How academia failed the Gaza war test

It is not hard to become disillusioned with academia in the age of late neoliberalism – especially if you are, like me, an early-career academic bouncing from one temporary contract to the next. The mad rush to apply for jobs and grants is exhausting and often demoralising. The pressure is on to write as many articles as possible – only to distribute them for free to publishers who make obscene profits from them.

The disappointing efforts to challenge this situation—even by senior academics who would be better placed to do so—are almost as discouraging as the exploitation itself. So is the alienation from other “early career” academics competing for the same jobs, grants, publications, and recognition.

All this speaks to the market logic that has come to define and limit contemporary academia. The community of peers engaged in the enlightened pursuit of knowledge has given way to an industry like any other under neoliberal capitalism, driven primarily by profit maximization and increasingly dependent on a precarious and atomized workforce.

It is in this context that we must understand the blatant failure of institutions to take a principled stand in the face of the monumental tragedy unfolding in Gaza. The overwhelming majority of universities and other academic institutions (from research institutes to trade associations to academic journals) have responded to what the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has deemed genocide with cowardly silence, if not outright repression, of anyone who dares to speak out. Most professions have not fared much better (the mainstream media comes to mind). But most professions do not have strong normative claims about their mission. Most professions do not have elaborate documents or training courses emphasizing their commitment to every possible ethical value, from democracy and freedom to equality and inclusion.

Take my own institution for example. When she was sworn in as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford in January 2023, Professor Irene Tracey summed up one of the university’s key missions rather eloquently:

What is the point of a university like Oxford if we do not have the audacity, integrity and confidence to think differently, to think deeply, to speak truth to power and to teach our students how to recognise truths and untruths in an increasingly complex, short attention span and misinformation-ridden world?

These are truly encouraging words. Yet when it came to speaking truth to power in Gaza, denouncing Israel’s atrocities and the role of Western powers – including the UK – in abetting them, Oxford University (like most universities) chose to remain silent. When this silence was challenged by student protests, the leadership refused to engage in dialogue and instead resorted to repression (as did its Ivy League counterparts in the US).

It was only the exceptional resilience of these protesters and the staff who supported them that finally forced the administration to engage in a dialogue It remains to be seen whether this will result in the same kind of victories as student protests at other universities, although the recent demolition of the student encampment suggests otherwise.

As it stands, Oxford is pledging to provide more scholarships to Palestinians fleeing Gaza, but is doing nothing to address the violence that is driving them to flee. This includes defending Oxford’s links to companies that are part of the “supply chain of violence”. Take Barclays, the banking giant that caters to the university’s “complex financial needs”. According to a recent investigation, it “now holds more than £2bn in shares and provides £6.1bn in loans and guarantees to nine companies whose weapons, components and military technology are used by Israel in its attacks on Palestinians”.

The moral failure to “speak truth to power” is also glaring at the disciplinary level, particularly in my own field of political science. A case in point is the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR), one of the largest and most visible associations of political scientists. In the past, it has taken positions on a variety of political events, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or the crackdown on civil liberties after the failed 2016 coup attempt in Turkey – and rightly so. However, when in April, more than 450 political scientists signed an open letter calling on ECPR to do the same in Gaza, the answer The answer was no. I have already discussed the reasons for this response elsewhere and none of them stand up to scrutiny. This is simply a case of double standards and a capitulation to fundamental normative commitments.

One of ECPR’s key arguments is that “as an organization dedicated to the advancement of political science as a discipline, we must focus on our core mission.” But what could that mission entail if it cannot accept—and even demand—condemnation of the murder of thousands of children? Is it consistent with “advancing political science” only when the perpetrators are not Western powers or supported by them? What is left of ECPR’s self-proclaimed commitment to “academic freedom” if it does not denounce members of its own institution who obstruct the freedom of students and staff to express support for Gaza? This is a capitulation of core ethical values ​​that will stain the political science community for years to come.

To be sure, the situation is not so hopelessly bleak. There have been important exceptions, all the more important in this context: individual academics and groups have courageously expressed their criticism of the Israeli military operation in Gaza. The director of the European University Institute, Professor Patrizia Nanz, even found the moral courage to support the right of students to protest against Gaza, denouncing the fact that “the encampments and most of the demonstrations have been largely peaceful, but have sometimes been brutally repressed.” As she rightly added, this “reveals a deep divide between students and the administrations, (as) the latter have grown enormously in recent decades and have become huge bureaucracies, also generating their own corporate interests.”

But even Nanz has not denounced the violence that students are protesting or the complicity of Western corporations and governments in it. She has inadvertently confirmed her own view of “corporate interests.” Academic institutions have largely failed to take a position on Gaza, not necessarily because they support Israel, but because they do not wish to jeopardize their lucrative and less-than-transparent financial ties to those who do, from wealthy donors to defense contractors and state authorities. Like other sectors of society captured by the logic of capital, academia places profits before basic moral values. The latter are respected only so long as they do not risk undermining the former.

Thus, since October 7, no academic institution has taken the initiative to break off relations with Israel on its own. All the universities that have taken any initiative in this direction have done so under pressure from below, thanks to the collective efforts of those with the least power in the academic world: students, doctoral students and temporary staff.

These are the categories of people who put their bodies and career prospects on the line to do what is right. Even in the case of the open letter to the ECPR mentioned above, tenured professors made up only 13% of the signatories. The deep divide that Nanz speaks of is between those who have power and those who do not.

As so often, students once again find themselves on the right side of history. They are teaching their professors a lesson in moral courage and political clarity. Let us hope that more people will join them – and even now, it is not too late to do so. As a famous slogan of the Latin American left goes: “Only the people can save the people.” This is as true for the neoliberal academia as it is for society at large.