I think Thou Doth Protest Too Much

I am leading an open letter by academics from around the world against the University occupation protests. So far, the letter has hundreds of signatures – including two Nobel Prize winners.

My name is Dr Craig R. Walton. I work at both ETH Zürich and the University of Cambridge, where I study both the origins of life on Earth and planetary evolution. Like many people, I watched with trepidation as increasingly chaotic scenes unfolded at Universities across the United States. The discussion around Gaza has now reached maximum polarisation with the creation of the camps, which have polished the academic discussion (or lack thereof) to a truly toxic edge – don’t cut yourself on it.

There are many arguments that have been made in favour of occupation protests at the Universities and many made against it. What moved me to start an open letter standing in opposition to the encampments was a) video evidence of people with dissenting voices being blocked from entering and/or hounded out by aggressive protestors and b) the fact that the camps have come to my place of work. There have been protests earlier in the year but, seemingly because they failed to persuade people of issue XYZ, things have been turned up a notch.

Concerned for the academic safety and freedoms of my fellow staff and students at the Universities, seeing many staff eagerly egging on or joining in the disruption, and worried about the potentially massive damage that could be caused at any moment to the historic buildings of Cambridge in particular, I started an open letter calling for the Universities to act to dispel the camps. Indeed, this decision was solidified in seeing ETH Zurich take a firm and clear minded stance against the camps from the outset: https://ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth-news/news/2024/05/pro-palestinian-demonstration-dissolved.html 

As the letter makes clear, we do not oppose free speech in any way within the confines of the law. Those protesting are free to make their arguments without taking ownership of parts of campus, with all of the negative trade-offs that such action brings to the University environment.

Some of those protesting will argue that there is a moral emergency which demands that we accept such negative trade-offs and do anything and everything to meet the specific demands that they present as being necessary for peace. Being in favour of peace myself like most people on Earth, I have my own views about whether these demands are likely to achieve that and whether or not some of the people protesting truly care either way about the issue of the day or are just cynically using an emergency to gain power…. But that is not the argument made in the letter.

If you agree, please:

Like, share, and comment in support of the post on Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/lithologuy/status/1789986421593280924

There are many people commenting there who hate Universities (even those that work at them), Western Society in general (even those who choose to live in it), and hate STEM fields (especially mathematics, apparently). Please comment respectfully, unlike the majority of those who have commented to disagree.

Sign the letter via the following link and share with academics globally: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdZelYo7UMqbA0xuCuMP0Bl7svdTavwsG2MHLMx1QmvuAi4SQ/viewform?usp=send_form.

Present the letter to your University administrators – it is regularly updated as fast as I am able: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRjdB0uuWajFdr2I1pXxV_qTK69Tzky6e8hFqUy7iDleVw3lkiz_v75hvNBMkz3Mh_qMqLb-U-8zLvO/pub.

The letter started with only me and literally two other people. Now we have hundreds of Professors from all over the world – including Noble prize winners. Please join them if you agree with the letter. Thank you.

Dr Craig R. Walton

Kings College Encampment. Photo credit: Aysu Bicer/Anadolu