Duke professors advocated for the University to adopt a policy of institutional neutrality on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a panel on civil discourse during Duke’s 2024 Provost’s Forum Monday.
The six-hour forum, hosted by Provost Alec Gallimore, focused on the role of universities in discussing and engaging with the reactions on college campuses following the Oct. 7 attacks and the ongoing war in Gaza.
Gallimore launched the Provost’s Initiative on the Middle East in February to “make space in the Duke campus community for rigorous and respectful debate in which differing perspectives are welcome on current and past conflicts in the region.”
“Universities are frequently the venues for emotionally charged debates and demonstrations … but the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas and Israel's war in Gaza have provoked a response on American college campuses like nothing seen in recent memory,” Gallimore said. “Not since the late 1960s when violent protests erupted over civil rights and the Vietnam War have universities experienced such polarizing internal conflict.”
College campuses across the nation were the sites of protests and encampments earlier this year, a movement that erupted last spring with hundreds of student arrests and administrative upheaval at several universities.
Duke saw many of its own students involved in demonstrations on campus and in the greater Triangle area last year. Notably, around 100 graduates from the Class of 2024 walked out of their commencement ceremony in a pro-Palestinian display and several Duke students were arrested in April following an encampment at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
This year’s event, which was held at the Karsh Alumni and Visitors Center but provided overflow seating in Page Auditorium, featured three sessions. It began with a panel of Duke faculty and one Duke student who spoke about University efforts to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. This was followed by a panel of Duke faculty and campus religious leaders on civil discourse and concluded with a keynote address on antisemitism and Islamophobia on college campuses.
Past forum themes have included the role of generative AI and social media in society, freedom of speech on college campuses and the relationship between race and policing.
Duke outreach in Gaza
Abbas Benmamoun, vice provost for faculty advancement and professor of Asian & Middle Eastern studies and linguistics who serves on the Provost Initiative’s leadership team, introduced the first session’s four panelists.
David Hasan, professor of neurosurgery, spoke about his experience volunteering in Gaza in the first months of the Israel-Hamas war as a person of Palestinian descent. He traveled to the region first in December 2023 and stayed for a week, leaving his wife and seven-year-old daughter behind to provide medical services to those living in the war-torn region, then returned to Gaza in March to continue the work.
He explained that much of the region had experienced significant destruction — “in some areas up to 100%” — due to the conflict, adding that many of those in Gaza lived in tents with “no food, no access to water [and] no medicine” and often suffered from infection as a result.
“There’s no infrastructure whatsoever,” Hasan said.
Hasan stated that one of the most difficult parts of the experience was the “constant bombing and shelling” in the region, which made conducting medical operations exceedingly difficult. Compounding the issue, doctors in Gaza had very few resources at their disposal — Hasan shared that he packed a suitcase full of medical equipment to bring with him on his first trip because he had been warned that “there was nothing there.”
Since returning to the United States, Hasan has delivered addresses at several universities and international conferences and also spoken with media organizations about his experience to raise awareness about the humanitarian crisis in the region.
“I will not speak of politics,” he said. “I only have one language — it’s the humanitarian effort.”
Hasan’s speech was followed by Seth Cohen, professor of head and neck surgery and communication sciences who also visited the region in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attacks but spoke from a Jewish background.
Cohen acknowledged that the conflict “is a very personal thing for many people in this room [and] many people at Duke and in North Carolina.” He shared that his son was in Israel for nine months of the war and that he knows many people with “friends, family [and] loved ones” in Israel who have been impacted by the violence.
After hearing firsthand accounts of the devastation caused by the Oct. 7 attacks from family members and colleagues in Israel and witnessing “silence, justification and glorification” alongside “condemnation and outrage” from his community in the Triangle, Cohen decided he “needed to do something.”
He joined the emergency medical registry of the American Healthcare Professionals and Friends for Medicine in Israel — founded in 1950 to ensure “Israel’s emergency preparedness” and train Israeli doctors in “cutting-edge medicine” in the U.S. before they assume leadership positions in Israel — and traveled to Israel with the organization in February.
“Israeli society needs lots of things. One of the things they need is to be understood and to be believed that what happened on Oct. 7 actually happened on Oct. 7,” he said. “And so we went.”
His primary takeaway from the experience was the “inherent humanism” of the Israeli health care system.
“This should give hope for coexistence, in my opinion. You have Jews, Muslims, Christians and Druze that are all working together providing compassionate care for Jews, Muslims, Christians and Druze,” Cohen said. “… The only thing we cared about was a patient in front of us.”
Erika Weinthal, John O. Blackburn distinguished professor in the Nicholas School of the Environment and chair of the environmental social systems division, then spoke about projects at Duke she’s been involved with that aim to “make a difference,” including a publication on climate security in the MENA region.
