Why I’m Not Calling the Police on My Students’ Encampment
These snatches of Prophetic Vision sometimes agree and sometimes disagree with each other, sometimes agree and sometimes disagree with The Shalom Center. For not even prophetic vision can adequately express the Infinite ways to seek deep healing and justice inherent in the Breath of life.
Michael S. Roth is the president of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. His most recent books include Safe Enough Spaces: A Pragmatist’s Approach to Inclusion, Free Speech, and Political Correctness on College Campuses. We are reprinting excerpts from his essay in The New Republic, and urge you to read the whole article at: https://newrepublic.com/article/181341/wesleyan-president-not-calling-police-student-gaza-encampment. We send it NOT as The Shalom Center policy but to more richly inform you about the issues.
— AW, ed.
Why I’m Not Calling the Police on My Students’ Encampment
Michael S. Roth
May 7, 2024
The encampment at Wesleyan University went up on the night of Sunday, April 28, during a planned rally in support of Palestinians. . . . The students were well aware that I’d already gone on record—several times in print—with respect to Gaza since the heinous terrorist attacks of October 7. On that day I wrote about Hamas’s “sickening violence” against Israel, and since thenI have writtenabout the dangers of antisemitism and Islamophobia at home and about the loss of innocent life in Gaza. So I can’t argue that university leaders should keep quiet or say something evasive about “principled neutrality.” Indeed, the students reminded me of a phrase I’d used: “Neutrality is complicity.” Although I am one of the only American university presidents tocall for a cease-firein Gaza, the students in the meeting did not find that nearly enough. Mere words, they told me, are just another form of neutrality. They accused me of trying to hide behind them. And outside the chants grew louder: “Roth, Roth, you can’t hide / you can’t hide from genocide.” When I walked home, an angry crowd of maybe 75 followed close behind.
By Monday morning there were a couple dozen tents set up. Students were careful not to block exits and entrances to campus buildings, and they made sure that the pathways through their encampment were clear. They were claiming territory for their protest, but they were not attempting to close it off. This was important for everyone. For the protesters, it was a sign that they wanted to spread their message to others, and also that they were open to discussing their objectives with anyone who wanted to talk. For me and my administrative colleagues, it was important because one of the reasons encampments are not normally permitted is that they mark off public areas for exclusive use, thereby denying others the opportunity to use that part of campus.
We could have immediately closed down the encampment because the protesters hadn’t gotten advance permission for tents, and because they were writing messages on the adjacent buildings in chalk. . . . In my initial message to the broad university community,I wrote: “The students [in the encampment] know that they are in violation ofuniversity rulesand seem willing to accept the consequences.” So why haven’t I made them feel those consequences? Cops don’t always give people tickets for going a few miles over the speed limit. Context matters, whatever Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik says. In this case, I knew the students were part of a broad protest movement, and protest movements often put a strain on an institution’s rules. They are meant to do that. The encampment was “non-violent and has not disrupted normal campus operations,” I wrote, and “as long as it continues in this way, the University will not attempt to clear the encampment.” I added that we would “not tolerate intimidation or harassment of students, staff, or faculty,” and that the protesters, as far as I could tell, were not moving in that direction.
The encampment is just beneath my office window, and many times during the last several days I’ve looked over to see what was happening: mostly students and the occasional faculty member engaged in casual conversation, and occasionally animated debate. I’ve written thatbeing a student in the West has come to mean “practicing freedom,” and I was reminded of that as I looked at these young people expressing their political concerns.
. . .
The encampment, now grown to roughly 50 tents, may be fostering a sense of community among protesters, but it hasn’t been kumbaya for everyone. Several Jewish students were outraged by the messages about genocide and freeing Palestine. Did this mean freeing the region from Jews? . . . I’ve checked in with many Jewish students individually and sat down with a group to talk about their fears—and their complaints about faculty bias. . . . The Jewish students opposed to the protesters seemed glad to be able to talk openly about their concerns. I emphasized to them that I could not protect them from opposing views but that I could protect their safety and capacity to pursue their education.
. . .
It’s almost the end of the school year, and more than once I’ve been asked, “Don’t I wish we had just made it through a couple of more weeks without incident?” Mostly … no. How can I not respect students for paying attention to things that matter so much? I respect that they’re concerned about Gaza; I admire that they’re not entirely taken up with grades or lining up their credentials. Will their protest help? My fear is that such protests (especially when they turn violent) in the endwill help the reactionary forcesof populist authoritarianism. I also think student protestersare wrongto focus onuniversity investments. I would prefer they use their energies to pressure the U.S. government to do more to get the hostages released, to stop supporting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war tactics, and to bring more direct aid to people in Gaza on the brink of starvation. My team expects to discuss all of this with students in the coming days. Right now, I’m most concerned with protecting their right to protest in nonviolent ways that don’t undermine our educational program. For me, the modest violations of the rules are preferable to the narrow-minded vocationalism that others seem suddenly to pine for.
I share this view of the moment with some trepidation. It only takes a few jerks to turn a peaceful protest into a violent confrontation. But I also share this with hope that we will all learn something from this experience—whether or not we are sleeping in a tent.
Photo: Lynn Friedman, USF Anti-Israel Protest Encampment. licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.