There are moments in life that etch themselves into memory with a sharpness that time cannot dull. I have been an educator long enough to have seen victories, disappointments, and all of the gray areas in between. Some moments have been transformative in ways that inspired me for years afterward, while others were difficult but instructive. Yet one moment during a public meeting of a university’s governing board stands out as the worst in my professional life, a moment when the ideals I believe higher education should uphold were put to the test, and my response fell devastatingly short.

On that day in the spring of 2024, the boardroom was charged with an unusual intensity. Students, faculty, and community members had come to speak about the war on Gaza, bringing with them stories that were not filtered through the safe distance of news headlines. These were stories told by our students, faculty and community about people whose lives had been torn apart, whose families were suffering, whose sense of safety and justice had been shaken to its core. As I sat among the trustees and university leaders, I could feel the grief, anger, and urgency in the room.

One by one, students stepped forward to share their testimonies. They spoke about the destruction of universities, the loss of faculty, the deaths of students, and the erasure of entire families. Their words carried the weight of lived experience, not abstract policy debate. It was impossible to listen without being confronted by the raw human cost of the conflict, and as an educator, I could not help but think about the foundational role education plays in building hope, and how easily that hope can be destroyed in war.

Then came a moment that would become seared into my memory. A student stood before the board and, with steady conviction, asked those seated at the table of power to stand if they believed that the killing of innocent children in Gaza was wrong. It was a question stripped down to the most basic moral terms, one that required no political caveats or policy analysis. It was an invitation to show a measure of shared humanity.

As I listened, I felt the call in my chest. My conscience told me to rise with them. I glanced at the other leaders seated around the table. No one moved. The student’s eyes swept across the dais, searching for someone—anyone—to respond. My heart pounded, urging me to stand, believing that if I did, perhaps others would follow. But I stayed seated. In that moment, I told myself I was preserving my ability to work from within, to influence outcomes in ways that might not be possible if I stepped outside the bounds of what was expected.

The truth, however, was more complicated. My decision was shaped by years of navigating the realities of academic leadership, where actions taken in the heat of the moment can reverberate in ways that affect not just one’s own role, but also the people and initiatives one is responsible for leading. It was not a fear of a specific consequence, but an awareness of how institutional dynamics can shift, subtly, and sometimes decisively, based on a single choice.

I do not share this to pass judgment on the other leaders at that table. They, too, were weighing what they could do in that moment and what might be possible afterward. Leadership often demands walking the fine line between principle and pragmatism, between making a statement and maintaining a position from which change can be advanced. Many at that table care deeply about justice and human dignity, even if their approach did not match the students’, faculty’s, or community members’ hopes. The reality is that in moments like these, we are all navigating through the lenses of our experiences, our responsibilities, and the delicate balance between courage and strategy.

Then I began to cry. The tears were not only for the children whose lives had been taken, nor only for the students in that room who had poured their pain into public testimony. They were also for the institution itself, and for the people leading it, who I knew carried their own burdens and calculations in that moment. I understood that silence can be born from caution, from the desire to protect an institution’s fragile balance, from the fear that one gesture might unleash storms they were not ready to weather. And yet, even knowing that, I could not escape the ache of seeing how, in that instant, the message received by the students was that their grief did not warrant an act of acknowledgment.

I could not leave that experience behind without doing something. In the weeks that followed, I began working with some of the students and faculty who had been present at the trustees meeting. I proposed the idea of creating a program to host visiting students and scholars from countries where universities had been destroyed by war. The logic was simple: our institution could marshal its resources to take concrete action to help rebuild academic life in places devastated by conflict. It would be a way to turn a moment of silence into a sustained commitment to justice.

This proposal was not just about Gaza, though that was the immediate catalyst. It was about affirming the role of higher education as a global partner in the defense and restoration of learning. The destruction of universities is not only the loss of buildings and books. It is the dismantling of a community, the interruption of generational aspirations, and the erasure of a space where ideas, debate, and knowledge can take root. I wanted our institution to take a stand in a way that could be felt across borders. Even though I am no longer Provost, I still hold out hope that this vision will be brought to life.

Not long after the trustees meeting, another moment arrived. This one unfolded behind closed doors. The setting was more intimate — a small conference room with a polished table in place of the formal dais, and only a handful of people seated around it. There was no audience beyond those present, no camera to capture the exchange, no public record to preserve what would be said. Yet the stakes were no less urgent. The emergency discussion turned to the very issue that had ignited at the public trustees meeting: the war in Gaza, and the way our students and community had responded with an encampment protest that refused to let the campus look away.