Weinthal opened her remarks by sharing that her father fled Nazi Germany in 1940 at age 10, a personal history that has compelled her to take action to combat contemporary humanitarian crises.
“I just always think about my father’s lost childhood,” she said. “He lost his whole youth, and he always gave back to people in our community.”
Weinthal now studies the intersection between the environment and conflict — how competition for resources and other environmental issues can spark conflict, but also how natural resources can be a tool for diplomacy and peacebuilding. She focuses primarily on water and energy systems as critical pieces of infrastructure that are often targeted during wartime.
She shared ways that Duke is currently engaging students in work around these topics in relation to the Israel-Hamas war.
“In many ways, this is to create projects that engage students on some of the most critical global issues of our time while also working with those on the ground — with the environmental, the humanitarian, the human rights organizations — so students can learn from those that have different lived experiences but are also operating in a different context than what we are doing in the classroom,” she said.
One such project that Weinthal previously worked with students on is building a database of targeted water systems and other critical infrastructure in the Middle East.
Weinthal is also co-leading a full-year Bass Connections project with Hasan beginning this fall that aims to provide Germany-based nonprofit Clean Shelter with “a comprehensive assessment and plan for immediate, ongoing emergency relief in Gaza as well as longer-term planning for rebuilding.” The project is part of the new pop-up theme of “geopolitical conflict and humanitarian crises in the Middle East and beyond,” but Weinthal noted that research focusing on humanitarian work and infrastructure support in the region has “been going on for a very long time.”
Junior Pranav Mukund closed the panel by sharing his efforts to get involved in the aid effort as an engineering student, which began after listening to Hasan speak about his medical mission trips motivated him to take action himself.
“I have no ethnic, racial or religious tie to this cause, but I do feel a sense of obligation and a concern for human health, safety and quality of life,” Mukund said.
According to Mukund, prior to the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, there were 813 schools, over 600,000 students, 22,000 teachers and 12 universities in Gaza. As of May, no schools were open in the region, and over 80% of school buildings had been destroyed.
In response to the challenges facing children in Gaza, Mukund launched two projects that focus on the concepts of “school” and “play.”
This summer, he co-wrote a grant with another Duke student for an “Educ-Aid Gaza Project” to aid teachers in the region with the process of restarting education efforts.
Mukund is also working on a “Playing for Power” project that seeks to fulfill two needs for the region: a lack of consistent electricity and a lack of activities to occupy children in refugee camps. Through a partnership with EGR 101, students will work to develop a toy that can charge a portable battery pack to power a cell phone or lightbulbs in tents.
“I want to be able to tell my kids when they read about this in history books that I did something, that I’ve tried to enact change,” Mukund said. “… Just think about the legacy you want to have.”
Civil discourse around the Israel-Hamas war
Luke Powery, dean of Duke Chapel and professor of homiletics and African and African American studies, moderated a panel on “dialogue and discourse amid differences” featuring insights from professors and religious leaders on campus.
Powery opened the session by referencing Article 1 of the University’s bylaws, which among the institution’s principal aims to “promote a respectful spirit of dialogue and understanding.”
Multiple panelists began by challenging the notion that the ongoing conflict in Gaza should be framed as a “Jewish vs. Muslim issue or Israeli vs. Palestinian issue.”
“I think this conflict and any other multigenerational conflict is really a human issue,” said Mara Revkin, associate professor of law and political science.
Rabbi Elana Friedman emphasized the significance of the “idea of disagreement” in Jewish teaching as a means to “make [the world] hopefully a better place” by interrogating it.
Chaplain Joshua Salaam, program director of the Center for Muslim Life, expressed a similar view, commentating that “in general, the fighting starts when people no longer have the skills to talk.”
Revkin stressed that a core prerequisite to any civil discourse is that the dialogue is voluntary. Nevertheless, she added that instructors and administrators can work to help students “understand the value of engaging” in such conversations and encourage their participation.
Charlotte Sussman, professor of English and chair of the newly created committee on academic freedom and responsibility, free expression and engagement, identified “patience” and “slowness” as critical elements of successful civil discourse, also pointing to universities as key facilitators in this way.
Visiting Professor John Rose, formerly associate director of Duke’s Civil Discourse Project, advocated for having conversations instead of debates.
“The late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks once said that a debate is an exchange in which one side wins, one side loses and neither side comes away changed. A conversation is an exchange in which neither side wins or loses but both sides come away changed,” Rose said. “We need to learn how to have conversations about these controversial issues.”
Salaam asserted that “helping students frame the whole conflict academically would be a huge service to the conversation.”
Revkin underscored the importance of understanding the diverse perspectives brought to conversations, noting that “whatever our rights to freedom of speech — which are very well-protected rights in the United States — thinking about the impact of our words based on how other people perceive them [is still important].”
