Once upon a time on a Catholic college campus, the United States entered a war in Southwest Asia. At the time, the “liberation theology” movement in the Church was still a thing, and among the more liberal students and faculty on campus, this translated into ROTC being a Very Bad Thing.
Also at that time, roughly 10% of the undergraduate population had an ROTC scholarship. This was Notre Dame my senior year, 1990-1991.
A generous donor had supplied funds for a new ROTC building, completed that fall. Of course, there was a Mass to dedicate it. But we were instructed not to wear our uniforms, because of anti-military sentiment on campus. But that sentiment wasn’t going to be enough to turn down 10% of undergraduate tuition, paid in full by the Department of Defense!
The ground war, Operation Desert Storm, began the same week as the second semester. Priests on faculty handed out conscientious objector forms in class. I wanted to explain there hadn’t been a draft for 16 years and this conflict was unlikely to require one. I opted to keep my mouth shut.
Oh, and there were other awkward moments. Like the revered priest, theologian, professor and former provost who “went on sabbatical to Princeton” at the beginning of the 1990-1991 school year upon substantiated allegations of inappropriate sexual contact with male freshman boys he was to be advising. Outside of resigning his academic positions at the end of his Princeton jaunt, Fr. James Burtchaell faced no adverse consequences for his actions and went on to found an esoteric journal on conservative ethics, Right Things.
I don’t feel the same about my alma mater after these and some other events that were bungled by the administration. But the climate at Notre Dame 30-plus years ago pales compared to what we see on college campuses today.
Students and faculty have been making passionate political statements for a very long time – well before my undergraduate years. And university administrations have been responding stupidly to these demonstrations and their own scandals for as long.
The current campus climate is especially fraught. Social media and the ability to take public shaming to millions of viewers at once with a single anonymous post has brought us cancel culture: the cultural phenomenon where individuals or organizations deemed to have acted or spoken unacceptably are shunned, ostracized, or boycotted.
Simultaneously, universities now face fiercer political interference in faculty appointments and curricula. Texas A&M paid out a $1 million settlement to a journalism professor whose terms of employment changed several times over her previous work on diversity, inclusion and equity. A former New York Times editor, the professor was criticized by a student for her “affiliations with that organization.” The ordeal over the professor’s failed hiring led to the university president’s resignation.
The current war in Israel may be the most trying time for university administration yet. The climate on college campuses is incredibly charged over it. Most notably, the president of the University of Pennsylvania resigned this month after her testimony before Congress where she, along with the presidents of Harvard and MIT, were questioned about their efforts to stem antisemitism on their campuses.
Do students and faculty supporting the Palestinian cause have the right to demonstrate? Absolutely. Just as the students and faculty at Notre Dame had the right to oppose Operation Desert Storm. And I had the right to write an op-ed with my point of view in the student newspaper (Merritt Hamilton Allen: annoying readers since 1991!).
As an American and a military veteran, I take very seriously people’s right to say things I disagree with. University leaders must also address safety and foster an environment of tolerance that supports instruction and learning.
Where things clearly go too far is when individuals on campus themselves are targeted. Targeting ethnicities or religions is not okay: it’s bigotry whether anti-Judaism, anti-Islam, anti-Jewish, or anti-Arab. Demonstrations outside Jewish student centers or Arab community centers are not okay. And campus executives should be developing policies to address this. If safe spaces are common practice, zero tolerance for bigotry should go along with it.
Former Penn president Liz Magill in her testimony to Congress was unable to say that anyone was right or wrong. At some point, however, the “context,” which she cited was her determining factor as to the appropriateness of protest speech, becomes crystal clear. If a mob is calling for the annihilation of your people, whether Jewish, Palestinian, Islamic or Arab, campus security should order them to disperse.
It doesn’t take six weeks of focus groups and navel-gazing to manage campus unrest. It takes the willingness to set standards for acceptable behavior and the strength of character to hold all parties at all levels accountable to them.
Merritt Hamilton Allen is a PR executive and former Navy officer. She appeared regularly as a panelist on NM PBS and is a frequent guest on News Radio KKOB. A Republican, she lives amicably with her Democratic husband north of I-40 where they run one head of dog, and two of cat. She can be reached at news.ind.merritt@gmail.com.