Non­fic­tion

The UnCiv­il Uni­ver­si­ty: Intol­er­ance on Col­lege Campuses

Gary A. Tobin, Aryeh K. Wein­berg, and Jen­na Ferer
  • Review
By – August 25, 2011
This book shows how Israel is pre­sent­ed neg­a­tive­ly on Amer­i­can cam­pus­es — in stu­dent activ­i­ties, in course offer­ings, and in aca­d­e­m­ic con­fer­ences. Some of the cas­es cit­ed have been wide­ly dis­cussed and are well known. Oth­ers are like­ly to be news even to peo­ple who fol­low Israel’s place on cam­pus. Most go far beyond hon­est crit­i­cism. They apply stan­dards to Israel that are applied to no oth­er coun­try, con­demn Israel for actions that are rou­tine­ly accept­ed when done by oth­er coun­tries, and often chal­lenge Israel’s very legit­i­ma­cy as a state (some­thing not seen even in the harsh­est cri­tiques of oth­er coun­tries), thus con­sti­tut­ing anti-Israelism” or anti- Semi­tism. The book also doc­u­ments how polit­i­cal cor­rect­ness and the notion of aca­d­e­m­ic free­dom are (mis)used on cam­pus­es in gen­er­al and specif­i­cal­ly to jus­ti­fy attacks on Israel that are intel­lec­tu­al­ly and moral­ly insup­port­able.


The authors describe the roles of stu­dents, fac­ul­ty, admin­is­tra­tors, trustees, and donors, attribut­ing their actions — or inac­tion — to, most­ly, rad­i­cal rel­a­tivism and a 1960’s sup­port of who­ev­er is per­ceived as the under­dog (fac­ul­ty), to lack of infor­ma­tion and inse­cure Jew­ish com­mit­ment (most Jew­ish stu­dents), to a meek desire to avoid con­tro­ver­sy (admin­is­tra­tors), and to accep­tance of pro­fes­so­r­i­al dom­i­nance in the con­tent of the uni­ver­si­ty cur­ricu­lum and extracur­ric­u­lar pro­gram (trustees, donors, and polit­i­cal lead­ers). 

The authors urge admin­is­tra­tors, trustees, and polit­i­cal lead­ers to take a more active role in deter­min­ing what hap­pens on cam­pus. They do not con­sid­er that a restruc­tur­ing of roles in Amer­i­can uni­ver­si­ty life is high­ly unlike­ly and, if it were to take place, could well be a dou­ble-edged sword. What is miss­ing in the book is explo­ration of how to rebuild the aca­d­e­m­ic community’s under­stand­ing that sup­port of Israel is, in fact, con­so­nant with the basic ideals that most uni­ver­si­ty peo­ple accept and how to pro­vide Jew­ish stu­dents more gen­er­al­ly with the back­ground and com­mit­ment that will pre­dis­pose and enable them to defend their own inter­ests. The Unciv­il Uni­ver­si­ty has dra­mat­i­cal­ly called atten­tion to a seri­ous prob­lem. Now we need to think through and devel­op appro­pri­ate and effec­tive long-range responses.

Mervin F. Ver­bit , a grad­u­ate of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia with a doc­tor­ate from Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty, is pro­fes­sor of soci­ol­o­gy at Touro Col­lege and direc­tor of the Israel Stud­ies Insti­tute, which cul­ti­vates a bet­ter under­stand­ing of Israel among Amer­i­can aca­d­e­mics. For­mer­ly, he taught at Brook­lyn Col­lege of The City Uni­ver­si­ty of New York, where he also direct­ed the uni­ver­si­ty’s Pro­gram for Study in Israel and is now pro­fes­sor emeritus.

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