Some Professors See Pro-Palestinian Encampments as Outdoor Classrooms

At the start of the semester, Bruce Robbins, a professor of English at Columbia University, had promised students in his course on the literary history of atrocity that he’d devote one of their final classes to the war raging in Gaza.

He had no idea that by then, his teaching assistant and at least one of his undergraduates would be among more than 100 students who had been suspended and arrested for refusing to vacate a pro-Palestinian encampment a short walk from his classroom.

Inside the encampment, which had drawn international attention as the epicenter of objection to the war, students sang, banged on drums, and shouted slogans condemning the Israeli government’s violent incursions into Gaza.

Rather than seeing Columbia’s embattled protest site as a threat to his students — many of whom, like himself, are Jewish — Robbins said it offered a natural teaching opportunity. “The timing was extraordinary,” he said.

So on April 22, Robbins met his students in front of Uris Hall and walked those who were up for it into the encampment, where they stood for about a half hour. He told a story that illustrated how he’d come to believe that killing civilians is an atrocity, no matter who’s doing it or why. Robbins wanted students to challenge him. He wanted them to hear from protesters about why they were putting their futures on the line by refusing to leave.

Just under half of Robbins’s 45 students opted to go to the encampment with him. Tomiris Tatisheva, a junior at Columbia, was among them. “It would have seemed tone-deaf to be talking about Gaza in a classroom when we have people doing something about it on our own campus,” she said. “Most people who went felt grateful they were able to bear witness and make their own judgments, especially at a time when there was so much weaponization of things and so much distortion.”

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Robbins is just one of many faculty members around the country who taught classes inside protest encampments, arguing that students could learn from the impassioned voices both inside and outside them. Some administrators have tried to stop them, saying those settings could be dangerous — both physically and emotionally — for students at a time when tensions are boiling and some are feeling threatened by the protesters’ messages.

On May 2, Jeremy Ward, vice president for academic affairs at Middlebury College, sent faculty an email directing them not to teach in what students were calling the Gaza Solidarity Encampment. Protesters there had set up a classroom tent they called the People’s University and invited faculty members in.

“There are many students on campus who do not wish to engage with the encampment and the activities therein,” he wrote. (Three days later, students reached an agreement with the administration and ended their encampment.)

In a statement to The Chronicle last week, Ward said discussing uncomfortable topics is crucial for learning, but added that “no student should be compelled into a space that, for them, transcends useful educational discomfort and moves well into fear for their own safety. At that point learning ceases. That’s one reason we have classrooms, to provide a place that is as neutral as possible for those difficult discussions. “

Faculty members can work individually with students who want direct exposure to protest activity, Ward said, or students can do that on their own. “It’s not appropriate to compel student attendance at a protest by holding class there given the intensity of this type of activity nationally and the varied, and deeply-held, perspectives involved.” He added that there was also no way to ensure the site would be accessible to students with disabilities.

Laurie Essig, a professor of gender, sexuality, and feminist studies at Middlebury, disagreed with Ward’s advice. “If students feel uncomfortable with certain forms of knowledge, we as educators should ask: What’s going on with that discomfort? Where does it come from?” she wrote in an email to The Chronicle. “How might we engage in learning and teaching even when we are not entirely in agreement with everyone around us?”

Catharine Wright, an associate professor of writing and rhetoric and gender, sexuality, and feminist studies, was among those who had accompanied students who were comfortable with it into Middlebury’s encampment. She held a class there on April 29 at the invitation of a few of her students, four of whom were staying there. In polling her class of 17, she found that more than half of the students were enthusiastic about having class there, and no one had objected.

After giving everyone the option to meet with her during extended office hours if they didn’t want to go inside, she brought students to the classroom tent. Those inside greeted them with a tarp that they spread out on the damp ground.

“They were extremely gracious,” Wright said.

The course, whose topic is “feminist joy,” tackles issues of activism, oppression and trauma. She thought the conversations taking place in the encampment were relevant to her class.

Another one of her gender-studies classes was scheduled for that Wednesday, May 1, the same day as a planned student-led classroom walkout. Wright again gave students a choice: They could walk down to the rally on McCullough lawn with her or stay behind to work in small groups on poems. “By Wednesday, the student climate was shifting,” she said. The night before, dozens of students had been arrested after seizing a building at Columbia, and violence had broken out between protesters at the University of Southern California.

“Students were nervous at first, hearing reports about what happened at Columbia and worried that something similar would happen here,” Wright said.

As they left the classroom, Wright and her students merged with other faculty members who were accompanying their students to a rally that was assembling. A student handed out masks, and they listened to speakers enumerate their demands and explain their rationale.

Wright said she was comfortable with her choice to bring willing students along.

“I understood why the administration sent that email,” Wright said of the May 2 instructions not to bring students into the encampment. “I do think that, based on things I’ve read, there are Jewish students who have been afraid or been attacked in the name of some of these protests, which I think is horrendous. I did feel that this is the role the administration has to play. But I also understand my role as a professor in relation to my students.”

