|
|
October 18, 2002/Cheshvan 12 5763, Vol. 55, No. 8
Free and open debate
FLORENCE ECKSTEIN
Publisher
The college campus is a wondrous place - an idyllic environment for young adults to choose a field of intellectual interest, deepen their knowledge, hone their expertise, learn to think critically and prepare to take on the real world.
They practice their budding skills at thinking, communicating and doing in classrooms, libraries, dorm rooms, dining halls and on the quad.
For most students, the campus is a safe place - to disagree without fear of retribution, to ask questions without worrying about being branded stupid, to make mistakes without losing face or livelihood.
The campus also mirrors to a profound degree what is going on in the real world, politically, socially and economically.
A current flashpoint on U.S. campuses is the crisis in the Middle East. The debate among students and faculty ranges from courteous exchanges of information and opinion, to discomforting anti-Semitic and anti-Arab argument, to shrill demonstrations.
Fittingly, the on-campus weaponry of choice is words. Words that teach and persuade. Words that shape opinion. And words that engender suspicion and hatred.
The dispute is raging on university campuses, including the University of Michigan, site of last week's Second National Student Conference on the Palestinian Solidarity Movement; Concordia University in Montreal, where students stopped former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from speaking; the University of Colorado at Boulder, where students painted swastikas on sukkot; San Francisco State University, where demonstrators hurled insults at one another.
Thoughtful leaders are responding. Harvard University President Lawrence Summers recently delivered a moving criticism of attempts to boycott Israeli scholars and to divest the university of investments in Israeli companies. Former Dartmouth University President James O. Freedman enlisted 300 college and university presidents in signing a petition decrying "intimidation on campuses," published by the American Jewish Committee as a full-page ad in The New York Times, Oct. 7. Campus Watch (www.campus-watch.org), a project of Daniel Pipes' Middle East Forum, monitors Middle East studies in North America.
"Ignorance may be a defense to bigotry, but it has no place on a university campus," writes Harvard Law Professor Alan M. Dershowitz. As parents, citizens and concerned American Jews, we must implore our alma maters and our state universities to safeguard centers of learning, where students can learn to communicate conscientiously, think critically, and draw on common sense and uncommon sensitivity in wrestling with the most daunting issues without fear of intimidation.
The lessons they learn will equip them to hold their own throughout their adult lives, as effective citizens in our democracy - asking questions and arguing for what they care about, even when it is unpopular or politically incorrect.
Contact the writer at flo_eckstein@jewishaz.com.
|
