Three University Presidents testify in Congress about antisemitism

57 thoughts on “Three University Presidents testify in Congress about antisemitism”

1. “Calling for genocide of Jews, or saying stuff like “gas the Jews” is, in fact, nearly always speech that is legal under the First Amendment. The only time it isn’t is when it constitutes personal harassment of someone, creates a hostile atmosphere in the workplace, or is meant to incite imminent and predictable violence. Thus, a group of Students for Justice in Palestine standing on campus in a permitted demonstration and chanting “Gas the Jews” or “Another intifada,” or even (I haven’t heard this), “Genocide against Israel!” is in conformity with the courts’ interpretation of the First Amendment.”

   Is not the campus the “workplace” of Jewish college students?

   And Harvard University has an official position on diversity and inclusion. How does “Gas the Jews” not contradict these principles?

   1. +1

      Agree with Gingerbaker here. If a lab or student org at Harvard orchestrated protests calling for the death of all Black women, Black women at Harvard would surely file complaints about a hostile workplace. And Harvard’s DEI office would support them. But when students use violent and eliminationist language inciting violence against Jews, it’s just “free speech.” Why the hypocrisy? Are students more likely to kill Black women in the imminent future than Israeli/Jewish students? If the line in the sand for such reasoning is about likelihood of immediate violence, it seems it’s far more plausible that physical violence against Jews would erupt on campus than would physical violence against Black women. Yet, Black women would be supported by DEI with those voicing hate towards them swiftly punished. Not the same for Jews/Israelis.

      1. Oh, also, I just saw this:

         https://x.com/HillelNeuer/status/1732398761484132484?s=20

      2. Agree. The takeaway from this hearing was the glaring reality of hypocrisy and the degree to which higher education has been captured by “woke”. DEI, as practiced by Harvard, UPenn, MIT and other universities is doing far more harm than good.

   2. No, the campus is not the workplace; you can avoid demonstrations by simply not listening to them.

      As for Harvard’s “diversity and inclusion” principle, it didn’t prevent them from allowing Palestinian groups to blame Israel for October 7, and Claudine Gay says that even reprehensible speech is permitted. So they do allow speech that contravenes the DEI principles.

      1. I appreciate that we are all working out our thoughts on this and so are going to disagree while ideas are forming. Agree with you on the overall answer for campus neutrality, but imposing that on campuses which are far from adopting it may not help. It may be counterproductive contributing further to hypocrisy. Unless Gay acknowledges the double standard, the adoption of free speech on this matter falls flatter than flat.

         Also, campuses are the workplaces for many people! They were for me! I held jobs in campus libraries and currently work for Harvard, which would not permit me to say sex is binary, BTW, which I’m sure you know. I’d be castigated for it.

         Many kids get their first jobs on college campuses, colleges employ many people, and labs obviously ARE workplaces. More so, Jewish students can’t avoid comments in Slack and other lab/campus groups calling for Intifada. These comments aren’t limited to actual in-person protests, just like the ripping down of the posters occurs outside of organized protests.

         If calls for genocide of Jews were limited to organized protests, I’d agree with you. But they aren’t. And students can’t just avoid them.

         (OTS, in England some years ago, I was placed in housing for internationals with an Iranian engineer. She proudly told me Jews were vile and that she supported genocide. I had a second housemate, who was from South Korea and worked in my department. Again, we were assigned to live together by university lottery. She concurred with my Iranian housemate. I reported this to university housing and my department but was simply told that I’d swallowed propaganda by Netanyahu with the implication being that I was Islamophobic for being concerned.)

         1. Re: the roommate who supported the genocide of your people – that’s horrific. I’m sorry this happened to you.

      2. Actually, for these students the campus IS their workplace. The demonstrations have not been relegated to outside, they are taking place IN administrative buildings (often deliberately outside the doors of Jewish faculty and staff) and WITHIN classrooms. They are using bull-horns and other amplification so students trying to listen in class or study cannot learn. How are they supposed to simply “not listen”? Have you seen some of these demonstrations?? Students are being bullied to either join in or walk out of the class — Jewish students are not able to do their work. As for inciting violence, Jewish students at Harvard have been pushed and shoved while walking through the quad and at USC pro-Hamas protestors are walking around with knives. At your own University of Chicago the demonstrators were deliberately targeting and following the prospective student tours–no doubt trying to deter potential Jewish applicants from even applying. When they wrote “Zionist freaks get of OUR campus” they are clearly implying Jews are not welcome at U of Chicago. This goes beyond free speech as it creates exclusionary zones where Jews are made to feel unwelcome. Remember that we are paying $90,000 year for our children to endure this privilege. Moreover, these schools are meant to educate not indoctrinate. Free speech is allowing a multiplicity of viewpoints but what is happening here is one group is allowed to loudly and vehemently override all other points of view and the administration allows this as long as their pockets are being filled by foreign money (look at donations from Qatar).

