The Convergence of Violence

As trauma surgeons at the University of Chicago Medical Center, we consistently confront a tripartite taxonomy of violence in our practice. First, massaging the heart of an eight-year-old in traumatic arrest from a gunshot wound is the obvious direct violence we witness, with firearm injury now the top cause of death of children and adolescents in the United States since 2020. Second, there is an emotional violence that we impart, as trauma surgeons, on desperate parents and family members that await—in our ironically named “quiet room”—updates on their child. The sounds that emanate from parents upon learning that their child is dead are carried deep within us forever. The third form of violence we encounter is structural violence: the harm caused by social systems and institutions that create or maintain inequity. Rooted in supremacist ideologies, racial hierarchies, and other forms of discrimination, this violence perpetuates historical patterns of domination and subordination through economic policies, healthcare access disparities, and political structures, stripping certain groups of their basic human needs, leading to increased high-risk survival behavior and direct physical violence. This multilayered cycle of devastation persists because institutions of influence—universities among them—too frequently avert their gaze.

This cycle manifests with stark geographic specificity on Chicago’s South Side, where historical redlining practices have produced a cartography of disinvestment that corresponds with alarming precision to contemporary patterns of firearm violence—patterns disproportionately affecting African American and Latino communities. The same cyclical violence operates in Gaza; I witnessed it firsthand as a medical student conducting research in the Middle East in 2000. I remember the shame of a Palestinian host family kindly tolerating my survey questions as they were unable to offer me tea due to a 72-hour water shortage. No more than 100 feet away were Israeli children in a settlement swimming in their backyard pool. Today, my surgical colleagues in Gaza confront the three forms of violence in analogous scenarios: the treatment of Palestinian children presenting in traumatic arrest from gunshot wounds, the grim responsibility of conveying catastrophic news to any surviving family members, and the moral burden of bearing witness to genocide against a population systematically denied the basic necessities of life. In Gaza, similar to the U.S., preventable direct violence and its corrosive, destabilizing effects represent the predominant cause of pediatric mortality.

This multifaceted violence has catalyzed resistance movements at our own institution. South Side Black youth community activists employed disruptions, demonstrations and direct action to demand the establishment of an adult trauma center at the University of Chicago Medical Center. These actions were met with institutionally sanctioned force via the University of Chicago Police Department (UCPD). More recently, a coalition of students, staff, and faculty established the “UChicago Popular University for Gaza” encampment on April 29, 2024, articulating interconnected demands for the University: acknowledgment of the genocide in Gaza, severance of ties with Israeli companies and the Israel Institute, transparency regarding investments in weapons manufacturers, and commitment to reparative justice “from Palestine to the South Side.” This mobilization similarly encountered institutionally authorized police intervention, again from UCPD.

Violence prevention, whether direct, emotional, or structural, constitutes a fundamental dimension of our professional mandate as trauma surgeons within the larger rubric of injury prevention. Similarly, universities bear an institutional responsibility to contribute to societal betterment. Thus, this collective ethical obligation extends to confronting atrocities to which we may be contributing, whether through action or calculated inattention. The campus pro-Palestine encampment represented such a necessary ethical intervention. Indeed, silence in the face of such circumstances would have constituted a profound dereliction of moral responsibility. Not surprisingly, both campaigns were disproportionately led by youth communities of color, who assumed personal risk to contest the systemic violence directed at similarly marginalized populations—a troubling reflection of how resistance to structural violence itself is inequitably distributed.

The Kalven Report and Institutional Responsibility

The University of Chicago’s Kalven Report, which articulates our principle of institutional neutrality, states a precise purpose: to foster the “development of social and political values in a society,” doing so “out of respect for free inquiry and the obligation to cherish a diversity of viewpoints.” The Kalven Committee also asserts that a “good university, like Socrates, will be upsetting.” The committee speaks to the University’s responsibility to nurture critical inquiry and rigorous intellectual pursuit. Even in its corporate manifestations, the Kalven Report stipulates that the University’s “prestige and influence are based on integrity and intellectual competence; they are not based on the circumstance that it may be wealthy, may have political contacts, and may have influential friends.” It explicitly mandates that the University conduct its affairs with honor, whether in a corporate capacity or otherwise. 

