At a time when university campuses seem once again to be the theatre of heated political action, and when academic repression of solidarity with Palestina on US campuses is on the rise, read the following comment by Professor Jonathan Cohen of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. His text was published on Forward. The illustration in the text is mine.

For those of you who, like me, are unfamiliar with US academic institutional limbo, I understand that a valedictorian is « the student with the highest academic rank in a class who delivers the valedictory at graduation » and that commencement, contrary to what the term seems to suggest (commencer means ‘to begin’), is « a ceremony at which academic degrees or diplomas are conferred ». (Thanks, Wikipedia.)

USC taught its pro-Palestinian valedictorian to ask good questions — then axed commencement because it was afraid of them

The university canceled commencement after initially revoking Asna Tabassum’s invitation to speak

By Jonathan Cohen, April 26, 2024

This story was originally published in the Forward. Click here to get the Forward’s free email newsletters delivered to your inbox.

As a newly appointed professor of public health at the University of Southern California two years ago, I invited USC students to apply for a summer job interviewing pioneers of the global health and human rights movement. 

One of the applicants was Asna Tabassum, the 2024 class valedictorian whose invitation to speak at commencement was rescinded by the university April 15, after pro-Israel groups complained about a pro-Palestinian viewpoint she had shared on social media. 

Ten days after Asna’s speech was canceled, USC canceled their main commencement event entirely. When confronted with their student body’s diverse viewpoints, USC ran for safety.

When I met Asna, she was a second-year USC undergraduate studying biomedical engineering and resistance to genocide. The interviews she was applying to conduct were part of an oral history collection of the stories of activists, many from closed or undemocratic societies, who were working to advance health as a human right. I was looking for student interviewers with the curiosity, empathy and impartiality to elicit memories from people whose activism had met controversy and resistance.

In her job interview, I asked Asna what she would do if an interviewee shared a viewpoint that she disagreed with. She paused, clearly thinking hard about her response. She told me about a class she was taking at USC called “Jerusalem: A City of Three Faiths.” 

She had Christian, Jewish and Muslim classmates, she said, and they brought different perspectives and disagreements to their discussion sections and hallway conversations. But these disagreements were always respectful, because they took the time to learn about the diverse life experiences that led to their divergent views.

She concluded, “If an interviewee expressed a view that was foreign to me, I would ask them more questions. I would try to find out where they are coming from.”

By revoking her invitation to speak at commencement — and then by canceling commencement — USC has abandoned the very values they instilled in Asna as a student. USC taught Asna that, when confronted with diverse viewpoints, the courageous response is to ask more questions.

I was overjoyed when USC named Asna as the valedictorian of the class of 2024, awarding her the immense privilege of addressing her class at commencement. She is a brilliant and original thinker, and she richly deserved her speaking slot. But my joy quickly dissipated when she became the target of a smear campaign libeling her as an antisemite. 

Evidently, her critics were more interested in censoring her support for Palestinian rights, and less interested in asking questions and understanding where her point of view came from.

In taking the microphone away from Asna, USC doubled down on the familiar canard of “student safety.” On April 8, USC Provost Andrew Guzman announced that Asna would keep her valedictorian title, but that for “safety” reasons, she would no longer be invited to speak at commencement. A few days later, citing “the highly publicized circumstances surrounding our main stage commencement program,” the administration announced that outside honorees and speakers, including the film director Jon M. Chu and the tennis star Billie Jean King, would be “released” from their duties.

With all this talk of safety, I thought back to my job interview with Asna two years earlier. How, after all, do our diverse life experiences shape our understanding of what is “safe”?

I am a grandchild of the Holocaust, born to a refugee mother whose family fled the Nazi occupation of Poland and immigrated to Canada in 1948. The same year, many of my grandparents’ fellow survivors emigrated to Israel. Until my late 20s, Jewish survival framed my view of safety, and in turn, my views about Zionism. It enabled me to view Zionism as an expression of social justice, a means of safeguarding the continuity of a people that had been targeted for annihilation. 

When I began my career in health and human rights, my understanding of safety evolved. I came to see how governments abridge all kinds of human freedoms — the freedom to speak, assemble, even move — in the name of “public safety.” 

In this context, it was as natural to criticize Israel’s policies toward Palestinians as it was to criticize Burma’s policies toward Rohingya Muslims, China’s policies toward Uyghurs, or Russia’s policies toward Chechens. Far from singling Israel out for criticism, my human rights colleagues were holding Israel to the same standard as every other country in the community of nations. 

When criticism of Israel took a sharper turn, alleging crimes of apartheid and genocide against Palestinians, I knew better than to feel threatened as a Jew. By then, multiple trips to the West Bank with my husband, a Jewish anti-occupation activist, had taught me that Jews’ right to self-determination could not come at the expense of Palestinians’ rights and safety. And growing condemnation of Israel’s policies toward Palestinians by Israeli and Jewish human rights defenders showed me that many Jews saw their safety bound up in that of Palestinians.

How could it be deemed antisemitic to demand full equality between Israeli Jews and Palestinians? How can Jews be safe if Palestinians are not safe? Rather than encouraging these questions — as Asna might have done with her classmates — USC has deemed them unsafe to ask.

Asna should have had the opportunity, as valedictorian, to inspire her classmates, and to potentially address this inequality in Israel-Palestine. Instead, by canceling commencement, USC hasn’t just punished a graduating class whose high school graduation ceremonies were already canceled amid the COVID-19 pandemic. It has also sent students a message that the university is afraid to allow the complex conversations that the war in Gaza so desperately needs. 

This is why all USC students, not just Asna, feel abandoned today. Watching their leaders shy away from courageous questioning, they hardly feel safer. For who can feel safe under the leadership of those who dare not ask?

This week marks the Jewish festival of Passover, which reminds us of our ancestors’ liberation from slavery, and inspires us to strive for freedom for ourselves. Passover is also the time to ask questions, which is itself a reminder of our freedom. This year, it is Asna who is reminding all of us at USC of the privileges of freedom — the freedom to ask, to distinguish hatred from fear, and to embrace equality for all.

Jonathan Cohen is a professor of clinical population and public health sciences at the University of Southern California, and the director of policy engagement with the USC Institute on Inequalities in Global Health.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Forward. Discover more perspectives in Opinion. To contact Opinion authors, email opinion@forward.com.

This article was originally published on the Forward.