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.
Sahli Cavallaro
Sacramento
To the Editor:
Hillary Clinton’s voice remains a lonely voice in the media. Her argument is not one that is commonly heard on the issue of student protests. Yet it is an important message that she expressed: The protesting students are ignorant of the history of relations between Israel and the Palestinians.
Yet these students shout their misinformed arguments that gain the attention of many in the media and the public. Above all, the universities, institutions of teaching and learning, have failed their own students.
Instead of calling in the police, instead of capitulating to ill-informed demands, why did the universities not respond by offering to end the suspensions and expulsions of protesting students in return for their required attendance at “teach-ins” to acquire knowledge of the history of Israel and the Palestinians?
Let this be a lesson for universities and professors for the next round of student demonstrations.
Vivian R. Gruder
New York
The writer is emerita professor of history at Queens College, CUNY.
To the Editor:
As a former protester from the Vietnam War era, I certainly agree with Elizabeth Spiers’s premise that college students have the right to peacefully protest and exercise their freedom of speech. What I find so disturbing is that these students are erroneously blaming the situation in Gaza on President Biden and vowing not to vote for him.
Really? They don’t understand that by not voting for Mr. Biden, they are voting for Donald Trump, who, by the way, has promised an expanded Muslim ban. This to me is idiotic.
Peggy Jo Abraham
Santa Monica, Calif.
To the Editor:
Elizabeth Spiers’s article appears to target an entire generation in a disparaging and demeaning tone. Surely Ms. Spiers is aware that millions of boomers protested the Vietnam War in various ways — writing letters to their representatives in Washington and gathering in parks and memorials across the country. On Oct. 21, 1967, about 100,000 people, many of them boomers, gathered near the Lincoln Memorial as protesters against that war.
Ms. Spiers, please don’t disparage a single generation at a time when all generations should come together.
Timothy Pasquarelli
Anthem, Ariz.
To the Editor:
I’m 74 years old and am in complete support of students protesting, although I don’t agree with all their positions. I have just one question: Where have they been during the last eight years when our past president barred people from several Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States and massive cutbacks were made to environmental laws, to mention just a couple of issues?
I only hope that what we are seeing is the start of greater student political awareness, which will spread and grow stronger.
Neither Donald Trump nor the current MAGA-dominated Republican Party is going to go away unless citizens take to the streets and make it clear that they won’t stand for undemocratic, bigoted and misogynistic laws or tax cuts created just to benefit extremely wealthy conservatives.
Jon R. Tower
Pacific Palisades, Calif.
To the Editor:
To quote the political activist Carl Oglesby: “It isn’t the rebels who cause the troubles of the world. It’s the troubles that cause the rebels.”
Boomers, listen with curiosity to the rebels on college campuses and you will hear that their cause is for us to care about what is happening in the world and for universities to stop investing in companies that provide weapons for war. Universities should not be making money off of killing people!
Niobe Way
New York
The writer is a professor of applied psychology at New York University and the author of “Rebels With a Cause: Reimagining Boys, Ourselves and Our Culture.”
Faith, Family and the Republican Party
To the Editor:
Re “The Authoritarians Have the Momentum,” by David Brooks (column, May 17):
Mr. Brooks’s column, advising that liberals have conceded the “faith and family” vote, might have enlightened his readers as to how the presumptive authoritarian Republican nominee’s life experiences honor either one.
Obviously, the terms “faith” and “family” have been hijacked simply to enrage working Americans into supporting wealth for the few, intolerance, rejection of education, facts and science, and, most significant of all, fear.
Mr. Brooks might rather have pointed out that the party that rejects the basic Christian values of love of neighbor, forgiveness and tolerance as well as an increase to the federal minimum wage, affordable health insurance, middle-class tax reform, workplace safety, protection from guns, and Social Security and Medicare stability serves neither faith nor family, and hasn’t for decades.
Eric R. Carey
Arlington, Va.
Deep Dish Pizza? Meh!
To the Editor:
Re “That Deep Dish Pizza? It’s Not That Deep” (Food, May 15):
I am an Italian American who grew up in what was then Chicago’s Little Italy in the 1950s, and thin-crust Neapolitan pizza was king.
Our local family-run pizzerias were staffed by Italian immigrants, usually from Naples. Deep dish? Meh!
As I no longer live in Chicago, whenever I meet fellow Chicagoans outside the city and state, almost always there are two “tribal” questions asked:
1. Are you Sox or Cubs?
2. Thin-crust Neapolitan or deep dish?
My preferences are thin crust and Chicago Cubs!
Steven Giovangelo
Indianapolis