Judith, with respect to your first point, I'm in total agreement. On the second point, it appears that Rabbi Eisenberg did more than just allow the students to make their own mistakes. She applauded and justified those mistakes. In my experience, student leaders usually take at least some measure of guidance and direction from their professional advisors in making decisions like this one. At the very least, Rabbi Eisenberg failed to provide such guidance. At worst, she encouraged the capitulation.

I am not trying to let her off the hook, and you are right about her responsibility. But I also think if the intent was to allow the students some autonomy, then they should be respected as the authors of this decision and not infantilized or rendered invisible.

Brown is lucky to have a rabbi like Rabbi Eisenberg. I mean, the last thing we Jews need is a Muslim speaking out against anti-semitism to other Muslims. Like, how would that help?
What next? Speaking to the Sudanese about mass-murders? See, it's a real slippery slope!

Especially since todays' PC manners prohibit you from criticizing any group besides your own. Unless that group is Israel or America - everyone can criticize them. So by those rules no one but a Muslim should criticize another Muslim. But now we have the addendum to that rule, which is that it is so painful to hear someone criticize her own group that we help each other avoid hearing them.

I sent the following email to Serena Eisenberg, the Brown U. Hillel rabbi, who justified the cancelation on the ground that the talk "would have been seen negatively":

"Of course Darwish's talk '"would have been seen negatively'! I note that your inane comment is in the passive voice; seen by whom? Were you afraid to name those before whom you cringed?

With leaders and spokesmen like you, it's no wonder my fellow Jews are becoming more and more a despised category on American campuses. When the Warsaw ghetto Jews decided to fight back, and when Arab countries attacked Israel when it declared its independence, there were doubtless Serena Eisenbergs among them who counseled against resistance, on the ground that it would be seen negatively."

my name is dany im israeli jew from arab lands my mom from yeman and mo dad from tunisiya im astudent of ee in ben goryon ! i just want to say that i know arab prespektive much better then the common jew ( im mizrahi) the only way for arabs to exept that they r wrong is by somebody like nonie (moslim)! (and rabbis will find it as a war act agaist arabs and thats the problem) i studed in a yeshiva for 20 years!
my jewish brothers in the us have a hard job against arab students wich r probebly agressive!
i know that becaus my family has the same agressivness ! form militery expirience arab agresivness is 99% act!
bad move not to let her speek at your uni!