         1. Pushing and shoving are illegal, as are demonstrations inside buildings, which are violations of university rules. You clearly are new on this site as you’re lecturing me on things I already know about and see as violations of university rules. As for the tour group stuff, I did mention it and questioned whether it was legal. The Unviersity legal department apparently decided it was, and there’s nothing I can do it up. Take it up with the University, not with me.

            It happens that the pro-Palestinian grups demonstrate more loudly and more often than the pro-Israel ones. Should there be equality of demonstrations? Sorry, but I think you are trying to limit court-allowed freedom of speech at the same time mischaracterizing what I believe and have posted on this site. I suggest you follow the posts for a while before you begin lecturing me on what I should believe.

      3. “So they do allow speech that contravenes the DEI principles.”

         This illustrates how “Diversity Equity Inclusion” are Trojan Horse words to give power to the wizards who know the real meanings of the terms –

         Or as I like to call it :

         Dialectical Epistemic Inversion

         Can’t tell which way is up or down – unless you gain the secret knowledge, the gnosis.

         1. +1 Agree with this, ThyroidPlanet. Yes, the application of DEI is fickle, like dispensation of forgiveness by evangelical ministers. I don’t support Harvard’s choice to include antisemitism in its DEI mission. The solution is to adopt institutional neutrality and free speech at the university level, dismantle DEI, also at the university level, and to encourage individual students and faculty to speak their minds. The latter is something that I think senior faculty who are for free speech and neutrality forget to say aloud, but is important. It may seem obvious that with institutional neutrality faculty will be free to speak their minds, but actually I worry many faculty model their speech on that of those higher up in the food chain, which at universities are administrators. So if administration is neutral, faculty will be silent. That’s a concern I have. Obviously Ceiling Cat speaks his mind under Chicago’s norms, so I have an n of 1 against my hypothesis. I’m just not sure that the lemmings I know at Harvard would be like Ceiling Cat. I think they’d just read the tea leaves that neutrality means silence. There is a simple solution to my concern, though: Consistency in the administration’s use of free speech and neutrality along with encouragement for faculty and students to embrace academic freedom, like Ceiling Cat demonstrates.

            I’ve commented a lot in this thread, so I’m going to consolidate and respond to Ceiling Cat and Michele Miller here too to avoid over-contributing.

            @Michele Miler: Jerry really is sincere and one of the strongest voices online against antisemitism. He routinely comments on @AuschwitzMuseum’s tweets raising awareness about it and has for years. I’ve been reading him since 2015. While I agree with you about what Jewish students are facing on campuses, Jerry is not the person to be chastised on this matter.

            @Ceiling Cat, Michele Miller mentioned funding of universities by Qatar. I can’t recall if I sent you this in the past. But I learned about it from Judea Pearl a few months back. Arab Funding of American Universities: Donors, Recipients and Impact: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/arab-funding-of-american-universities-donors-recipients-and-impact.

            It’s stunning to see how much money is channeled from Qatar to top universities in the US. But I don’t have a comparison group. Is it normal for non-Arab countries to donate to US universities? Does Ireland, England, Poland, or Russia? Anyway, I’m not the right person to research this matter, but it would be interesting to know.

      4. I’m sorry, but that… just… doesn’t seem right?

         Of course a campus is a workplace. I am an academic. I work on a university campus. It is my workplace.

         Before you retired from U of Chicago, it was your workplace. Suppose you were going to work and had to pass a crowd chanting “Death to Jews” on your way in; would that not create a hostile work environment for you? Is it ok for you to be told, “You can avoid the people calling for your death just by not listening to them! Put in some headphones or something!”

         No right is absolute; there are tradeoffs. I would ban any demonstrations that call for “Death to [identifiable group]” from university campuses. That does not mean banning all controversial speech! E.g., chanting “abortion is evil” = ok; chanting “death to women who have abortions” = out of bounds.

