University Administrations Duck and Hide Coast to Coast

Musings

I am bewildered. The latest information reaching the hinterland suggests that  Columbia University and the University of Southern California  administrations and presidents have now surrendered the leadership, management and representation of what their schools stand for to a rump republican caucus in the House of Representatives on an election year binge. The news appears to focus on these two particular schools at this time although others have gone through the ringer previously. They are Columbia University in New York City and the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Thus we have managed to take this silliness from coast to coast. I am familiar with Colombia and  I'm sure my brother, who attended USC, is rolling over in his grave. These schools have lost their way. It is not hard to sort out that they came to a fork in the road and took the wrong one. It is very hard to understand how these smart people with their entourage of advisors and way too many attorneys managed to pick the wrong fork. We now have Columbia University calling in the NYPD to arrest Columbian and Bernard students from the campus green  and at USC we have an administration that is afraid to allow the class valedictorian, a biomedical engineering major,   to make her valedictorian speech!  Mindboggling.

Contemplations

The president of Columbia University, Nemat Shafik, emerged from her visit to the republican rump caucus and apparently surrendered all of her inclinations towards assembly and free speech rights on campus. She somehow could not handle the Columbia and Bernard students holding a protest on the lawn. So she contacted the NYPD had told them the students presented: " a clear and present danger"  and asked that they be removed from the campus by the civil authorities. The police showed up in riot gear and began hauling the students away. This sounds like a bad novel attempting to be a suspense movie. How these students were a clear and present danger is almost beyond comprehension unless you're the president of a university they can't face the responsibilities of her office.

At USC a different situation, but almost as improbable, arose when the valedictorian turned out to have a Muslim background and the school quaked in its shoes of what she might say. Apparently speakers can only say what a president wants them to say and if there's doubt of that we now cancel the speech and most of the ceremony. The school also proceeded to cancel its other celebrities that were going to speak. This one young, very smart, Muslim lady seems to have had the whole place terrified. It is interesting that a school that is internationally known and has had all sorts of royalty and United States presidents come to campus to speak, and have been able to handle those situations handily,  cannot face the thought of a biomedical engineering graduate giving a valedictorian speech.

In theory our university and college presidents and their administrations know how to handle a mixture of students with many attitudes, ethnic backgrounds and viewpoints. Apparently, Columbia and USC have missed that concept. One of the interesting things about all of these stories is that the university administrations are constantly responding to and jumping to handle discrimination complaints of antisemitism, as they should, and of course some will be valid and some will be noise. But it's hard to find a single word that tells us how either of these administrations are reacting to the anti-Palestinian comments and actions of those supporting Israeli actions in the Gaza war and at the West Bank. The only response seems  to be directed at one side of the issue. The reports have noted a number of instances where the Israeli supporters are busy making noise and trying to harass the Palestinian supporters. What happened to giving both sides equal treatment. 

Further, it seems it is time to quit getting so excited about the statement by Palestinian supporters of wanting their homeland "from the river to the sea". That is their historical homeland and the reference to want to return to that location is not unusual amongst any ethnic group including the Israelis who were evicted from Palestine and chose to return a couple of thousand years later. Supposedly our national policy is to seek to have both of these groups of people learn to live together in that same area of historic Palestine.

As I recall from my own experience and reading about a number of historical situations where a person in a leadership position did not seem to be able to handle the things going on around them, such as the generals that Eisenhower had to relieve in the North African campaign of World War II or the relief of Admiral Ghormley from the Southwast Pacific campaign in World War II by Admiral Nimitz and similar situations through our military engagements since World War II, if the system is not operating properly  replace those that could not handle the situation with new leadership. It would seem to me that at Columbia and USC we have found  two intelligent leaders that probably have way too many advisors in their entourage and an excess of attorneys just causing confusion and they're lost in the sinkhole they have created, at least that's what their actions reflect. If they can't redefine the situation promptly  and restore some legitimacy to the end of this semester for each campus then someone should step forward who can. College presidents are supposed to be leaders and inspirations. We are currently lacking that at both of these institutions.

Thoughts                                                                                                                                  

These two administrations need to take a step back look at what they've done with a clear view and not just think of ways to spit out more academic gobbledygook justifying what they've done. They need to restore faith in their campuses and the academic freedom of assembly and speech that they are supposed to be defending, not from which they are busy hiding. They need to ignore the republican House of Representatives committee and the other aspects of the  2024 campaign  of which they are being made pawns. If you look at the actions of the House committee they are very close the noise being made by the republican presidential nominee who keeps telling all of the Jewish voters in the United States they're crazy to vote for the democrats because democrats don't support Israel enough so everybody come vote for us republicans. The rump committee in the House of Representatives is just part of the same ploy. Ignore them. That is what they deserve.

 Please devise a new plan, restore your campus graduations, and allow you’re your students back on campus to assemble and protest from both points of view. Quit being the administrators that destroyed the school year because they were afraid of some politicians. Your students are important to you, the politicians, as you know, are noise and very short lived friends. Once they have your votes they don't even know you exist.

If this is confusing I offer this simplification for college and university presidents and all those 12 and under: In the world of academia you are supposed to explore new concepts and have the right to assemble, present your views and have free speech. That has been violated at Columbia University and USC. Hopefully those schools will rethink their missteps and reform to where their hallowed history suggest they belong.

Silence Dogood

Copies of all previous postings of this blog are available at:  thoughtscm.com