The forcible dismantling of the encampment thus constituted a bifurcated transgression—simultaneously violating the academic principle of free inquiry and abdicating the corporate obligation to operate with honor. The UChicago Popular University for Gaza represented an extraordinary opportunity for our institution to lead the nation in galvanizing widespread discourse and action. When UCPD shut them down, the institution forfeited any authentic fidelity to the report; it forfeited the protection of rich discussion on university campuses and the respect and protection of broader societal debates, especially during times when constitutional violations and student disappearances are occuring in the U.S. Ultimately, the University forfeited an opportunity to prevent violence—direct, emotional, and structural—at home and abroad. Beyond prevention, upholding the Kalven Report’s vision, where intellectual freedom and diverse viewpoints promote justice, innovation, and well-being, is essential for transforming universities into catalysts for positive change through necessary, though sometimes uncomfortable, discourse.

The University as Dialogical Commons: A Missed Opportunity

Honoring the principles enshrined in the Kalven Report would have meant recognizing the student encampment as an embodiment of the University’s highest educational ideals: the cultivation of rigorous intellectual engagement with urgent societal questions. A genuine center for higher learning would conceptualize such mobilizations not as disruptions to be suppressed, but as pedagogical moments to be embraced within the broader project of participatory democratic education. Rather than deploying armed force against peaceful protest, the University could have established deliberative spaces—modern-day Socratic salons—in which contentious claims concerning genocide, complicity, and institutional responsibility could be subject to rigorous analysis and dialectical scrutiny. Indeed, a university that takes seriously its mandate to cultivate critical thinking must recognize that theoretical contemplation alone remains insufficient when confronted with potential atrocities of such magnitude. We also need action.

Chicago’s own radical intellectual heritage offers examples of such praxis, particularly in Fred Hampton’s extraordinary coalition-building accomplishments. At just 21, Hampton transcended sociopolitical divisions by facilitating substantive dialogues between the Black Panther Party, the Young Lords, and the Confederate flag–displaying Young Patriots. Through difficult conversations over breaking bread, these activists found common ground in analyzing structural oppression and building class solidarity: a Rainbow Coalition so threatening to power structures that Hampton was assassinated at the FBI’s initiative.

The encampment offered a similar reciprocal learning opportunity to demonstrate how different groups can engage in meaningful conversation despite disagreements. The University’s failure to initiate such pedagogical interventions represents more than a tactical miscalculation; it constitutes a profound abdication of its educational mission and social obligation. By embracing challenging moral questions through open dialogue, the University could have demonstrated how academic communities navigate ethical disagreements while setting an inspiring example for institutions nationwide.

The Historical Continuity of Student Activism

Student mobilization through demonstrations, direct action, and encampments constitutes a venerable academic tradition rather than a contemporary anomaly. This tradition extends at least to the University of Padua in 1507, when students actively rebelled at the cancellation of Carnevale vacation. Due to this resistance, vacation was reinstated. In the U.S., student and faculty activism has catalyzed transformative social movements advancing civil rights; gender equality; efforts opposing imperial wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and beyond; racial justice; LGBTQIA+ liberation; and gun violence prevention. These interventions have been fundamental to the  reconfiguration of our societal value structures.

Despite this positive contribution, however, the American academic landscape has a troubling history of violence against student protesters, from the 1970 Kent State massacre during Vietnam War protests to the often-overlooked killings at Jackson State in Mississippi 11 days later. These events depict a historiographical erasure—an operation of racial hierarchies in collective memory. The forcible dismantling of the UChicago encampment echoes this pattern of suppression, albeit with less lethal means, demonstrating how universities continue to prioritize institutional control over meaningful dialogue on urgent moral issues. 

University communities across the country expressing horror at the ongoing, preventable  brutality in Gaza simply reflect a broader societal outrage. Had the UChicago Popular University for Gaza been allowed to maintain its presence, to continue the longstanding tradition of student activism, it could have catalyzed a national conversation that transcended academic boundaries, potentially influencing public policy and reshaping our collective ethical response to humanitarian crises. 

Institutional Ethics: Global and Local Dimensions

Conducting our institutional mission with honor extends across concentric spheres of influence, from the hyperlocal to the transnational. The University of Chicago is a predominant landowner on Chicago’s South Side, benefiting from its tax-exempt status, including exemption from property taxes. Such a privilege deprives local Chicago public schools of essential revenue. The consequences become particularly significant given our own institutional research demonstrating that third-grade mathematical proficiency functions as a predictive indicator for future involvement in firearm violence. 

