You may have noticed that there has been less news this fall than last spring about Middle East-related demonstrations and disruptions on college campuses, a change only partly attributable to the recent presidential election. While a few may lament this as a sign of the dispirited disengagement of our youth, many—including many students, faculty, and administrators, as well as alumni, donors, and other members of the general public—likely regard this as a good thing. Perhaps students and faculty are returning to the real work of our colleges and universities—teaching, learning, and research.
Many colleges and universities have adopted new policies limiting the scope of student activism.But before we jump to any grandiose conclusions, it’s worth taking the following considerations into account.
First, it is probably true that there is less visible and disruptive activism on campus this fall. The vast majority of the 2024 incidents in the FIRE Campus Deplatforming Database occurred in the spring semester, not in the fall. And a quick internet search yields more recent stories about how speech has been “chilled” on campus than about vigorous protests across the country.
One explanation for this change in atmosphere is that many colleges and universities have adopted new policies limiting the scope of student activism. Neutral “time, place, and manner” restrictions have been deployed to prohibit encampments and the use of public-address systems in ways that disrupt classes, study, and research. Some of these policies may have been adopted under pressure from donors, others in the face of potential federal investigations.
Though the generally pro-Palestinian tenor of student opinion hasn’t changed—and trust me, it hasn’t—students seem less demonstrative about it this fall. Even if they haven’t rededicated themselves to their studies, those inclined to activism may have turned their attention to the presidential election, which hasn’t provoked protests, whatever may be the case after President Trump is inaugurated.
Three surveys, all conducted last spring, can help us understand the larger context of student opinion that sets the stage for campus protests. I’ve already briefly described the findings of one survey on this site. The other two are a special survey by FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) and a broader study, sponsored by the Jim Joseph Foundation, that gave particular attention to both Jewish and non-Jewish student opinion after the horrific events of October 7.
From these surveys, we learn, first of all, that roughly 20 percent of students participated in protests (12-percent pro-Palestinian, the others counter-protesting or otherwise supporting Israel). I have two reactions to this number. I take solace in the fact that the vast majority of students did not devote their time to protests that (1) had no prospect whatsoever of affecting events on the ground in Israel or Gaza and (2) had very little prospect of altering the actions of the university, especially with regard to endowment investment strategy. But 20 percent is 20 percent. More importantly, 12 percent is 12 percent of our “best and brightest,” captivated by an ideology that blinds them to the atrocities committed by Hamas and supports functionally antisemitic actions.
“Free speech” (mostly chants) can actually discourage the free exchange of ideas.Even worse from an educational point of view, this kind of campus activism is chilling. While the FIRE survey focuses on how vigorous administrative responses may undermine free speech (and are of a piece with a campus climate that is all too often hostile to free speech), it provides evidence of another effect, as well. Students are significantly more reluctant to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than they are other controversial issues. I have noticed how reluctant my own students are to engage with the abortion debate. According to FIRE, the students surveyed are much more reluctant to discuss what otherwise seems to be the burning political issue on campus. In this case, “free speech” (mostly chants, to be sure) actually seems to discourage the free exchange of ideas, the kind of conversation across differences where participants can learn from one another and perhaps change their minds or at least discern nuances that they hadn’t hitherto noticed.
In other words, the protests aren’t just distracting, making it harder to study and learn. They are in some respects “anti-pedagogical.” Encampments and protests can surely be made less distracting by neutral “time, place, and manner” regulations, but those regulations do not and cannot address their baneful effect on the free exchange of ideas on campus.
Let me state this clearly so that I can’t be misunderstood: In this instance, giving free rein to student expression (I hesitate to dignify it by calling it speech) does not contribute to the free exchange of ideas, does not promote learning, and, in sum, does not fulfill the purposes of either academic freedom or freedom of speech in its original understanding. More freedom here seems to mean less of the good things freedom is supposed to help us achieve and accomplish, whether in the classroom or in the broader civic arena.
The Jim Joseph Foundation study adds a bit more texture to this picture. While pro-Israel students on most campuses pretty much necessarily have friends and acquaintances with a diverse set of opinions on the conflict, those who oppose a Jewish state have overwhelmingly homogeneous interlocutors. Over 40 percent of pro-Israel students (both Jewish and gentile) report that their friends’ views aren’t aligned with theirs—unsurprising given what the surveys show about the pro-Palestinian views that predominate on campus. On the other hand, over 70 percent of those opposed to a Jewish state report that their friends’ views are similar to their own. What’s more, roughly 20 percent of non-Jews responding to this survey say they wouldn’t want to be friends with someone who supports Israel. If they don’t interact with supporters of Israel and don’t want to interact with them, they can’t learn.
A peace born of silence, self-censorship, and self-segregation is a poor thing.I don’t want to deprecate the relative peace on campuses this fall. It’s a good thing that there aren’t distracting encampments and protests all over the place. It’s a good thing that Jewish students and other supporters of Israel aren’t regularly targeted for harassment (or worse, as we recently saw in Amsterdam).
But a peace born of silence, self-censorship, and self-segregation in a community supposedly dedicated to learning (not just from the sages on the stages, but from collegial interaction) is a poor thing that doesn’t bode well, either for the future of higher education or for the country our colleges and universities are supposed to serve.
I cannot help but think that the regulations and management techniques that originate in the offices of presidents, vice presidents, university counsels, and deans are inadequate to the educational task, however necessary they are to maintaining peace and order.
But what happens or should happen in the classroom is much more important. The dominant voice in the professoriate should belong to the teacher-scholar, not the scholar-activist. Those of us who want to recover the original purpose of the college or university need to step up and model for our students and colleagues the genuine joys associated with learning and discovery, promoting in the classroom the openminded and mutually respectful discourse that would be an ornament to our democratic republic. The administrators can help at the margins, but the onus is on us.
Joseph M. Knippenberg is professor of politics at Oglethorpe University in Brookhaven, Georgia, where he has taught since 1985.
This article was originally published at www.jamesgmartin.center
