Introduction and Methods
In 2024, when tackling buzzwords relating to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), college campuses present a level of autonomy for students to define these ideals. The college campus functions as a concentrated utopia of academic research, shifting philosophies, and civic engagement. College campuses have long been integral to the fight for advocacy, ranging from issues concerning the Vietnam War to Black Lives Matter. With identity spaces, cultural communities, and the advertised emphasis on raising collective consciousness, student activism has never been more encouraged. And yet with the rise of cancel culture and doxxing on social media, student activism remains contentious, feared, and political. This is only exacerbated by administrative politics and the power dynamics existing in higher education. In her journal article, “What Makes a Safe Space?” Melinda Myrick, English Professor at Free Range Community College, boldly writes:
The path forward is through policies that encourage freedom of expression across all organizational levels, so that a multitude of ideas, beliefs, and values are understood as tools of unity rather than division. Without such policies, the inclusive messaging colleges and universities promote is nothing more than a disingenuous marketing strategy.
(Myrick 2018, p. 20)
This paper explores the responses of Emory University community members to the most recent events of the Israel and Palestine conflict, starting with an attack from the militant group, Hamas, on Israel on October 7, 2023. Drawing upon publications in the campus newspaper, The Emory Wheel, local news coverage, and insight from faculty and students, we seek to explore how Emory University, as a private higher education institution, has shaped past and current campus culture. In this article we describe how conversations and physical demonstrations surrounding global oppression and resistance operate in institutional spaces, and how groups of involved students are made to feel by the institution. By examining the concept of “safe spaces,” we problematize how student safety operates on campus, and how, or if, Emory University as an institution has a role in ensuring student safety. We believe that classrooms as safe spaces resist institutional framing and offer students–especially those on the margins–opportunities to express, survive, and relate in community. In looking towards IDEAS, an interdisciplinary fellowship, we examine how safe spaces on college campuses should be modeled.
“Safe spaces” are ambiguous, operating in settings ranging from college campuses to corporate offices. However, all “safe spaces” should be formed with the community in need of said space in mind. This research is grounded in Dr. Kurt Lewin’s proposed method, community-based participatory action research (CBPAR), which encompasses ‘‘a collaborative approach to research that involves all stakeholders throughout the research process… to address the practical concerns of people in a community and fundamentally changes the roles of researcher and who is being researched” (Holkup et al. 2004, p. 5).
CBPAR is employed across disciplines, ranging from public health to organizational science. At its core, it revolves around community members to help design and influence the research process, centered around the tenets of empathy and collective care. In employing the methodology of CBPAR in our research, we have structured this paper around the experiences and input from Emory University community members.
When news of the October 7 attack broke out, the majority of Emory students were off-campus for Fall Break. Upon collective return, two vigils took place: Emory Hillel and Emory Eagles for Israel leading the one for Israel, and Emory Students for Justice in Palestine (ESJP) leading one for Palestine. The Israel Vigil occurred in Asbury Circle, student and faculty speakers alongside representatives from the aforementioned organizations being present (Ross 2023). Students spoke on safety; this ambush attack affected many of their loved ones, who had either died, been called into combat, or currently feared for their livelihoods and protection.
The Palestinian Vigil occurred a few days after in Cannon Chapel, with the co-presidents of Emory Students for Justice for Palestine (ESJP starting their speeches by asking for no photography to ensure their safety (Khan 2023). It was said that they had already received threats, spurred by a screenshot from The Hub of their names and affiliations to ESJP being posted on LinkedIn by Emory alumni, calling for their expulsion.
In the first week, tensions on campus were palpable. It was not until the Emory Stop Cop City protest on October 25, 2023, hosted in Asbury Circle, that the institution became publicly intertwined in the conversation surrounding “safety.” When the protesters mentioned phrases like “From the River to the Sea,” many students opposing these chants coalesced in opposition to protest leaders. There is contention in the use of the phrase, made in reference to the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea as an emblem of Palestinian land ownership, as a slogan of resistance or a slogan said in affiliation with the group Hamas. The protest leaders and protesters were videotaped, with videos later being posted to the Instagram account @israelwarroom and reports of protest leaders being doxxed–a term referring to personal information, like addresses and family member names, being disseminated publicly as a form of incendiary cancel culture.
