Swarthmore College alumni (I am one) received a message from the college President.
Early this morning, I made the terribly difficult decision to seek assistance from the Swarthmore Borough Police Department to bring to an end a four-day encampment on campus…
On Wednesday, members of Swarthmore Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a suspended student organization, and other protestors erected an encampment on Trotter Lawn. They quickly and repeatedly used social media to invite people from outside of the campus community to join them…
we discovered that some of the property had been vandalized. For instance, the Big Chair1 was covered with graffiti containing abhorrent statements celebrating violence and promoting hate.
…With rising concerns about safety and security on campus, a continued and growing presence of individuals unaffiliated with the College, warnings from outside law enforcement agencies, and no signs that protestors were willing to engage in conversation that would bring the encampment to an end, I felt we had no choice but to seek outside assistance from local law enforcement.
The majority of them are not members of the College community. However, one current student and one former student were among those arrested. They all face misdemeanor trespassing charges. After they are processed by the police, they will be released on their own accord. In addition, both individuals affiliated with the College will be placed on immediate interim suspension and will not be permitted to return to campus until the conclusion of a student conduct process.
It is important that the charges are for misdemeanors, not felonies. I believe that if you are not a citizen, a felony means you can be kicked out of the country pretty easily. But my guess is that a misdemeanor won’t cost you your student visa. Don’t take that as a professional legal opinion.
If Kamala Harris had won in November, do you think that the encampment would have been broken up?2 I know that sounds cynical, but the Swarthmore President’s letter does not make a convincing case that the controversy concerns how the protesters are expressing themselves rather than the prominent hostility toward their cause.
Look, I disagree with Students for Justice for Palestine as much as anyone, but writing offensive graffiti on the Big Chair is not something I would press charges about. Swarthmore has bigger issues as an institution.
Swarthmore College has always leaned toward the radical left. And notwithstanding its Quaker origins, its radicals have occasionally championed or engaged in violence. Swarthmore is where I first came to notice that leftists can be dogmatic and stupid.
But when I was a student, the professors were reasonably sane. Bernie Saffran, a mainstream economist with some respect for Milton Friedman, was the most popular econ professor.
Some alumni from my era ended up on the right. Robert P. George is a well-known social conservative. Jeff Miron is a well-known libertarian.
Today, the faculty appear to be much more radical than when I was there, from 1971-1975. This is a widespread phenomenon in academia. I don’t get worked up over the high ratio of Democrats to Republicans. But the radical leftists just about outnumber the moderates and centrists, and that is a major problem. I think that the radicals are the ones who create a hostile environment on campus not just for conservatives, but for moderates as well. Worst of all, they create a hostile environment for open inquiry.
I would not advise Swarthmore to strive for ideological balance by adding a few conservatives, or by highlighting faculty who are conservative (if there are any). I think that real reform means greatly reducing the influence of radicals.
I would start by eliminating from the course catalog any course that can only be taught by a professor who is an ideologue. For example, Medieval Origins of Racial Capitalism does not sound like a course that could be taught by a mainstream economist or a centrist historian.
The college has various “studies” majors and minors available, including Islamic Studies. It is possible that some or all of the faculty in these departments are intellectually open and promote free inquiry. But these sorts of departments tend to select for closed-minded activists. I would try to eliminate faculty who seem so immersed in critical theory and activism that they are unable to model open discussion and intellectual rigor.
The anti-Israel protests create a no-win public relations problem for the college. If the administration is lenient, it appears to sympathize with the protests and to condone their misbehavior. If it comes down hard, it appears to be suppressing speech over what sound like minor violations of rules and laws. And my worry is that the college administration will be satisfied that they have dealt with the problem.
But the protests are not what is wrong with Swarthmore. The deeper problem is the empowerment of radicals on campus, which undermines the ability of the college to model intellectual humility and curiosity to its students.
As Rabbi David Wolpe wrote regarding Harvard,
Without a vast unlearning—among the faculty, not just the students—all the reports in the world will not change the atmosphere on campus. We will only be spraying perfume on a sewer.
substacks referenced above:
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The Big Chair is in fact a very oversized chair that has sat on the lawn for decades.
By the same token, a lot of the sympathy that the protesters will now receive will be a way for people to express opposition to Donald Trump. I am not sympathetic with those sympathizers.
For the last 20 or 30 years, most colleges have coddled radicals, not only among students and faculty, but also among administrators. They've institutionalized a particular radical politics and philosophy. They've used authoritarian methods to squelch debate and dissent. Because of this, they've lost the public's trust. This matters because they receive public funds, but more importantly because they depend on the public to send them their students.
Now, they seem to recognize they've lost the public's trust. I think they misdiagnose the reason for the loss of trust, and think that squelching the more visible manifestations of the radicalism will regain the trust. If they want to deserve the public's trust, they need to return to truth seeking as the central purpose of the university. There should be room for people of radical views, and courses should explore some of the radical positions, but the teaching shouldn't be radical, and the institution shouldn't take radical positions.
I'm not confident that the current leaders of universities are able to understand the problem, let alone lead towards a solution.
(also a Swattie)
I feel like President Smith has struck a better tone than most, at least in her outreach to alumni. There was a pretty significant Jewish presence on campus when I was a student, so maybe this has something to do with it? Also, the kind of “rules for you, not for me” vibe of this species of protesters, plus the seeming desire to invite others from outside the community, are distinctly inconsistent with the Quaker philosophy that (again when I was there) was sort of the default campus and administration vibe.
I just wanted to add that in addition to faculty, I think the colleges need to take another look at the kinds of students they admit. I suspect that the admissions offices are picking kids based on their social justice bona fides, and not as much on academic interests and abilities. I remember sitting in the dining hall during my sophomore year and everyone going around the table reluctantly admitting that they were complete nerds in high school. I think all of these colleges would do better looking more for nerds than people who want to globalize the intifada…