Michael J. Smith lives in Portland.

Back when I was misspending my youth in the grove of academe, it was proverbial among us that there is no class of people more cowardly and craven than university administrators. The management of the University of Southern Maine has recently given us a case in point.

The university had agreed to provide space for a conference on Palestine, hosted by the Maine Coalition for Palestine, Maine Voices for Palestinian Rights and USM’s Department of Criminology and Sociology. A few days before the scheduled date, the university abruptly pulled out the rug, in response to pressure from a pro-Israel group of Maine state senators.

They had written the chancellor a letter, remarkable for the beetle-browed thuggishness of its tone, even by the high standards that such communications from such sources generally exhibit. Among other things, the letter threatened USM’s funding if the administration didn’t cave in.

So, as usual, they caved.

The USM administration didn’t cite the Israel-mafia letter. Rather, they claimed that they had acted because the conference intended to have a Zoom call with Francesca Albanese, who holds the resounding title of UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Albanese is not popular with Israel, or its fan clubs here in the U.S., because she has a disconcerting habit of telling the truth about the ongoing (and, incidentally, U.S.-sponsored) genocide in Gaza. The U.S. government, which is, of course, as supinely servile to Israel and its boosters as any Maine state senator could be, has “sanctioned” her. But this status does not outlaw conversing with her (not yet, anyway). So there was no question that a Zoom call might violate sanctions.

The fig leaf was rather rudely ripped away when the conference organizers offered to cancel the call with Albanese. (I know, this doesn’t reflect very well on them either.) USM’s response was “no” anyway, citing the usual vague “security concerns.”

It would be comical if it weren’t so nauseating.

There are a few bright spots in this sick-making story. First Parish, a UCC church in Gorham, stepped up and offered to host, so the conference went ahead as planned. A tip of my shabby mortarboard to the UCC, and in particular First Parish, which, unlike USM’s panjandrums, seems to possess, as they say, a pair. And to have some real concern for free and unfettered discourse, which is supposed to be the universities’ actual job, but, as everybody who’s been inside one knows, isn’t.

And as a Portlander, I’m pleased that the Israel thought police had to go all the way to Augusta to find a gang of enforcers willing to do their dirty work in Portland. Presumably none could be found among the political echelon here. Quite a feather in our civic cap, I’d say.

This interesting, and welcome, difference between local sentiment, on the one hand, and institutional capture by the Israeli propaganda organs, on the other, is part of a much broader picture in the U.S. Public sentiment — especially among younger people — has turned overwhelmingly against Israel, as the genocide in Gaza has scrolled out on our screens. But all our institutions are firmly in the grip of ideological night watchmen for Israel.

And I do mean all: the White House and Congress, state legislatures and a good many city governments, if not Portland’s; the entertainment biz and the media; and egregiously, the credentialling sector, aka “education.” In the last-mentioned case, the contradiction is especially sharp, since most students and most teachers have no use for Israel, but management continues to hearken to its master’s voice.

How will this play out? Should be interesting.