A student protester waves a Palestinian flag above Hamilton Hall on the campus of Columbia University, on Tuesday, April 30, 2024, in New York. (Mary Altaffer/Pool /AP)
For more than a year, the ongoing Israel-Hamas war has ignited tensions — and plenty of protests — on college campuses across the country.
That includes UNC-Chapel Hill, where three dozen protesters were detained from a four-day “Gaza solidarity encampment” in April. Further protests after police intervened in the demonstration made national headlines, as pro-Palestinian protesters removed the American flag from a campus flagpole — resulting in an hours-long standoff between opposing groups in the middle of campus.
Now, the university is taking a notably different approach to the conflict: Beginning next semester, some students will have an opportunity to enroll in a class about the war and its impacts on campuses.
The course, SCLL 190, or “Courageous Conversations: Israel and Palestine on Campus,” is being offered by the university’s still-new School of Civic Life and Leadership. According to a social media post from the school’s associate dean, the course will include a funded trip to Israel and the Palestinian territories.
“There is nothing on campus more difficult to talk about than Israel/Palestine. Rather than run away or do the minimum, @UNC we are moving into this space with courage & conviction,” Associate Dean David Decosimo wrote on X last month. “We can’t solve the crisis but we can help students learn to live together across deep difference.”
Decosimo’s X post continued: “With support of our Chancellor & Provost, we have designed a course that we hope will be transformative not only for the students who enroll but for our campus as a whole.”
A statement to The News & Observer from the university’s media relations office cautioned that faculty are continuing to plan the course, and some aspects of the class — including the trip abroad — aren’t finalized.
Faculty in the School of Civic Life “have been working through the planning process,” the university’s statement read, adding that “decisions for the course will be made in coordination with respective University units and with the appropriate guidance as an independent education abroad activity.”
Faculty involved in planning and teaching the course were not available for an interview with The N&O by the time of publication, according to the media relations office.
Course is for ‘whoever’s willing to sit at the table’
Decosimo’s X post about the course included a roster of four instructors including School of Civic Life professor of the practice John Rose, whose university biography describes him as a “nationally known expert on teaching civil discourse.” The other three instructors — Simon Greer, Tom Scott and Saad Soliman — are not listed as professors on the School of Civic Life’s website, and their relationships to the school are unclear.
Decosimo’s post also listed several “course guests:”
Meir Soloveichik, rabbi for Congregation Shearith Israel in New York City;
Abdullah Antepli, associate professor of the practice at the Duke University Divinity School, who previously directed the university’s Center for Muslim Life;
Ashager Araro, an Ethiopian-Israeli activist;
Ali Abu Awwad, a Palestinian activist;
Salam Fayyad, an economist and former prime minister of the Palestinian Authority;
Einat Wilf, a former Israeli politician who served in Knesset, Israel’s legislature;
Khitam Abu Bader, staff member of Desert Stars, which promotes leadership among the Bedouin, or the Palestinian and Arab indigenous people of Israel’s Negev desert;
and Tal Becker, vice president of Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem and former legal adviser to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The university’s statement described the instructors and guests as “a diverse group of nationally acclaimed thought leaders.”
To take the course, students must submit an application to Rose.
Last month, Decosimo wrote on X that there were “open seats for whoever’s willing to sit at the table.” That includes members of Hillel, an international organization for students; the Muslim Students Association; student government; Students for Justice in Palestine; a fraternity; or “whatever,” Decosimo added.
“It takes courage to come to the table & it does not mean abandoning conviction,” Decosimo wrote. “We’re betting on the courage, humanity, & hope of our students.”
The course, for which the exact content and syllabus remain unclear, will meet in a semester that will include the one-year mark since last spring’s tense protests on campus.
Pro-Palestinian protests have continued this fall, though they have generally happened on a smaller scale than the encampment last spring. Perhaps the most notable protest at UNC this fall was in mid-September, when protesters walked through campus buildings and spray-painted messages like “Free Gaza” and “Israel is a terror state” on the walls, The Daily Tar Heel reported.
During the week that marked the one-year anniversary of the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel last Oct. 7, the campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, which also hosted the spring encampment, held a “week of resistance.” In response to the protests and other activities during that week, the university implemented heightened security measures around campus “out of an abundance of caution.”
On X, Decosimo wrote that he had “heard pain, anger, & a sense of invisibility from nearly all” in the process of planning the course.
Controversy with School of Civic Life
The course can be seen as an attempt for the university’s School of Civic Life to live up to its stated purpose, which, in part, is for students to gain “important skills for civil discourse on difficult issues.”
If the course is successful in teaching those skills — particularly on an issue as fraught as the war in Gaza — it could be a boon to the burgeoning school, which has roots mired in controversy.
The university’s Board of Trustees brought the plans for the school to light nearly two years ago, when they adopted a resolution directing administrators to “accelerate” the development of the new academic unit. Some faculty were quick to criticize that move, noting that they were not informed about the school ahead of the trustees’ announcement — a process contrary to traditional shared governance structures at the university, in which faculty generally direct the curriculum and propose new academic units.
Some have also questioned the political motives behind the school, particularly after then-Board of Trustees chair — and now state auditor-elect — Dave Boliek went on a Fox News morning show and said the school was a way to “remedy” a shortage of “right-of center views” at the university and among faculty.
The dean of the university’s College of Arts and Sciences, where the School of Civic Life is housed, said last fall that faculty concerns about legislative and political “influence” on the school were “valid,” but that he hoped faculty and university leaders would be “given the time and space needed to show what we can do at this great university.”
The school hired its inaugural group of faculty members last October, and hired its first dean and director in March.
But several of the school’s original faculty have since left their posts, with many citing the school’s “narrowed focus on historical political thought and religion,” The Daily Tar Heel reported.
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