‘Do No Harm’: A week in the life of ‘democracy’ and the betrayal of the university student 

For the first time since October, I started feeling hopeful in the last few weeks. The intervening months, mostly a blur peppered by grief, rage, and speechlessness. Starting April 18, I was thrilled seeing Columbia students stand up for what’s right, then seeing that groundswell expand until by April 25 it reached my teaching school, City University of New York. What a profound honor, witnessing students’ commitment to justice, their clear-eyed condemnation of pitiless slaughter, and their courage. That is leadership. By April 30^th I was actually proud—of the students and, as a faculty member for a quarter century, of the university. We weren’t seeing the unconstitutional aggression witnessed at Columbia or UT Austin. We were permitting our encampment to play out; I’d heard tell of administrators meeting with students on their demands.

Gen Z was bringing the political world to its knees because of mass violence it wrongly authorizes, the sun was shining in Gotham City again, and a ‘60’s slogan rang in my ears: “Make Love, Not War.” 

By the end of the day, all the good feelings vanished as I watched the NYPD level our encampment and abuse students and faculty, there to protect them. My university waged war on its students because they defended the right to life—because against—not for—genocide. Rather than diplomacy and dialogue, ignoring much of what is taught in our classrooms about democracy, my university got 173 students and faculty arrested; they were beaten, bones and teeth broken, their hijabs ripped from their bodies. The rights guaranteed students, constitutionally and under the law were rescinded, and an enormously powerful week ended, sadly, tragically, furiously. 

And the fury does not abate. The next morning, Wed., May 1^st, I looked for the latest updates on the military attack on Gaza’s children, landing first on an AP piece about Israel’s advancement into Rafah. I knew it was coming, but this hit hard—so many excruciatingly perplexing contrarieties converging in a few short days. Remember six months ago when we were told southern Gaza was safe, when Palestinians from the north fled southward, some with injured children in tow? This too, a lie, a rouse, a method to level Gaza while creating an appearance of “reasonableness.” No more faked reasonableness, even, as 22 more Palestinians are murdered, “mostly children.” Then Israel issued an evacuation order in Rafah, meaning—it’s gonna get very bad. (Just that fast, it has.)

And the death toll rises, day by day, and the beat down of Palestine goes on.

There is no safe space for the people of Gaza. There is nowhere safe for students to freely assemble in defense of Gaza–that is, to do as their college leaders instruct them: to civically engage on justice matters, to follow ground rules exactly like those of CUNY’s now leveled encampment. Still reeling, still on Wednesday, I opened my CUNY email finding two reminders about required “Antiviolence Training.” “Deadline Approaching,” I was warned. Another searing concomitance—do we believe in avoiding violence? Why was I completing this course when administrators had revealed themselves to be non-believers? CUNY students Did the Right Thing in leading the world when the world’s political leaders failed to and when university leaders followed suit. They did literally everything right: they “demonstrated” the meaning of democracy in a well-organized assembly endangering no one and nothing, and, as Columbia professor Helen Benedict notes, “nobody and nothing was out of control.” 

The encampments are proving to be the least threatening piece in the entire architecture of war and resistance. What are students doing in these ostensibly “threatening” gatherings? They’re studying for finals, knitting, reading poetry, holding workshops; pretty quiet overall, sometimes they sing or dance or discuss strategy or bugle call. No one has credibly named or convincingly documented any public safety concern. It’s extremely unlikely, as alleged at a Town Hall at CCNY on May 7, that encamped students set off a “military grade” device. That most CUNY students are food insecure is well documented; but surely they would procure food before stocking arsenals? They are not anti-food, but they are anti-arsenal—their activism, an agitation against an arsenal.

As if ethnic cleansing isn’t sufficient cause for mass protest like what we’re seeing, numerous rationales have been floated to account for the uprising. The students were indoctrinated by faculty. No, wait, NYC’s mayor is certain they were brainwashed by “outside agitators” we do not know where from but we know those illusory figures exist because Fox News reported it. (This article goes some way to explaining the mystery–why Adams keeps alleging outside influencers, why he inarticulately trashes the raising of a Palestinian flag at a Palestine rally.) No, hold on—the students are secretly antisemitic even as a quite large number proudly declare their self-identified Jewishness on t-shirts and signage and in public-protest-seders. Next it will be that aliens from Mars descended on Harlem to exercise mind control over CUNY and Columbia students, causing them, “shockingly,” to demonstrate against the mass slaughter of civilians, “mostly children.” 

The truth is, today’s students live on social media, where the assault is properly covered. The encampments are a virtual corporeality—the world according to social media concretized. (One of the best things about social media: hard to keep ugly truths hidden.) Whereas mainstream media outlets generally skirt the Gazan atrocity, students are not watching “the CBS evening news.” Their news comes through that well-known set of social media hubs. They are (therefore) seeing the carnage. And, as occurred during the American War in Vietnam, exposure to military violence reigning down on civilians has “radicalized” them. In the 1960’s, the first time most families had televisions at home, everyone, college students included, watched the CBS evening news with Walter Cronkite. “America” saw the violence befalling the Vietnamese people, and thus was a sweeping, successful anti-war movement sparked. Today’s anti-war movement? Likewise spurred by its own simple truth; the only “indoctrinator,” the fact of genocide. 

I wait, in vain, for the political world to stop the war crimes now multiplying. But today’s students—in their power and pluck, in a moral fiber made of metal, in one synchronized voice, one collective body stood against tyrannical cruelty and killing—got the righteous call launched, like David’s rock, a great yolp hurled before all the world: “Disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest!” Exhausted already by seven months of marches and rallies, they took the full weight of today’s horror in occupied Palestine on their shoulders and, in so doing, tilted the whole climate-changed planet on its axis. 

Why do they place themselves in harm’s way? Because they are enraged—enraged by an ever-mounting death toll, enraged by enforced starvation, enraged by merciless dehumanization, as they ought to be. 

As we ought to be. Generation Z forced the world to stop, look, listen, and respond. And respond it has. Except that the duty of the university is to enable student success, not break their teeth, it is to sustain students for life’s long haul, not undermine them. Do No Harm: imperiling their futures, they’re given criminal records; threatening their ability to finish college and start careers, they face disciplinary action. Violent harm, “life” harm—the capacity to secure housing, loans, jobs, healthcare, all compromised.

As Serene Jones, president of Union Theological Seminary, urges, our roles mandate us to “truly, deeply [care] about the students we have been given to educate,” and to “be true to our educational mission.” It is now incumbent on university administrators, therefore, to undo the wrongs committed when Doing the Right Thing got “complicated” for them: 

1) rescind disciplinary actions; 

2) disallow criminal charges;

3) compensate harmed students and establish a mechanism for that;

4) negotiate with students on the five demands; and, 

5) support and protect students in free assembly, free expression, and activism which surely will not, and has not, stopped. 

Do No Harm—today, Gen Z teaches us the (political) meaning of the adage. For that, they will be remembered. 

For now, the struggle continues: the death toll rises, day by day, and the beat down of Palestine goes on…

Maureen E. Ruprecht Fadem
Maureen E. Ruprecht Fadem is a professor of English at CUNY Kingsborough. Her most recent book, Objects and Intertexts in Toni Morrison’s “Beloved”: The Case for Reparations, appeared in 2021. Maureen’s new collection, Imperial Debt: Colonial Theft, Postcolonial Reparations, will appear in late 2024 from Liverpool University Press.