Open Hillel: Erasing the Line, Redrawing the Line, or Handing Over the Pen?

Open Hillel has just announced a new academic advisory board. It comprises a range of different viewpoints from along the left-liberal spectrum, ranging from Judith Butler to Peter Beinart to Zachary Braiterman. The announcement offered me the opportunity to ask a few questions clarifying some confusion I had about Open Hillel's mission and principles.

The Open Hillel movement emerged out of objections to the application of Hillel International's "standards of partnership", most specifically a provision preventing partnership with organization which endorse the BDS movement (a rule which, OH maintains, effectively prevents collaboration with most Palestinian groups which have endorsed said movement). Open Hillel objected to this rule as stifling open inquiry and debate regarding Israel (hence the name).

The discourse around Open Hillel has, to my ears at least, conflated three distinct questions:

1. Is Hillel justified in drawing certain lines whereby certain groups or positions are beyond the pale?
2. If line-drawing is permissible, has Hillel drawn them in the right place (excluding BDS)?
3. Should decisions over the above be made by a central organization or by individual Hillel chapters?

We can view these three questions as expressing three potential positions regarding "where to draw the line": First, that there should be no line, second, that the line should be drawn somewhere else from where it is now, or third, that somebody else other than Hillel International should be in charge of the line-drawing decision.

The way I've often thought about this question is by asking whether Open Hillel would think it an injustice if Hillel refused to partner with or host Pam Geller? If the answer is yes, then that means Open Hillel really is taking a principled "open inquiry" stance. If the answer is no, then Open Hillel doesn't object to line-drawing per se, only to where the lines are drawn. And if the answer is "all of these decisions should be made at the chapter level", then the question is simply shifted to a new forum (and Open Hillel's ambitions become a lot narrower than often assumed). Any of these represent a legitimate position, but they are very different positions that raise different arguments in response, and I've never been clear on which one Open Hillel actually takes.

Anyway, I was able to ask the question to Open Hillel on twitter, and their response did help clarify things:

@ZacharyBraiterm I've long wondered whether @OpenHillelNow supports Hillel being open to arguably racist far-right Jewish/Israeli voices?

— David Schraub (@schraubd) January 7, 2016

@ZacharyBraiterm ie, is @OpenHillelNow an "open mic" free speech org, or does it simply disagree with where @HillelIntl draws the line?

— David Schraub (@schraubd) January 7, 2016

@schraubd @ZacharyBraiterm If there's interest from students in bringing someone far right, then sure. No need to whitewash views which...

— Open Hillel (@OpenHillelNow) January 7, 2016

@schraubd ...exist among Israelis/Palestinians. Not sure how far right you're talking. We tried bringing Mort Klein to our 2014 conference.

— Open Hillel (@OpenHillelNow) January 7, 2016

That exchange suggests Open Hillel really does see itself as being inside the "open mic" camp (it answers my first question in the negative), and thinks that any voice -- even if many students find it hateful or offensive -- should be fair game. That principle applies equally to Pam Geller and to BDS acolytes (both of whom many people find hateful and offensive). In this way, Open Hillel can be seen as standing against the "safe space" trend one sees on some college campuses, where certain types of views are said to be so inherently marginalizing so as to be validly excluded from public dialogue. They are closer to the Williams College "uncomfortable learning" group, affirming the importance of hearing ideas many people -- dominant and subordinated group members alike -- might prefer to ignore.

One might question, then, why Open Hillel focuses so much on the BDS issue if its free inquiry commitment really is so non-partisan. But here I think they have a valid response: BDS is right now the predominant flashpoint for Hillel International's interference into local chapter affairs. Indeed, it's notable that while Hillel's partnership standards put several hoops in front of left-wing groups to jump through, there are no corresponding boundaries whereby someone can be beyond the pale on the political right. There are no guidelines that, for example, suggest Hillel would refuse to partner with groups or speakers that demonize Palestinians or engage in racist incitement (let alone prohibitions on right-wing "one-staters"). Indeed, there's nothing that would prevent Pam Geller from having a platform.

