IN THE COASTAL town where I live, this winter when the skies were filled with thousands of Western monarch butterflies as the overwintering migratory phase peaked, all I could think about were the leaflets Israeli war planes drop over Gaza; the juxtaposition of safety and beauty with terror and war, as the conflict enters its sixth month, leaving over 32,000 Palestinians, 196 humanitarian aid workers, including 7 members of World Central Kitchen dead.
The leaflets fall silently, but contain messages of violence and inhumanity.
Language matters. So does silence.
It is the issue we are not supposed to talk about as university professors even in the progressive state of California. Yet the urgent need for critical, complex, and humanizing dialogue across differences has made itself known, over and over on college campuses across the nation, since the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct 7. In its absence, boiling points continue to be reached — most recently, when students at Columbia, Yale, and University of Southern California filled quads in support of Palestinian freedom last weekend. Instead of being heard or engaged in dialogue, students have been demonized, silenced, and arrested for peaceful protests, while social media spins false narratives.
This mirrors the eruption and response at my university on Feb. 19, when student protesters for Palestinian freedom loudly but nonviolently disrupted the lecture of a Jewish Studies guest speaker. This resulted in a young woman protester allegedly being grabbed by a male Jewish history professor, the employee placed on leave pending an investigation, and the speaker being escorted off campus by police.
Aside from an alert, the university remained silent. But predictably, social media posts flipped the narrative with images of student protesters labeled by commenters as “subhuman,” “savages,” and “terrorists” worthy of expulsion. Mind you, it was a faculty member that grabbed a student, not the other way around.
What is the role of minority serving institutions (MSI) during complex geopolitical events like the Israel-Hamas war? This is the question I’ve been asking myself, as a science education professor at a public university with a history of social activism, where alumni include iconic athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos, and where greater than 40 percent of students are first in their families to attend college. If we are not to educate, foster critical dialogue, and build bridges through shared humanity, what is the purpose of higher education institutions? The need for critical dialogue is more urgent than ever. My navigation of the issue with pre-service science teachers illustrates that silence doesn’t have to be the answer to difficult questions.
The devastating void of silence
In this moment, the silence is leaving a gap that is being filled with much more than devastation over unimaginable atrocities in Gaza. Rather, fundamental and painful questions have emerged for students: Who is considered human? Whose life has value, here and abroad? Students are called “savages” by outsiders. No one with a platform is telling them otherwise.
My interpretation of the silence is it is intended to be neutral, an avoidance of the complex geopolitical fire, because repercussions are real. Academic institutions are beacons of freedom, but the First Amendment works one way on this issue. I understand this on a personal level; I am a white woman married to a Jewish woman. I am critical of the Israeli government, my wife avoids the issue, thus, silence lives with us. Yet my race provides the freedom to speak in my classroom in ways that are not safe for my Muslim and Colleagues of Color at my university and others, even in California. There’s a devastating cost to that, for them, students, and democracy.
I teach the science methods course for aspiring middle and high school science teachers. Why discuss the war in a science education course anyway?
First, the students at the MSI where I work are reflected in the demographic groups that think Israel’s response is “too much” (i.e. people of color, those under 45) with half of Gen Z/Millennials reporting they sympathize more with Palestinians. These same demographic groups consistently voice disapproval of President Biden’s actions in the war.
Second, my course centers racial justice in science education. I seek to model the responsiveness with which I want secondary science teachers to build community in California’s racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse classrooms, because I believe regardless of what subject you teach, if students don’t feel safe and seen, no one will learn anything.
To cultivate critical dialogue, I foster evidence-based discussions about media and the power to shape societal perceptions of people and places. As a regular part of the syllabus, and prior to Oct 7, we watched Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED Talk: The Danger of a Single Story that examines the power stories and what happens when dehumanizing stereotypes become the definitive story of people and places.
To process the impact of the Israeli Defense Minister referring to Palestinians as “human animals,” we layered Shereen Marisol Meraji’s 2017 NPR story: What Happens When Groups of People are Described as Animals into our discussions. Further, we listened to a Muslim author, who referenced Adichie’s talk when discussing the recent spike in antisemitism and Islamophobia in the U.S. These discussions created a safe space for students to process, critique, challenge, be heard, and grow.
At the end of the Fall 2023 semester, I projected a photo of migrating monarchs alongside IDF leaflets falling. It was intense imagery, the class fell silent. I was anxious, had I gone too far? Thus, after the semester was over, my heart sank when I received a student email ominously entitled: “feedback.” Was this student, a white woman, offended? I braced for what was to come.
What I read brought tears. She expressed profuse gratitude for the space in class to consider alternative perspectives, engage with critical care, and experience each other’s humanity. At City Arts and Lectures in San Francisco, Angela Davis said this on Palestine building bridges across differences: “Education is essential to the progress of freedom. Education should be the practice of freedom.” It is time to create spaces that engage complexity in promotion of shared dignity and humanity and to build bridges across differences. I had projected my own fear and anxiety into the class’s silence.
I imagine that when students are called “savages” and no one says otherwise, they might feel the same.
About the author
Tammie Visintainer is an Assistant Professor of Science Teacher Education at San Jose State University who explores intersections of race, place, and climate justice and prepares future justice-centered secondary science teachers as transformative designers and change agents for racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse classrooms. She is a Public Voices Fellow with The OpEd Project.