“Objectivity,” Complicity, and Cruelty

Campus speech in an era of genocide

Quinn McClurg

On Tuesday, Aug. 27, the University of Minnesota’s Board of Regents voted to remain neutral on the ongoing genocide of Palestinian people to favor financial security instead. Even if these regents or University presidents know this genocide is abhorrent and unsupportable, the rigid bureaucracy upon which their offices and interests sit would not allow for its disclosure. After all, the University itself was secured by settler colonialism and the genocide of Indigneous peoples too.

At least four University staff members have lost their jobs and securities due to their public condemnation of Israel: the DEI manager Mashal Sherzad (a Muslim woman from a family of immigrants), the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies director Raz Segal (a self-identified Israeli-American and Jewish scholar of Jewish and Holocaust history), a finalist for the Associate Dean of DEI position Dr. Sima Shakhsari, and a student worker who included Palestine in a display at Magrath library Alyssa Gahr.

And not only staff has been restricted—students’ free speech within every University department and media organization has been suspended too, either by rigid guidelines, a belief that individual departments are separate from the University’s dealings as a whole, and, unsurprisingly, journalistic “objectivity.”

Objectively, by Israel’s hands, over 50,000 people have been killed in Gaza, and thousands have been killed in Lebanon. Objectively, as of an official statement on March 31, the University has invested $2.4 million in Israeli companies (many of which operate on occupied Palestinian land) and $2.6 million in other companies of interest, including U.S.-based defense contractors like Honeywell, HP, and Lockheed Martin. Objectively, one year later, the University has denied constant staff, student, and protestor demands to divest from these companies. Objectively, the Minnesota Daily has censored, ignored, and demeaned student journalists aspiring to true objectivity.

During the writing of this article, three MN Daily student employees (previous and current) disclosed their experiences to The Wake in a secure poll. One student wrote:

I was censored from using the words “genocide,” “displacement,” and “human rights violations” while writing content describing the goals of the UMN Divest Coalition and other protestors during the UMN encampment and related protests. I was told that student journalists should follow the “AP guidelines” for “controversial topics,” which I was told meant only referring to the conflict as “the war in Gaza” and using passive language to describe deaths, avoiding assigning blame to the government of Israel. Likewise, in a caption, a superior attempted to modify the phrase “Palestinians killed by Israel” to “Palestinians who have died in Gaza” without [the writer’s] permission before publication.

As a journalist, I understand fears of controversy and job security; previously, I’ve jumped through hoops while reporting on highly sensitive and illegal stories. However, even before October 7 occurred, it wouldn’t have been controversial to say that the end goal of the Zionist project is the genocide of the Indigenous Palestinian people—it was outlined, calculated, verbally stated, and documented by its very predecessors and framers (Theodore Herzl, Ben-Gurion, Aharon Zisling), even denounced as “genocide” by highly respected figures like Albert Einstein and Hannah Arendt. Then and now, Palestinians are denounced as subhuman by several military officials; then and now, even legally recognized Palestinian land has been increasingly, illegitimately seized. Not a single act of defense or retaliation from Palestine could even come close to equaling the horrors they’ve suffered—but the government of Israel and the United States need excuses to continue expediting the genocide of non-White peoples in order to steal their land and resources.

Returning to the modern day, even before the reporting mid-encampment, what parts of enforced starvation, denial of aid, indiscriminate killing, sexual abuse, use as human shields, and targeting of safe zones don’t point to genocide? Vague and stanceless “objectivity” is for the privileged, cowardly, and historically uneducated—all of whom benefit from and refuse to question their complicity in colonial violence.

Most of the time, I feel embarrassed to be enrolled at the University of Minnesota—even the radical theory classrooms have a haze of cognitive dissonance, as if this university is not perpetuating every action it warns against (i.e. discrimination, racism, slavery, gentrification, over-policing, violating constitutional rights, etc.). However, there are small glimmers of hope, like the fact these courses are offered at all, like the first time I heard a staff member say “genocide,” and like the continuing work of various student organizations, specifically those pressuring regents and administration. 

Power and comfort corrupt; we cannot allow ourselves to become complicit, comfortable, or ignorant in these machinations of oppression. As journalists, we must use our voices; we must amplify the cries of the affected; we must educate the ignorant—we must take action. As students, we must continue to boycott, protest, practice Doikayt, and support our affected communities: our employment and social statuses are far lower costs than countless Palestinians have paid.