A fear of doing something wrong?

Is that why Columbia University leadership won't make unequivocal decisions about the campus protest crisis?

The last year and a half hasn’t been kind to Columbia University, one of America’s best higher education institutions. When it became an epicenter of student protests stemming from the events in Gaza, the university couldn’t come up with a legitimate and consistent answer as to how it would handle the on-campus protests. The university’s crisis became worse on Capitol Hill where the former university president refused to defend one of the hallmarks of higher education: Robust conversation about challenging issues.

Once the institution adopted a flimflam approach, it led to constant questions from all quarters about what the university’s leaders were thinking. What was the strategy to what could only be described as a yes-we-are-but-no-we’re-not attitude?

The latest let’s-try-to-have-it-both-ways occurred on Thursday. As Newsweek reports,

Columbia University announced on Thursday that it expelled or suspended some of the students who occupied a campus building last year in protest of Israel's war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The Ivy League school in New York City also said it had temporarily revoked the diplomas of some students involved in the protests who have since graduated but did not provide additional information.

The two most-important words: temporarily revoked. That’s not a strong decision. It will not satisfy students or large portions of the public. And it certainly will not turn down the heat directed at Columbia by the White House. Either refuse to revoke diplomas or permanently revoke them.

Take a stand.

Powerfully announce it.

Robustly defend it.

While that university’s weak decision was announced, a protest was taking place not far away. There, a Jewish organization led loud calls demanding that the Palestinian man who was front and center during the on-campus protests be released from government detention. As of Thursday evening, Mahmoud Khalil remained behind bars in Louisiana, although efforts to deport him are on hold.

If you’ve followed what has taken place at Columbia over the past roughly 18 months, then there is only one conclusion you can reach: Unwilling to make clear which camp it is in, the university leadership has satisfied no one.

The needle Columbia’s leadership is trying to thread has no opening. It must announce which educational and democratic values it will, or will not, allow on its campus. Aware of Columbia’s anti-Semitic past, which a university task force defined as “crushing,” the administration has another layer of complication to deal with.

Meanwhile, writing for Real Clear Education, Aaron Pomerantz suggests the university disciplinary decisions

…must be authoritative, both offering structure and resources and enforcing discipline when necessary. That doesn’t mean telling our students what to think, but it absolutely does mean teaching them how to think, and even more importantly, how to act, especially regarding difficult issues like Israel Palestine. By refusing to inflict consequences before student extremism reaches outright antisemitism, we aren’t just failing the Jewish students who must now suffer calls to “globalize the Intifada.” We are fundamentally failing ourselves by refusing to fulfill our calling to stand in loco parentis and develop the students in our care.

A temporary revocation of diplomas is not “just failing the Jewish students",” many of whom justifiably felt unsafe as the protests raged about a year ago, but it is also means abandoning “our calling to stand in loco parentis and develop the students in our care.”

Perhaps there’s a reason to explain this frustrating approach. One unambiguous action made by the university’s leaders early in the crisis exploded in their face. Elisha Baker writes the following:

The first major eruption along these lines began with the suspensions of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) in November 2023. After the two groups repeatedly refused to follow the university’s time, place, and manner regulations on protests, the administration’s Special Committee on Campus Safety, which does not include students or faculty, handed down unilateral suspensions to the two student groups.

In response, about 100 faculty members and graduate students, some of whom walked out of their own classes, gathered to protest what they viewed as a violation of free speech. Weeks later, Gerald Rosberg, chairman of the Special Committee, spoke before the University Senate after senators criticized him for violating the Rules Committee’s conception of the disciplinary process. Under intense scrutiny from senators, he conceded that the university may have gotten it wrong.

Does that explain it? The leadership doesn’t want to make another significant mistake? Sadly, so many of them have been made over the past 18 months that it’s far too late to be worrying about digging a deeper hole.

The message from the administration moving forward must be clear: Take a stand. Powerfully announce it. Robustly defend it.