This article is in part a response to University of Southern California President Carol Folt’s statements regarding the Israel-Hamas war. See 10/10, 10/16, and 10/31

The war between Israel and Hamas has revealed potentially unseen levels of campus polarization concerning a single geopolitical issue. Student divisions have unveiled themselves along religious, cultural, and moral lines. Campus apologists for the unprovoked massacre and pogrom of October 7th have made their priorities clear: the ends justify the means. Hidden behind a faint shield of anticolonialism, students worldwide still cheer on the atrocity as mere freedom fighting.

Now more than ever, the University must first inform students of the nuance of the situation and ensure no member of its community is afraid to speak up and pursue dialogue. Instead, students and professors have taken the easy road of retreating into identity camps. The school administration has displayed weakness in defending the school’s own policies. Social media has been utterly demagogic as war’s ghastliness demonstrates itself once again. 

Alas, this war will likely be the geopolitical hinge moment for our time in college. For this reason, the Trojan Standard exists to provide views seen as outside the campus left’s consensus. This article will make the case that USC’s administration has failed its academic mission concerning the Israel-Hamas war.

Before examining events on campus, I feel clarifying some of my priors would be useful. My personal views on the war stem from a few unimpeachable facts: on October 6th, there was an active ceasefire in the south of Israel, and then terrorism struck. The next day the world watched the slaughter of the most Jews since the Holocaust. Hamas massacred completely innocent civilians. I encourage all the students who have attended rave events in Los Angeles to picture themselves high at the Re’im music festival as paragliders flew in and butchered 270 attendees.

Equitable discourse requires me to acknowledge other truths. Israeli settlement in the West Bank has stifled the peace process, and Gazan civilians are largely trapped in a hyper-densely populated area. None of this, though, excuses simply framing the conflict through the lens of an oppressor against the oppressed. Hamas itself oppresses the Gazans and robs them of humanitarian aid provided by Western countries. With paramount moral, security, and long-term risks at stake, I see no alternative but for Israel to prosecute its war until Hamas ceases to exist.

For these reasons, USC should not have placed Professor John Strauss on quasi-administrative leave. For context, Strauss remarked to pro-Palestinian protestors that “Hamas are murderers. That’s all they are. Every one should be killed, and I hope they all are killed.” Upon criticism from students, the USC administration made Strauss teach his classes remotely and barred him from campus. His statement, while harsh and violent, is compatible with the views I listed in the above paragraph. Under no circumstances should a school be disciplining a professor who wishes badly on a terrorist group as recognized by the Department of State. Not only does it fly in the face of free speech rights, which employees of the university are not fully guaranteed to begin with, but it stifles debate. It means that in a confrontational environment, USC has clarified that a view in line with United States foreign policy is out of the fold. 

What makes these administrative actions so shocking is that USC has built-in advantages over its counterparts in elite academia. Trojans are lucky to have a dedicated on-campus group advocating for Israel’s right to exist and two separate dedicated Jewish life centers in Chabad and Hillel. Unlike smaller Ivy League universities, which have been a bastion of illiberalism since October 7th, USC’s larger enrollment offers more students and thus diverse viewpoints on the war. The school had same-day demonstrations in support of both sides. So why has the administration decided to divide? Why, at a time of great educational opportunity, are professors being barred from campus?

Carol Folt shows some promise, and I assume she would not have made a national spectacle of herself the same way that Ivy League presidents did at a Congressional hearing. Our President caved to reason after a remarkably weak opening statement in the wake of the pogrom. Upon her official denouncement of antisemitism on Halloween, Folt seems to have changed her tune. She finally used the important nouns, denouncing antisemitism and Islamophobia. She spoke at Hillel International’s event on combating antisemitism in higher ed. On November 9th, the University released a statement softly condemning the removal of posters of kidnapped Israelis from on-campus billboards. With luck, the administration has realized its shortcomings and will employ unequivocal language against defamation as the war rages on. 

So why attempt to silence Professor Strauss? The possibilities for frustration are endless. USC’s administration handed down a punishment on a Jewish Professor in a way that can only be seen as a double standard. I do not advocate for the removal of visas or disciplinary action against students who chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” But the rhetorical choice made in that chant advocates for the ethnic cleansing of Jewish Israelis. Strauss solely called for the extirpation of a terrorist group. USC’s administration elected to slide down a slippery slope, to say the least.

Regrettably, we must touch on the Daily Trojan’s article on the war – our campus-sponsored newspaper. Reading as if it were a pro-Hamas propaganda piece, Antonio Wu’s piece completely misses the mark. Writing from a place of genuine concern for Palestinians, Wu does not spend a word bothering to be charitable to Israelis or Jewish Trojans. In calling for a unilateral Israeli ceasefire, he misinterprets Benjamin Netanyahu, wrongly believing Israel wishes to commit genocide in Gaza and bomb it into some Laos-style parking lot.  Mentioning Hamas just once in passing, he has not been taught, as Michael Walzer says, “one of the most basic and best understood moral distinctions: between premeditated murder and unintended killing.” Wu disgustingly hides an antisemitic trope behind saying that AIPAC (a pro-Israel lobby) has silenced Democratic politicians with its “monetary weight.” He tells his readers to educate themselves on injustice, I respond: spare me. 

The first college students born after 9/11 seem to laugh off the fact that at least eight of our compatriots are still being held hostage in Gaza. We knew that those “shared values” of respect for unenumerated rights and liberal democracy have frayed. Upsettingly, the pro-Palestine campus left would first condemn the treatment of a Hamas prisoner before showing concern for a fellow American.

The situation calls for those students interested in protecting human decency to speak. A moral backbone calls for the ouster of murderous forces around the globe. As Professor Strauss said, Hamas must go. Without asking for her agreement, I wish for Carol Folt to foster a campus environment that appreciates liberal values. She must make it clear that any form of ethnic or religious bigotry cannot be tolerated at USC. Students who respect Israel’s need to exist cannot sit back, afraid of backlash. We must continue to distinguish settler colonialists from an ethnic group that was nearly wiped out a mere 80 years ago. Subsequently, the mission of the university will be enhanced by emphasizing important values of liberalism, human rights, and moral clarity.