         1. Nope, I wouldn’t feel the workplace was hostile. I work in my office and formerly in the classroom, not on the quad. If anything “offensive” were banned from the quad, nothing would be allowed. There are only demonstrations when there is some controversy. And these chants and demonstrations don’t happen every day.

         2. Well, what about “no affirmative action”. To some that is also out of bounds. Are YOU the one empowered to decide what speech is allowable.

            In fact, the “death to Jews” chant would be allowed at the U of C if it wasn’t directed at one specific Jew.

      5. The speech certainly would not constitute “workplace harassment” if it takes place on a portion of campus that has been designated by the school as a “public forum” for First Amendment purposes.

   3. Yes, seriously!

      This part: “Calling for genocide of Jews, or saying stuff like “gas the Jews” is, in fact, nearly always speech that is legal under the First Amendment. The only time it isn’t is when it … creates a hostile atmosphere in the workplace”

      That part really threw me for a loop. How is saying “gas the Jews” NOT creating a hostile workplace for any employee or student who is Jewish or has Jewish friends?

      Let’s swap out the ethnic groups. If a colleague at work said, “Lynch the blacks” or “Slavery was the right idea,” how on earth would that not create a hostile atmosphere for Black people? Is there any way that would fly in any modern academic setting under the guise of “but muh First Amendment!!!”

      Unbelievable.

      1. The right analogy here would be claiming that anyone who embraces the term “great replacement” is actually calling for genocide of minorities and therefore should be banned from all campuses as a hostile environment. That’s what Stefanik did by claiming that anyone who uses the word “intifada” is supporting “genocide of the Jews.” Naturally, these college presidents are not going to agree that saying “intifada” should be banned on college campuses. If anyone is chanting “genocide of the Jews” on campus, I’d like to see the evidence for that.

2. I think the key criticism is clear when the rep is asking the presidents to apply their university’s own speech codes to the observed speech in question. Not with Free Speech writ large per se, though of course that is a wide open question.

   I.e. there is an exception to their universities’ violation of institutional neutrality with regard to the type of political statement. Apparently these universities do not have Kalven-grade speech codes.

3. Ceiling Cat,

   In addition to your tweet on how the mishegas would be solved by adoption of UChicago’s principles of free expression and neutrality, did you see these two tweets by Shermer and Haidt?

   https://x.com/michaelshermer/status/1732407120975552998?s=20

   https://x.com/JonHaidt/status/1732389011983900857?s=20

   Shermer’s “generalizability test” and Haidt’s pointing out the institutional antisemitism are the most useful responses I’ve seen yet.

   I agree with you that the tone of the questions was hostile. I’ve seen that sort of self-righteous tone amongst Republicans when they think they have the moral high ground. In this case, they did (!!) but lacked the language to nail why. You are right that all of this would be avoided if all universities adopted free speech and neutrality. But they haven’t. Far from it. The interrogation lacked the sophistication to calmly point out institutional antisemitism and lack of generalizability in official university condemnations (i.e., what constitutes bullying and hate).

   1. +1

   2. Self-righteousness is not unique to Republicans and never has been. Look at how Rep. Summer Lee treated Riley Gaines yesterday.

      1. I saw that but thought it was possibly a democratic rep.

   3. Yes, there is a double standard with respect to Jews versus other groups; I’ve pointed that out before and continue to do so. But the answr to that is to adopt freedom of speech and institutional neutrality. The latter would prevent this hypocritical double standard. I disagree with Shermer; yes, you can generalize -the “genocide” calls so long as they apply to all groups.

      1. I think the statement issued by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression put this controversy into the proper perspective:

         https://x.com/TheFIREorg/status/1732441879172563081?s=20

         1. That statement by FIRE is excellent and has helped clarify my thoughts on the issue.

            1. +1

      2. Yo can’t say it’s a matter of free speech when you don’t allow similar expressions against other groups. The freedom to express certain views isn’t freedom at all.

   4. I tend to agree that Jonathan Haidt has identified a good piece of the problem: the inconsistency with which micro-aggressions and “hurtful” speech are punished (the Hooven case, for instance) while calls for intifada and gassing Jews are not. Both are protected speech, yet Harvard chose to punish this protected speech in some cases while championing it in others. This is simply bad leadership.

