President’s Sept. report: Israel/Gaza and the path forward for UH
from UH News, Sept 19, 2024
President David Lassner provided comments on the university relating to events at UH and around the country arising from the situation in Gaza and Israel, including response to the demands, requests and input to the president and Board of Regents.
You can listen to his remarks, and the full transcription is below:
Now, I’d like to take this opportunity to say something about the Middle East conflict and the impacts on our campuses. This has been alluded to in some of the testimony as well this morning.
We are approaching the first anniversary of the horrific attack by Hamas on Israel and the absolutely devastating war launched in Gaza following that. Regardless of anyone’s views on the complex policy and history in the Middle East, we should all bemoan the tragic loss of civilian lives and hope for a ceasefire, the return of hostages, the beginning of rebuilding and a lasting peace for the region.
Calls for action from UH relating to this have come from all quarters. We have supporters of both Palestine and Israel urging actions often in opposite directions.
We received a specific set of demands to the Board of Regents (BOR) and the president from the Students and Faculty for Justice in Palestine at UH (SFJP).
We’ve received requests and recommendations from some of our Jewish students and faculty.
We have heard from national groups including the Anti Defamation League, the Council on American Islamic Relations and Hillel.
And like numerous universities across the country—and this was publicly disclosed (REALLY? WHEN? WHERE?)—we have received notice of a Title VI investigation initiated by the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Education. Title VI is the federal code that prohibits discrimination based on race, color, national origin or actual or perceived, shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics. These investigations have arisen from complaints primarily about anti-Semitism on U.S. campuses around the country.
EDITOR's NOTE: This is the only 'public announcement' we have found:
I do appreciate all of those who call on university leadership to issue statements and take actions in support of their positions on the conflict, who want their university to stand up for what they believe. I have shared consistently for the past year, and I know frustratingly to many, my priority is our collective safety, health, well being and creating opportunities for learning within our university.
To that end, I want to share some plans for the path forward and I also want to respond to some of the calls for action which have been made publicly to the president and BOR. I also need to note that OCR has made its expectations as to what universities do very clear. They have published the formal resolution agreements that they have entered into with other universities, most of which have faced challenges around this area greater than ours so far.
I have convened the offices and leaders with roles and responsibilities related to our work with Title VI and we have met several times already. We do understand that we will need to update our policies and our practices to ensure appropriate and complete response to all complaints and allegations we receive. This will also need to include a substantial training initiative to make sure people around the university understand our policies and procedures.
And I need to say that while the current focus and use of Title VI is relating to anti-Semitic Islamophobic, and anti-Palestinian behaviors and allegations, we cannot forget that in Hawaiʻi, and therefore at UH, we face many concerns from other groups relating to race, color, national origin and actual or perceived, shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics. So as we address Title VI, we need to consider all of our populations.
Individual complaints do not characterize full campus climate. So we also need to develop and administer a climate survey to better understand where we stand with all of our populations and the results to improve as we create a more positive climate for all of our students and employees.
UH Mānoa is one of the nation’s leading Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation, or TRHT, campuses so we are actively using the TRHT framework to address healing across the campus.
Multiple UH offices have already come together to create a series of seminars and workshops open to all across the university system. Just to give you a feel for them, the topics this semester include: Political conflict in and out of the classroom, Understanding religious and worldview differences, Healing in divided times, Navigating difficult conversations, Honoring our shared humanity, Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. This builds on initial work last academic year including sessions on: Teaching in troubled times, Maluhia, Mālama & Safety and the use of Pilina circles to heal disconnections.
Our campus programming absolutely must continue to strengthen the ability of our entire community to do our parts, to foster climates for learning, living and working that are welcoming, respectful and free of discrimination. We need to develop a deep appreciation of the need for our instructors to foster classroom environments that encourage the free exchange of ideas even and perhaps especially regarding challenging topics, to ensure fair and open and respectful consideration by all.
Consistent with our focus on our community, we respectfully respond to specific demands and requests from the SFJP group and others as follows:
First divestment. Regents’ policies guide our UH endowment investments. After discussion with Board of Regents leadership, the demand to “divest from all companies and institutions that are complicit in the Zionist occupation, apartheid and genocide of the Palestinian people, including weapons, tech and surveillance and construction companies,” will not be taken up by the BOR at this time, given other priorities.
