Ideology Over Inquiry: Anti-Israel Bias at Cal Poly SLO

Universities are intended to be facilitators of academic inquiry, fostering critical thinking and intellectual curiosity. However, on many campuses today, particularly since Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre, a significant number of professors appear to be more interested in indoctrination than education. I am a student at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and I became concerned that this form of pedagogy was happening within our History Department shortly after the department hosted two different speakers spouting the same radically one-sided view of the Israel-Palestine conflict.  

First, Dr. Rashid Khalidi was hosted on Dec. 5 via Zoom for an event,  “The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine.” He asserted false narratives that delegitimized Israel’s existence and employed Holocaust inversion, which Deborah Lipstadt, author of “Denying the Holocaust,” refers to as “soft-core Holocaust denial.”  Dr. Khalidi refused to acknowledge the atrocities of Oct. 7 as terrorism, instead referring to them as acts of “resistance.” 

Approximately one month later, the History Department announced that they would host another speaker, Dr. Ussama Makdisi, for a lecture titled “Gaza in Historical Context.” Dr. Makdisi’s X page reflects views similar to those of Dr. Khalidi, with posts suggesting Israel is primarily a product of the Holocaust, justifying Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre, and promoting slanders of “genocide” and “apartheid.” These are the only two speakers the department has invited to discuss the current Hamas-Israel war. 

Concerned about this bias, I reached out to the History Department chair to request that these events be balanced with one featuring the Israeli perspective on the conflict. Unfortunately, my request was met with hostility. The chair’s responses appeared to compare my request for a balanced discussion on this conflict to asking for a “balanced” discussion on racist housing policies or the Holocaust— which I understood as implying that the Israeli perspective was morally reprehensible and therefore unworthy of consideration. The chair further insinuated that I was “misled” or presuming what Dr. Makdisi’s opinions were based solely on his background or ethnicity, ignoring the possibility that my concerns were grounded in Dr. Makdisi’s publicly expressed views. More than just shocking, his response felt emblematic of a broader crisis within academia. 

The lack of objectivity or balance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not unique to Cal Poly, nor is it organic. Rather, it is part of a cohesive movement amongst anti-Israel advocates, disguised as academics, who have pushed this narrative for many years. In the ‘90s, Ilan Pappé, a leading academic in the Boycott Divestment and Sanction Campaign and author of “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine,” famously said “Indeed the struggle is about ideology, not about facts. Who knows what facts are? We try to convince as many people as we can that our interpretation of the facts is the correct one, and we do it because of ideological reasons, not because we are truth-seekers.” Pappe’s statement lays bare the intentions of academics such as himself: to serve as radical activists rather than scholars. His words echo across university campuses nationwide, and the effects are widely observed. 

For instance, the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism, a collection of over 25 professors and affiliates across 21 universities, openly admits their ideologically motivated research practices. Their “Points of Unity” proudly assert, “Academic research is not politically or morally neutral. The Institute’s research aims to interrogate and intervene in racism, colonialism, ethnic cleansing, and the appropriation of liberatory rhetoric by repressive political forces, among other harms.” Their code sets forth an Orwellian framework which seeks to rationalize manipulative postmodernist research through the lens of moral superiority, reflecting the ideology-driven approach of Ilan Pappé’s biased educational and research methods. Professors who subscribe to this approach are spearheading research in the social sciences on college campuses- shaping curricula, influencing public discourse, and mentoring the next generation of scholars. When institutions elevate blatantly biased scholarship as legitimate, they erode intellectual diversity and disincentivize debate. 

A recent example of this phenomenon can be seen at the City University of New York (CUNY), where a call for submissions from the peer-reviewed journal, Theory, Research and Action in Urban Education (TRAUE), invites students, educators, and scholars to submit papers that adopt a predetermined ideological stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The prompt explicitly frames Palestine as a “moral compass,” and urges contributors to explore ways in which both K-12 and university education can be used to reinforce an anti-Israel narrative. The prompt in its entirety seeks contributors to begin with a desired conclusion, then seek evidence to support it. Honest academic discourse would encourage open exploration of such topics, yet this prompt encourages the reinforcement of a predetermined ideological stance, stifling debate and the consideration of opposing perspectives. 

The suppression of diverse perspectives on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has fostered intellectual silos led by university faculty, creating a campus climate where dissenting voices — specifically those supportive of Israel — are vilified. The intolerance toward merely understanding the Israeli perspective, as illustrated by the History Department chair’s attitude, has led to the villanization of pro-Israel students across campus-wide communities. On my own campus, a faculty member told my friends and me, “You are Zionist, you are part of the KKK.” Similarly, phrases such as, “From Gaza to Cal Poly, let the Intifada spread,” were graffitied at the entrance of Cal Poly, to which the university administration made no public statement.    

The hostility I faced seeking a balanced perspective is reflective of a larger trend across campuses, where differing viewpoints are not only ignored but actively marginalized. 

The hostility I faced seeking a balanced perspective is reflective of a larger trend across campuses, where differing viewpoints are not only ignored but actively marginalized. To truly serve our students and the pursuit of open inquiry, universities must return to their core principles of academic integrity. This means inviting diverse perspectives, especially on contentious issues, and ensuring that students are exposed to balanced and fair discussions. It is imperative that faculty not only teach but also model intellectual honesty and the ability to engage with opposing viewpoints. Only by doing so can we create a campus environment where critical thinking and informed dialogue thrive, rather than one that is shaped by ideological silos.

Adira Fogelman is a second-year Business Administration and Legal Studies student at California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo (SLO). She is the Vice President of SLO Hillel, and the Vice President of Mustangs United for Israel and a StandWithUs Emerson Fellow.