Speaker 1: Col Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, I'm welcome to it can happen here. My
Speaker 2: name is Daniel Kurd, and I'm a writer, analyst, and
Speaker 2: researcher of Palestinian and Arab politics. I'm an associate professor
Speaker 2: of political science and a senior non resident Fellow at
Speaker 2: the Arab Center Washington. I'm also occasional co host of
Speaker 2: The Fire These Times. Today, I want to talk about
Speaker 2: the attacks on American universities in American academia and what
Speaker 2: role Palestine plays in all of this, and maybe end
Speaker 2: on what's being done to stop it. So you may
Speaker 2: or may not have heard about the attacks on universities
Speaker 2: in academia, but given the general onslaught of disastrous news,
Speaker 2: even for those of you who have noted something is
Speaker 2: happening in higher education may not be keeping up with
Speaker 2: the details. So let me give you a brief summary.
Speaker 2: A number of universities, including Harvard, Brown, Columbia, and UCLA,
Speaker 2: have been investigated for campus anti semitism related to pro
Speaker 2: Palestine protests on those campuses over the past two years.
Speaker 2: From there, the Trump administration has escalated by slashing federal
Speaker 2: funding that those universities receive and forcing those universities to
Speaker 2: settle with the administration not only monetarily, but also by
Speaker 2: implementing changes to how their universities are run. So, for example,
Speaker 2: Columbia University agreed to pay the Trump administration two hundred
Speaker 2: and twenty million dollars punish seventy students involved in the
Speaker 2: protests in a variety of ways, including by expelling them,
Speaker 2: and they agreed to monitor and report their programs for
Speaker 2: unlawful DEI goals. That's a quote. One of the ways
Speaker 2: Columbia has agreed to monitor, as the Intercept reported in April,
Speaker 2: is by appointing a vice provost in charge of monitoring
Speaker 2: the Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies Department, in
Speaker 2: particular for quote balanced curricula. The faculty in that department
Speaker 2: will no longer run that department, and as the Middle
Speaker 2: East Studies Association, in a statement back in March, noted this,
Speaker 2: placing the department under administrative receivership is a quote fundamental
Speaker 2: abrogation of the autonomy of university governance. This comes at
Speaker 2: a time when the Trump administration has also attacked the
Speaker 2: National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the
Speaker 2: National Institutes of Health, All of these are federal funding
Speaker 2: sources for the majority of research that happens at universities
Speaker 2: across disciplines the natural sciences, social sciences, humanities. The Trumpet
Speaker 2: administration has also attacked foreign students and the processes by
Speaker 2: which they are able to get visas study in the
Speaker 2: United States, which is just another way to get at
Speaker 2: a major revenue source for many universities. But why is
Speaker 2: the Trump administration doing all this? Here is Vice President JD.
Speaker 2: Vance speaking to the National Conservatism Conference back in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty one.
Speaker 3: We have to honestly and aggressively attack the universities in
Speaker 3: this country. Ladies and gentlemen. The universities do not pursue
Speaker 3: knowledge and truth. They pursued deceit and lies. And it's
Speaker 3: time to be honest about that fact. And we subsidize,
Speaker 3: we support, and in our own ways all of us
Speaker 3: reinforce the power of universities to control our lives and
Speaker 3: control how we live them. So much of what drives
Speaker 3: truth and knowledge as we understand it in this country
Speaker 3: is fundamentally determined by, supported by, and reinforced by the
Speaker 3: universities in this country.
Speaker 2: So that's Vance before him and Trump won the election,
Speaker 2: identifying that universities are sites of power. Therefore, he argues
Speaker 2: very explicitly that conservatives must destroy these sites of power
Speaker 2: or submit them to their will. Our universities truly sites
Speaker 2: of power? The short answer is yes, for two reasons.
Speaker 2: Number One, as Vance himself identifies, universities produce knowledge, and
Speaker 2: that knowledge produce that universities drives in innovation in the
Speaker 2: private sector, in tech, in health, and weapons manufacturing. Universities
Speaker 2: are a main engine of economic growth. In fact, universities
Speaker 2: are part and parcel of American global power. They are
Speaker 2: a major source of that power for the United States,
Speaker 2: whether in the students and scholars they attract, whether for
Speaker 2: their research that they produce that various arms of the
Speaker 2: American government can use, or whether for the legitimization that
Speaker 2: universities provide for certain frameworks like the frame market, liberalism, etc. Etc. So, Really,
Speaker 2: universities largely generate power for the powers that be. But
Speaker 2: sometimes universities are also sites of power that can challenge orthodoxies.
