Opinion: Campus protests, like those at MSU, can be a cry for universities to provide civics engagement

On Oct. 7, 2024, the anniversary of the Hamas attacks in Israel, pro-Palestinian protesters returned to the Auraria Campus, a shared campus in downtown Denver and the largest higher education campus in Colorado. My mind immediately went back to last spring, three days into one of the longest pro-Palestinian encampments in the country, when I first met with a group of Metropolitan State University of Denver student protesters.

This small group of students spent about a month camping on our quad, chanting and linking arms in solidarity with dozens of others to protest the situation in Gaza and make demands of our universities. It wasn’t an easy meeting–they had started calling me inflammatory names along with their other chants, some of which were antisemitic. As a university president, I found myself in the challenging position of navigating between upholding free speech and maintaining the rights and safety of a nervous community.

Over the months, people have asked me what it was like to lead a large urban university during one of the most contentious campus protests in recent memory. My answer is usually mixed. I was frustrated by some of the protestors’ tactics, which didn’t seem to directly address the suffering in Gaza or were not relevant, such as their demands for the university to divest tuition dollars from the region. As a public university, we have no such investments. On the other hand, I deeply value the right to free speech in our country, so I did not want to stifle that right.

I feel so strongly about free speech that I taught a class on it at MSU Denver during my third and fourth years as president. I recall vividly how students in my class were able to develop and refine their views on free speech as the class progressed. On the first day of class, I asked them if hate speech should be protected. Many of them said “no.” By the end of the semester, they developed a more multifaceted view of free speech, understanding the difference between hate speech and outright threats. I was proud the students in my class grew to understand the nuances around when free speech crosses the line into threats and incitement of violence.

During the protests, my primary focus was on our students. As I sat across the table from our student protesters, I kept thinking, “they remind me of my uncle.” My uncle had been a leader in his college protests against the Vietnam War when he was about the same age as these students.

I called my uncle that evening to help me understand what it was like for him, as a student protest leader, to sit on the other side of that table from his college president. He was quick to remind me that for him, the anti-Vietnam War protest movement was the most important experience of his life.

“Whether or not we stopped the war, we believed we did — and that belief was powerful,” he told me.

That insight helped shape my approach to the student protestors. While I certainly wanted them to disperse from our quad and to respect our campus community, I also understood that, for many of them, this movement was a significant experience in their lives.

As administrators, whether we agree with the protesters’ specific positions is irrelevant. The role of higher education is to help students learn how to engage productively, make sense of complex issues, and find their roles in a constantly changing world. This is why it’s so important to reinvigorate a focus on the humanities and the study of history and culture in particular. We must foster forums for vibrant educational debate that encourage diversity of thought while ensuring everyone feels physically safe, even when intellectually or emotionally challenged. Reflecting on the protests showed us where we may have fallen short in giving our students a voice. We have since elevated our efforts in that area.

To ensure our community is able to engage, debate, and learn without having to resort to drastic or disruptive actions to be heard, MSU Denver is building on programs like our Presidential Federal Internships and Voter Engagement Student Ambassadors, which give students firsthand experience in democratic processes and civil society. During election season, or when there are big events taking place in the world, we host debates, dialogue sessions, and policy panels on campus, while professors hold “ask a professor” sessions on hot topics of interest to the community – including the war in Gaza.

As my uncle reminded me, “The endgame is the process itself — the dialogue — not solving the problem.”

After a year of war and protest, amid one of the most polarizing election seasons of our lifetimes, college campuses provide a forum to teach, learn, and contextualize history. Higher education plays a vital role in shaping a better future and is proof that the value of learning – and learning from one another – is immeasurable.

Janine Davidson is the president of Metropolitan State University of Denver.

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