Yes, it's Possible for Student Protesters and University Administrators to Agree – BCB #102
Also: MIT’s DEI statement shift, and tips for talking politics in the classroom
How some campuses negotiated instead of forcibly quashing protests
Conflict always gets more coverage than compromise. Much of the reporting of campus pro-Palestine protests has focused on alarming, escalatory clashes between students, administrators, and police, but at a handful of schools around the country, university officials have avoided calling in law enforcement. Instead, they sat down with protesters and actually talked to them, eventually working out a deal.
At Northwestern, protesters spent five days camping out on one of the main greens on campus. A large pro-Israel counterprotest formed and at one point police did try to break up the encampment, but were stopped by faculty members. Despite the increasingly tense atmosphere, university officials were able to reach an agreement fairly expeditiously once they sat down to talk with faculty and a handful of students who represented the protesters. Among other things,
the agreement permits peaceful demonstrations on Deering Meadow through June 1, limited to Northwestern community members and no sound amplification devices or tents except for one aid tent. The university also pledged to reestablish its Advisory Committee on Investment Responsibility this fall, with representation from students, faculty and staff.
Meanwhile, at Brown, protesters agreed to clear out their encampment entirely in exchange for the opportunity to have five representatives speak with members of the Corporation of Brown University about divesting from Israeli occupation. Brown has also guaranteed that students won’t be suspended or expelled for participating in the protests.
The situation was more tense at Rutgers, where university representatives and students reached a deal within an hour of the deadline that the school had set for encampments to be cleared out. Rutgers did not agree to all of the protesters’ demands. In particular, it said it could not divest from companies doing business in Israel or end its relationship with Tel Aviv University as those decisions “fall outside of our administrative scope,” according to the university Chancellor.
Still, the students involved in negotiations seemed proud of what they were able to accomplish, writing on Instagram:
Our decision to end our encampment without achieving these demands reflects our strategic logic regarding building power on campus by laying structural groundwork to not only grow our ranks but shift the political climate across Rutgers.
Not everyone at these universities was happy with the outcome. Northwestern, for instance, is facing two lawsuits over its agreement with protestors and a coalition of Jewish groups is calling for its president to resign.
Still, these agreements are noteworthy, given how tense the political climate on many campuses has become. More than anything else, it’s striking that all sides involved in these negotiations clearly wanted to avoid destructive escalation. Administrators knew that it would be bad to allow police to arrest students. And protesters recognized, as the Rutgers statement makes clear, that sometimes the best way to move the needle is to work within the institutions they’re a part of.
The waning of mandatory DEI statements
Earlier this month, MIT announced that it is no longer going to ask people applying for faculty positions to write statements explaining how they will advance diversity in their teaching and research.
This is the latest sign that higher education’s enthusiasm for DEI statements is waning. While some universitiess have stopped requiring DEI statements because a number of (Reddish) states have banned the practice — or have tried to ban DEI programs in general — in the last few years a number of universities have stopped voluntarily. MIT is the first top university to officially walk back the requirement.
As the university’s president put it, “We can build an inclusive environment in many ways, but compelled statements impinge on freedom of expression, and they don’t work.”
Is this true? Those in favor of these statements point out that it’s the job of professors to teach students of all backgrounds and bolster learning in and out of the classroom. What’s more, some say, a good statement is far from formulaic and can be a way to learn more about what makes a candidate stand out in the classroom. Yet required statements leave little room for legitimate dissent, and there is precious little evidence on whether mandatory DEI statements actually achieve their goals. This makes them subject to political winds—which seem to be changing.
How to get people talking about politics
In a recent “Ask Me Anything” issue of his newsletter Notes from the Middleground, Damon Linker offered one answer that should be a useful primer to anyone trying to stoke civil conversations around politically loaded or polarized subjects, especially when the people participating don’t necessarily want to be there. The question came from Alison Dagnes:
I’m also a political science professor, and I teach American politics at a small, public regional school in a fairly rural area. About half of my majors are Trump supporters, half Democrats ... Regardless of political affiliation or belief, nobody speaks up in class anymore. … My question is this: How can we teach American politics to students who are a) predisposed to not believe me because they’ve been told liberal college professors are unfair; b) think I’m a squish for not driving a stake into the heart of MAGA; or c) avoid eye contact because they flatly refuse to answer even the most basic just-the-facts-ma’am question about the institutions of government?
Linker’s response boils down to a few essential steps. First, meet people where they are. If they’re skeptical of you or of the conversation, acknowledge that right off the bat!
You could begin by saying, “I bet many of you hate politics. Or maybe you hate those of your fellow citizens who disagree with you about politics. Note that both possibilities presume that you know things—either, in the first case, what politics is; or in the second case, what politics should be. But are you right about that? Let’s try to figure that out this semester.”
Next, he says, it’s important to get people talking. Have people participate in icebreakers, or even nudge them to talk about why they’re resistant to taking part in the conversation. Ask them:
Why don’t you want to talk? What are you afraid of? That you’re going to say something wrong? Or that your peers in the class will think what you say is wrong? Or that your peers will say something you think is wrong and that gets you angry?
Ultimately, Linker writes, the goal is to get people to interrogate their own assumptions. This will lay the groundwork for them to disagree with each other—and with you, whoever you are—without getting nasty or losing their will to engage.
Quote of the Week
“It’s funny because from a research perspective, I understand a lot of what’s going on here,” Inbar, who co-authored a 2012 paper in which he asked psychology professors whether they would discriminate in hiring based on a candidate’s political views, told The Chronicle. “I understand how people feel that they have to protect a certain set of moral values and that they don’t want people around who threaten them. I would just say, often those moral instincts can mislead us into rushing to judgment.”
– Yoel Inbar, on being denied a job after questioning required DEI statements
The schools that agreed to demands by protesters have sent the message that disruption, bigotry, misinformation, discrimination against a minority population, and thre threat of violence are valid forms of discourse and behavior in higher education. That is shameful. That isn't better conflict. That is capitulation - see Neville Chamberlain.