It's been a month since the hijacking of four commercial airplanes shattered the American sense of security and complacency that set in when the Cold War ended and was reinforced by years of economic prosperity. On Sept. 11, over 5,000 people were killed, a national symbol was destroyed, and the US economy was derailed in a few fateful hours, focusing the nation on imminent security concerns.
Impressively, administrators rallied together to hold a vigil that very night, during which hundreds of Tufts students crowded the academic quad to find solace in school officials and their peers. At the vigil, prayers and moments of silence were mixed with warnings not to discriminate against Muslims or Arab Americans. Most students were pleased with the vigil, but some said the University should have waited before addressing issues of tolerance at a time that should have been reserved for mourning.
While the warnings against discrimination were an important message, Tufts should have waited before focusing students' attention on the significant, but peripheral, issue of campus unity. The University response was pragmatic, with Tufts considering possible consequences of the attack on its student body. But it seems that school officials, in their attempts to protect Arab students, were insensitive to the needs of those who lost family and friends in the attack.
While still mourning, the next phase for Tufts should have been educating students on the geopolitical issues that brought on the attack. Instead, during the month that followed, Tufts continued to focus on diversity and nondiscrimination. E-mails from the president and unsubstantiated accounts of hate crimes dominated the official discourse.
When the faculty joined the debate, little improved. A group of professors held a "teach-in" during which they rekindled peace rhetoric and dusted off anti-war slogans not used since the Vietnam War. Over 20 professors co-authored a Viewpoint that was a compilation of tabloid horror stories of discrimination from across the nation. And history Professor Peter Winn wrote a Viewpoint that dismissed President Bush's speech to Congress as an oversimplification of global politics.
More constructive responses included political science professor Michael Goldman's revamping his popular "Media, Politics, and the Law," class to focus on the consequences of the attack. EPIIC Director Sherman Teichman should also be applauded for including the attacks in this year's theme of "Global Inequalities."
But the majority of outspoken professors have simply engaged in anti-Bush, anti-war protests. Reacting to the overwhelming American pro-war consensus, professors have advanced legitimate themes about discrimination and non-violence that a nation caught up in military rhetoric has often overlooked. However, these and other faculty members are not meeting their other obligation: to educate. In times of uncertainty, students crave information. Tonight's seminar on the war, sponsored by the political science department, could spark vital academic debate. But thus far, professors with useful expertise have responded with characteristic academic cynicism, and have not made attempts to objectively inform students about the complex web of issues, ranging from deploying our military to Islam and Middle Eastern politics.
To a certain degree, it is an academic's role to question the majority opinion, especially when Americans are rallying blindly behind their war-time president. Yet the relevant faculty have not seized the educational opportunity at hand. While it is important to continue to teach in an academic setting, professors must also use their knowledge and stature to help students make sense of a complicated and increasingly frightening conflict.
