Gmail - [Salon] An Open Letter from Columbia University and Barnard College Faculty in Defense of Robust Debate About the History and Meaning of the War in Israel/Gaza

Gmail - [Salon] An Open Letter from Columbia University and Barnard College Faculty in Defense of Robust Debate About the History and Meaning of the War in Israel/Gaza An Open Letter from Columbia University and Barnard College Faculty in Defense of Robust Debate About the History and Meaning of the War in Israel/Gaza: The most recent devastating violence in Israel and Gaza that began on October 7, 2023 has had very disturbing reverberations on our campus – for all of us, students, faculty, staff, and the larger Columbia community. We write now to express grave concerns about how some of our students are being viciously targeted with doxing, public shaming, surveillance by members of our community, including other students, and reprisals from employers. These egregious forms of harassment and efforts to chill otherwise protected speech on campus are unacceptable, and we implore every person in the Columbia University community - faculty, administrators, students, alums, public safety - to do more to protect all of our students while preserving Columbia University as a beacon for “fostering critical thinking and opening minds to different points of view,” as President Shafik wrote to the community in her October 18th message about upholding our collective values. As scholars who are committed to robust inquiry about the most challenging matters of our time, we feel compelled to respond to those who label our students anti-Semitic if they express empathy for the lives and dignity of Palestinians, and/or if they signed on to a student-written statement that situated the military action begun on October 7th within the larger context of the occupation of Palestine by Israel. We have read that statement carefully, and it is worth pointing out that the arguments it makes echo those made by both governmental and non-governmental agencies and institutions at the highest level for a number of years. The student statement begins with language that should satisfy any measure of decency: “The loss of a human life is a deeply painful and heartbreaking experience for loved ones, regardless of one's affiliation. We extend our heartfelt condolences to the individuals and communities at Columbia University affected by the tragic losses experienced by both Palestinians and Israelis.” The statement then turns to the claim that peace and safety for all the peoples of Israel and Palestine will remain elusive unless and until the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory ends and accountability for that illegal occupation is achieved. This is not a radical or essentially controversial position – indeed, it is the position taken by many committees of the United Nations, the UN General Assembly, and respected human rights organizations. The statement also describes the Israeli treatment of Palestinians as a form of “apartheid”, and while this term is viewed as controversial in some quarters, major human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have concluded that the occupation of Palestine and the treatment of Palestinians within Israel amount to a form of apartheid, a crime against humanity with definitions provided in the 1973 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (“Apartheid Convention”) and the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Indeed, Desmond Tutu, noted South African civil rights leader who was the first Black archbishop of Cape Town, concluded in 2014 that: “[Palestinians’] humiliation is familiar to all black South Africans who were corralled and harassed and insulted and assaulted by the security forces of the apartheid government.” And President Jimmy Carter has expressed the view that Israel's treatment of Palestinians "perpetrates even worse instances of apartness, or apartheid, than we witnessed even in South Africa." In our view, the student statement aims to recontextualize the events of October 7, 2023, pointing out that military operations and state violence did not begin that day, but rather it represented a military response by a people who had endured crushing and unrelenting state violence from an occupying power over many years. One could regard the events of October 7th as just one salvo in an ongoing war between an occupying state and the people it occupies, or as an occupied people exercising a right to resist violent and illegal occupation, something anticipated by international humanitarian law in the Second Geneva Protocol. In either case armed resistance by an occupied people must conform to the laws of war, which include a prohibition against the intentional targeting of civilians. The statement reflects and endorses this legal framework, including a condemnation of the killing of civilians. The statement concludes with a demand that Columbia University reverse a decision to create curricular and research programs in Israel, a demand also made by over 100 Columbia faculty last year, and that the university cease issuing statements that favor the suffering and death of Israelis or Jews over the suffering and death of Palestinians, and/or that fail to recognize how challenging this time has been for all students, not just some. It is worth noting that not all of us agree with every one of the claims made in the students’ statement, but we do agree that making such claims cannot and should not be considered anti-Semitic. Their merits are being debated by governmental and non-governmental agencies at the highest level, and constitute a terrain of completely legitimate political and legal debate. We are appalled that trucks broadcasting students’ names and images are circling the campus, identifying them individually as “Columbia’s Leading Anti-Semites”, and that some students have had offers of employment withdrawn by employers that sought to punish them for signing the student statement, or for being merely affiliated with student groups associated with the statement. In the absence of university action, students and faculty have undertaken the burden of blocking the images and identifying information broadcast on the doxxing trucks. It is worth noting that most of the students targeted by this doxing campaign are Arab, Muslim, Palestinian, or South Asian. One of the core responsibilities of a world-class university is to interrogate the underlying facts of both settled propositions and