Michigan State Student Govt Tries to Cancel Theatre Lecture by Israeli Actor
by Chris Peterson
The job of a student government is usually straightforward: represent students on the issues that shape daily campus life. Parking, dining, safety, tuition, housing. But at Michigan State University, the student government took a different path. The Associated Students of Michigan State University (ASMSU) passed a bill demanding the cancellation of a theater lecture because the invited speaker, Israeli actor Roy Horovitz, once served in the Israeli Defense Forces.
ASMSU stated, “the hosting of an event highlighting IDF personnel is harmful to Palestinian, Arab, and allied students, and is ignorant to the current global context.” Their full statement is below.
The event, “Welcome to Theaterland: The Theatrical Scene in Israel Today,” was not a political rally. It wasn’t a panel on foreign policy or a campaign event against Palestinians. It was a lecture about theater. A chance to hear from someone who has lived and worked in a different artistic community. Yet the student government decided that the speaker’s past military service disqualified him from taking the stage.
Robyn Hughey is the Executive Director of MSU Hillel. Hillel is one of four Jewish student groups that have spoken out against the bill, calling it “deeply disturbing.”
Hughey told local news the event was strictly about theatre and had nothing to do with the current political climate.
“He wasn’t coming to talk about the war or the crisis,” said Hughey. “All Israeli citizens are manually conscripted to serve in the IDF and saying that he can’t come and... speak because he served...[is] discrimination based on national origin.”
Here’s the twist: the event still went on. ASMSU doesn’t have the authority to cancel anything. The lecture happened the next day as planned. But the symbolic outcome is what matters here. Passing this bill told Jewish and Israeli students that their cultural identity can be grounds for suspicion. It told the community that background and biography matter more than content. And it reinforced a dangerous precedent: student government as censor rather than advocate.
This was not about protecting students from harm. It was about punishing identity. And once you start doing that, the slope is steep. Today, it’s an Israeli actor. Tomorrow, will it be a Russian scientist? A Chinese artist? A U.S. veteran? Universities cannot survive on purity tests. They thrive on dialogue, on the recognition that listening to people—even those with complicated pasts—is part of education. A lecture stage is not an endorsement. It’s an opportunity.
What makes this decision more troubling is the way it inverts the purpose of a university. Campuses should be places where discomfort is expected, where you encounter ideas and people that challenge you. That’s how growth happens. Discomfort is not the same as harm. You can feel upset or offended by a speaker’s presence and still have the chance to respond. Protest. Organize a counter-event. Ask hard questions. Those actions build dialogue and critical thinking. Cancellation builds nothing. It only takes away.
And make no mistake, this vote was performance. The bill had no teeth, and everyone knew the lecture would still take place. So why pass it? To send a signal. But signals carry consequences. This one told Jewish organizations that their events can be targeted. It told students who value free expression that their leaders prefer censorship to argument. It told the campus community that symbolic gestures matter more than practical outcomes.
When a government body (even a student one) chooses symbolism over substance, it deepens division. Everyone is left wondering if dialogue is even possible. If this is the response to a cultural lecture, what happens when the topic is explicitly political?
The better path would have been to widen the stage. Invite Palestinian voices. Host a counter-event. Create space for conversation instead of subtraction. That is how education works. More perspectives, not fewer. More opportunities to listen, not fewer. By voting to cancel instead of to engage, the student government shrank the conversation. And a smaller conversation means a smaller campus.
You could dismiss this as a small story, one lecture on one campus. But these moments set the tone. They create habits. If the habit becomes “ban the speaker you don’t like,” the university ceases to be a place of learning. It becomes an echo chamber.
Theater, fittingly, is supposed to reflect the full range of human experience. It challenges us with the beautiful, the tragic, and the complicated. Canceling a theater lecture because of the speaker’s biography betrays that very spirit. College should widen the stage, not narrow it. It should make room for voices, not blacklist them. ASMSU’s vote may have been symbolic, but it was the wrong symbol. It said censorship is easier than conversation. And if that becomes the norm, campuses will lose the very thing that makes them matter.