A great paradox in modern American culture is how politically divided we are as a nation but how ideologically similar our friendships have become.
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It’s hard to get a sense of how people feel about an issue when those around you feel the same way. Polls can provide an educated guess, but can also be easily skewed.
Elections, though, offer more solid insights. So it was fascinating to see the results of a recent faculty vote at a university embroiled in controversy about student protests and the subsequent police crackdown.
Washington University in St. Louis resides in a blue bubble in a deep-red state. The campus has historically had a high percentage of Jewish students, with 24% of current undergrads identifying as Jewish. The Anti-Defamation League ranked it as better than most universities at combating antisemitism on campus. On college boards frequented by parents and applicants, it is often mentioned as a place Jewish students should consider transferring if they feel unsafe at their universities.
WU’s full-time faculty considered two resolutions focused on the protests against the university’s ties to Boeing, which sells warplanes and munitions to Israel for use in the war in Gaza. Police arrested 100 people at an April 27 protest, with several students and faculty suspended by the university administration.
The first resolution called for the university to decline to pursue all charges and rescind suspensions against the students and employees. A second resolution sought to create a faculty-led committee to investigate the protests and the administrative policy involved.
The first resolution failed with a vote of 550 in favor, 552 against and 52 abstaining. The second overwhelmingly passed.
The vote breakdown by the various schools within the university revealed a more nuanced picture that also reflects broader societal attitudes.
For the schools on the main Danforth campus, where undergrads and most graduate departments reside -- and where the protests took place -- the voting wasn’t close at all. Among the Arts and Sciences faculty, 210 members supported dropping penalties for pro-Palestinian protesters versus 80 opposed, with 17 abstaining. Similarly large majorities of faculty in the Brown School of Social Work, Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts and the law school supported the first resolution. These disciplines also tend to attract more liberal thinkers.
The faculty from the schools of engineering and business overwhelmingly voted against dropping the penalties. The medical school faculty, who are located a few miles away, voted 327 against to 245 in favor, with 31 abstaining. These occupations tend to vote more conservatively.
Like the rest of America, political beliefs likely colored the way professors viewed the protests and the administration’s response to them. But the faculty members most heavily involved with teaching undergraduates, and those closest to the protests, largely rejected the narrative that the protesters were violent or “pro-Hamas,” as critics have tried to portray them.
They know their students and colleagues.
By and large, faculty I’ve spoken to believe students have the right to protest and express their opinions on how the university invests its money and their tuition dollars.
The faculty voted to create a new committee charged with compiling evidence and testimonials about the protests and looking at the university’s policy for “demonstrations and disruptions.” The vote of 745 to 397 approving this signals significant faculty concern over the administration’s handling of the protests. The committee would have faculty representatives from each of WU’s schools, along with representatives from the student body and administration.
An email from Chancellor Andrew Martin to faculty in response to the votes said the board of trustees would need to respond to any formal inquiry about university operations. He offered to share the results of a board-led review, as deemed appropriate by the board, and possibly answer specific questions rather than agreeing to participate in a faculty-led review.
Andrew Burksy, chair of the board of trustees, sent a follow-up letter stating the university would not participate in any faculty inquiry. He said the board had initiated its own review and that a parallel faculty-led review would be “counterproductive” and “inconsistent” with seeking clarity and understanding around the issues.
Unlike the silos in which many of us live and work, this faculty effort had been an attempt to bring together those with meaningful disagreements on these contentious and sensitive issues. A faculty-led report could have shed light on the facts rather than perceptions and spin.
The faculty may decide to move forward with some sort of inquiry regardless of the board's position. Given the tumultuous political landscape and the prospects for renewed protests when students return in the fall, there’s some urgency to this work.
It is revealing that the chancellor punted to the board, and the board shut down the overwhelming faculty vote.
We’ve seen how much students’ voices matter to the administration on this issue.
Now the faculty has found out about their own.