Speaker 2: With greater inclusion of scholars and students from a variety
Speaker 2: of backgrounds, we get a diversity of thought, and because
Speaker 2: of how universities are supposed to run in theory, as
Speaker 2: governed by faculty and as sites of free inquiry. If
Speaker 2: that means sometimes occasionally knowledge is produced that can challenge
Speaker 2: power too. That sometimes occasional knowledge production is too much
Speaker 2: for the jd vances of today's politics, though, so they're
Speaker 2: cracking down. The number two reason why universities are sites
Speaker 2: of power is because they offer a promise of social mobility.
Speaker 2: And that's generally true too. Even the most modest regional
Speaker 2: public school in America still offer some of the highest
Speaker 2: quality of education you can get around the world. But
Speaker 2: that shot at upward social mobility that you can get
Speaker 2: with the university education is definitely getting harder and costlier
Speaker 2: and less accessible. There's this book by Mark Busque I
Speaker 2: highly recommend reading titled How the University Works. In it,
Speaker 2: the author details how as universities became more corporatized, tuition increased,
Speaker 2: university workers were disempowered, and the value of a degree plummeted.
Speaker 2: And this process started way before Trump. Clifford Ando, professor
Speaker 2: of Classics and history at the University of Chicago, wrote
Speaker 2: for Compact magazine recently on what's happening at the University
Speaker 2: of Chicago right now For those who may be unaware.
Speaker 2: At the University of Chicago, the university is stopping PhD admissions,
Speaker 2: it's increasing enrollment numbers, it's slashing budgets, it's even proposing
Speaker 2: to teach some courses using chat. Gpt Ando argues that
Speaker 2: this current dismantling of University of Chicago that we're witnessing
Speaker 2: is again not Trump related, but can be traced to
Speaker 2: this corporatization of the university, where universities prioritized money making
Speaker 2: technologies and investments and as he writes, quote, fundamentally corroded
Speaker 2: policymaking at universities. So to get a high quality education today,
Speaker 2: at a university that isn't trying to trap you as
Speaker 2: cheap labor or doesn't just use overworked adjuncts to teach
Speaker 2: courses to avoid paying faculty they're worth, you need to
Speaker 2: either come from money, or you need to be highly
Speaker 2: highly exceptional, or you need to accrue exorbitant amounts of debt.
Speaker 2: And yet, and yet, marginalized people still made advances in
Speaker 2: this system. We saw, for example, more African American presidents
Speaker 2: of universities, more women, We saw diversifying scholarship courses, pathways
Speaker 2: for students, as universities became more inclusive. That's what diversity,
Speaker 2: equity and inclusion efforts did. Imperfect as they were, and
Speaker 2: even though the university as an institution continues to exploit labor,
Speaker 2: continues to exploit their own students, often doesn't deliver enough
Speaker 2: on the promise of social mobility. Even delivering a little
Speaker 2: was too much for the Jdvans's of the world. They
Speaker 2: don't want upward social mobility for some Americans, and they
Speaker 2: don't want those challenges to power even at the margins,
Speaker 2: so they're cracking down. The attacks on Harvard, Brown, George Washington, UCLA,
Speaker 2: the list goes on, is predicated on attacking DEI diversity,
Speaker 2: equity and inclusion. Conservatives alleged that universities taking a person's
Speaker 2: background into consideration in admissions or in hiring, or in scholarships, etc.
Speaker 2: All of that violates anti discrimination laws, and our conservative
Speaker 2: Supreme Court, in its recent ruling in the cases of
Speaker 2: Students for Fair Admissions versus University of North Carolina and
Speaker 2: Students for Vera Admissions versus Harvard, agreed they overturned the
Speaker 2: two thousand and three Grutta versus Bullinger case that had
Speaker 2: allowed higher education institutions to consider race and admissions. And
Speaker 2: all of this comes at a time after decades of
Speaker 2: the university as an institution eroded itself. But I would
Speaker 2: say attacking DEI wasn't effective enough, especially after the Black
Speaker 2: Lives Matter movement. Saying DEI is bad is a harder
Speaker 2: sell for an American public fifty one percent of which
Speaker 2: say they support Black Lives Matter, and this was according
Speaker 2: to a twenty twenty three study by the Pew Research Center. Now,
Speaker 2: fifty one percent isn't overwhelming, but it's not nothing either.
Speaker 2: So conservatives to attack the university have had to exploit
Speaker 2: the weaknesses that already exist within the academy. That has
Speaker 2: meant exploiting the way the university as institution has become
Speaker 2: sensitive to money and endowments and donors, and that has
Speaker 2: meant exploiting the way the university has not actually been
Speaker 2: a site of free inquiry or expression for particular people
Speaker 2: and particular topics. And by exploiting and expanding that gap,
Speaker 2: they are now trying to take those freedoms away from everybody.
