“If we don’t resort to censorship, we need to think more about the responsibilities of all actors involved with this difficult speech… This suggests an important role for colleges: helping students to exercise these responsibilities rather than simply trying to control them through speech codes.”

In the following guest post, Adam Omar Hosein, associate professor of philosophy and affiliate professor of law at Northeastern University, discusses how universities need to protect free speech while developing an “ethics of speech” that articulates the responsibilities of students, faculty, and other members of the university community.

It is part of the ongoing series, “Philosophers On the Israel-Hamas Conflict“.

Speech, Campuses, Antisemitism
by Adam Hosein

It’s clear that something was lacking in the congressional testimony of the three university presidents. They were quite right in their claims that standard campus speech codes, as well as the related First Amendment doctrine, protects the expression of odious, even horrifying ideas. And I think that these protections are necessary. Yet their remarks were insufficient. Just because a university formally protects speech doesn’t mean it is a healthy community of equals. We need an ethics of speech that goes beyond just legalistic formal protections.

What I want to do here, in a very preliminary way, is start a conversation about what this ethics might look like, for speakers, listeners, and institutions. I will suggest that part of why the presidents struggled is that there are in fact some hard, underexplored issues about how to respond to difficult, contested forms of speech on a campus, including speech that some want to label antisemitic. But rather than being purely defensive about higher-education, we should ultimately make clear that campuses are one of the few places in society where a valuable discussion of the issues can still take place, if appropriate measures are taken.

First, a brief reminder of the speech at stake. Despite Elise Stefanik’s disingenuous questions, campuses have not seen direct calls for a genocide against Jewish people. What we have seen is much more complicated: the use of phrases such “From the River to the Sea,” “Globalize the Intifada,” and “Free Palestine.” These phrases do not directly refer to violence, but count as “difficult speech” because some students associate them with liberation while others associate them with dangerous, even genocidal threats.

For example, “From the River to the Sea,” can be read simply as a call for liberation for Palestinians within the space between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, especially for self-determination within the 1948 borders, or it can be read as a call to remove Israelis from that space, through either violence and expulsion. “Intifada” is most associated in the popular consciousness with the violence of the Second Intifada. But the word itself has a more complicated history: the Arabic word “Intifada” means (roughly) “shaking off,” and in the context of Palestinian resistance it can also be associated with, say, the non-violent student protests of the 1980s. A lot also turns on how we understand “globalize”: whether it means rally worldwide support for Palestinian resistance or (on the most disturbing possible reading) conduct violent uprisings worldwide.

Perhaps you think it is naïve to complicate the interpretation of the phrases and that some or all should all be banned on campuses. In that case, consider those who feel threatened by unqualified support for Israel on campuses, which they read as indifference to the death of Palestinians or indeed as an endorsement of ethnic cleansing and potential genocide. Should all of this speech be banned? In the end, I think even-handed protections for speech will be to the advantage of all sides in these debates.

If we don’t resort to censorship, we need to think more about the responsibilities of all actors involved with this difficult speech. The most basic problem arises from the fact (which I’ve explained at greater length in earlier, co-authored work) that neither criticism of Israel nor anti-Zionism is necessarily antisemitic but each can be antisemitic. For example, some anti-Zionism is motivated by the view that under present conditions equality for Israelis and Palestinians can only be achieved within a single, pluralist state. But anti-Zionism can certainly be antisemitic as when, for example, it is motivated by animosity towards Jewish people, reflects stereotypes that Jewish people uniquely cannot be trusted to wield state power, or is expressed through tropes about Jewish perfidy. Likewise, criticisms of Israel can be legitimate condemnations of particular policies, but can also involve problematic stereotypes and so on. For instance, observe how easily some people move from discussing the “pro-Israel lobby” to “the Jewish lobby,” even though there are many Jewish people who are critical of Israel or are anti-Zionist, and a substantial amount of U.S. support for Israel comes from evangelical Christians.

These distinctions create responsibilities on the part of speakers and listeners in debates about Israel. Speakers should consider why certain words or phrases might reasonably, or at least understandably, be understood or felt as threatening or hurtful by fellow members of their community. That includes taking into account the full history of violence against Jewish people as well as present day rising hostility. Speakers also need to ask whether there is any special value in phrasing or presenting things a particular way and whether an alternative form of expression would do just as well. For example, before making Holocaust analogies, it is important to consider how fresh the memory of the Holocaust is in many Jewish communities, the “psychic familiarity” to many Jewish people of the Oct. 7th violence, and the fact that alternative analogies are surely available. Whichever phrases anti-Zionists use to rally their cause, it’s important for them to make clear that they equally value Israeli life and what they think peaceful co-existence might look like. Listeners need to consider the full range of goals that speakers may be pursuing. They should ask, for instance, whether everyone with a Palestinian flag is in fact aligning themselves with Hamas. And they too should consider the broader context, including the fact that the U.S. is not a passive observer to the war in Gaza but a major funder of Israel’s military operations and the key veto to U.N. ceasefire efforts. So protestors have important reasons for actions in the U.S. in particular that aren’t about targeting Jewish students.

This suggests an important role for colleges: helping students to exercise these responsibilities rather than simply trying to control them through speech codes.

A relatively straightforward task of this role during the present conflict is making sure that everyone is clear on the core facts by, for instance, dispelling conspiracies about the attacks of Oct. 7th, and making clear the full scale of civilian deaths and infrastructure destruction in Gaza. That includes emphasizing in a range of classes the importance of media literacy and good information.

In the longer-term, discussions of antisemitism shouldn’t only come up when there is war in the Middle East: students should be aware of the history of antisemitism as well as contemporary trends including not just left-wing antisemitism but ring-wing conspiracies that plausibly pose the greatest threat to Jewish people in the U.S., such as the “Great Replacement Theory” echoed by Stefanik. And while I have been focused on antisemitism, there is also of course also crucial work to done be in education around Islamophobia, including the long and distinctive history of anti-Palestinian racism. There have already been important efforts on colleges to ensure that students are exposed to teaching about racism and that teaching ought to include discussions of antisemitism and Islamophobia. My own class this semester in the philosophy of race, for instance, included a week on each of these topics, as well as a walking tour to discuss Jewish and Black history in the city, superbly led by a colleague in Jewish Studies. (All of this was planned long before October 7th.) The relationship between anti-Zionism and antisemitism is not the place to start a conversation, but something to consider after establishing a shared understanding of the full range of forms of antisemitism.

In addition to educating, colleges can also help students fulfil their responsibilities by modelling how to engage in debates about the Middle East in a manner that is empathetic, well-informed, and so on. For instance, faculty panels can be organized that are likely to draw students from across the political spectrum and conducted in places, like large dorms, that are easily accessible to students.

Work of this kind is hard and takes time but is of course already being done by many dedicated faculty and staff members. While media attention has been almost exclusively focused on campus failings, campuses are in fact one of the few places in society with the speech protections and intellectual resources to frame lively but respectful disagreement. It’s time to use those strengths and trust what our students are capable of if we provide them with the necessary tools and support.

The post Speech, Campuses, Antisemitism (guest post) first appeared on Daily Nous.