Excerpt from Jan. 19 Faculty Council remarks regarding the University’s response to violence in the Middle East

There’s clearly no place for anti-Semitism or any other form of hatred on this campus. We have to be as clear about that as possible. We are bound both as a matter of law and in our role as a University by the First Amendment. We should have a robust and free flowing dialogue about the events in the Middle East or any other world event or topic, but there are rules. You can’t threaten, intimidate or harass your classmates. You can’t shout over a speaker or materially disrupt campus operations.

The challenge is that there are some gray areas. Protected speech is speech that is not individualized. When it becomes individualized, it becomes harassment. But that’s the legal answer. I think there’s another answer, which is how do we think about it as an academic community?

We have a collective responsibility as leaders of this community to show what a robust academic dialogue around a highly sensitive topic like this can look like. Let’s take a scholarly approach and try to move away from the shouting and sloganeering and use it as an opportunity to educate rather than something that pulls us apart. I know that’s easier said than done, but I think we all have a role to play in that, and I look forward to doing my part.