I have been at a loss for what to say and how best to engage (let alone write) over the atrocity that is Palestine right now. Especially given my human rights background, many of my friends and colleagues are so deeply connected to the people and cause that it feels like a betrayal to be anything but categorical.

I’ve never been good at absolutes. I’m just not that certain of a person. I’m always looking for nuance and discussion and, most of all, a way forward. I haven’t been able to find space for that, other than with a handful of close friends who confess they feel the same way but are similarly afraid to admit it.

When a WhatsApp group of my SIPA cohort - people who presumably went to grad school to learn how to solve conflict - dissolved into rapid fire accusations, with former classmates and friends shouting past each other, I was ready to abandon hope.

Current SIPA student Jasmine Sarryeh Jemersic’s recent article ironically made me feel a bit better. The way she frames her disappointment in Columbia (which I share) describes my disappointment in the seeming impossibility of genuinely open, candid, yet civil and solution-oriented conversation:

As SIPA teaches us, contextualizing is the job of policymakers. Sadly, Columbia has also encouraged the conflation of explanation with justification, and the word ‘terrorism’ is waved as a trump card that shuts down discourse.

This approach is different from what we learn in our classes. We are taught to respect international law and to take it seriously. We are taught that state actors and armed groups must both be held accountable for violations of international law. In our classes on terrorism, we are exposed to the history of violent actors all the way back to the Sicarii. We are informed of the importance of discussing ideological, political, and socioeconomic drivers of violence. We are taught to question why things happen, understand those reasons, and develop solutions grounded in root causes.

We cannot get to this place of practical application of theoretical knowledge if SIPA refuses to allow us the opportunity.

I’ll just leave it to her - here is the rest of her article, The end of Columbia’s ‘free speech campus’ myth: Administration’s descent into identity politics diminishes real political discourse