To the editor,
I am writing to express my dismay at the open letter written by several Lafayette College professors and staff calling on the college to apologize for issuing a warning letter to student protestors who violated the college’s Student Code of Conduct. These professors and staff stated in their letter, “It is deeply distressing and disturbing that Lafayette’s administration chose to intimidate a portion of the students present, for their activism and exercising their rights to free speech, free assembly and freedom of expression.”
I strongly believe in every student’s right to free speech and to express diverse viewpoints but in this case, the student protestors did not merely exercise their rights to free speech, as the letter alleges. Rather they disrupted campus tours and events and marched down school hallways chanting loudly, disrupting the work obligations and offices of staff.
Lafayette is a private institution and thus is not obligated to allow unfettered student speech. Even if it were a public institution, however, the protests were not mere speech but conduct, actions that interfered in the freedom of movement and functioning of others on campus. The right to protest is always subject to reasonable time, place and manner restrictions. Just as it would have been beyond reasonable expectations if these students had interfered with the faculty’s freedom of movement and speech of other students and of staff.
Moreover, the signatories of the letter quickly make clear that they are not advocating for free speech but rather a particular political agenda by insisting that the administration “publicly commit to disclosure and engaging in conversation about the divestment from any organization or company that is financially backing Israeli ecocide, genocide and scholasticide.” These signatories revealed their hand that they want the university not to provide a conducive atmosphere for discussion and debate, but rather to promote a single perspective on Israel and Hamas whom they don’t criticize in any way, and thereby indoctrinate the student body.
The college should not go along with these extreme demands. It should make room for students to protest on campus but not allow for disruptive behavior or politicalization of the college’s core mission, which from my point of view is to educate students, not to indoctrinate them.
David Roth ’70
Jeff R • May 15, 2024 at 3:00 pm
Thank you David for showing the courage and fortitude to speak out against the deeply disturbing views so prevalent today at Lafayette and other campuses, fortunately the small, clear minority even though the loudest speaking, and filling up the comment column here. Thank God for the adults running our institutions of higher learning. What a shame more of your view do not choose to weigh in supporting the rational views you so well express.
Small, clear minority • May 17, 2024 at 5:05 pm
“Small, clear minority” is winning divestment referendums at practically all colleges campuses that hold them by wide margins, but okay.
Khalid Almotaery • May 15, 2024 at 2:26 pm
Students and professors are the core of this institution. They have clearly and peacefully expressed their views and their voices must be heard.
Khalid Almotaery • May 15, 2024 at 2:12 pm
Students along with professors have expressed their views peacefully and they have every right to do so. However, there is a clear effort to silence everyone on campus.
Anonymous • May 15, 2024 at 1:13 pm
It’s no shocker that a millionaire trustee and managing director of a private investment firm is so out of touch that he has no idea that the entire point of a protest is to disrupt.
Alumna ‘15 • May 15, 2024 at 4:30 pm
Reminds me of this study from the 1960s that has resurfaced recently showing 85% of white Americans believed the civil rights protests and its methods were not actually helping black people.
Nothing has changed or at least not enough has changed. We saw the same maligning happen with BLM in 2020 and the same tried and tested playbook is being repeated this year.
Young Alum/Not a big donor/Peasant • May 15, 2024 at 12:52 pm
Mr. Roth, thank you for allowing the entire community to see the sort of thinking that dominates decision making at institutes like Lafayette.
It’s unfortunate that there is not a single mention of Palestinians in your entire letter. As if they don’t exist, as if at least 30,000 of them have not been killed, most of them women and children, mostly with munitions from companies institutes like Lafayette invest in. As if “Israel and Hamas” as you mention exist in a vacuum and there hasn’t been a 75 year long ethnic cleansing and land theft operation that keeps half of the population from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea under subjugation, in ghettoes and bantustans.
By the way I have looked at multiple videos and images from the protests. At no point were any staff or students restricted from movement. The students simply marched around the Quad and then sat outside the President’s office and there are videos where VP Moschenross freely goes into the President’s office before shutting the door in a student’s face.
I also find it amusing that there is never such outrage over the countless and much bigger events that happen on the Quad where White, wealthy students partake in certain activities that make life an inconvenience for other students. Almost like there is an agenda behind using this event, framing it as disruptive which is questionable and restricting freedom of speech on campus simply because you don’t like what you are hearing.
By the way, no one is indoctrinating any students. The constant stream of images and videos we see coming out of Gaza are alone to radicalize an entire generation, indeed which they have. It is time you put an ear to the pulse of people who make Lafayette, Lafayette: passionate, worldly students and intelligent, skilled faculty. They refuse to turn a blind eye to the suffering of people your generation have de-humanized.
Selin Sinan Uz ‘02 • May 13, 2024 at 9:26 pm
We all should feel grateful that the student or faculty body cared enough to speak against genocide. I am the child of Kurdish and Armenian ancestors whose people were systematically massacred because no one cared. Let’s not forget that the whole world was scummed into their prejudices and allowed Holocaust to happen. Any person with little intelligence should know the fact that Hamas is the enemy of the people. Also, any intelligent person should be aware of the fact that Israel is used for the greater spread of anti-Semitism. The last thing the world needs right now is to choose sides in the middle of a genocide. However, I still don’t understand how colleges and universities take part in the genocide that our government is insisting on. These letters should be directed to the white house, not the colleges.