‘How Can We Not Talk About It?’

Back at Columbia, Robbins said the escalating tensions on his campus made the encampment an even more powerful setting for his class. Just days before he brought his students in, on Thursday, April 18, New York City police officers summoned by the university had swept into campus, many in riot gear, and arrested more than 100 students who refused to remove their encampment from Columbia’s South Lawn. The arrested students were also suspended. Tensions remained high over the weekend as students replaced tents with towels and tarps. Pro-Israel students staged counterprotests, and students on both sides reported being harassed with antisemitic and Islamophobic taunts.

That Sunday night, Robbins emailed his students to suggest they meet Monday in front of — not inside — their classroom building. “At that point, I will say a few words about what I think my responsibilities are as a teacher and a citizen,” and he’d propose some next steps, he wrote.

Columbia’s administration, scrambling to quell the unrest, had other plans for the day. Early Monday morning, President Nemat (Minouche) Shafik sent an email announcing a shift to virtual classes “to deescalate the rancor.” She added that “Students across an array of communities have conveyed fears for their safety, and we have announced additional actions we are taking to address security concerns. The decibel of our disagreements has only increased in recent days.”

Later that morning, Robbins sent an email telling his students he’d be on campus anyway, and anyone who wanted to join him could go ahead with their plan to meet outside the classroom building. Once there, he suggested that any students who felt comfortable accompanying him walk over to the encampment and hold their class inside. “No one was forced to do anything they didn’t want to,” he told The Chronicle.

Asked whether anyone opted out at that point, he said “there was a bit of voting with their feet.” Two or three students remained outside the encampment while the rest went in.

His wasn’t the only act of faculty defiance that Monday, when more than 100 faculty members from Columbia and Barnard College staged a walkout to protest the students’ suspensions and arrests. Inside the encampment, at least one other professor was holding a class when Robbins and about 15 students settled in, Robbins’s students said.

Robbins has been outspoken in his support for the protesters and his disdain for the university’s decision to call the police. He’s also among the dozens of faculty members who donned orange vests and stood outside the encampment in recent weeks to protect the students.

The suspended and arrested students, he told The Chronicle, were protesting an atrocity that was happening in real time. In a class on atrocity, “How can we not talk about it?”

Robbins said the encampment had been unfairly portrayed, both on campus and in the national media, as a dangerous place rife with antisemitism. “My own position is that we’re at the end of the year, and I want to give you a conclusion and a chance to push back if you want,” Robbins said. The “killing of civilians is always an atrocity — to me, there’s no doubt.”

While they were standing inside the encampment, he told students that his father was a bomber pilot based in England during World War II. He bombed targets in Germany toward the end of the conflict. “I grew up thinking of him as a hero who was fighting Hitler,” he said. “It wasn’t until much later that I realized that bombing civilians has to count as an atrocity, no matter who’s doing it to whom.”

By bringing his students into the encampment, he wanted to show that it wasn’t a menacing place. Students who were stressed out were caring for each other, and a few were quietly singing, he said. People held up sheets to shield Muslim students who were praying from cameras.

“Some were no doubt on the edge of psychological breakdown, wondering, ‘Will I be suspended, will I be arrested, have I screwed up my life by being here?’” Robbins said.

Signs at the entrance to the encampment spelled out the protesters’ goals and said they had no tolerance for harassment or hate speech, students said. They also cautioned international students to stay out if they were concerned about potentially jeopardizing their visas if the police made more arrests.

Looking back, students interviewed described the day of the encampment class as a blur. “We got the email from Professor Robbins the night before class. Everything was so chaotic at the time,” Madeline Hudak told The Chronicle. “The next morning we get an email from the administration saying, ‘Don’t show up for class. Don’t come to campus unless you absolutely need to.’” When she received the email from Robbins inviting them to show up in front of the classroom building and decide as a class what to do, “I had an inkling we’d be going down to the encampment.”

“He said, ‘Come if you’re comfortable.’ There was no pressure either way.”

Hudak said she understands why students might worry about the risks of stepping inside the encampment. “The Columbia administration had suspended people,” she said. “No one was clear — if you step foot in the encampment, will you be on a list? Are they tracking people’s phones to see who’s been in there?”

Asked whether she thought it was fair to ask those who felt uncomfortable or even threatened by the protests to attend class inside the encampment, Hudak said she didn’t have a problem with it. “Professor Robbins is somewhat of an authority, and he said he didn’t think it was unsafe. He made it clear no one has to come and they won’t miss out on credit for not coming.”

Besides, she said, “I don’t think there’s any promise that when you come into class you’re going to be comfortable. Education is the opposite. The promise is that you will be challenged and be faced with something that makes you feel uncomfortable. That’s what you paid for.”