Speaker 2: This is where Palestine comes in. The truth is a
Speaker 2: tax on student protesters for Palestine, a tax on scholars
Speaker 2: who work on Palestine or speak on Paliste. That all
Speaker 2: started before Trump, and that has become the blueprint for
Speaker 2: attacking universities and academic freedom. Generally, they're using the pro
Speaker 2: Palestine protests, pro Palestine programming, or just any knowledge production
Speaker 2: about Palestine as an excuse to allege anti Semitism. Enter
Speaker 2: into these investigations and demand the universities do what they want.
Speaker 2: After the Hamas October seventh attacks, we saw student protesters
Speaker 2: detained like Mahmud Trilt Columbia and Remisa auster G at
Speaker 2: Tufts and many more. We have seen diplomas withheld, like
Speaker 2: what Virginia Commonwealth University attempted to do to many students,
Speaker 2: including students sitty in Haded. We have seen professors put
Speaker 2: on leave or fired like what Muhlenberg College did to
Speaker 2: Moura Finkelstein. The list goes on and on, but again,
Speaker 2: a lot of this pattern started before Trump. In a
Speaker 2: November twenty twenty three poll conducted by political scientists Mark
Speaker 2: Lynch and Shibley Telhem called the Middle East Scholar Barometer,
Speaker 2: the results show that sixty six percent of faculty members
Speaker 2: who study the Middle East quote self censor when speaking
Speaker 2: about the Middle East in an academic or professional setting,
Speaker 2: and that number goes up to seventy seven point four
Speaker 2: percent when talking about Israel Palestine. On the Israeli Palstinin
Speaker 2: issue in particular, almost fifty two percent of scholars have
Speaker 2: concerns about pressure from external advocacy groups, and of those
Speaker 2: who said they self censor, a full eighty three percent
Speaker 2: said the issue they most feel the need to censor
Speaker 2: themselves about is anything related to criticism of Israel. This
Speaker 2: is a crazy number if you consider that of the
Speaker 2: same group, only one point six percent of respondents said
Speaker 2: they censored criticism of US policy, and a full ninety
Speaker 2: eight percent of assistant professors, untenured professors who work on
Speaker 2: the Middle East quote field and new need to self
Speaker 2: censor when speaking about the Palestinian Israeli issue in an
Speaker 2: academic or professional capacity. Part of this story, the censorship story,
Speaker 2: is the large scale adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance
Speaker 2: Alliance definition of antisemitism. Back during his first term, President
Speaker 2: Trump's Executive Order on Combating Antisemitism directed government bodies to
Speaker 2: take the IRA definition into consideration when enforcing Title six,
Speaker 2: which is a part of the Civil Rights Act of
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty four that prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex,
Speaker 2: and national origin. The Biden administration didn't overturn any of
Speaker 2: that either. They implemented that executive order themselves throughout their tenure.
Speaker 2: And this definition is one definition of anti semitism that
Speaker 2: critics say conflates criticism of Israel with anti semitism. In fact,
Speaker 2: the main drafter of the IRA definition, ken Stearn, has
Speaker 2: expressed concerns that this definition is being used as a
Speaker 2: quote blunt instrument to label anyone an anti semi and
Speaker 2: it's for that reason that Human Rights Watch and one
Speaker 2: hundred and four other organizations signed a letter urging the
Speaker 2: UN not to use this IRA definition. As a result,
Speaker 2: there are, of course, a number of competing definitions of
Speaker 2: anti Semitism, such as the Jerusalem Declaration on Anti Semitism,
Speaker 2: that has a more nuanced understanding of one criticism of
Speaker 2: Israel becomes anti semitism. As their website notes, the Jerusalem
Speaker 2: Declaration is a product of an initiative that originated in
Speaker 2: Jerusalem and includes in their numbers international scholars working in
Speaker 2: anti Semitism studies and related fields, including Jewish Holocaust, Israel
Speaker 2: Palestine and Middle Ast studies. But of course the IRA
Speaker 2: definition is the one that the Trump administration wants to
Speaker 2: follow and the one that universities are adopting. Maybe it
Speaker 2: goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway. It's not
Speaker 2: because this administration that engages with the far right and
Speaker 2: propagates conspiracy theories like the Great Replacement, It's not like
Speaker 2: they actually care about anti Semitism. It's just a tool.
