Little Did I Know: The Idea of the University

Way back when I was in college, I had to write an undergraduate thesis and I wrote about the Idea of the University. This work borrowed heavily from Cardinal John Henry Newman who wrote his own “Idea of the University” in the 1850s as he lectured in Ireland that universities were the place to find knowledge. My own version echoed many of Newman’s beliefs as I wrote that universities should be where students seek the truth. I still have the leather-bound copy of my opus in my bookshelves. Little did I know I would be writing about the same thing almost 40 years later.

When college encampments were all the rage in the spring of 2024, I wrote a “Letter to the Protestors.” Little did I know it would go viral.

When my grandparents were victims of pogroms across eastern Europe before emigrating to the United States in the early 1900s, and when my other relatives who were not as lucky were murdered in gas chambers in Nazi deathcamps, the world said “never again.” Little did I know my family, and Jews across the world, would say “never again is now” after October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists attacked Israel.

Little did I know it would be such a tumultuous year and that anti-Semitism would be everywhere on our campuses. There are moments when I no longer even recognize the world in which we are now living.

One thing, however, I do know: the world through Jewish eyes is decidedly different and decidedly anti-Semitic, especially virulently in our colleges and universities. We are fighting a well-organized and well-funded enemy who has been lying in wait, ready to pounce with their propaganda and partnerships with strange bedfellows (who would have ever contemplated jihadists and Marxists side by side?).

My slightly sarcastic tongue-in-cheek letter was originally meant only for friends and family. I had no idea it would thrust me into a media whirlwind, but I was grateful for the platform. My focus was to tell anyone who would listen about the protests and how wrong the encampments were. I am not against protests and all for students standing up for their beliefs. I claimed then and stand by those claims that most of the protestors had no idea what they were standing for and were, more importantly, unable to think for themselves.

I had tried to engage the protestors at the encampment where I teach, but to no avail.  Most of them were unable to answer some of my basic questions such as “Do you believe Israel has the right to exist?” They then resorted to chanting hateful tropes rather than have civil discourse with me. The “Idea of the University” was lost in these protests, replaced by propaganda and hate speech.

Like most Americans (and even most Zionists), I believe in free speech. I believe one death of anyone innocent is one death too many. But I did not see the call to return the innocent hostages at the protests. There were innocent American civilians—the same ages as many of the students at these protests—being held by Hamas in tunnels. No outcry about that. Just think if the students across the country would have used their collective voices to focus on releasing the hostages.

I did not see protests about the war in Ukraine, or the Uyghurs, or women beaten, arrested, or killed for not wearing hajibs in Iran. Or massacres in Syria and Yemen, or the war and famine in Sudan, or any other conflict in the world except for the one where the protestors could speak out against Israel and the Jewish people. All the previously hidden anti-Semitism somehow has become almost politically correct, enabled by universities allowing the encampments and the hate speech.

As a law professor, I was appalled by how most universities handled the protests that erupted after the October 7 attack by Hamas on Israel. At law schools, we teach students to spot the risks or the problems. But that is not all. We also try to teach students to solve those problems, usually creatively. To think through the issues and understand all the possible arguments and solutions. With that spirit in mind, rather than document further all the mind-boggling issues on our campuses, I am going to try to suggest some solutions to reclaim our universities. Most of these suggested potential solutions fall into the following buckets:

1. Follow the money
2. Teach your children well
3. Don’t give the mouse a cookie
4. You break it, you buy it

I could have also written at length about how too many professors have used their classrooms for their own political purposes and as their own pulpits. There is evidence from schools across the country where professors have given extra credit to their students who went to protests against Israel, or professors who have even cancelled class so they themselves can attend protests, or much worse. My personal beliefs are just that: personal beliefs and do not affect how, what, or who I teach.

While I do not think we should go back to the Salem witch trials or the McCarthy era trying to uproot and uncover hidden Communists, I do think that faculty members who are affiliated with known terrorist organizations do need to be rooted out and removed from the classroom.

Let’s look at the different recommendations which are practical and could be implemented immediately:

Follow the money

Following the money is an easy point to make given how surprised many seem to be at the level of funding from both foreign nations as well as other organizations at American universities. First, there is a lack of transparency which is only now starting to surface.  The actual U.S. law, the Higher Education Act, from 1965 and hardly ever enforced, requires U.S. universities to report donations from foreign governments of over $250,000. However, the law can be circumvented when the money flows through non-profits, other charitable (or otherwise) organizations, and third parties.

