The Times’s editorial pages have explored the practical, political and ethical dimensions of the campus protests from a variety of perspectives: Are protests an essential part of education? When does a protest cross a line? Are the college protesters’ tactics hurting their cause? How should colleges and universities respond to the campus unrest spreading across the country?
Here are some Times essays that cover the topic from a variety of perspectives. You might pair them with opinion pieces from other sources, including college newspapers.
Lydia Polgreen, a Times Opinion columnist, explores the moral complexities of the protests and seeks to explain why some students feel intimated by them, while others are moved to join them, in her essay “The Student-Led Protests Aren’t Perfect. That Doesn’t Mean They’re Not Right.”
“Whether you are watching student protesters on social media or experiencing the protests in person, the way you understand these protests depends on your perception of what they are protesting. It could not be otherwise. If you feel that what is happening in Gaza is a moral atrocity, the student protests will look like a brave stand against American complicity in what they believe is genocide — and a few hateful slogans amid thousands of peaceful demonstrators will look like a minor detail. If you feel the Gaza war is a necessarily violent defense against terrorists bent on destroying the Jewish state, the students will seem like collaborators with murderous antisemitism — even if many of them are Jewish.”
In “Student Protest Is an Essential Part of Education,” Serge Schmemann, a member of the Times editorial board who participated in antiwar protests at Columbia University in 1968, writes about the value of dissent and protest for young people:
The hallowed notion of a university as a bastion of discourse and learning does not and cannot exclude participation in contemporary debates, which is what students are being prepared to lead. From Vietnam to apartheid to the murder of George Floyd, universities have long been places for open and sometimes fiery debate and inquiry. And whenever universities themselves have been perceived by students to be complicit or wrong in their stances, they have been challenged by their communities of students and teachers. If the university cannot tolerate the heat, it cannot serve its primary mission.
In “What Is Happening on College Campuses Is Not Free Speech,” Gabriel Diamond, Talia Dror and Jillian Lederman — students at Yale, Cornell and Brown — write about their experiences of being Jewish on campus since the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas on Israel. In their essay, they argue that universities have a moral responsibility to counter expressions of antisemitism and harassment:
Free speech, open debate and heterodox views lie at the core of academic life. They are fundamental to educating future leaders to think and act morally. The reality on some college campuses today is the opposite: open intimidation of Jewish students. Mob harassment must not be confused with free speech.
Universities need to get back to first principles and understand that they have the rules on hand to end intimidation of Jewish students. We need to hold professors and students to a higher standard.
It continues:
All students have sacred rights to hold events, teach-ins and protests. And university faculty members must present arguments that make students uncomfortable. University campuses are unique hubs of intellectual discovery and debate, designed to teach students how to act within a free society. But free inquiry is not possible in an environment of intimidation. Harassment and intimidation fly in the face of the purpose of a university.
In “Why the Campus Protests Are So Troubling,” Thomas L. Friedman, a Times Opinion columnist, argues that “the dominant messages from the loudest voices and many placards reject important truths about how this latest Gaza war started and what will be required to bring it to a fair and sustainable conclusion.” He writes:
My problem is not that the protests in general are “antisemitic” — I would not use that word to describe them, and indeed, I am deeply uncomfortable as a Jew with how the charge of antisemitism is thrown about on the Israel-Palestine issue. My problem is that I am a hardheaded pragmatist who lived in Beirut and Jerusalem, cares about people on all sides and knows one thing above all from my decades in the region: The only just and workable solution to this issue is two nation-states for two indigenous peoples.
If you are for that, whatever your religion, nationality or politics, you’re part of the solution. If you are not for that, you’re part of the problem.
And from everything I have read and watched, too many of these protests have become part of the problem — for three key reasons.
And in “How Protesters Can Actually Help Palestinians,” Nicholas Kristof, a Times Opinion columnist, says that while he admires the protesters’ empathy for Gazans, be believes that their tactics are hurting their own cause:
Student protesters: I admire your empathy for Gazans, your concern for the world, your moral ambition to make a difference.
But I worry about how peaceful protests have tipped into occupations of buildings, risks to commencements and what I see as undue tolerance of antisemitism, chaos, vandalism and extremism. I’m afraid the more aggressive actions may be hurting the Gazans you are trying to help.
Have students read one or more of the essays. Then, through writing or discussion, they might respond to the following questions:
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What did you learn from these voices and perspectives? How do they help you to better understand the current crisis on college campuses?
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Which arguments for and against the school protests were strongest? Which were less persuasive?
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What questions would you want to ask any of the authors? Which viewpoints and ideas, if any, do you think were missing from the debate?
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What do you still want to learn about the campus protests — or about the Israel-Hamas war more generally?