Emails and Open Letters
The President of Emory University, Gregory Fenves responded to the Stop Cop City protest in an administrative email that evening, which was sent to students, faculty, and alumni. He said, “antisemitic phrases and slogans were repeatedly used by speakers and chanted by the crowd,” claiming a violation of Emory’s Open Expression policy that protects free speech. He concluded by advising Emory community members to “seek out that other perspective. Seek understanding over division and hateful attacks.” Here, the President publicly acknowledged the tension among students and the need for positive change. Despite this, he did not comment on Emory Stop Cop City’s concerns about the University’s ties to the construction of the Cop City facility, nor concerns about islamophobia against pro-Palestinian students. He did not specify which slogans and phrases were antisemitic. He did not advise how understanding and other perspectives should be sought after. Students were left guessing, without detailed institutional guidance or support. There was a motion for further steps without the clarity or resources necessary for facilitation; this email elicited an undeniable power vacuum, with some affirmed, some enraged, and the majority of Emory community members simply at a loss.
Co-writer Saanvi is an Opinion Editor for the Emory Wheel. The following passage details her experience in this position after the October 25th Stop Cop City protest.
What ensued thereafter through the Emory Wheel was a slew of Open Letters. It was clear that after Fenves’ email, safety, for Jewish students, Muslim, and Arab students, faculty, and the ideal of open expression, was threatened. With no further administrative follow-up, the Open Letter became a formalized mode of voicing concern, citing experience, and requesting comment from President Fenves. The Emory Wheel developed an Open Letter policy halfway through the semester in response, dictating that Open Letters “make a statement that wouldn’t be adequately expressed by an Op-Ed, are signed by a significant number of Emory community members, including students, faculty, staff and alumni, and should be addressed to a party other than the Wheel, typically a public figure or group at Emory.” This distinction signified shift in the operations of the Opinion Section, as we had witnessed a trend of writers submitting pieces with the connotation “Open Letter” instead of “Op-ed,” which we had defined in the same policy response as pieces which “may be written on a subject of the author’s choice but must be grounded in fact.”
The key distinction between an Open Letter and Op-Ed is that an Open Letter is based in nuanced perspective, with a further distinction being the inclusion of multiple signatures. Open Letter titles we published last semester ranged from a November 8, 2023 piece titled “Fenves ‘retract your statement’” by Faculty and Staff, to “Alumni support for protesting Emory students” (November 19, 2023), to “Fenves, take action against antisemitism,” (November 23, 2023). Because this issue is nuanced, and because feelings of oppression and acts of resistance are nuanced, these Open Letters espouse very different perspectives of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ in the protest, alongside which student groups had received or had failed to receive protection from the University. Open Letters on the concept of safety reached beyond Emory writers, with a Mondoweiss article published this past January 27, 2024, entitled “Open letter on the anti-Palestinian and Islamophobic environment at Emory University,” being signed by Atlanta and Georgia based organizations like the Georgia Chapter of Council on American Islamic Relations and the Asian American Advocacy Fund.
I bring up Open Letters to showcase that if so many members of the Emory community were resorting to the Emory Wheel for their open discourse, safety as a contention was rooted in the fact that there was no safe, physical space for this form of engagement. We, as the Opinion section, felt overwhelmed by the fact that when one contentious Open Letter was published, it would elicit a response from several students or faculty members seeking to share their own perspective. Eventually, the influx of Open Letters led to an echo chamber of the same beliefs and opinions being brought up in different forms, leading me to reflect on who they were serving. On one hand, it was admirable to see faculty members, students, and alumni, all armed with very different perspectives, resorting to journalism as a shared form of resistance. However, the lack of response from the administration, despite recurrent requests for comment, made me question how effective the Open Letter as a form of resistance was. It led me to question who these Open Letters were serving, for if not eliciting further response from President Fenves, they offered a chance to affirm community members that someone, anyone was listening. In reflecting, it is my belief that these submissions came from the need to feel affirmed; Open Letters acted as a way to unite over a perspective, and therefore, a substitute for a “safe space.”
