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Open Letter to the Brandeis University Community
The following open letter was written by Daniel Terris, director of the International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life and associate vice president for global affairs at Brandeis University. It was published on the center’s Web site on May 5, 2006.
Dear Members of the Brandeis University Community,
Over the past several years, the International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life and Brandeis as a whole have developed an increasingly deep and robust set of connections with Palestinian individuals and institutions. This comes as part of a self-conscious effort to bring a variety of perspectives on the Middle East to our campus, in order to enrich our intellectual climate and to encourage the Brandeis community to pursue a goal of mutual understanding. These activities have included
- a multiyear, multidimensional partnership with Al-Quds University, the Palestinian university in Jerusalem, involving dozens of faculty members, students, and administrators from both institutions;
- partnerships on coexistence projects with Palestinian nongovernmental organizations in Nablus, Ramallah, East Jerusalem, and Bethlehem;
- assisting with the development of the Arab-Jewish dialogue group on the Brandeis campus, as well as developing activities specifically involving Brandeis students from the Middle East;
- dozens of courses, lectures, performances, and discussions, representing a variety of points of view, on Middle East topics on the Brandeis campus.
We have learned many things from this array of projects, but one thing stands out: projects focused on the Middle East must be conducted with great care, because sensitivities are high and opponents of peace on all sides are vigilant for opportunities to undermine honest attempts at dialogue and understanding.
These projects have received the strong support of President Jehuda Reinharz and the entire Brandeis administration, even in the face of intense adverse criticism from members of the Brandeis community and outside groups who oppose building bridges with Palestinians. The administration’s commitment has extended to other similar efforts in many other parts of the campus.
Lior Halperin’s exhibit, Voices of Palestine, was nurtured in the climate of openness that the center and others on the Brandeis campus have sought to create. The exhibit was a project for a class, The Arts of Building Peace, taught under the auspices of the center, where students are encouraged to explore the resources and possibilities for art as a tool in the process of reconciliation. A twenty-seven-year-old student from Israel, Lior chose to put together an exhibit of art by young Palestinians, with the assistance of an art center in the Aida refugee camp near Bethlehem. Lior completed her project in the class; then she made arrangements, with the assistance of a professor of a different course, to mount the exhibit in the Brandeis library. The exhibit opened on April 26, with an opening attended by thirty-five people.
When I first saw the images of Voices of Palestine, I considered the exhibit in the light of questions that I ask about any similar program: Does this activity contribute to the goal of mutual understanding? Are there any ways—deliberate or inadvertent—that it might actually contribute to misunderstandings that exacerbate conflict? Have we provided a sufficient context to challenge a viewer or an audience member to think more openly, more broadly, more deeply?
Certainly Lior created the exhibit with the best of intentions. By bringing the creative work of young Palestinians to our campus, she hoped to give us a window into the perspectives of young people who have lived their lives in the shadow of violence. She hoped to help the Brandeis community challenge one-dimensional perceptions and see young Palestinians as complex individual human beings.
Despite these excellent intentions, there were troubling aspects to the form and the content of the exhibit, elements that raised the possibility that the images might not have the effect that Lior intended. The exhibit consists of images of paintings by young Palestinians, ages thirteen to sixteen, accompanied in each case by text expressing political hopes and dreams. Some of the paintings contain controversial images, alongside text about the future of a “free Palestine” that some members of our campus community would likely find troubling.
I became concerned that—in the relative absence of context or explanation—the exhibit would have for many viewers precisely the opposite effect that Lior intended. Rather than seeing the full complexity of the ideas and outlook of Palestinian teenagers, the exhibit might be seen as reducing them to a series of political slogans. My concern was partly confirmed when some Brandeis students, viewing the exhibit in the days after the opening, believed that the point of the show was to demonstrate that young Palestinians were mere instruments of political propaganda. I worried that the small amount of introductory text that Lior added belatedly to the exhibition was not really sufficient to provide the context to discourage this interpretation.
If Brandeis students could so quickly jump to these conclusions, then what use might dedicated critics of dialogue and peace from outside the university make of the exhibit? I worried that the controversial images and the close linkage between the paintings and the text made the exhibit a convenient target for individuals and organizations determined to undermine efforts to understand and build relationships with Palestinian people. After all, Brandeis had been under steady attack for months for activities and relationships that were, on the whole, less provocative. Would the exhibit serve to create understanding, or would its form serve to exacerbate tensions in our campus community, and prejudice against Palestinian people?
For me, the issue was never that the exhibit was “one-sided,” nor was it a matter, by itself, of presenting controversial views. The center has frequently sponsored and will continue to host events and programs on difficult subjects without resorting to a mechanical process of “balance.” But any of us who are involved in controversial programs have the responsibility to consider how the educational value can be maximized, reflection encouraged, and to provide a sufficient framework so that the conversations that ensue are constructive, not potentially destructive to the fabric of the Brandeis community. . . .
I had thought that it was obvious that there is an inherent tension on American university campuses between freedom of expression, on the one hand, and efforts to minimize speech that directly or indirectly foments prejudice, hatred, or violence,on the other. These are important competing values, and the tension between them frequently puts decision makers at universities into difficult situations. The vast majority of the communications I have received on this exhibit, however, seem to treat the Voices of Palestine controversy as a case of “academic freedom,” as though such a thing is a self-evident absolute. The fact of the matter is that there are limits on expression at Brandeis and the rest of American higher education.While we might extend the boundaries of expression further for works of art, there are some forms of creative work whose presence would do more harm than good to our educational mission. In universities, our preference is always for more expression rather than for less, but the particulars do matter, and so does the context in which expression is presented. This is not to argue that Brandeis made the right or the wrong decision in removing Voices from Palestine. I am wary, however, of the hypocrisy of those who rely on absolute assertions of “academic freedom” to defend expression they value, while on other occasions leading a charge on the principle of combating bigotry to restrict speech that they do not like. . . .
Brandeis University has made great strides in the diversity of its community, its openness to challenging perspectives, and its contributions to a complex understanding of the conflict in the Middle East. We still have a long way to go. I look forward to working with students, faculty, and other members of the Brandeis community and beyond in pursuing our common goals.
Sincerely,
Daniel Terris
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