When my turn came to speak, I thought of the students who had stood in the public meeting. I remembered the heavy quiet that followed their request, and how my own inaction that day had felt like a betrayal of my values. This time, I chose differently. I did not stand physically, the meeting was seated, but I stood in the way that matters most. I spoke with clarity and conviction. I did not dilute my words to make them easier to hear. I urged that our institution respond with visible, constructive steps that would affirm our commitment to justice, rather than measures that could be perceived as punitive toward the students and community members who had raised their voices.

The cost was immediate and tangible. I can still recall the exact, critical words some colleagues spoke in response to my stand. Relationships that had once been easy became strained. Certain opportunities disappeared. Criticism and suspicion began to circulate. Yet I have never regretted that choice. I would make it again, and again, and again—for children and families, and for the young people who continue to fight for justice. That experience taught me that while the cost of speaking can be high, the cost of silence is far greater when what is at stake is justice itself.

That moment behind closed doors did more than retest my resolve, it clarified the work I needed to pursue beyond that room. Speaking up was necessary, but it could not be the end of the response. I wanted to ensure that what I had witnessed, both in the public meeting and in that smaller gathering, would be analyzed, documented, and learned from so that future leaders might choose differently. Out of that determination came the next step: turning personal experience into collective academic scholarship.

I joined with faculty and students who had supported the campus protest to co-author an analysis examining the failure of higher education leadership to rise to the moment in Gaza. The piece, titled Higher Education in Crisis: A Conflict-Intelligent Leadership Analysis of American University Responses to the 2024 Gaza Protest and Solidarity Movement, will appear in the Second International Handbook of Educational Leadership and Social (In)Justice published by Springer. The article examines how institutions across the United States either ignored or mishandled the moral and political dimensions of the conflict. We argued that what was missing was not only empathy but also conflict-intelligent leadership—the ability to navigate politically charged situations without sacrificing ethical clarity.

This analysis was directly informed by my lived experience in that boardroom and in the meeting that followed. It is one thing to theorize about leadership in times of conflict, and quite another to sit in a position of influence and watch an institution choose silence. Writing the piece was both an act of scholarship and an act of accountability for myself. It was my way of ensuring that what I lived would not be reduced to a private memory but would instead become part of the documented record of higher education’s failures and possibilities.

The students who spoke that day demonstrated a form of leadership that leaders can learn from. They were willing to take risks, to make themselves vulnerable, and to call out injustice directly. They understood that leadership is not always about waiting for consensus to form in a safe space; it is also about acting when the moment demands it. If the future of higher education depends on moral courage, then I believe it will be the students, faculty, and community, not institutional leaders, who lead the way forward.

The moment in that trustee meeting was the lowest point of my career, yet it became a defining turning point that sharpened my priorities. It reminded me that my role is not merely to operate within the structures of higher education, but to challenge those structures when they fall short of their own ideals. My responsibility to students does not end when the gavel falls or the meeting adjourns; in truth, that is where it truly begins.

The children and families who have been lost to war deserve nothing less than our full measure of courage. To the students who sat in that meeting and saw me remain seated when my conscience was crying out for me to rise, I offer you my deepest and most heartfelt apology. I failed you in that moment. I failed to match your bravery, your clarity, and your moral conviction. The weight of that failure has never left me, pressing heavy against my heart each time I remember that day, reminding me of the cost when silence replaces action.

The moment I fell short of my highest ideals has, over the past six months, reshaped me into someone more focused, grounded, and committed than I have ever been. It strengthened within me a resolve to act with integrity, even in moments of challenge or uncertainty. If speaking from a place of conviction means taking paths that are not always easy, I accept that responsibility. History does not remember those who remain silent; it remembers those who speak truth with care, wisdom, and courage, even when it requires personal sacrifice. My goal is to ensure that our collective voice is one of compassion, clarity, and purpose, shaped by lessons learned in moments when I could have done more. As Luke 12:48 reminds us, “To whom much is given, much will be required.” I have been entrusted with a platform, a position, and a measure of influence, and I will use them thoughtfully and decisively to serve children, families, and the young people of this generation who seek a more just future. That is my commitment, and I intend to honor it.

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Julian Vasquez Heilig is a nationally recognized policy scholar, public intellectual, and civil rights advocate. A trusted voice in public policy, he has testified for state legislatures, the U.S. Congress, the United Nations, and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, while also advising presidential and gubernatorial campaigns. His work has been cited by major outlets including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times, and he has appeared on networks from MSNBC and PBS to NPR and DemocracyNow!. He is a recipient of more than 30 honors, including the 2025 NAACP Keeper of the Flame Award, Vasquez Heilig brings both scholarly rigor and grassroots commitment to the fight for equity and justice.