14 | AUGUST 22 • 2024 J
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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