Donors should not decide campus policies or determine what is taught
But there are limits to what universities can do to address such matters. Physical safety concerns must come first, so at Penn we dramatically stepped up our police presence — that campus has never been more closely watched. And if you walked across campus as I did numerous times this semester, most often, you would have been struck by how normal life seemed.
Students are walking to classrooms and labs, hoping to win a place at a law or medical school or a job at Google or J.P. Morgan or Teach for America. On weekends they are going to fraternity parties and basketball games, just like I did.
There have been a handful of loud but otherwise peaceful protests where hateful things have been said, but it’s been a long way from the unrest of the 1960s, when the civil rights movement and Vietnam War inspired violent protests on a grand scale.
And yes, there have been some well-publicized acts of deplorable antisemitism.
