With another academic year coming to a close, Brandeis again finds itself in the national spotlight with continued scrutiny over its rescinding of an honorary degree to controversial women's rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali. This scandal follows the media focus on Brandeis' executive compensation earlier this year, as well as the suspension of a longtime relationship of with East Jerusalem's Al-Quds University. Several of these stories proved to be the causes for major University policy changes. Which story will prove to be most significant for Brandeis, and why?

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Prof. Gordon Fellman (SOC)

I don't see any clear policy changes coming from any of those sad scandals. Given financial exigencies of our University, the issue of executive pay is especially significant. It reveals the extent to which universities, Brandeis included, are becoming corporatized. As labor sociologist Robert Ross put it at a labor forum on campus a few weeks ago, universities now, like corporations, pay excessive salaries at the top, supposedly because they have to compete for talent, and remarkably low salaries at the bottom, to compete with other corporations (universities) for who can get the most work for the lowest wages. Adjuncts with PhDs are now paid at about the same level as McDonalds and Walmart workers. And other workers are paid barely a living wage. How about that. I see the corporatization of universities as unconscionable and immoral. As for executive pay, the mayor of Boston makes $175,000 a year. The president of the United States is paid $400,000 a year. Is it really harder to run a university than a major city or the entire country? High executive pay in universities, as in corporations, is a scam. It will last only as long as it is tolerated.

Prof. Gordon Fellman (SOC) is a professor in the Sociology department and the chair of Peace, Conflict and Coexistence Studies program.

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Aaren Weiner '16

Ending relations with Al-Quds University will prove significant for Brandeis. We must view the suspension in the context of Brandeis' attitude toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Al-Quds demonstrations were interpreted to support Nazism and anti-Semitism. If Brandeis is committed to "open dialogue on difficult issues," then there exists an underlying anger which we must acknowledge. The "Islamic Jihadists" and Palestinians are angry-at Israel for its occupation and imposition of religiously and racially motivated sanctions on those native to Palestine, and at the world for using anger and no other diplomatic tool in opposing a peaceful solution. Members of Students for Justice in Palestine hosted Israel Apartheid Week this semester and were met with hostility upon illuminating the truth from a place of compassion for human rights. By ending the relationship with Al-Quds, Brandeis refuses to meet anger with an open mind, to lead the thorny way to peace, and to live up to its name as an institution dedicated to social justice. "Behind every argument is ignorance." Justice Louis Brandeis would be ashamed to see his namesake ignoring the truth staring us in the face.

Aaren Weiner '16 organized a student protest against executive pay practices in March. 

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Avi Gold '16

In addition to being the most recent of the controversies Brandeis has faced this past year, it seems as though the issue of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's rescinded degree will prove to be the most significant when all is said and done. Unlike the other controversies, the degree has the potential to be taken the furthest out of context and twisted to fit whatever narrative necessary. Especially considering the lack of response by the University, the rescinded degree has been used as proof of anything from the school's apparent double standard to an issue of free speech. Since the University has not had a clear response to the controversy anyone can interpret it as they please, making the outside reaction much harsher to Brandeis than the other controversies, and the rescinded degree the most significant. 

Avi Gold '16 is the Justice sports editor. 

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Noam Cohen '16

Reinharz's compensation and the Al-Quds relationship are important but self-contained incidents which will not cause policy shifts. The Ayaan Hirsi Ali scandal, however, will have repercussions for the University. Some critics claim that freedom of speech is the issue at hand in the scandal, but the heart of the matter is Brandeis' religious sensitivities, especially in its complicated relationship with Judaism. The University, which describes itself as Jewish-sponsored but nonsectarian, already struggles with how Jewish to be. One of the arguments made against the rescinding of the degree is that there is a double-standard; in the past Brandeis has celebrated figures who opposed the state of Israel. Brandeis must formulate clearer positions as far as religion is concerned-a Jewish-sponsored university should respond differently to these situations than a public university would, for example.

Noam Cohen '16 is the president of the Brandeis Orthodox Organization.