On Aug. 14, Minouche Shafik resigned as the president of Columbia University. During her tumultuous tenure, Columbia became the most prominent face of student demonstrations against the U.S.-backed Israeli war effort in Gaza.
As the director of the Middle East Center at the University of Utah and a Columbia alumnus, I’m all too aware that political and intellectual trends born at elite institutions eventually reach us here in Utah. While I am deeply saddened by last year’s events and recognize the real challenges facing American higher education, I remain convinced that we can learn from other institutions’ mistakes and plan to do better.
U.S. universities, both private and public, remain the engines of our rise to global dominance in countless fields. And while they are not beyond criticism, they are still the envy of the world, attracting the best and brightest from across the globe. The expertise housed in leading research institutions like the University of Utah remains foundational to our state’s welfare and the nation’s security.
Just hours before Shafik’s April Congressional testimony, student protesters began occupying the South Lawn of Columbia’s campus. Shafik authorized the New York Police Department to clear the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” leading to over 100 arrests. Her escalation of tensions sparked immediate backlash, inspiring similar encampments at over 130 campuses across the country — including here in Utah. Later in April, she again authorized a police raid to clear the student-occupied Hamilton Hall. Graduation was canceled and Columbia became a ghost campus. Shafik’s military-grade approach marked a low point on American campuses since the Vietnam War. Now, as the fall semester begins, 104 Israeli hostages remain in Hamas hands and the death toll in Gaza continues to climb. Israel and the United States stand on the brink of a wider regional war with Iran, Hezbollah and the so-called “axis of resistance.” Judging from her abrupt resignation, it seems she was unwilling to face the potential resumption of the unrest she did so much to inflame.
Shafik’s ham-fisted leadership was a profile in cowardice. She repeatedly failed to address the underlying crisis in Gaza and capitulated to the dangerous premise that antisemitism was the overwhelming driver of campus unrest. She refused to defend her faculty, students and the basic principles of academic freedom. While she acknowledged that “the ultimate answer to antisemitism in all its forms is education,” and seemed to understand that the university’s “core mission” was classroom learning, her testimony strangely failed to highlight that Columbia already possessed world-class faculties in both Middle East Studies and Israel and Jewish Studies. Was access to classroom expertise truly the issue, or was it just politically inconvenient to acknowledge these experts? What if she had grounded herself in faculty expertise instead of pandering to the politicians?
Between November and June, The Chronicle of Higher Education published surveys of some 750 U.S.-based Middle East experts. The data found that 71% of scholars surveyed saw the challenges they faced since Oct. 7 as among the worst in their careers. More than 80% admitted feeling the need to self-censor when discussing Israel and Palestine. More than 81% said they felt pressure to avoid criticism of Israel. And less than 1% of scholars surveyed believed that antisemitism was the primary reason for last year’s demonstrations. Most scholars who were surveyed said they viewed the protests as primarily motivated by Israel’s conduct in Gaza since Oct. 7 (51%) and U.S. support for those actions (31%).
As the data shows, unlike Shafik, Middle East experts saw campus demonstrations as responses to specific geopolitical events. When viewed dispassionately, Gaza becomes a political and diplomatic problem that can be methodically analyzed by historians and political scientists. In this sense, remembering the centrality of expertise on campus is constructive, calming and even hopeful.
At the University of Utah’s Middle East Center, we haven’t forgotten our core mission. Our students have access to nationally and internationally recognized scholars with years of language training and research experience in the region. Instead of getting mired in the reactive politics that plagued many elite institutions, the College of Humanities supported our work and stuck to our long-term strategic planning. As a result, despite last year’s horrible political climate, the center had a banner year. We recruited three new professors of Middle East history and political science and a new post-doctoral fellow in Arabic. These remarkable scholars bring expertise covering Algeria, Iraq, Iran, Israel/Palestine, Kuwait and Turkey. We’ve been able to improve our Arabic language instruction and offer new courses like the History of Israel and Palestine, Comparative Politics of the Middle East, and multiple options in Islamic history. We’re also seeing a marked uptick in student enrollments.
We haven’t forgotten our mission. Area-studies centers like Utah’s were never designed to manage the identity politics of student groups on the campus quad. Dating back to the National Defense Education Act of 1958, Title VI Foreign Language and Area Studies initiatives were meant to build America’s global expertise. During the Cold War, the U.S. government recognized the need for experts with language skills, on-the-ground experience and a cultural competency to represent American national security interests.
Amid last year’s turmoil, we haven’t lost sight of our mandate to prepare average Utahns for a challenging world. While the work of research-informed teaching might seem slow and unglamorous, over the past year, I’ve been privy to countless acts of professionalism and sensible pragmatism that never make the headlines. As a result, I remain cautiously optimistic because I know that our training and expertise offer the best defense against the bigotry and extremism of antisemitism and Islamophobia.
(Photo courtesy of Michael Christopher Low) Michael Christopher Low
Michael Christopher Low, assistant professor of history, directs the Middle East Center at the University of Utah. He is the author of “Imperial Mecca: Ottoman Arabia and the Indian Ocean Hajj” (Columbia University Press, 2020). He is currently working on a new book, “Saltwater Kingdoms: Fossil-Fueled Water and Climate Change in Arabia,” under contract with University of California Press. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the University of Utah.
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