Student Activism Over Gaza: Admirable or Ill Informed?

Re “Dear Boomers, the Student Protesters Are Not Idiots,” by Elizabeth Spiers (Opinion guest essay, nytimes.com, May 17):

Ms. Spiers’s characterization of the student protests misses the mark. As a recent college graduate myself, I don’t disagree that college students “are capable of having well thought-out principles,” but the principles underlying these protests are troubling.

Ms. Spiers alludes to my generation possessing elevated moral sensibilities due to our experience with mass shootings. But the calls for “From the river to the sea” and “Globalize the intifada” — ubiquitous in campus protests across the country — would require the killing of innocent Israelis in practice, as Bret Stephens pointed out in “What a Free Palestine Actually Means” (column, May 15).

If these chants are part of well thought-out principles and not naïveté, then it behooves us to scrutinize the moral framework that informs these principles.

Why is it that these protests project outrage toward Israel’s conduct in the war but conveniently elide the horrific details of Oct. 7? If my generation’s handle on complex world events is as comprehensive as Ms. Spiers suggests, then why do the protests flatten Israel’s entire history into an illegitimate colonial project? It’s not the protesters’ tactics that are uniquely troubling; it’s the worldview that inspires their actions.

Brian Silverstein
Chicago

To the Editor:

As a baby boomer I am heartened by the fact that there are student protests that reflect that the younger generation actually cares and has insight about world events. I think that the student protests reflect the bravery and informed intellect of young protesters throughout the institutions of higher education.

Baby boomers would do well to reflect on their own stodginess rather than criticize young students for whom our generation modeled active protest as a vehicle for change.