In the 1960s, social critic Paul Goodman offered a parable to describe what had gone wrong with American higher education.

He wrote:

The lesson conveyed by this parable is relevant to understanding worrisome developments unfolding on U.S. college campuses. Israel’s assault on Gaza, following Hamas’ attack of October 7, spawned a nationwide revolt of the young. While organised groups helped mobilize demonstrations demanding a cease-fire and Palestinian rights, the breadth and depth of the effort was more akin to a spontaneous eruption.

In this regard, it was not unlike earlier spontaneous protest movements that sprang up over the past decade: the Women’s March, the “Welcome immigrants” demonstrations that filled U.S. airports in response to the “Muslim ban,” the student-led “March for our Lives” after repeated mass shootings, and the Black Lives Matter movement that erupted after the murder of George Floyd.

The cease-fire/pro-Palestinian movement had much in common with these earlier efforts. Its politics skewed left, it was youth-led, and it was racially, ethnically, and religiously diverse. The difference was that a main locus of its activities was college campuses.

While many have expressed concern that these polices are similar to McCarthy-era repression and intimidation, equally worrisome is what all of this means for the future of the university.

It began with demonstrations, teach-ins, and vigils. But as the war continued into the spring and the world became aware of the mass killings and devastation inflicted by Israel—and the Joe Biden administration’s unconditional support in the face of the enormity of human loss and suffering—the intensity of the student response grew as well. This gave birth to the “encampment movement” that rapidly spread to hundreds of campuses across the country.

From the early stages, the campus anti-war protests were confronted by a number of malign actors who sought to silence or discredit the dissent. Charging that administrations weren’t acting to quash the protests, a number of pro-Israel donors and trustees at some elite universities withdrew their financial support.

While most of the early protests were self-policed, there were often instances where students on both sides of this emotionally charged conflict engaged in hurtful or threatening behaviors. At this point, a second group of malign actors entered the fray.

A few prominent pro-Israel Jewish organisations drummed up an exaggerated campaign charging that the entire protest effort was at its core antisemitic and should be stopped to protect Jewish students who felt threatened or excluded. They published reports, conducted a huge media campaign, and testified before Congress making their case. While some examples they used were clearly hurtful, the bulk of the instances they cited were not, by any reasonable standard, antisemitic.

This effort was enough to provide the impetus for a third group of malign actors:........

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