitism that led community members “to doubt that the University is committed to imposing substantive consequences for antisemitic expression or action.” Even though the report commends Harvard’s Office of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging for “its commitment to include antisemitism awareness and training in its purview,” Flier said he still has doubts. “To the extent that [DEI departments] continue to exist … they can’t be explicitly excluding some groups and being hypersensitive about others,” Flier said. “Based on their history, DEI programs are not likely to be capable of fairly judging these issues.”
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DEI programs are also associated with less free speech. According to an analysis by Kevin Wallsten, a professor of political science at California State University Long Beach, schools with more DEI personnel are positively correlated with more student discomfort expressing opinions outside of class and a higher number of issues that are difficult to discuss “openly and honestly,” as well as a higher tolerance for liberal over conservative speakers.
In June, Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences nixed a requirement for applicants to write an essay about how they would foster “diversity, inclusion and belonging.” MIT tossed its mandatory statements, too, with President Sally Kornbluth saying “compelled statements impinge on freedom of expression, and they don’t work.” The University of North Carolina System tossed DEI altogether.
These are good steps to restoring civil discourse, but they can’t be the last. Harvard’s self-examination is commendable, but for the work to pay off, it’s time to leave all the bad habits behind.
Carine Hajjar is a Globe Opinion writer. She can be reached at [email protected].
