Editorial: In Defense of Academic Freedom
Quindecim Editors
Issue date: 11/16/09 Section: Commentary
The administration’s decision to prevent Josh Ruebner and Rabbi Brian Walt from participating in dialogue on human rights in Gaza and the West Bank is troubling. There is no doubt that what we are witnessing is a classic struggle for academic freedom, a classic struggle between students and an administration. In the opinion of this newspaper, the administration has violated one of the essential principles of a liberal education: academic freedom.
Many facts have been left out of the debate. It is important to note that the students in question are not hosting their dialogue in an attempt to endorse the views of the panelists; indeed they have been quite explicit in this regard. The purpose of their project is in keeping with the highest standards of intellectual inquiry: to provide a forum for interested persons to engage in a dialogue with three speakers about a contentious topic. This is quite different from brining a speaker to campus with a view to promoting his or her view, and yet the administration seems unwilling to make this distinction.
What are Rabbi Walt’s political views? The stated goal of Ta’anit Tzedek – Jewish Fast for Gaza, of which he is a co-founder, is to “end the Jewish community’s silence of Israel’s collective punishment of Palestinians in Gaza.” The organization was founded after Israel closed its Gaza border crossings, barring shipments other than humanitarian supplies. Its preferred method of protest: monthly fasts.
Rabbi Walt’s views are certainly pro-Palestinian. He is a strong proponent of the Goldstone report, a United Nations commissioned inquiry into possible human rights violations during Operation Cast Lead, the three-week conflict between Israel and Hamas that took place in the Gaza Strip during the winter of 2008–2009. In general, his stance has been a blanket condemnation of Israeli policy toward the Palestinians.
Josh Ruebner takes a much harder line on Israel, and many of his views fall squarely outside of the mainstream. Among his published essays is an account of how he burned his Israeli draft card (he is a citizen of Israel by virtue of his father’s citizenship) in front of the embassy in Washington D.C. because he refuses to serve in “an army of occupation and oppression.” Ruebner is quoted by stand4facts.org, a pro-Israeli fact checking site, as saying, “Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people is a moral outrage and a blight on the soul of the Jewish people.”
This newspaper agrees with little, if anything, of what Mr. Ruebner has said about the State of Israel, but even his views have a place in the general debate. Students should have the opportunity to sit down with both him and Rabbi Walt at the peace studies dialogue and communicate. In short, students should have the opportunity to be students.
President Ungar claims that there has been a “steady drumbeat” of anti-Israel speakers at Goucher College. There certainly have been notable incidents surrounding the Israeli/Palestinian issue on campus. The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom has twice brought Anna Baltzer, an activist known for her characterization of Zionism as a form of racism; and last semester, of course, a number of students set up signs on the residential quad protesting the war in Gaza as genocide. While this newspaper does not agree with those opinions, they deserve to be debated on a college campus, if only to prove them false.
In prohibiting an “unbalanced” event about the Israeli/Palestinian issue, the administration has set up a double standard. President Ungar claims that Karl Rove has nothing to do with the matter at hand, yet he fails to grasp the essential point. Karl Rove is certainly a controversial man with controversial views; the administration defends its right to bring someone like him to this campus because there is a kind of natural balance: for every Karl Rove they can point to a David Plouffe or a Helen Thomas. But this opportunity for balance is not denied to students. Groups with pro-Israel leanings have every opportunity bring whomever they wish to Goucher.
The undeniable fact of the matter is that a controversial viewpoint has been prevented from finding voice at an academic institution. If we cannot listen to and engage with perspectives other than our own, how can we learn anything new? Should Goucher really be a place where we are sheltered from the full spectrum of views because of the negative reactions people might have? The administration’s action in this matter takes a clear step in that direction.
President Ungar made a similar argument in 2006. After the college faced a severe backlash in the wake of Anna Baltzer’s first appearance on-campus, including a newspaper attack ad listing his phone number and e-mail address, Sandy Ungar wrote an impassioned defense of free speech in The Goucher Quarterly, the college’s alumni magazine. “We at Goucher did not consider for one moment canceling the program that had provoked the uproar. If we yielded to this assault on free speech, what would be next? Objections to certain politicians -- say, Governor Ehrlich? As I had asked at the time of the protest over his appearance, if we were to start down that slippery slope, who would compile the lists of which speakers were acceptable and which ones were not? Who would keep the catalogue of “our” opinions that couldn’t be challenged, and who would update it from time to time? What a boring place Goucher would be if we listened only to those who fit within a narrow band of the political spectrum.”