This is a serious problem for people who, like me, don't find the idea of "drawing a line" to be inherently problematic. I've often remarked that the Jewish community cannot only have a boundary on its left border. Even people who think that it is reasonable to say "BDS is beyond the pale" can't act surprised if that contention falls on deaf ears where only left-wing movements are so exiled. If Hillel International really does want to preserve its position that BDS should be no platformed, the best thing it could do would be to release similar guidelines, enforced with similar robustness, that demarcate what sorts of right-wing positions, agitation, or incitement (against Palestinians or against Jewish leftists) is also out of bonds.

Hillel's infirmities notwithstanding, it still remains the case that Open Hillel's position depends on the viability of a true "open mic" policy. And there are arguments to be had here. One goes to the last question I posed: who makes the call? Should "openness" be a mandate from Hillel International (an inversion of the guidelines), or do local chapters decide for themselves what voices they think are legitimately worth including in dialogue and who/what should be left out. The tweets imply the latter,  and Open Hillel's about page suggests the same: their prime mission is to change Hillel International's partnership guidelines so as to permit local chapters to adopt their own standards; they then say they will "encourage" these chapters to themselves adopt open policies. So if a local Jewish campus community democratically elects to exclude voices Open Hillel thinks should be included, that seems to be their prerogative. Obviously, OH can (and has said it will) "encourage" chapters to reverse those positions, but it presumably could not demand any sort of centralized rule requiring inclusion.

The larger problem rests in the feasibility of a true "open mic" position. Even if one believes that OH activists, in their bones, think it is equally outrageous to exclude the Pam Geller's of the world and the Jewish Voice for Peace activists of the world, they'd still face the problem of what to do with groups who openly oppose "open dialogue" in any capacity -- perhaps most notably, "anti-normalization" groups. Hillel International's final partnership guideline targets those who "[e]xhibit a pattern of disruptive behavior towards campus events or guest speakers or foster an atmosphere of incivility;" a rule clearly designed to encompass folks who, say, tried to shout down Moshe Halbertal. In this, they seem to be in accord with Open Hillel (which presumably must also view such actions as incompatible with the spirit of open dialogue). And indeed, Open Hillel specifically says "Open Hillel is committed to making its events, programs, membership, and leadership open and accessible to all who share in Open Hillel's mission and values", which leaves the door open to excluding those who are seen as not sharing in its "mission and values." A true commitment to openness isn't as straightforward as it appears, particularly when not everybody shares the principle.

Indeed, one can see shades of the problem in Open Hillel's reference to being open to any speaker who elicits "interest from students." Embedded in that statement, I think, is the valid hope that there are many potential speakers that most students would not be interested in; that private consensus can replace organizational diktat in ensuring that truly ridiculous and repulsive views aren't offered a forum. But which views qualify? It's the "Academic Freedom vs. Academic Legitimacy" debate all over again. If Jewish students on a particular campus expressed an "interest" in bringing in Pam Geller to speak, I don't think most of us would react by lauding their commitment to open inquiry and hearing various points of view. Even if we concede their "right" to extend the invitation, we would be dismayed at the students' appraisal of what sorts of views are worthy entrants in serious conversation. Certainly, I would think that a community which thought that Pam Geller was presenting something "interesting" has gone badly off the rails. But many view the proposition that the world's only Jewish state should be exiled from the global community in the exact same way. So we're right back into the "where to draw the line" question; the only difference is that the forum has changed. And while Open Hillel obviously has substantive opinions on where the line should be drawn (specifically, that BDS advocacy should remain in-bounds), its entire rhetorical arsenal acts as if the line drawing endeavor can be avoided entirely.

In short, Open Hillel does seem to be attempting to take a genuinely "open mic" approach to discourse within Hillel, applicable to controversial left and right speakers alike. That's a perfectly respectable position (albeit one that perhaps cuts against some of the current left-liberal zeitgeist, and one which OH seems willing to subordinate to the broader value of chapter control). Unfortunately, the "open mic" approach actually cannot eliminate the question of "where to draw the line", it can only shift the forum in which that question is debated over. One can legitimately say, as OH apparently does, that such questions should not be made at the national level but rather be devolved to individual campus chapters. But campus Jewish representatives will nonetheless not be able to avoid making decisions about what sorts of views -- from Pam Geller to BDS -- should and should not be seen as legitimate entrants into Jewish communal conversation.