This is a little hard for me to say with conviction. Since I left the US to move to India, I’ve only returned there to deliver lectures and once, as a Fellow at an institute, so I was never really on the ground with the everyday student experience. Things look very different from a faculty perspective. But whenever intolerant rulers are in power, intolerant forces on the ground get a certain legitimacy to behave in reprehensible ways. We’ve seen this very brutally in India. But I think it’s quite different within the US university campus.
I was a student in New Jersey, just around 45 minutes from Manhattan, when 9/11 happened, and we were quite worried about racist backlash and violence—racist Americans can’t tell the difference between Arabs and South Asians. But in spite of what was the most horrifying attack on American soil, the university turned out to be a space of solidarity and security.
Personally, I did not experience anything unpleasant, though there was news of such incidents from other parts of the country. Almost a quarter-century later, after making much progress on racial plurality and transnational connections, we have drastically spiralled backwards, especially since 2016. We all know the reasons. But my sense is that the university is still a relatively safe space. It is under attack from forces outside, but if you get a chance to be part of this wonderful university system, I think you’re going to be fine socially. However, you can forget about the freedom to articulate political opinions, particularly if they counter the position of the current government. That will certainly get you into trouble. If you have the kind of socio-political conscience that doesn’t allow you to stay quiet, then the US—or probably any place in the world now—is a tough place for you. But if you are focused on your career and willing to lie under the radar as far as political debates are concerned, I think the university is still a safe space for you—but remember, only because of people who are still willing to fight back!
Saikat Majumdar is a former faculty member at Stanford and is now a professor at Ashoka University. He is the author of the book, College: Pathways of Possibility
This article appeared as The Great American Campus Dilemma in Outlook’s July 21 issue Degrees of Separation, a special education issue where our reporters and columnists delved into the the business of education and its stakeholders—students, universities and education consultants.