Friedman echoed this statement, pointing to “a rise of antisemitism, a rise of Islamophobia [and] anti-Arab hatred” in recent years that show how insensitive rhetoric can lead to real violence.
Mbaye Lo, associate professor of the practice of Asian and Middle Eastern studies, stressed the importance of “not knowing” and maintaining humility in difficult conversations.
In response to a question about whether there are some views so extreme that they should not be listened to, Rose drew on a philosophy he incorporates into his class, “How to Think in an Age of Political Polarization.”
“If it’s a live question in our country that divides a certain number of the people … of good will and sound mind, then it’s a live topic in my class,” he said. “In making that move, I do not think that I am endorsing those views. I think I am endorsing liberal education in a liberal democracy.”
Friedman called for more faculty to be trained on facilitating dialogue across different viewpoints, sharing that she found the experience “transformative.”
One audience member asked whether the panelists believed the University should take a stance on the crisis in Gaza.
Rose and Revkin advocated for Duke to “follow other universities” and adopt a policy of institutional neutrality in order to avoid “chilling speech” and “distorting the production of knowledge.”
Antisemitism and Islamophobia on college campuses
Robert Pape, professor of political science at the University of Chicago, delivered the forum’s keynote address, which reviewed the findings of the “Understanding Campus Fears After October 7 and How to Reduce Them” report he authored in March.
The report, sponsored by UChicago, Stanford University, Colby College and a group affiliated with Northwestern University, is viewed as the leading source of information on how antisemitism and Islamophobia have been experienced by college students since the onset of the Israel-Hamas war last fall.
Pape said the main objective of the report “is to provide university and national political leaders, campus communities and the general public with the best information possible.”
He further noted that it is necessary for universities to “take proactive steps to reduce key misperceptions … before the next escalation, [and to] not wait to do so after spirals of fear, anger and distrust [start] happening,” pointing to the 2024 U.S. election as a possible catalyst for heightened tensions.
Pape’s most significant discovery was that campus fears are more intense and widespread than previously known.
“Up to [20% of] college students report feeling in personal danger due to their support of Israel or the Palestinians, … Specifically, 56% of Jewish students report feeling in personal danger, closely followed by 52% of Muslim students who feel in danger and 16% of students who are not Jewish and not Muslim [who] also report feeling in personal danger,” Pape said.
Pape urged the audience to think of this issue as a national phenomenon outside of a limited number of college campuses.
“We should not think of this as a Columbia [University] problem or a [University of California, Los Angeles] problem,” he said, referencing other universities that saw multi-day encampments and several student arrests last spring. “We should think of this as a national problem.”
Pape highlighted the role protest speech plays in the kindling of fear on college campuses, identifying what he termed as a “tragic misunderstanding” among various groups over certain rhetoric pertaining to the conflict. Pape used the chant “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” as an example of speech that could be interpreted differently amongst Jewish, Muslim and non-affiliated students.
“We found that 26% of all college students — that’s the equivalent of 4 million college students — understand ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ to mean the expulsion and genocide of Israeli Jews,” Pape said. “66% of Jewish students understand the phrase as a call for genocide. 62% of those report feeling afraid, but only 14% of Muslim students report understanding the chant that way.”
According to Pape, the example shows how “different perceptions of intent” contribute to disparities in fears on college campuses.
“Our surveys show that over 75% of college students think the calls for genocide are unacceptable,” Pape said. “But that's not everyone, and so universities, I believe, should do more to clarify the rules on where they stand on this central issue.”
In October 2023, Duke painted over the phrase on the Free Expression bridge after it was reported by multiple community members for being antisemitic.
Pape outlined four steps that university leaders, whether they be faculty, administrators or students, should take to reduce misunderstandings about campus rhetoric.
The first was to widely publicize calming statements.
“Every leader in a position of power should send a message repeatedly and convincingly that any kind of violence against any group of people is never justified,” Pape said.
He also advocated for resolving misunderstandings about protest chants and clarifying campus rules.
“Oct. 7 caught everyone by surprise, and no campus policy was written to deal with the central issues that emerged,” Pape said.
Duke announced updates to its Community Standard in August, which now includes guidelines for “protests, pickets and demonstrations.”
Pape’s fourth rule was for universities to adopt a policy of institutional neutrality in line with the “Chicago Principles,” an approach that values free speech and expression on college campuses.
“Now, these four steps, they won't solve everything,” Pape said. “But [they may] calm the fears of some … while preserving freedom of speech and [the] right to protest for meaningful change.”
Editor's note: This article was updated Tuesday morning to correct that Cohen's son was in Israel for the first nine months of the war, not in Gaza. It was updated Tuesday afternoon to amend a misquoted word from Gallimore's introductory address. The Chronicle regrets the errors.
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Zoe Kolenovsky is a Trinity junior and news editor of The Chronicle's 120th volume.