Speaker 2: As Jewish organizations working to combat anti Semitism, such as
Speaker 2: the Nexus Project explicitly point out, it's a way to
Speaker 2: quote weaponize anti semitism by attacking free speech DEI foreign students,
Speaker 2: and in this environment, we can understand why there's so
Speaker 2: much fear to speak up and so much self censorship.
Speaker 2: You can be falsely accused of anti semitism for bringing
Speaker 2: up Palestine as a topic of discussion, for trying to
Speaker 2: study what's happening, for trying to produce any sort of
Speaker 2: knowledge on what's going on. I also really want to
Speaker 2: underscore that this self censorship and fear that already existed
Speaker 2: in a space in academia is a worsening trend today,
Speaker 2: but it definitely existed before October seventh two. Take it
Speaker 2: from me as someone who studies Palestine in American academia.
Speaker 2: Palestinian scholars have long been on attack in the American academy.
Speaker 2: But after October seventh, and before Trump, this of course
Speaker 2: got worse. External actors and donors got involved in campus governance.
Speaker 2: As we saw in Harvard and many other places, university
Speaker 2: administrations cracked down on students, professors, everyone, often preemptively doing
Speaker 2: the work of the right wing because they thought that
Speaker 2: taking away freedoms from some groups wouldn't come back to
Speaker 2: bite them. And this is how Palestine is now one
Speaker 2: of the cudgels that Trump is using to attack universities
Speaker 2: and the academy. And it's an effective cudgel because some
Speaker 2: liberals in universities and outside universities can also be persuaded
Speaker 2: to attack scholarship on Palestine and students who speak on Palestine.
Speaker 2: But those exceptions to academic freedom that have long existed
Speaker 2: in the academy are now being used to attack everyone.
Speaker 2: A quick note here to outline what academic freedom for
Speaker 2: a faculty member actually means. As the American Association of
Speaker 2: University Professors the AAUP on their website academic freedom has
Speaker 2: these main elements. Number one, the freedom to discuss relevant
Speaker 2: matters in the classroom. Number two, the freedom to explore
Speaker 2: all avenues of scholarship, research, and creative expression, and to
Speaker 2: publish the results of such work. Number three intramural speech
Speaker 2: freedom from institutional censorship or discipline when addressing matters of
Speaker 2: institutional policy or action. And number four extramural speech freedom
Speaker 2: from institutional censorship or discipline when speaking or writing as citizens.
Speaker 2: So faculty members are allowed to speak on matters as citizens.
Speaker 2: Being a faculty member and being a member of the
Speaker 2: university community does not take away their right to be citizens.
Speaker 2: That last one is worth emphasizing. To maintain universities as
Speaker 2: sites of free inquiry and knowledge production, there has to
Speaker 2: be academic freedom, and that freedom includes teaching, research, intramul speech,
Speaker 2: and extramural speech. You can't censor people you don't like
Speaker 2: or don't agree with think your institution and your university
Speaker 2: will continue to function. You certainly can't do that and
Speaker 2: think the right wing won't sniff it out and use
Speaker 2: it against you. So what's to be done? Things are happening,
Speaker 2: People are fighting back, and just like Palestine has been
Speaker 2: the Canarian the coal mine for so many things, including
Speaker 2: the assault on American academia. Palestine may be one of
Speaker 2: those crucial issues that helps academics and students and faculty
Speaker 2: to organize in this moment. For example, because of the
Speaker 2: arrests of pro Palestine students and their attempted deportation, the
Speaker 2: American Association of University Professors, alongside the Middle East Studies
Speaker 2: Association and the Night First Amendment Institute, sued the Trump
Speaker 2: administration over this policy of arresting and threatening deportation for
Speaker 2: lawful speech on Palestine. The AAUP is also now ap
Speaker 2: plaintive in a number of cases challenging the Trump administration
Speaker 2: on the tax on DEI, attempting to abolish the Department
Speaker 2: of Education cuts, and federal funding of research except an
Speaker 2: attacks on students and faculty after October seventh, which set
Speaker 2: off this whole barrage of attacks on university since then
Speaker 2: have galvanized people to demand their university administrations uphold academic freedom.
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty four, nearly forty chapters of the AAUP
Speaker 2: were founded or re established across the US, Even professors
Speaker 2: who don't teach or study the Middle East or Palestine
Speaker 2: are starting to speak out about the dangers of these
Speaker 2: moments and these trends. I think people are starting to
Speaker 2: realize that American universities will have to uphold their ideals
Speaker 2: of faculty governance, free inquiry, free thought for everyone, or
Speaker 2: they really will cease to exist. That's all I have
Speaker 2: for you today. I'll be back soon to talk more
Speaker 2: about the latest developments in Palestine. Stay strong, everybody. Thanks
Speaker 2: for listening.
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