What’s the right thing to do when war rages and kids are dying half a world away?
Students at Chapman University’s Dale E. Fowler Law School started planning a symposium back in the spring — an annual project of the student-run Diversity and Social Justice Forum, which seeks to avoid the echo chamber of ideas and provide a forum for a wide range of voices.
All this planning was to culminate on Thursday, Oct. 12, with a keynote speech on “Islamaphobia and Intersectionality in the Law in the United States” by Khaled Beydoun, a law professor at Arizona State University. Beydoun is also the author of “The New Crusades: Islamophobia and the Global War on Muslims” and “American Islamophobia: Understanding the Roots and Rise of Fear.”
Last weekend, Hamas attacked Israel. Israel responded. “They want you to believe that: Arab = Muslim = Palestinian = Hamas,” Beydoun posted on X (formerly Twitter). “This enables the mass bigotry and racism we’re witnessing now. Orwell would be proud.”
Also: “Children dying on either side is abhorrent. It’s that simple.”
Officials at Chapman worried. Having Beydoun speak in the current climate could be seen as insensitive and could even be unsafe, students were told on Tuesday, Oct. 10. Beydoun’s speech would be dropped, but the event would move forward with panel discussions.
Some students were aghast. They mounted their best case to have the symposium continue as planned, with Beydoun. On Wednesday, Oct. 11, Fowler Law School Dean Paul Paton sent an email to students saying the entire symposium would be postponed until the spring, when the situation in the Middle East will have hopefully calmed down and Beydoun’s speech might be better received.
This outraged some students even more. It sends a troubling message that critical conversations and diverse perspectives can be set aside in the face of adversity, and that meaningful discourse is expendable in the face of challenging circumstances, one…
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