Peter Hart-Brinson on the Israel-Hamas War Campus Protests

Zac Schultz:
For some students, both the Israel-Palestine war and the campus protests seem a world away. Joining us now is Peter Hart-Brinson, a UW-Eau Claire professor in the sociology and communication departments. Thanks for your time today.

Peter Hart-Brinson:
Thanks for having me.

Zac Schultz:
So give us the perspective from your campus a couple hours away. What’s the reaction to the protests there?

Peter Hart-Brinson:
Up until very recently, I think very few students have been following the events that have been happening at campuses across the country. I think primarily because we have relatively few students who are Jewish or Muslim or of Middle Eastern descent, and students are really busy focusing on their studies and their work. And given that this is such a complicated geopolitical conflict, students have been hesitant to engage, I think. So things have been relatively quiet amongst our students on campus here at UW-Eau Claire.

Zac Schultz:
So you’ve been addressing this in one of your classes. Can you describe the discussion? What questions are students asking and what does that conversation look like for students that may not be fully aware or have a family or a friend connection or a history connection to that area?

Peter Hart-Brinson:
Sure. The class I’ve been talking to my students about, about this with is a social movements class. And in order to just have the conversation at all, the first students — first thing students wanted to know is what is this all about. The Israel-Palestine conflict, of course, goes back decades, and it’s such a complicated issue that students really don’t understand for the most part the basics of the conflict. So we spend a lot of time just trying to get up to speed about who the players are, who is Hamas and how are they different from Palestinians, for example. Since the police have been used to break up protests at Columbia and UCLA and elsewhere, we’ve been talking a lot about when police action is effective and when it’s not. Sometimes police action to break up a protest can actually make things worse, and I think that we’ve seen that happen at Columbia and elsewhere.

Zac Schultz:
So from the perspective of the students in Madison or at UW-Milwaukee, what needs to happen in order for someone in Eau Claire to realize, hey, this is a bigger thing. I should pay attention to this. Maybe I should take a stance.

Peter Hart-Brinson:
I think students are sharing a lot of information on social media and they’re getting a lot of their information on social media, which makes it easy for people who are protesting in one place to get their message out to students in another place. And so the more students who have been taking up the call to protest at campuses around the United States, I think it became harder and harder for students on our campus to ignore and to ask themselves, maybe we should get involved in this too.

Zac Schultz:
And have you heard anything about students there trying to get involved, start a protest or do anything on your campus?

Peter Hart-Brinson:
Earlier this week, I was informed that a protest is being planned for today, actually about 30 minutes before — until now, while we’re taping this interview. So there looks to be a protest of some kind scheduled for UW-Eau Claire. I’m unaware of similar protests happening at other UW branch campuses, although they could be.

Zac Schultz:
So broaden this out beyond the campus environment. The UW encampment wasn’t even a few hours old, we had politicians weighing in on social media, break them up or support the First Amendment rights. How does that — the politicians trying to leverage this movement impact how people in areas farther away from the actual protest perceive it?

Peter Hart-Brinson:
Both students and faculty are scared, and this is not just an issue that pertains to this particular conflict, but about any topic that pertains to race or gender or sexuality or religion. Higher education has become so politicized in the last couple of years that students are scared to speak in the classroom and many faculty are scared to talk about it. Nationally, about two-thirds of all faculty are adjuncts, and they can be fired at will. They don’t have the protections of tenure. And so when students and faculty see the kinds of allegations that are being leveled against the protesters, that they’re antisemitic simply because they’re criticizing the government of Israel, or that opposing the killing of innocent life makes you pro-Hamas, that kind of political framing makes people scared to even have a conversation about this issue.

Zac Schultz:
All right. Well, thank you for joining us today. Peter Hart-Brinson from UW-Eau Claire.

Peter Hart-Brinson:
Thanks for having me.