The Quindecim can only conclude that the administration has bowed to pressure from the outside in the case of the peace studies dialogue. With such a champion of free speech in President Ungar, it is difficult to believe that this college is unwilling to host a dialogue solely on account of the views of the speakers. To conclude with Sandy Ungar’s own words, “As it has for 120 years, dialogue continues at this college, and we are trying to find new ways to approach difficult issues. That is, and should be, the Goucher way.”
Many facts have been left out of the debate. It is important to note that the students in question are not hosting their dialogue in an attempt to endorse the views of the panelists; indeed they have been quite explicit in this regard. The purpose of their project is in keeping with the highest standards of intellectual inquiry: to provide a forum for interested persons to engage in a dialogue with three speakers about a contentious topic. This is quite different from brining a speaker to campus with a view to promoting his or her view, and yet the administration seems unwilling to make this distinction.
What are Rabbi Walt’s political views? The stated goal of Ta’anit Tzedek – Jewish Fast for Gaza, of which he is a co-founder, is to “end the Jewish community’s silence of Israel’s collective punishment of Palestinians in Gaza.” The organization was founded after Israel closed its Gaza border crossings, barring shipments other than humanitarian supplies. Its preferred method of protest: monthly fasts.
Rabbi Walt’s views are certainly pro-Palestinian. He is a strong proponent of the Goldstone report, a United Nations commissioned inquiry into possible human rights violations during Operation Cast Lead, the three-week conflict between Israel and Hamas that took place in the Gaza Strip during the winter of 2008–2009. In general, his stance has been a blanket condemnation of Israeli policy toward the Palestinians.
Josh Ruebner takes a much harder line on Israel, and many of his views fall squarely outside of the mainstream. Among his published essays is an account of how he burned his Israeli draft card (he is a citizen of Israel by virtue of his father’s citizenship) in front of the embassy in Washington D.C. because he refuses to serve in “an army of occupation and oppression.” Ruebner is quoted by stand4facts.org, a pro-Israeli fact checking site, as saying, “Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people is a moral outrage and a blight on the soul of the Jewish people.”
This newspaper agrees with little, if anything, of what Mr. Ruebner has said about the State of Israel, but even his views have a place in the general debate. Students should have the opportunity to sit down with both him and Rabbi Walt at the peace studies dialogue and communicate. In short, students should have the opportunity to be students.
President Ungar claims that there has been a “steady drumbeat” of anti-Israel speakers at Goucher College. There certainly have been notable incidents surrounding the Israeli/Palestinian issue on campus. The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom has twice brought Anna Baltzer, an activist known for her characterization of Zionism as a form of racism; and last semester, of course, a number of students set up signs on the residential quad protesting the war in Gaza as genocide. While this newspaper does not agree with those opinions, they deserve to be debated on a college campus, if only to prove them false.
In prohibiting an “unbalanced” event about the Israeli/Palestinian issue, the administration has set up a double standard. President Ungar claims that Karl Rove has nothing to do with the matter at hand, yet he fails to grasp the essential point. Karl Rove is certainly a controversial man with controversial views; the administration defends its right to bring someone like him to this campus because there is a kind of natural balance: for every Karl Rove they can point to a David Plouffe or a Helen Thomas. But this opportunity for balance is not denied to students. Groups with pro-Israel leanings have every opportunity bring whomever they wish to Goucher.
The undeniable fact of the matter is that a controversial viewpoint has been prevented from finding voice at an academic institution. If we cannot listen to and engage with perspectives other than our own, how can we learn anything new? Should Goucher really be a place where we are sheltered from the full spectrum of views because of the negative reactions people might have? The administration’s action in this matter takes a clear step in that direction.
President Ungar made a similar argument in 2006. After the college faced a severe backlash in the wake of Anna Baltzer’s first appearance on-campus, including a newspaper attack ad listing his phone number and e-mail address, Sandy Ungar wrote an impassioned defense of free speech in The Goucher Quarterly, the college’s alumni magazine. “We at Goucher did not consider for one moment canceling the program that had provoked the uproar. If we yielded to this assault on free speech, what would be next? Objections to certain politicians -- say, Governor Ehrlich? As I had asked at the time of the protest over his appearance, if we were to start down that slippery slope, who would compile the lists of which speakers were acceptable and which ones were not? Who would keep the catalogue of “our” opinions that couldn’t be challenged, and who would update it from time to time? What a boring place Goucher would be if we listened only to those who fit within a narrow band of the political spectrum.”
The Quindecim can only conclude that the administration has bowed to pressure from the outside in the case of the peace studies dialogue. With such a champion of free speech in President Ungar, it is difficult to believe that this college is unwilling to host a dialogue solely on account of the views of the speakers. To conclude with Sandy Ungar’s own words, “As it has for 120 years, dialogue continues at this college, and we are trying to find new ways to approach difficult issues. That is, and should be, the Goucher way.”
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