This episode of Faith Complex features my colleague Dr. Sarah Fainberg interviewing David Friedman of the Anti-Defamation League about anti-Zionism on campus today.
The interview begins by reviewing the shameful mistreatment of Israeli ambassador Michael Oren at UC Irvine last year. Mr. Friedman described the incivility of some audience members as “chilling.” I concur and would add that it is equally difficult for me to watch that footage.
Before he served as ambassador, Dr. Oren taught for us at the Program for Jewish Civilization at Georgetown University. I can think of few scholars more open-minded or amenable to true dialogue than he was; the attempt to shout him down undermines everything we stand for as educators.
Readers of this blog know that I can be very critical of the Religious Right but let me be clear that in my experience attempts to silence dialogue on campus typically, though not in every case, emanate from the radical Left.
Dr. Fainberg moves on to query Mr. Friedman about Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmandinejad’s appearance at Columbia University in 2007. Friedman makes two very important points. The first is that such figures are unusually skilled in exploiting such invitations for ends that have much to do with propaganda and nothing to do with the values of open and reasoned discourse that universities are entrusted to protect. The second is that such platforms, if they are given to people like Ahmadinejad, must permit for robust response and questioning.
Rummaging through some old correspondences this week I stumbled across a request from a few years back by a colleague asking me if I would like to pose a question to Muammar Gaddafi. The “Brother Leader” was being beamed into Georgetown for a lecture on, among other things, “Israstine.” I respectfully declined and I am glad I did.
True, there was an opportunity for questioning (though I doubt it would have been robust). As much of an advocate of free speech as I may be, there are some people who are so depraved that a university endangers expressive freedoms by granting them a podium.
Still, the issues are admittedly complex. I do notice that many controversies regarding campus speech of late center on invited speakers. It would seem that members of a faculty, as opposed to guest speakers, have a different set of rights regarding what they may say on their own campuses.
There is no easy answer to the dilemma of the professor who proselytizes in class or, more distressingly, creates an environment in which students are reluctant to criticize his or her pieties. That so many of these professors are committed anti-Zionists is no coincidence and a state of affairs that universities must ponder carefully.
