Stop the volatile campus protests that are scaring students out of classrooms

Monday began peacefully enough at New York University, where I am a faculty member at the medical center.

In contrast to many other major universities, NYU lacks a central campus. When it comes to the volatile demonstrations here, at Columbia University and around the country, not having a central collecting place for encampments is actually an advantage. Many NYU students consider Washington Square Park their equivalent of a green, even though it is public property patrolled by the police. Previous dueling protests in the park for Palestinians or Israelis remained for the most part peaceful. 

Unfortunately, during the most recent protests, the police have had to exert a major effort to keep order and must be recognized for doing so. The NYU administration should also be applauded for quickly involving the police to help keep the students safe. Pro-Palestinian protests were held at Gould Plaza, outside Stern Business School, and initially controlled by barricades. But when they spilled over and became more threatening, reportedly egged on by professional agitators, the police intervened.

The right to protest is not the issue. The issue is when these protests create a threatening atmosphere, as they have at Columbia or Yale, where more and more students don’t feel safe on campus. Columbia canceled in-person classes at its main campus last Monday and shifted to hybrid remote learning for the rest of the semester later in the week. It’s a sad and disturbing occurrence.

At NYU, the police put the university on lockdown, arresting over 100 demonstrators as bottles were thrown Monday night. Classes continued Tuesday morning, even as a group known as the NYU Palestine Solidarity Coalition led a walkout of classes in complete disregard of the quality of the education the students are receiving. Students who desperately want to learn are becoming frightened to go to class, despite police intervention. 

Still, classes remain open and in-person for now, which is laudable with protests and arrests spreading to universities across the country.   

NYU has made ongoing attempts to push the dialogue back toward the center and away from hatred and intimidation. President Linda Mills has correctly kept the Tel Aviv campus open against much protest. This allows students to learn from the reality of life in a wartime environment, a fundamental kind of education. NYU has also announced the opening of a Center for the Study of Antisemitism this year to study the causes and manifestations of this hatred and other forms of prejudice. This is crucial and NYU is well positioned to accomplish this because of its religious studies and history departments. The inaugural director, Avinoam Patt, is a renowned scholar of the Holocaust and Israel. 

Mills has the tools for these challenging times, with a law degree, a doctorate in health policy, and a degree in social work. Her career as a filmmaker is also relevant, particularly her first poignant film, which retraced her family’s steps in escaping the Holocaust, and her award-winning film “Of Many,” which depicted a rabbi and an imam working together to spread acceptance throughout communities in New York City. 

We certainly need that sentiment and understanding right now. As Mills said at a conference at Hunter College last month, “Really, what this time calls for is this sense of bringing our world back together again,” and “that path involves opening a lot of our hearts, and our minds and our ability to talk to each other.”

I grew up as a Jewish person in New York City and I do not remember encountering this degree of antisemitism either here or at Brown University, where I attended undergraduate school. It seems that this rush to judge and dehumanize is surging now, fueled by agitators, reminiscent of other times in history and other countries, like the Soviet Union. We can do better here. Our country is founded on the principle that we can and must do better.

Education is supposed to provide us with the tools to understand each other’s points of view. Protests that spew hatred and dehumanize others are just the opposite. We must push back now before it's too late and preserve our education system even if it means utilizing the police and other law enforcement groups to restore order. We need the local leadership President Mills is providing at NYU and national leadership too.

Marc Siegel, M.D., is a professor of medicine and medical director of Doctor Radio at NYU Langone Health. He is a Fox News medical correspondent and author of the new book, “COVID; The Politics of Fear and the Power of Science.”