Honorable institutional conduct would necessitate comprehensive investment transparency, subjecting our financial portfolio to democratic oversight by the entire University community. It would further require the formalization of a Community Benefits Agreement with South Side community leadership: a contractual commitment to community development rather than tacit complicity in the socioeconomic conditions that perpetuate violence and childhood mortality. By embracing these responsibilities, we can transform our institution from merely a center of learning to a powerful catalyst for equity and flourishing across the communities we touch, creating a legacy of positive change that extends far beyond our campus boundaries.

A transformative institutional vision would reconceptualize the relationship between the University and the surrounding communities. It would extend the University’s intellectual resources and safe spaces to South Side educational institutions, inviting local students to participate in the University’s opportunities for intellectual growth in secure environments. These same ethical imperatives apply globally, mandating transparency regarding investments in entities engaged in weapons manufacturing or organizations implicated in crimes against humanity, genocide, or structural violence. Imagine an investment portfolio oriented toward human flourishing rather than profiting from military operations that target civilian populations and healthcare infrastructure. 

The imperative for transparency informed the encampment organizers’ demands for disclosure, divestment, and reparations. They articulated intersectional connections between the Palestinian genocide, the multigenerational displacement of Black South Side residents, and environmental degradation. One UChicago Against Displacement organizer incisively observed at an April 2024 rally: “Both Black South Siders and Palestinians are being displaced and forced to live in tents in a modern apartheid with no community, no shelter, and no safeguards.” In this critical moment, the University faces not merely an institutional challenge but a social imperative to align our considerable resources with our professed values. It must create a model where academic excellence and ethical commitment converge to address the most pressing injustices of our time, both locally and globally.

The University as Vanguard of Moral Leadership

The University possesses extraordinary potential for intellectual leadership during periods of historical crisis. Realizing this potential necessitates democratic reform of governance structures, particularly the Board of Trustees, alongside institutional accountability. This includes clarification of who authorized UCPD to dismantle the encampment, especially given that Mayor Brandon Johnson reiterated his commitment to free speech and the Chicago Police Department’s commitment to de-escalation in the days prior to the UCPD raid.

Effective, honorable leadership would also constitute collaboration with peer institutions in pursuing class action litigation contesting documented human rights violations or imposed violations of free speech. The University could implement numerous strategies to channel democratic deliberation toward opposing injustice. It could draw instructive parallels from institutions of European academic resistance during the 1940s: coordinated intellectual opposition, institutional support for student-led movements like the White Rose in Germany, provision of secure academic positions for persecuted scholars, and facilitation of alternative educational and scientific initiatives when conventional channels are compromised by authoritarian interventions.

Charting a Path Forward: Toward Institutional Transformation

The encampment illuminated our multifaceted institutional responsibility—both as a center for critical inquiry and as a corporate entity—to our South Side communities, to Palestinian populations experiencing genocide, and to all populations subjected to structural, emotional, and direct violence. The moral burden of confronting supremacy-driven structural violence should not rest primarily upon vulnerable students of color, who now face institutional sanctions, threats to immigration status, or even disappearances with no due process after articulating perspectives that disrupt dominant narratives. Rather, the University should reconceptualize itself as an intellectual nexus dedicated to developing expertise in constructing bridges of solidarity—effectively a Rainbow Coalition 2.0—that transcends divisions, addressing contemporary challenges with moral courage, intellectual rigor, and pragmatism.

As we commemorate the anniversary of the pro-Palestine encampment, intellectual honesty demands rigorous critical reflection regarding our institutional response and commitment to substantive reform. We must resist the instrumentalization of the Kalven Report as a rhetorical insulation against moral responsibility or an excuse to remain silent about the preventative mortality of one population, especially after condemning similar actions against a different population. Instead, we must employ the report as an explicit mandate to fulfill the University’s highest purpose: fostering the development of social and political values through uncompromising inquiry and principled engagement with the ethical questions of our time.

Let us honor not merely the letter but the animating spirit of the Kalven Report by transforming our institution into the university it envisions itself to be. Only through such institutional metamorphosis can we legitimately claim to conduct our affairs with the honor and intellectual integrity that constitute the true foundation of academic excellence and corporate accountability. Let this moment spur our leadership to indeed stand beside other universities and communities willing to do the same at this moment in history. Most importantly, this nationwide and, indeed, global solidarity can create a pathway to eliminate the structural violence that leads to direct violence, for the betterment of all.

Tanya Zakrison is a trauma surgeon and professor of surgery at the University of Chicago Medical Center. This analysis reflects personal scholarly perspectives and should not be construed as representing the institutional positions of the University of Chicago Medical Center or the University of Chicago.