OpEd: Defund Scholar Activism

By Asaf Romirowsky

PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania — As we gear up for the Fall semester we must face the sobering reality that our faculty and students are and have been under attack.

The horrific October 7th attack on Israel by Hamas has generated an unprecedented wave of global antisemitism. Campuses and the BDS movement are at the epicenter of a burgeoning wave that put hundreds of thousands into the streets including in the US. Like the BDS movement, the call is not for a two-state solution but rather to destroy Israel. The idea that ‘colonized peoples’ have the right to ‘resist’ by ‘any means necessary’ is coupled with denial that Hamas had committed atrocities and the allegation that Israel is committing ‘genocide’ in its efforts to recover hostages and end the threat from Hamas. These ideas have propagated from campus to politics to the streets, putting Israel and Jews worldwide at grave risk.

Furthermore, cheering on Hamas—a group long ago designated as a terrorist organization by the State Department and which, on October 7, murdered and kidnapped not only Israelis but also scores of American citizens surely deserves to have consequences especially on campus .

Above all, we desperately need to reevaluate what a university is and what it is for. Five decades of universities striving for relevance has had the effect of politicizing the humanities and social sciences. But as faculties have become politically monolithic, students interested in exploring traditions and themselves have been alienated, causing a feedback loop of shrinking disciplines and intensifying politics.

A top-down driven change in philosophy is desperately needed from university leaders and the American political class. A conception of the liberal arts and sciences should be promoted in which the primary goal of learning is individual growth and exploration and the goal of research is the conservation and expansion of knowledge and thought. Scholar-activism in the sense of politically aligned teaching and research or social justice in the sense of remaking society through undemocratic means cannot be goals, nor should they be publicly funded.

Reflexively anti-Israel and anti-American biases in academia are partially the work of the tenured radicals of the 1960s and 1970s, steeped in fetishization of the Third World and vicarious admiration for hideously violent and often terrorist “liberation movements,” the “Palestinian cause” and “struggles against colonialism.” These academics have now trained generations of students who have assumed leading roles in numerous universities.

Our network provides support through shared best practices, mentoring, and guidance to students and junior faculty. Further, we believe that key steps can be taken to enhance our impact such as expanding the network with supportive community members which is key.

Another is continuing to bring the problem out into the open with local and national media showing how the enviorment impacts students, parents, trustees, and faculty. Open protests on campuses, which will almost invariably elicit vocal hostility from BDS supporters, will prove the case. Lawsuits from or in support of faculty members, who for example find their academic organizations subject to hostile or covert takeovers by BDS supporters, or who find their promotions impeded because of their pro-Israel politics, are the final line of defense.

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Asaf Romirowsky is the chief executive officer of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East.