Back at her home in New Jersey, she enrolled in self-defense classes and bought a Taser for security.
In September, NYU resolved Ms. Cojab’s complaint with the Civil Rights Office, outlining measures to deal with anti-Semitism on campus, as defined in the president’s executive order. But the school did not grant any transgressions, nor did it mention the section of the executive order that cites examples of anti-Israel discourse as anti-Semitic.
Meanwhile, conflicts continue, with or without students on campus. Universities are confused in the middle, to balance irreconcilable imperatives.
Columbia President Lee Bollinger reaffirmed the school’s commitment to freedom of expression, but promised to disregard the student referendum on divestment. NYU President Andrew D. Hamilton expressed “dismay” to Zoom about the cancellation of the webinar with Ms. Khaled, but also rebuked the teachers who sponsored him.
For now, however, the virtual campus makes it easier to not listen to each other, to refuse to “normalize” an opposite point of view. Instead, the two sides investigate their own moral narratives, said Kenneth S. Stern, director of the Center for the Study of Hate at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, and the man who wrote the definition of anti- Semitism invoked in Trump’s executive order. Stern said the definition was made for data collection, not to regulate the debate on campus.
“The reality is that both arguments are true, and to understand the issue you don’t have to choose just one side and fight the other, you have to say that both people have indigenous claims, and one can argue, from the Jewish perspective , of course we have always been there, and the Palestinians can say: ‘We have been here for a long time and we are indigenous.’ Both are true. “
The story is “confusing”, he said, with “justice on both sides and injustice on both sides”.
Even without remote learning, students have little incentive to see the other view and strong support to harden their own side.
Mr. Stern said softly, “It makes conversations very difficult.”