Other events that ensued on campus after October 25 included anonymous chalkings citing statistics about Palestinian or Israeli sufferings, as well as posters of both Israeli and Palestinian victims being put up around campus–and torn down. These acts can be seen as oppressive or resisting; but beyond political interpretation and alignment, these acts are joined by the fact that they were being produced out of need for safety. Students on each side have not felt safe, and without an environment to foster discussion, tensions ensued through said demonstrations.
President Fenves sent a pre-Thanksgiving break email acknowledging the need to respect perspective and sharing sentiments of grief for Palestinian and Israeli victims. However, he never sent another email centered on University or student response. In sending the first one on October 25, he set a standard that the administration should be looked toward for ensuring student safety. Because Fenves determined the protest was antisemitic and didn’t acknowledge the issues or responses that ensued, we see these acts as students’ collective way to demand attention, because students, feeling angry and resentful and unheard, did not know how else to feel safe and seen.
Classrooms as Safe Spaces
Different organizations on campus have been established to engage in civic discourse, from TableTalk Emory to The Conversation Project. As institutionalized spaces, and within this conflict that feels impossible to facilitate discussion in, there is a tangible fear in creating any space tangential to Israel and Palestine. Members of the Emory campus have experienced doxxing and death threats, both of which pose serious safety concerns. The administration has not commented on these instances. After setting the October 25 precedent, student safety is not guaranteed by Emory as an institution; and if Emory, the university most students are paying for and living at, cannot guarantee safety, who or what should they look towards?
We posit that faculty–not as extensions of the institutions or representatives of the university but rather as independent change-makers–serve as co-creators of safe space at Emory. Dr. Geoffrey Levin, a tenure-track assistant professor of Middle Eastern and South Asian studies (MESAS) and author of his recent book Our Palestinian Question: Israel and American Jewish Dissent, 1948-1978, shares what he believes is imperative at a university: safety within classrooms. Although classrooms are not inherently supposed to be safe spaces–they are intellectual spaces made for knowledge sharing and community building–students should, at the bare minimum, feel safe around their peers and professors.
In a discussion with Dr. Levin, he shared:
It’s not always easy to make the classroom a “safe space”, as it must first and foremost be a
space for open inquiry and discussion. Yet the two often go hand and hand–students must feel
comfortable enough with each other to express themselves freely, which is why it is essential to
work from the very beginning of the semester to emphasize to students that my classroom is a
unique place, a shelter from the sound-bytes and facelessness of social media and protests,
where we are working together to foster a nonjudgmental environment where we give each
other the benefit of the doubt and try to be empathetic to each other and to the historical figures
we study. These are tough times. But that makes it all the more important that we work to
humanize each other and peoples of different backgrounds. Because if we can’t succeed in
making our modest classroom a place of humanization and empathy, what hope is there for a
better Middle East and a healthier discourse in the U.S. on these topics more broadly?
The university is comprised of a multitude of identities. Dr. Levin noted this and took initiative after events unfolded on October 7 to cultivate a community centered around positive change and diverse thinking. He asked fellow Emory professors to commit, within their capacities, to an open door policy. Universities are not well equipped for crisis management, and for better or for worse, professors often need to take on the brunt of student support during times of widespread hurt.
Dr. Geoffrey Levin does acknowledge the limits of this kind of intervention. He personally missed grant applications and understood that he, as well as other Emory professors, are not incentivized by the University itself to support students. Office hours, though, employ a safe space where vulnerability, between student and faculty, can flow. Office hours provide a liminal space in which the “loud voices” that may become overamplified in a classroom or extracurricular setting become quieted. Here, students can share in radically different ways than they can within class.
After publishing his aforementioned book, Dr. Levin hosted an event centered around a dialogue between Pro-Israel and Pro-Palestine students. With around forty people at the event, Dr. Levin pushed students to “look each other in the eyes.” He argues that we often do not take advantage of such a human and necessary behavior. Dr. Levin vividly demonstrates through his work outside of the classroom the power of safe spaces not generated within institutional sponsorship.
Ariel Bowden, a doctoral student in the Graduate Division of Religion who serves as an instructor and TA at Emory, shares her perspectives of safety within the classroom. In November of last semester in a discussion section of Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Religion and African American Studies Dr. Dianne Stewart’s Black Love course, Courtney shared with students that classrooms can become very “violent” spaces if the innate vulnerability of the space is mishandled. She encouraged students to bring any sign of such ill-treatment to her. Bowden took it upon herself, like Dr. Levin, to engender her definition of a safe space: one that prioritizes perspective and its reception.
