14 | AUGUST 22 • 2024 J
N
I
f you follow the news, especially
since Oct. 7, you already know
about student government
resolutions condemning Israel,
faculty resolutions calling
for divestment from Israel,
encampments blocking sections of
campus, demonstrations disrupting
school events and chants for
immediate ceasefire or for global
intifada. As campuses prepare to
welcome students back, will the
anti-Israel resolutions and protests
restart?
Let’s take a look at how some
university administrators’ responses
have varied thus far.
THE UNIVERSITY OF
MICHIGAN AT ANN ARBOR
A few days after the Hamas assault
on Oct. 7, President Santa Ono
issued a statement to the University
of Michigan community stating
that “our campus communities are
reeling in the wake of the horrific
attack by Hamas terrorists on
Israeli citizens and the immense
loss of civilian lives.” He reported
that he had reached out to
universities in Israel to reaffirm
“our steadfast commitment to our
work with these universities.”
The next day, faculty and staff of
the University of Michigan issued a
letter objecting to President Ono’s
response because it ignores, “the
decades long Israeli occupation
of Palestine and the structural
apartheid Palestinians residing both
within Israel and the Occupied
Territories endure on a daily basis.”
That letter had more than 1,000
signatures of graduate students,
staff and faculty members.
Ono responded, “To be clear,
I stand by my earlier message
that unequivocally condemns the
Hamas terrorist attack on Israel.
Speaking with moral clarity against
any act of terrorism is not, and
should not, be controversial at the
University of Michigan.”
Brendan Haug, associate
professor of classical
studies and archivist
of the papyrology
collection at the
University of Michigan,
highlights that line in
the president’s second
letter, saying, “this
should not be controversial. That is
obvious, but apparently, it was.”
As Haug sees it, many academics
objected to “a straightforward,
morally clear statement of
sympathy for people being
victimized by terror.”
A segment of the academic
community has a “simplistic, binary
view of this particular conflict …
in which the Israelis are defined as
victimizing oppressors, Palestinians
as its victims.”
According to that view, “any
action that is taken by Palestinians
or on their behalf becomes
somehow imbued with this
moral righteousness,” including,
“the indiscriminate slaughter of
civilians.”
Haug characterizes the view as
“a deeply flawed moral compass in
contemporary academic culture,”
and “an incredibly intellectually
unsophisticated way of thinking.”
Haug also detects “open, what
you might call, ethnic animosity”
against Israelis or Jews “in a way
that would never be tolerated for
other groups.” Haug understands
why Jewish students or faculty
members — Haug is not Jewish
— might “fear for their personal
safety.”
Concern for personal safety
and for repercussions to career
indeed worked to limit what some
academics at the University of
Michigan were willing to share
about their views of the anti-Israel
sentiment on campus. A few faculty
members asked not to have their
names appear in this article. One
explained, “I have a lot of thoughts,
but expressing them publicly would
undermine my role on campus.”
Galit Levi Dunietz,
associate professor
of division of sleep
medicine, U-M
Department of
Neurology, considered
the response of many
faculty members to the
president’s letter disappointing.
“I am very much understanding
of people who support Palestine,
but I don’t understand
people who support
terrorists or support
antisemitism.”
Mark Rosentraub,
Bickner Endowed
Professor of Sport
A Return to Campus
continued on page 16
Brendan
Haug
Mark
Rosentraub
Galit Levi
Dunietz
Will anti-Israel demonstrations on Michigan campuses continue?
LOUIS FINKELMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER
OUR COMMUNITY
Pro-Palestinian students
protest at an encampment on
the campus of the University
of Michigan in Ann Arbor,
Michigan on April 28, 2024.
JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES