Jesse Singal on the ridiculous “punishment” given to NYU protestors

As the Chicago Maroon reported in February (see my post on it here), a group of pro-Palestinian protestors who had violated University of Chicago rules by participating in sit-in in the admissions office were required to submit essays as part of their punishment.  I guess the point was to give students a chance to reflect on—and presumably repent about—their disruptive conduct. But the result was the opposite: the students doubled down in their activism and demonization of the University. Here are just two of several letters I reproduced:

“… I participated in the sit-in on November 9 because it is proven that my University has investments in weapons manufacturing companies, and I could not continue to attend classes and go about my day-to-day without thinking about how the institution I am a part of is facilitating the genocide and displacement of millions of Palestinian people. There is a long and honorable legacy of the sit-in protest being used to peacefully remind large institutions of the harm that they are causing people through their actions, a legacy that was taken up by students of UCUP. And if UChicago, a supposed stalwart of free speech, retaliates against students for taking up this form of protest and trying to communicate with administration at the University they themselves attend, what does that mean about free speech at this institution? Although I can understand the stress this may have placed on the Deans-on-Call, that was not intentional. The stress I experienced for the past several months knowing that my University is invested in companies that build bombs, and the stress that I experienced when the administration repeatedly refused to meet with us to discuss our demands, however, has been caused by the University…”

Sahar Punjwani, Class of 2024

. . . . and another:

“… The University of Chicago has, in my time here, taught me a lot. This sit-in, my arrest, and your office’s obligation to begin disciplinary proceedings against me, have taught me a lot as well that the University would rather criminalize and punish its students—those most committed not only to values of free expression but also noble pursuits of justice, equality, and liberation, and, as it has not passed my notice, most of whom are Black/Indigenous and students of color, and low-income—than meet with them and be transparent about its investments in arms companies.…

… I believe myself to be an excellent student and upstanding member of the UChicago community. I would never and have never sought to violate university policy. I sought to exercise my right to free expression, as established and championed by the Chicago Principles; and, after having attended the numerous quad tabling events, art builds, and rallies leading up to this sit-in, I felt moved to participate in this sit-in in an abundance of despair over my university’s failure to recognize its role in or even name the Israeli genocide in Gaza, where now over 22,000 Palestinians have been killed. Knowing that a Palestinian child was being killed every 10 minutes, knowing the school year in Palestine was canceled as all schools had been bombed or turned into refugee shelters, I could not continue to merely attend my classes. It is precisely because of my education that I participated in this sit-in; my education here has fostered a young mind that cannot turn a blind eye to the genocide that is taking place with my tuition money…”

Kelly Hui, Class of 2024, Student Marshal [JAC note: Hui,  was one of the four students whose degree was withheld by the University over their participation in the later Encampment, spurring a lot of protest on graduation day yesterday (see next post).

As you see, if the essays were meant to “reform” the students, they failed miserably.  The self-reflection that was supposed to teach students that “free speech” does not justify disruption (or at least disruption without punishment) led only to intensified demonization of the University and increased emphasis on its support of the so-called Israeli “genocide”. As you see, Hui, one of the students disciplined for participating in the sit-in, is now subject to disciplinary proceedings over participation in the later encampment. She is of course entitled to her views, but clearly the “essay” assignment didn’t change them.

A similar and risible attempt to get protestors to “self-educate” is the subject of Jesse Singal’s latest Substack post, dealing with protestors at New York University (NYU) who were asked to “self-educate” after illegally disrupting campus activities. But their “self-education assignment”, involving completing a complex series of exercis in a module, is even more ludicrous than was Chicago’s.

Click to read:

The background (Singal’s words are indented, and one quote he gives is doubly indented):

As you may have heard, there is a war between Israel and Hamas. As you may have also heard, there has been a surge of pro-Palestinian and/or anti-Israeli activism on many college campuses. While NYU didn’t get as much attention as its bigger and more Ivy-covered brother uptown, Columbia University, a group of students there were disciplined for their actions during protests.

Now that the dust has settled, the generous administrators at NYU have offered these students a chance to evade disciplinary action. As Ginia Bellafante reported in TheNew York Times a couple weeks ago:

While the university eventually moved to have the criminal charges against the students dropped, it initiated a disciplinary process against some of them (the university will not disclose how many) that seemed as if it had been conjured in the writers’ room of a dystopian sci-fi series. In order to return to the university, some students would be required to complete a 49-page set of readings and tasks — “modules” — known as the Ethos Integrity Series, geared at helping participants “make gains” in “moral reasoning” and “ethical decision making.” In a letter to the administration, Liam Murphy, a professor at the law school, called it “an intellectual embarrassment,” betraying the university’s mission as a training ground for independent thought and forcing students merely “to consume pages and pages of pablum.”

The Ethos Integrity Series was not the only command. Some students would be assigned a “reflection paper,” the details of which were laid out by the Office of Student Conduct. In it they would address several questions, among them: What are your values? Did the decision you made align with your personal values? What have you done or need still to do to make things right? Explicitly instructed not to “justify” their actions, the students were told to turn their papers in by May 29 in “12-point Times New Roman or similar font.”

Ben Burgis, who wrote a piece about all this in Jacobin that you should read, got a copy of the module, which he generously shared with me. You can read it here.

You should read Burgis’s piece but especially the copy of the module students were supposed to work through. The object, of course, was to convince the students, after reading and writing about morality and their own actions and values, that their illegal protests were immoral and wrong.  But as you see above, these protesters are already convinced that they were right, regardless of how much deep thought they’d devoted to their actions, and so these questions are a waste of time. NYU’s module includes, for example, a list of 42 “personal values” that you’re supposed to rank in order of importance. Here are the first ten:

Then there are a series of essays designed to promote self-reflection that leads to contrition. Here’s one:

Part 2: Essay about Sanctioned Action

In this essay, discuss the following questions using your responses from above to provide thorough reflection:

1. What was going on in your life leading up to and at the time of the sanctioned action? What influenced your decisions with regard to the sanctioned action?

2. Which of your values influenced your involvement in the situation that resulted in the sanctioned action, and which values were not considered in this situation? How so?

3. Why did you make the decisions you made regarding the action that lead to this sanction?

4. What were the outcomes of the situation and who was affected by those outcomes?

5. What have you learned (in general and about yourself) since the time of the situation that resulted in the sanctioned action?

Now think about how protesters are going to answer those questions. Here’s one more (it’s a LONG module):

9. What decision would a “Person of Character” make?

In fitting with a non-consequentialist perspective, Nash discusses asking what you would do if you were acting in character – meaning if you were acting in a manner to further your own personal, moral story that you are “attempting to live‟” (p. 15). Nash also suggests stepping into the shoes of a person who you respect and consider to be an ethical person. Identify a few of these people. The Persons of Character may be parents, professors, religious leaders, a co-worker or boss, etc. Look at the ethical dilemma from the perspective of one or two of these Moral Exemplars. What decision would these people make? Are these decisions a part of your set of options? If not, add them to the list.

You can image which “people of character” would be chosen!

The whole point is that this dumb series of modules is highly unlikely to change the minds of any protesters, particularly those who were so determined to act that they went beyond free, unsanction speech to violate university principles.  The module is not an “educational” experience in which students get to reflect on both sides of an issue. Rather, it’s designed to make students come to a predetermined conclusion—that their actions were wrong.

Singal also concludes that this exercise is fatuous, but favors leniency towards protesters, in the form of a warning for a first violation and punishment after subsequent ones. I agree with that, except that many of the protesters—like Hui mentioned above—were involved in multiple disruptions but were never given any initial warnings (Hui did participate in the essay exercise, which I suppose counts as a warning).

This stuck out to me as neatly exemplifying a certain very buzzword-heavy, bureaucracy-friendly approach to serious issues like ethics and social justice. My preference, at the end of the day, is toward leniency for nonviolent student protesters. If that means they have to fill out some idiotic form, fine. But why not do what Columbia did to some of the student protesters up there, and simply ask them to sign a document agreeing that henceforth, they will follow the student conduct guidelines? Then if they violate them again, no one can say they weren’t warned or didn’t have every opportunity to follow the rules.

This approach, on the other hand. . . it’s just debasing. It perverts the whole idea of moral inquiry and self-examination. It feels like what you get when the administrative class becomes too powerful within education.

Singal is right. Let students engage in civil disobedience if they feel strongly, and then impose the proper sanctions on them for doing so. (Until the war protests this year, accepting one’s punishment was an integral part of civil disobedience.)  But don’t try forcible education to change their views. That violates the entire purpose of a university, which is fostering free inquiry.