IDEAS as a Model for Dialogue
How can we look each other in the eyes on Emory’s campus? How can we take advantage of the spaces our professors commit to create both in the classroom and in more private interactions? The Interdisciplinary Exploration and Scholarship Fellowship, better known on campus as IDEAS, may offer a model of what a “safe space” could look like at Emory, let alone other universities and institutions.
The fellowship, composed of around thirty student leaders across the university, meet weekly over lunch to discuss controversial topics abroad and locally. They, as part of the mission, commit to qualities necessary for a liberal arts education such as “independent thinking, self-reflection, and the capacity to understand questions and issues from multiple perspectives” (“About”). Students in IDEAS not only pursue interdisciplinary thought, but also the deep curiosity necessary for a holistic yet challenging education.
We don’t always agree. Co-author Saanvi Nayar led a discussion during one meeting in the Fall 2023 semester about the conflict between Israel and Palestine, providing a historical perspective and raising questions for conversation ranging on topics from American aid to antisemitic and Islamaphobic sentiments on campus. She emphasized that a well-phrased argument in these conversations does not trump the importance of compassionate empathy, with student identities being inextricably tied within this conflict. Viewpoints varied; yet, what ties us together is that we pursue what Dr. Levin mentioned as a necessary component of peacemaking: looking each other in the eye.
Senior member of IDEAS Sean Malhotra shares what he believes IDEAS provides for the Emory community:
IDEAS has been a cornerstone for academic discussion and debate throughout my time as an undergraduate. It serves as a unique space for students from all disciplines to discuss challenging topics through their life experiences and disciplines. Ensuring democratic, open discourse has been and will continue to be an aim for the Fellowship and ILA at large.He attests to the special nature of the space, one that many students could benefit from.
IDEAS is a semi-institutionalized space, facilitated by faculty employed by the University, with grant funding made possible by the administration and our physical space in the Callaway Memorial Center made possible by an independent donor. And yet, we as students have been able to dissect this issue and foster a dialogue. And while IDEAS fellows may present opinions with neutralized nuance or trepidation, this stable space can be attended on a weekly basis. A group of individuals that share a foundation of trust is invaluable on a University campus. We [Paige and Saanvi] personally believe, as fellows, that we consistently aim to prioritize curiosity in such a safe space.
Mujahid Osman studies Religion in the Laney Graduate School and is from Cape Town, South Africa. His research, as a fourth year PhD candidate, focuses on Muslim anti-imperialist ethics and queer Muslim traditions. As a Muslim graduate student hailing from an international background, Osman commented that he has not felt safe on campus after October 7, citing that because of a fear of discourse within the Religion Department at Laney, “If there is a safe space I have had to fight for it myself.” Moreover, he has experienced a student on campus taking a picture of him and running away after posing a question about their viewpoint concerning Israel’s stance.
Osman said that if he had known how the institution would handle administrative response in October, he would have never applied to Emory; specifically, he discussed how Emory University prides itself on encouraging student activism, yet in moments of advocacy, fails to properly facilitate it.
Most notably, when asked about ideal “safe spaces,” Osman commented on the fact that “the current need for a safe space is reduced to the need for political literacy,” while the idea of safe spaces should be expanded to “not necessarily [being] about how the space looks but how the space makes others feel. If you create a good enough effect or vibe, it caters to what people need.” In talking about IDEAS, which is centered around a weekly lunch, Osman commented on the fact that “the University can provide what contributes to that overall effect or need without being involved in the space.” We believe the University, with its 13 billion dollar endowment, could use some of its funds to fulfill the basic needs of students.
In reflecting on Osman’s sentiments, students who feel materially safe will be more equipped to feel socially and psychologically safe. Osman’s insight regarding the University providing a budget for a communal experience or a communal meal, while not being necessarily directly involved in the configuration of the “safe space,” allows institutional involvement without institutionalized effect. IDEAS models this space. With grant money from the administration fueling our lunches, semi-institutionalization provides the ability to meet over a meal, while the autonomy with controlling the energy and the people in our space grants the comfort to share perspective curiously.