those that are ardently disputed. As faculty we are committed to the project of holding discomfort and working across difference with our students. These core academic values and purposes are profoundly undermined when our students are vilified for voicing perspectives that, while legitimately debated in other institutional settings, expose them to severe forms of harassment and intimidation at Columbia. We ask Columbia University's leadership, our faculty colleagues, Columbia alumni, potential employers of Columbia students, and all who share a commitment to the notion of a just society to join us in condemning, in the strongest of terms, the vicious targeting of our students with doxing, public shaming, surveillance by members of our community, including other students, and reprisals from employers. Sincerely, Katherine Franke James L. Dohr Professor of Law Rashid Khalidi Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies Gray Tuttle Luce Professor of Modern Tibet, EALAC, Columbia Jack Halberstam, The David Feinson Professor of the Humanities, Columbia James Schamus Professor of Professional Practice, School of the Arts, Columbia Alexander Alberro Professor, Department of Art History, Barnard College Premilla Nadasen Ann Whitney Olin Professor of History, Barnard College Ralph Ghoche Assistant Professor, Architecture, Barnard College Karen Seeley, Lecturer Anthropology, Columbia Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak University Professor, Columbia Mae Ngai Lung Family Professor of Asian American Studies, Professor of History, Columbia Michael Harris Professor of Mathematics, Columbia Marianne Hirsch William Peterfield Tretn Professor Emerita, English and Comparative Literature, Institute for the Study of Sexuality and Gender, Columbia Mahmood Mamdani Herbert Lehman Professor of Government, Columbia Neferti Tadiar Professor, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Barnard College Bruno Bosteels Professor, Latin American and Iberian Cultures, Columbia Nico Baumbach Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies, School of the Arts, Columbia Susan Bernofsky Professor of Writing, Columbia School of the Arts, Columbia Victoria de Grazia Moore Collegiate Professor Emerita, Department of History, Columbia Shelly Silver Professor, Visual Arts, School of the Arts, Columbia Frank Guridy Dr. Kenneth and Kareitha Forde Professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies, Columbia Zainab Bahrani Edith Porada Professor Art History and Archaeology, Columbia Susan S. Witte Professor, School of Social Work, Columbia Karen Van Dyck Kimon A. Doukas Professor of Modern Greek Literature, Columbia Najam Haider Professor of Religion, Barnard College Avinoam Shalem Riggio Professor, Arts of Islam, Art History and Archaeology, Columbia Christia Mercer Gustave M. Berne Professor of Philosophy, Columbia Catherine Fennell Associate Professor, Anthropology, Columbia Kadambari Baxi Professor of Professional Practice, Barnard + Columbia Architecture Reinhold Martin Professor of Architecture, GSAPP, Columbia Sheldon Pollock Raghunathan Professor Emeritus, Arts and Sciences, Columbia Robert Gooding-Williams M. Moran Weston/Black Alumni Council Professor of African American Studies and Professor of Philosophy and of African American and African Diaspora Studies, Columbia Partha Chatterjee Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and MESAAS, Columbia Mana Kia Associate Professor, MESAAS, Columbia Katharina Pistor Edwin B. Parker Professor of Comparative Law, Columbia Law School Martha Howell Miriam Champion Professor of History, Emerita, Columbia University Arts and Sciences Elizabeth Hutchinson Associate Professor of Art History, Barnard College Madeleine Dobie Professor of French & Comparative Literature, Columbia Natasha Lightfoot Associate Professor, History, Columbia Brian Boyd Senior Lecturer in Anthropology & Co-Director of the Center for Palestine Studies, Columbia David Scott Department of Anthropology, Columbia Bette Gordon Professor, School of the Arts/Film Lila Abu-Lughod Anthropology, Columbia Yannik Thiem Department of Religion, Columbia Debbie Becher Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Barnard College Nadia Abu El-Haj Anthropology, Barnard College Barbara J. Fields William R. Shepherd Professor of History, Columbia Shayoni Mitr Senior Lecturer, Department of Theatre, Barnard College Josh Whitford Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Columbia Celia Naylor Professor, Africana Studies and History Departments, Barnard College Teresa Sharpe Senior Lecturer, Sociology, Columbia Gauri Viswanathan Class of 1933 Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Columbia Pablo Piccato Professor of History, Columbia Hannah Chazin Assistant Professor, Anthropology, Columbia Nara Milanich Professor, History, Barnard College Manijeh Moradian Assistant Professor, WGSS, Barnard College Adam Reich Associate Professor, Columbia Sociology Gregory Mann Professor, History, Columbia Mary McLeod Professor of Architecture, Columbia Joseph Slaughter Associate Professor, English and Comparative Literature, Columbia Jennifer Wenzel Professor, English & Comparative Literature and MESAAS, Columbia Lydia H. Liu Wun Tsun Tam Professor in the Humanities, Columbia Hiba Bou Akar Associate Professor, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Columbia Jean Howard George Delacorte Professor in the Humanities, Emerita, Columbia Sarah Haley Associate Professor of Gender Studies and History, Columbia Richard Peña Professor of Film and Media Studies, Columbia D. Max Moerman Professor, Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures, Barnard College Stathis Gourgouris Professor of Classics, English, Comparative Literature & Society, Columbia Bruce Robbins English and Comparative Literature, Columbia Anupama Rao History, Barnard College Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi Assistant Professor, Architecture, Barnard College Jonathan Crary Meyer Schapiro Professor of Modern Art and Theory, Art History, Columbia Rebecca Jordan-Young, Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Barnard College Gregory M. Pflugfelder Associate Professor of Japanese History, Columbia Tey Meadow Associate Professor of Sociology, Columbia Ashraf Ahmed Associate Professor, Columbia Law School Seth J. Prins Assistant Professor of Epidemiology and Sociomedical Sciences Elizabeth Bernstein Professor and Chair, WGSS and Professor of Sociology, Barnard College --