This column is in response to a resolution on the war in the Middle East posted on March 26 by the E-Board of the Binghamton United University Professions (UUP), the Union that supports most academic and professional staff on campus. The dangers I would like to highlight are twofold — first, the decision by UUP to devote its time to a singular issue in world politics — second, the wording of the resolution itself, which demonstrates a disregard for facts and neutrality that ought to concern any academic researcher. To be clear, this column is not seeking to support or condemn the resolution’s motion that there be “an immediate and lasting ceasefire” in Gaza. One could agree with such a call and still find UUP’s conduct, both in taking up this matter and issuing such an anti-intellectual resolution, to be abhorrent.

The crisis in the Middle East has no direct connection with our contract, our campus or our professional lives. It is an issue about which many people feel strongly, and that’s their right, but it is not an issue that affects the Union in any manner. The resolution claims to be supporting “free speech and academic freedom” — and yet, the rest of the resolution directly undermines that goal by purporting to speak for all Union members and to dictate exactly how they should think regarding the Israel-Gaza war.

The news out of Gaza is heartbreaking, but there are many legitimate beliefs about whose responsibility it is to bring about a ceasefire. This is widely recognized as an extraordinarily complicated conflict, and someone might hold a range of opinions about the best course of action while still being a moral, humanitarian individual. The E-Board advocates an aggressively singular position that seems fundamentally opposed to the nuanced, complex and analytical thinking that universities ought to cultivate.

Nothing in the resolution suggests any attempt to present a balanced assessment of the situation. This is starkest in the decision to never once mention Hamas. One might be led to believe that it was not Hamas that broke the lasting ceasefire still in effect on Oct. 7, 2023, or that ended the temporary ceasefire in November by refusing to release designated hostages such as a one-year-old, a four-year-old and several teenage girls, etc. By remaining silent on Hamas’s simple existence, the UUP resolution could be read as purposefully erasing a group who butchered and burned children while calling them “Jew dogs” just a few months ago. Ironically, this creates the very “climate of fear” on campus that the resolution purports to oppose. In a bizarre twist, the authors of the resolution seem to anticipate this, invoking certain Israeli and Jewish groups who have argued for a ceasefire. This feels like a preemptive tactic to dismiss charges of antisemitism according to the “I’m not racist, I have black friends” trope.

This resolution does nothing to further dialogue, nothing to further understanding or kindness on campus. It instead pushes a dualistic, antagonistic approach not only to politics but to conceptions of history, human rights and identity. It will have no effect on events in the Middle East, but it will alienate — and frighten — many in our University community.

Frankly, there may well be members of the Union who care little about the conflict in the Middle East and wonder why campus energies are so singularly focused on it. That should also be considered a valid stance. In Sudan, there are currently over 8 million displaced persons because of conflict and almost 5 million at risk of famine. In Beed, India, approximately one in every five women has been compelled to have a hysterectomy so that she can work that much harder to harvest sugar cane for companies like PepsiCo. Here in Broome County, around 8,000 children under age 18 live with food insecurity. In many ways, the world is a terrible place, and each of us may strive in our own way to rectify its wrongs. Joining UUP should not commit you to prioritizing one atrocity over another because these issues ultimately have no bearing on UUP’s mission. If UUP’s response is to point to other unions and their resolutions, my retort is that we are not sheep and should not jump simply because others do.

What if UUP instead devoted its time to food waste on campus, child care for employees or accessibility of pathways and buildings during icy weather? These may not carry the same moral weight, but they do concern the daily lives of union members and are arenas in which UUP can effect real change.

It is absolutely the individual right of E-Board members to exercise their freedom in supporting whatever political or humanitarian cause they believe in and to do so with passion. I wish for that same freedom to be returned to me, a Union member who wishes to remain a Union member and who does not want to be harassed or intimidated into forming unyielding convictions on matters in which I am not an expert and have zero influence on material policy.

Meg Leja is a guest columnist and associate professor in the history department.

Views expressed in the opinions pages represent the opinions of the columnists. The only piece that represents the views of the Pipe Dream Editorial Board is the Staff Editorial.