Closed-minded student protesters are creating chaos

All of us are watching with great concern as universities across the country, and now here in Texas, are swallowed up in the chaos of protests over a terrible conflict half a world away.

The protests echo a past when campuses were torn apart in a struggle over our own war in Vietnam and the civil rights movement.

But they also point to a troubling present when too many young people are too easily persuaded into treating their causes and conclusions as so righteous and absolute that they would quash the freedom and peace of those around them.

There are matters of grave concern in this war, among them the shocking death toll of innocent Palestinians. But many of the student protestors from Austin to New York are unwilling to engage in the sort of serious debate of causes and effects in war. Too many have simplified the complex issues at stake into an insultingly simplified narrative of good versus evil. And that is a deep discredit to the faculty of the universities where they are learning.

These are not ill-informed and ignorant kids. These are some of the smartest young adults in our country. But they appear to have been taught to shut out the kind of critical thinking that invites nuance and deliberation into one’s mind.

Faculty members should be ashamed to look at students they have taught resort to banging drums and chanting murderous slogans. They should be disgusted that some protesters would single out Jewish students for harassment and even violence simply because they are identifiably Jewish. They should be alarmed that students believe it is appropriate to wreck the daily operations of campus, to upend final exams, to shut down the ceremony of graduation all because they believe their cause is so paramount and so unassailable. It isn’t, and someone should have taught them that.

Our nation has a great tradition, protected in our foundational law, of free speech and free assembly. The authorities on every campus must be careful to uphold that tradition and protect those rights.

But our freedoms are not an unlimited license. College students have no right to destroy the ability of others to attend class or to walk the campus lawns unimpeded and without feeling harassed and bullied. They have no right to persistently disturb the peace of others.

University administrators should be asking themselves hard questions even as they call in the law to restore order. How did our best colleges become places where so many students seem blind to the complexity of world events? How are so many seemingly able to forget or even justify the precipitating event of Israel-Hamas war, a terror attack that killed some 1,200 people, including young people of college age who were just at a dance party. They were just being young when they were brutally murdered. Some were sexually assaulted. Some were carried off as hostages and remain hostages.

We urge Gov. Greg Abbott to show restraint in confronting our young people, with respect for their constitutional rights and understanding about their misguided actions.

But those who would protest must also remember the freedoms you are exercising have limits. They are also freedoms that are not enjoyed in places like Hamas-ruled Gaza or the West Bank. They are freedoms that deserve respect.

And to faculty, we say: consider carefully what you are teaching and whether you are opening or closing the minds of those you are charged with educating.

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