Next, transparency. UH is committed to and does provide full transparency with our investments and our grants. Our investments are reported on regularly and publicly to the Board of Regents with detailed information available in the public BOR meeting materials. Information about grants to UH, including UARC task orders is available with a UH login through online report options at the ORS web page. In addition, we do have an internal team that’s diligently working to a more involved UIPA request relating to the UARC. However, I do need to say that donations and gifts to the UH Foundation are private. Donors are entitled to privacy and that is the case at nearly all universities across the country.
We have also had calls for an academic boycott of Israel. UH stands committed to academic freedom. UH leadership does not support an institutional academic boycott of Israel or anyone else as a strategy for political action. Fundamentally, we believe that willing exchanges among students and faculty from different places, increases learning and understanding among peoples and can contribute to a more peaceful planet. But UH also does not prohibit engagement in such boycotts by those who choose to do so. Engaging or not engaging with Israel or any other country is a matter of individual choice.
SFJP also called on UH to withdraw from the agreement between the state of Hawaiʻi and Israel that was entered into a few years ago. UH is not a party to that agreement. I did receive a separate request to the BOR and I for information this week and I will respond to that directly.
There have been several requests to make statements about the Middle East that take positions on the conflict. As a general practice, UH does not issue statements on global affairs. We do stand for peace and the dignity of all human beings but taking more specific positions on political matters across the world, particularly where there is not agreement within our campus communities, just would not contribute to the overall safety, health and well being of our entire university community, which is our priority.
Some have asked for affirmation of their freedom to protest and to speak without retaliation. As we have said, many times, UH stands firmly committed to the First Amendment and to academic freedom. We have not and will not suppress constitutionally protected free speech. We are actually proud of our decades-long history of peaceful and non-disruptive protest at UH that allows instruction and scholarship to continue. The conundrum, of course, is the conflict between the complete right to free expression and the harm caused to others by free speech that can be hateful. Not everything that can be legally said should be said. We are working to cultivate a campus community that cares for one another and this place, a campus with shared aloha. So while we cannot legally prohibit hateful speech, we can encourage restraint and try to mitigate the damage that hateful but legal speech can cause to safety, health and wellbeing.
SFJP also opposes the UARC and asked the BOR to reject it. That was obviously the subject of much testimony this morning. I will note that the renewal was not taken up this summer but purposely delayed until this fall specifically to ensure that students and faculty could provide their input to the BOR as we have heard this morning and at the Committee meeting several weeks ago. This item was purposely not put on the consent agenda like other indemnification requests, including another one today, in order to provide for separate consideration by the BOR. The UARC contract is simply another contract vehicle that individual investigators can choose to utilize or not as they exercise their academic freedom to engage with the Department of Defense or not, as noted. UARC projects do serve Hawaiʻi and beyond. The public testimony that you have heard at these last two meetings, is part of the process for your consideration before the vote later today.
Multiple requests have also been made for specific faculty hires at Mānoa, some to support specific positions and perspectives. The campus has a very well articulated process for entertaining requests for faculty hires that advance strategic priorities and the shifts in student needs. Proponents of specific hires should advance those requests through their deans for consideration by the campus.
And finally, special scholarships have been requested; in this case for students from Gaza, UH does not create scholarship programs using state general funds or UH student tuition for students from specific regions suffering from warfare, famine or other hardships, whether Gaza, Ukraine, Afghanistan or anywhere else. We do welcome contributions from individuals or groups who do want to support such students to pursue a great education here at any UH campus.
So apologies for the length of the statement. Putting this item explicitly on the agenda as part of the President’s report was intended to enable public testimony or attention on a matter that we know to be of importance to many and to provide a very public response in a comprehensive manner to the diverse inputs presented to the BOR and president, many of which have also been very public.
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Nov 2023: Lassner: Why I'm staying out of Gaza dispute
May 2024: Usual Suspects Rally Against Jews at UH
May 2024: At UH Manoa, ASUH Sponsors Anti-Semites
KHON: University of Hawaii plans changes after Title VI investigation | KHON2