Duke University and the Jews

STEVEN ROY GOODMAN SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN

This is a public appeal to the new Duke University president about the proposed October 2004 Palestine Solidarity Conference. Twenty years ago, I was a Duke student trying to improve the quality of Jewish life on campus through both Hillel and the student government. I am now an independent educational consultant who advises high school students about their college and university choices.

I regularly advise students about Duke and its competitor institutions. Students and families seek my counsel to help figure out which universities will support their personal, academic and intellectual interests.

One of the main questions I field from Jewish parents every year is whether Duke is a hospitable place for Jews. I confidently report that, over time, Duke has developed a welcoming atmosphere for Jews and other minorities. Parents are not always so sure, however, when Duke is compared to schools like Emory, Penn, Michigan, Cornell and others.

This is where the controversy over the proposed Palestine Solidarity Conference comes in. Duke is planning to host a contentious conference – the same one that was turned down by Rutgers University last year after a conference supporter physically attacked Jewish Soviet refusenik and Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Natan Sharansky.

Let me be clear. Tough public policy debate and serious, non-violent discussions are important to our society. As a board member for the Washington chapter of the American Jewish Committee, I recently co-hosted a Muslim-Jewish dinner for ethnic leaders in Washington.

Academic freedom is a necessary and cherished part of what makes Duke the great university it is. If this proposed gathering was a scholarly conference at Duke about the Arab-Israeli conflict, keynoted by several Arab foreign ministers, I would wholeheartedly support it.

The Palestine Solidarity Conference is neither a serious scholarly program nor a genuine intergroup dialogue. Nor is it a professor or two taking an unpopular political position during a class discussion. This is a non-academic, highly politicized national conference supported by groups on the FBI terrorist watch list.

When I was a Duke student in the 1980s, then-president Terry Sanford proposed bringing the Nixon Presidential Library to campus. The university community, including Duke alumni around the world, overruled Sanford. Yes, the community reasoned, it would be interesting to have a presidential library on campus. However, the cost to Duke in terms of having the name of the university permanently tied to Richard Nixon, along with the minimal value of the proposed library to the intellectual life on campus, was ultimately deemed too high a cost to the Duke community.

Duke is at a similar crossroads today. It would be a shame to reverse the decades of inroads Duke has made with the Jewish community for the privilege of hosting a one-sided "solidarity" conference. Although the new Duke president, Richard Brodhead, has only been on the job for a few weeks, he can demonstrate real leadership by preventing the university from destroying many years of Duke's progress with the Jewish community. It is not too late. But time is running out.

Steven Roy Goodman, Duke '85, is a Washington-based educational consultant active in both Hillel and the AJC.

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