Money from the nation of Qatar alone is staggering. In many cases, this money is to establish satellite campuses and programs in Doha. Nonetheless, the fact that Qatar has harbored Hamas leadership and, as one example, given Cornell almost $2 billion alone might make your head spin, or might make you less likely to send your children or donate to a university taking in significant funding from a dubious source.

First, there needs to be enforcement of the law, and fines to universities who do not accurately report funding from foreign nations. Moreover, there needs to be total transparency. The amounts of money donated from foreign governments must be not only disclosed in an easy-to-understand format (perhaps mandated to be on every college and university’s website) but universities must also highlight exactly what such money is funding: endowing professorships or sponsoring specific lectures, etc.

Following the money is more than just disclosure and transparency concerning foreign funding sources. Such “free” money donated is hardly ever actually free. It usually comes with either spoken or unspoken strings. Nevertheless, it is too tantalizing for American universities to resist this level of financial support. The U.S. government needs to make such grants less desirable by pulling all federal funding from American colleges and universities that take money from foreign nations.

Teach your children well

Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young said it (and sang it) first, but teach your children well.  Many of us have seen the videos of UNWRA-funded and -directed Palestinian kindergarten children mimicking terrorists killing Jews. A generation of Palestinians has been taught to hate. Yet we have now seen similar hate being taught to young Americans, both in college and even long before they set foot on campus. The concepts of white colonization, genocide, and even Zionism are now misunderstood and have indoctrinated young Americans into believing that Israel is a white colonizer, is committing genocide, and Zionism itself is evil.

While polls showing that an alarming number of young Americans believed the Holocaust to be a myth were later debunked, an equally alarming number of young Americans do not believe Israel has a right to exist. Young people are being taught a one-sided narrative. Our curricula have been infiltrated with this indoctrination. Even the Advanced Placement (“AP”) World History material promotes an anti-Semitic narrative that Jews were “occupying” Palestine during the Roman Empire. This false narrative is revising history. And the false narrative is systemic and institutionalized. In fact, I feel like the narrative has been lost when the Ayatollah, the Supreme Ruler of the Islamic Republic of Iran, is thanking American students for protesting.

Can the narrative be reshaped and regained? This will take time and a complete overhaul of the curricula throughout the American education system, even elementary school. The one-sided or rewritten histories must not be presented as the whole story. 

This indoctrination has taken years. We must catch up quickly to revise the revisionists. Perhaps a national task force on historic curriculum overhaul needs to happen—with universities and schools needing to be certified that they are teaching actual history, whether about the Middle East or own Civil War for example.

There are also other measures to take to teach our children well. Holocaust education should be mandatory in our secondary education system. I have seen the horrors of Auschwitz with my own eyes. Even 50 years after Auschwitz was operational, what I saw could never be unseen by me. Obviously, not every young person can have that same experience. As fewer Holocaust survivors remain to speak to young people about their experiences, we must find ways to tell their stories and make it real for them.

The BDS movement is often accused of being anti-Semitic and advancing the cause of not just boycotting, divesting, and sanctioning Israel but also the end of the Jewish nation. Many college and university students are jumping on the BDS bandwagon without understanding the issues or what this really means. Yale students recently approved a BDS referendum—but will they all abandon Apple, Google, Starbucks, medical technology that can save their lives, and even cherry tomatoes? The list of Israeli technological advances in all aspects of our lives is long and intertwined with many companies and products we all use and love. This information needs to be promoted and publicized so that students understand what they are actually protesting when they push a BDS agenda.

We also must make clear that resistance by any means necessary is wrong. For example, rape is not resistance, and in no moral universe should rape be considered justified as such. When I saw young women holding signs at a protest that said resistance “by any means necessary,” I had to challenge them. I asked, “Does that include rape?” Two young female undergraduate students told me, “Any means.” I was shocked, but I realized that, once again, these young women were only regurgitating the propaganda they had been taught. We must do better and teach that rape is not resistance.

Don’t give a mouse a cookie

I have written about this philosophy previously when a number of university officials were capitulating to the protestors on their campuses despite, in most cases, their flagrant violations of student codes of conduct. The classic children’s story tells us what happens if you give a mouse a cookie.  

If you give that mouse a cookie, the mouse is going to want a glass of milk!

You know this philosophy because it is the reason the United States supposedly does not negotiate with terrorists.

Too many universities gave in to the “terrorists” on their own campuses by dropping disciplinary actions. All this accomplishes is to empower those who broke the law and were arrested (or, at a minimum, violated student codes of conduct). Universities gave those mice cookies, and now the protestors know they can demand a glass of milk. There must be consequences and personal accountability.

