The ‘day after’ problem on campus

As the Israeli government floated the controversial military incursion into Rafah, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used a simple rationale: “We will enter Rafah because we have no other choice.” Here in the U.S., during the most heightened moment of last week’s student protests, Columbia University officials justified ordering police to raid occupied Hamilton Hall similarly: “We were left with no choice.”

In a sense, these are honest admissions made by leaders bound to institutional logic. The Netanyahu government seems to have had only one answer since Oct. 7 — escalate force. As the Israeli military further entrenches in Gaza, critics raise the “day after” problem: Even if this force succeeds, how will you ensure a different future in the vacuum that’s left?

One must be careful not to overdraw comparisons between Israel-Gaza and campus protests in America, despite senators and diplomats trafficking in such language. Yet many American university presidents, most notably Columbia’s Minouche Shafik, have auto-piloted to “no choice” escalations with student activists.

Any institution that generates billions of dollars annually will have a lot of people to keep happy. Faculty and students are one constituency, but politicians and plutocrats are another. Their immense financial influence and relative ideological alignment on the issue of student protest make actions like Shafik’s very explicable. “No choice” wasn’t really an exaggeration. (It’s telling that Shafik wasn’t even in New York on the night she called in the first NYPD raid — she was in Washington for a congressional hearing and donor dinner.)

These governing incentives frame the “day after” problem on campus. When the tents are gone, what regime will fill the vacuum? Specifically in regard to Israel-Palestine, how can we build colleges that foster lawful activism and civil debate?

Three questions will help define the answer.

First, can universities advance a coherent picture of student political activism? American colleges celebrate legacies of protest, in particular the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s. This lip service is especially pronounced at elite schools, including Columbia, often proudly referred to as the “Protest Ivy.” As Tyler Austin Harper notes, Columbia glorifies its 1968 campus protests (which also occupied Hamilton Hall) in admissions emails, online exhibits and even an official “Columbia 1968” social media account. There are similar paeans to the legacies of civil disobedience at many of the schools where cops have recently come down hard on student activists.

To tell young people about the glories of past protest, then punish them for much milder action, is deeply hypocritical. But today’s “neoliberal arts” university, as William Deresiewicz memorably called it, may not be capable of resolving this tension.

Students are courted with promises of making a difference and developing a whole self. But when they arrive, often shouldered with mountains of debt, they encounter an institution that just “produces producers” — a trade school turning out white collar careerists, a place more geared to reaping from, not challenging, the status quo.

Second question: Can universities integrate Jews into diversity-related standards and institutions? At the moment, college offices of DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) mostly don’t consider Jewish students part of their remit. Jewish organizations are usually separate and parallel.

The common justifications for this include that Jews now have political and economic power, unlike other underrepresented groups, and that Jewish Americans can blend in as white. This seems misguided. Nowhere else does DEI contemplate material resources (students of color who come from wealthy families are covered, poor white people are not). And many Jews cannot, in fact, pass as white (record hate crimes against them seem like proof of this).

One can argue whether we should expand the footprint of DEI — whether a model of “safetyism” on campus will produce young people fit to take on the world’s challenges — or if a new paradigm is needed. Regardless, the current double standard for Jewish Americans is galling. Leaving Jews’ status as an ethnic minority ambiguous creates space for cynical actors to conflate antisemitism with anti-Zionism. This is one of the most pernicious features of our current debate.

Relatedly, the third “day after” question is the most concrete and most important. Will higher education be forced to live under the new Antisemitism Awareness Act? This bill, which passed the House last week 320-91, would require the Department of Education to adopt a new definition of antisemitism as part of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. (Title VI compliance is a prerequisite for universities to unlock crucial federal funds, the practical equivalent of a mandate.) The bill’s fate in the Senate is unclear.

Despite its name, the act seems designed not to stop antisemitism, but to chill free speech and stifle criticism of Israel. The antisemitism definition it uses, created by a European group called the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), lists 11 examples of antisemitism. These examples, drafted in 2016 to guide IHRA’s work, are subject to change and were never intended to be codified into policy.

Worse still, seven of the 11 examples relate to the state of Israel. Most are very broadly written. One bars making “mendacious” claims, as if lying weren’t covered by the First Amendment. Another forbids “using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism … to characterize Israel or Israelis.” How could this be enforced? Given that antisemitism is sometimes called the “world’s oldest hatred,” what symbols and images apply?

House Rules Chair Michael Burgess (R-Texas) defended the bill, saying Congress needed to “clearly define antisemitism.” But rather than making antisemitism clearer, the bill keeps the concept vague, giving bureaucrats more arbitrary power over schools. How this would lead to a more productive public discourse — or protect the American Jews who themselves want to protest actions of the state of Israel — is hard to fathom.

Protestors’ encampments are being cleared at dozens of American universities. The leaders who ordered this often say they had no other choice. When it comes to the future on campus, however, I hope we at least do.

John Benjamin’s writing has appeared in Time, The New Republic, Barron’s and other outlets. He is based in New York.