Concluding on Safety and Curiosity
Curiosity, according to the director of the TAM Institute for Jewish studies and Emory Associate Professor Dr. Miriam Udel, is the heart of education and perhaps, also, safe spaces. In our discussion, Dr. Udel elaborated on the bedrock assumptions we make about safe spaces: we often believe that we must retreat, into a nook of similarity, to feel safe. But what if we think about safety as a form of encounter? What if we begin to cultivate our habits of mind into our persona so we, as individuals, serve as an extension of these safe spaces we admire so deeply?
At a college campus with our level of resources, we should be more than able to create a curious and safe space. “Yet we all come from somewhere,” shares the professor of Yiddish language, literature, and culture. We all seek and know differently and do not all share the same life experiences, despite having shared commitments at a university level.
Perhaps if we begin to approach all people in a “posture of curiosity,” as Dr. Udel states, we shall alter our habits of conversation–how we treat each other–so that the boundaries of safe spaces blend into our daily interactions. Yes, safe spaces can and should occur within learning environments like classrooms, but we will never fully integrate the qualities of such a space if we do not begin on the individual level within our own interpersonal interactions.
Dr. Udel shared her encouraging words with us:
College is short and life is really short. It is a lost opportunity every time the space is filled with silence. There could be connections fostered across a lot of differences of mutual suspicion and it’s just a better use of time at Emory and on this planet to foster those connections.
This is the framework that Emory Associate Professor of Religion Dr. Devaka Premawardhana used, too, in his Religion 300: Interpreting Religion class in Fall 2023 after October 7. He offered students the opportunity to discuss the conflict in class, not of its content, but rather the religious underpinnings and questions we had surrounding the conflict. He offered a series of articles written by both Pro-Israel and Pro-Palestine thinkers so that students could become familiar with a myriad of perspectives, driven by curiosity. Consistently throughout the class, he acknowledged the messiness of this kind of work and questioning: Emory University does not provide a manual on how to create safe spaces in the classroom when the world appears in flames. With poise and ample tolerance, though, Dr. Premawardhana conducted a compassion-informed class on the conflict. He encouraged students to be open to new perspectives, too.
We want to acknowledge that we do not offer curiosity as a panacea, especially in light of deep oppression, violence, and warfare. We all know that times of deep despair can bring out the worst in others. Curiosity can manifest and tumbleweed into a compulsion and power struggle to control and cause harm to others if not handled correctly. Amusing ourselves personally with the philosophical beauty of curiosity can, if not executed properly, disrupt actual progress of peacemaking, as we see in many governmental and institutional deliberations. We know that emails can only do so much.
Additionally, we acknowledge that grief is a powerful feeling. In a conversation I [Paige] had with Rabbi Jordan Braunig, we meditated on the familiarity of the feeling of grief we experience as humans. Yet in times of crisis, grief can become arresting. Students, faculty, and administration all suffer, which manifests in various responses to crisis. We have already mentioned how resistance requires space to generate; grief can darken and limit the safe space we hold in our individual minds to tap into these acts of disruption and change-making.
It simply takes a look to history, or to faculty on campus, or to each other, to understand that safety is sought after universally, but it is not granted easily.
But here, we ask not for immediate peacemaking, nor compromise. As graduate student Osman reflected, “The idea of safety is dependent on those who are constructing that notion. Who needs a break from who?” In collecting perspectives in this piece, employing CBPAR, we simply want to challenge the Emory community as a whole to continue to consider curiosity as resistance. We want to look each other in the eyes, see, and look again. We want to hear the quiet voices in office hours, be vulnerable in class, and to each other in our private interactions. We want “safe spaces”; however, we, hailing from different perspectives, places, and identities, seek to define them. An understanding of safety starts through reckoning with perspectives that seem foreign or opposed to our own; we advocate for empathy above all else. And as members of the broader Emory community, we demand empathetic reckoning for these claims, those that have been unanswered and underrepresented, and those that will continue to be brought up by the generations of changemakers this University educates.
References
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Udel, Miriam. Interview with Dr. Miriam Udel, Zoom, February 5, 2024.