As an example, Harvard initially disciplined students, but, while 13 of these students had their degrees withheld and could not participate in graduation, 11 of them had their status restored to good standing and were awarded their diplomas anyway only two months later. The lack of backbone and follow-through is evident not just at Harvard but also at other schools who reached “agreements” with students who violated the law and school rules.

You break it, you buy it

Defacing statues; ransacking university buildings; damaging university, administrators’, trustees’, or other affiliated parties’ property; and even “lesser” crimes like littering on university or public property must be punished according to existing university policies. There needs to be consequences and personal accountability! Related to the “if you give a mouse a cookie” approach above, if universities keep letting students break not only student codes of conduct but also actual laws, then the conduct will continue, and laws will continue to be broken and flouted.

Some of my friends have cheered when organizations like Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) or Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP) have been suspended on campuses across the country. This is not enough! Suspending these organizations does little or nothing. Typically, they reorganize under a different name or plead discrimination and suspensions are lifted. Organizations with any ties to known terrorist organizations should be banned. But again, SJP is well-organized at both the student and faculty level and not going away easily. One of the pages out of their playbook, given seemingly to SJP chapters across the country—in addition to “globalize the intifada”—is their incessant chant “We will not stop! We will not rest!” They have money. They have manpower. They have attention from the media. And know how to use social media to their advantage. These organizations, even when suspended, are in no danger of disappearing.

There must therefore be personal accountability. The Ku Klux Klan members hid their identities and faces under their infamous white cloaks. Members of SJP are mostly out in the open, not in hiding. Well, they often do hide behind masks, but some states and schools have made wearing masks now illegal (see, for example, the University of Virginia’s revised policies). I am not suggesting doxing or not hiring affiliated students.  But when those organizations break the rules, the officers and members must be held accountable.

Universities need to prosecute to the full extent of the law anyone—students, faculty, administration, or even non-affiliates—who damages the university’s property. This includes those who vandalize the private property of university officials like what happened to a University of Michigan regent as one example. Recently, that same regent has been attacked (unbelievably) a third time, with mason jars of urine thrown through the windows of his home while his wife and children were inside, along with spray painting his family’s car with the words “divest and free Palestine.” At George Washington University, trustees were not only victims of pro-Palestinian, BDS-supporting, spray-painted graffiti at their homes as well, but their neighbors also apparently received letters stating that a war criminal lived in the neighborhood, complete with pictures of the trustees and their families. No matter what your views are about Israel or Gaza or even anything, these crimes must be investigated and those responsible must be held accountable.

We live in world with video surveillance; discovering perpetrators is just not that difficult.  Universities should, therefore, enhance video surveillance to ensure their campuses have the needed capabilities. This may sound a little “Big Brother-ish,” but, to echo the protesters, desperate times do call for desperate measures. Such surveillance may also act to deter future destruction of property.

Why should any university affiliates be able to get away without paying for any damage they cause? The University of California system supposedly spent $29 million on costs associated with the protests on their campuses. Most of this money was for additional security. At UCLA, just the clean-up costs from the encampment were $500,000. Who is funding these additional costs? In this case, if you live in California, you. Shouldn’t those who spray-paint graffiti and deface statues and cause destruction to buildings and the campus be responsible?

Summary

The infiltration of our universities and colleges started long before the October 7 attacks.  Most Americans were blissfully unaware of how students (and others) have been brainwashed to believe a one-sided narrative that has been sold by the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Professors are allowed to use their platforms to indoctrinate students, and nothing happens to those professors.  Universities have stopped teaching students how to think critically.

In order to reclaim our universities and hold them to that ideal I wrote about when I was in college, where these institutions would be places where students seek truth and knowledge, the efforts cannot be piecemeal, with tinkering around the edges.

I have made a few small suggestions that (1) financing from foreign nations must be much more transparent and, if accepted by an American university, would then eliminate any federal funding of that institution; (2) one-sided narratives and revisionist history must be eliminated throughout all curricula in our educational system; (3) universities must not negotiate with terrorists or student organizations that have ties to known terrorist organizations; and (4) laws and student codes of conduct must be enforced to the full extent of the law.

These suggestions, if followed, would likely be insufficient. There will still be professors and teachers spewing anti-Semitic rhetoric. There will still be foreign dollars leaking into our universities through the back door. There will still be plenty of issues.  

But, when solving any problem, starting to talk about it is the first step, and starting to make concrete progress is, at least, a start.