What Zoom Does to Campus Conflicts Over Israel and Free Speech – The New York Times

Back home in New Jersey, she enrolled in self-defense classes and bought a Taser for security.

In September, N.Y.U. settled Ms. Cojabs complaint with the Office of Civil Rights, outlining steps to address anti-Semitism on campus, as defined in the presidents executive order. But the school did not concede any wrongdoing, nor mention the section of the executive order citing examples of anti-Israel speech as anti-Semitic.

In the meantime, the conflicts continue, with or without students on campus. Universities are left to muddle in the middle, to balance irreconcilable imperatives.

Columbias president, Lee Bollinger, reaffirmed the schools commitment to free speech but vowed to disregard the student referendum on divestment. N.Y.U.s president, Andrew D. Hamilton, expressed consternation to Zoom over its cancellation of the webinar with Ms. Khaled, but he also chided the professors who sponsored it.

For now, though, the virtual campus makes it easy not to listen to one another, to refuse to normalize an opposing point of view. Instead, both sides dig into their own moral narratives, said Kenneth S. Stern, the director of the Center for the Study of Hate at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y., who was the lead drafter in the group that created the working definition of anti-Semitism invoked in Mr. Trumps executive order. Mr. Stern said the definition was meant principally for data gathering, not regulating campus debate.

The reality is that both arguments are true, and to understand the issue you have to not just pick one side and battle against the other, you have to say that both people have indigenous claims, and one can make the case, from the Jewish perspective, that of course weve always been there, and the Palestinians can say, Weve been here for a long time and were indigenous. Both of those things are true.

The history is messy, he said, with justice on both sides, and injustice on both sides.

Even without remote learning, students have little incentive to see the other view and strong support for hardening their own sides.

Mr. Stern said, mildly, That makes conversations very difficult.

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What Zoom Does to Campus Conflicts Over Israel and Free Speech - The New York Times