Columbia University President Lee Bollinger and New York University President John Sexton dismissed concerns about anti-Semitism and anti-Israel bias in major universities as “absurd” and “the rhetoric of victimization” in a debate held in Manhattan last week.
“It’s a preposterous thought, that argument from students, that there would be a serious bias against any group,” Sexton said. “Is there a way that individuals could point to particular, isolated pieces of evidence and say, ‘That presents me as a victim’? Yes. Is there a basis? Absolutely not.”
“The idea that Columbia is anti-Israel or anti-Semitic is absurd,” Bollinger added. “It’s really, really crazy.”
The issue of anti-Semitic bias arose in a debate called “Academic Integrity, the Middle East, and the State of the Academy,” moderated by Yeshiva University President Richard Joel.The audience consisted of largely older citizens concerned by student reports of Middle East bias and anti-Semitic attitudes becoming prevalent in major universities. Joel said he was voicing a question that “reflects a concern in the Jewish community, a perception not just fostered by the media, but by some students” who “report a serious anti-Israel bias that permeates the classroom, that permeates the campus, and in many ways expresses itself in a sense of intimidation.”
Both Columbia and NYU have struggled with allegations of political and religious bias in the past year, although the charges are not limited to anti-Semitism. In September, Columbia became the center of heated controversy after Dean Lisa Anderson invited Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, known for his vehement espousal of anti-Israel views and Holocaust denial, to speak at the university’s World Leaders Forum. Though Bollinger offered to move the discussion to the university’s School of International and Public Affairs, the invitation sparked such outrage from students on campus and in other universities that he eventually withdrew it, citing an inability to ensure adequate security for the event. NYU faced similar criticism from Muslims when a student group attempted to display Danish cartoons depicting and sometimes ridiculing Mohammad, a blasphemous act by Islamic doctrine, as part of a panel discussion in March. Protests from a Muslim student organization on campus led NYU administrators to prohibit the display; like Bollinger, they expressed concern about their ability to guarantee safety at the event.
“There’s a difference between a university function, a departmental function, and a student function,” Bollinger explained, addressing accusations that he had offered to host a speech by Ahmadinejad at Columbia to advance an anti-Israel agenda. “I cannot exercise my power as president to advance a political agenda…for example, I cannot decide to invite Democratic candidates to speak on our campus to the exclusion of other people.
“But students,” he said, “are quite different. Students can try to use their groups to advance a political agenda. Sometimes there are those looking at the university who fail to make that distinction.”
“Instinctively, Americans are very bad,” Sexton added, at honing their “ability to listen, especially to what is felt and experienced as a hostile idea. We charge our faculty not only with imparting to the students fixed and permanent truths, but extending our comprehension of truth, and that first step in extending it is something that the holders of whatever the orthodoxy is at the time find extremely challenging.”
Bollinger also questioned criticism that some professors within the universities have been using the classroom to promote their own political beliefs, noting that “we’ve all had teachers or faculty whose method of teaching was to take a particular point of view as a way of provoking discussion in the class, and it can be very successful.”
“There’s a difference between trying to inculcate an ideological agenda and teaching techniques which try to explore the complexity of the subject,” he concluded. “I think that distinction is critically important to bear in mind and to implement, and it is implemented, in my judgment, within the faculty at Columbia.”
While both presidents acknowledged Bollinger’s assertion that occasionally “you encounter deviation from what we’re talking about,” Sexton objected that “deviants from the norm that we’ve established are very rare and widely shamed.”
In fact, Sexton said in reference to the concerns about anti-Semitism “permeating the classroom” at major universities, “what is really to be deplored is not the gestalt on our campus in this regard, but the effort by watch groups of all kinds” to “examine our faculty balance and faculty appointments to see if enough of particular political stripes are being appointed.”
“This kind of external inquisition into what a university is doing could end up destroying the university,” he cautioned. “I don’t think there’s anybody that concerned about this issue that they would want to see that happen.”
Bollinger distanced perceived anti-Semitic events or programs at Columbia from the university’s administration, explaining them as part of a natural phenomenon.
“The world is periodically filled with highly emotional, highly antagonistic debate, and our campuses are not immune,” he said. “Statements that are made that one may disagree with or find deeply offensive or repulsive, to mistake that for a campus that exhibits anti-Semitism is a very tragic mistake.”
While Bollinger never referred to the cancellation of Ahmadinejad’s speech specifically, he described the cancellations of such events as “a failure of the university, that we could not speak as a society about the religious and ethnic concepts” that the event would have touched upon, noting that “we don’t have enough scholarship and scrutiny on the Middle East…on Arab cultures…and this is a major problem and opportunity for American universities.”
“We struggle with often at-odd values that clash,” Joel admitted, expressing his appreciation of the difficulties faced by both presidents. “Generally, the American college campus is a very friendly place for the Jews, so we notice it when the outrage happens.”
He added, however, that “each year the ADL [Anti-Defamation League] does an index of anti-Semitism, and for the last few years, the safest place in society for Jews is the universities.” The ADL website listed college graduates and graduate school graduates as less likely to hold anti-Semitic views according to the 2005 Survey of American Attitudes Towards Jews in America.
Ultimately, Bollinger concluded that Columbia and other academic institutions would continue to serve as a forum for candid political debate and to present controversial viewpoints even if they are considered offensive by some.
“The university must live according to its principles,” he said. “It will be tested and known for its commitment to those principles.”