      Harvard is just one example. Colleges and universities across the country have been punishing protected speech for some time. Yet the inconsistency with which they have responded to speech relating to the Hamas atrocities speaks volumes to Jews. Put simply: Jews don’t count.

      Much of this could have been avoided if colleges and universities adhered to the Kalven Report (which I applaud). Yet much of this double-standard infesting our universities might have remained hidden as well.

4. Unfortunately, it seems that in most Congressional hearings one side or the other is looking to score points, and treats witnesses badly depending on where they sit on the issue(s) involved. It’s been a disgrace for years. Congress really should have rules about how they treat witnesses. Committee chairmen could do more now, too.

   Of course, people are right to point out that these schools, their presidents, are being hypocrites for suddenly claiming free speech prevents their doing anything, after years of punishing people for wrong speech.

   Our universities came of age in a gentler time. They are not well-equipped institutionally for dealing with militant protestors when they cross the line from protected speech to harassment and violence.

   1. “They are not well-equipped institutionally for dealing with militant protestors when they cross the line from protected speech to harassment and violence.”

      Didn’t this stuff happen a lot in the 60s at colleges? They should be used to it by now.

      1. They kinda shit the bed back then, too. My parents are early baby boomers (Dad born in ‘47, Mom in ‘48.) The younger boomers, as a cohort, had an awful lot in common with modern wokelings in character & comportment. They believed so much & so publicly & LOUDLY in their leftist ideals that they scared an awful lot of normies away from the Democratic Party & liberalism in general. Old-fashioned racism & the Southern Strategy played their parts too but I do wonder sometimes how different American politics might have evolved if the older boomlings hadn’t been such schmucks.

5. Calling for genocide of Jews, or saying stuff like “gas the Jews” is, in fact, nearly always speech that is legal under the First Amendment.

   How does this differ from somebody putting a noose up on campus? Do you think any university president would tolerate that?

   1. That is, I believe, not speech, but action, and is not protected under the First Amendment except in some circumstances like flag-burning.

      1. See SCOTUS’s 2003 decision in the cross-burning case, Virginia v. Black.

6. “Finally, it’s hard to imagine a situation in which calling for genocide of the Jews in an on-campus speech could lead to imminent and predictable lawless violence against Jews. Even if you say this in front of Jewish students, that would incite violence only if there were people there prepared to commit violence if they heard such a statement. I have not seen this on any campus, but it’s conceivable.”

   Whether or not such speech constitutes an incitement to “imminent and predictable” violence is of course a matter of judgment, but there’s little question it contributes to a climate of hostility which then increases the likelihood of violence (as others have mentioned above). It’s parallel to some of Trump’s statements that have arguably helped incite violent hate crimes. Such speech is protected but obviously inflammatory.

   Wouldn’t it be in the purview of university presidents to condemn such speech in the strongest possible terms as hateful, inflammatory, and in conflict with institutional values of respectful discourse but still acknowledge that it’s protected under the 1st amendment? I’ve not watched the hearings so perhaps they did just that.

   1. A lot of rationalists lose the plot on these kinds of “free speech” issues. These protestors aren’t looking to be heard. They’re looking for permission. When there’s little or no blowback to the mob, words DO tend to evolve into action.

      I love Jerry but I think he’s working on an assumption that It Can’t Happen Here. I would not be so sure of that.

7. Elise Stefanik may be my least favorite congressperson. She was first elected to represent her upstate NY district in 2014 as a moderate and had previously worked in Dubya’s administration. When Donald Trump initially emerged as a Republican candidate in 2015, she was critical of him, but eventually endorsed him once his nomination became a fait accompli. After Trump took office, and it became clear that the GoP had lurched toward MAGA-land, Stefanik jumped in with both feet — forsaking principle for blind ambition. She’s the one who stuck the knife in Liz Cheney’s back, so as to replace her in House leadership as chair of the Republican conference. Her questioning in the clips above — if, indeed, “questioning” it may be called — was an exercise in Joe McCarthy-style demagoguery.

   At long last, madam, have you left no sense of decency?

   1. The entire lot of this GOP has abandoned decency years ago- once they embraced MAGA; there is no use for decency in a cult of personality. And I read today that Kevin McCarthy is leaving Congress at the end of the year, a year before his term runs out…perhaps that’s a sign of decency, but more likely a sign of defeat. Good riddance.

      1. If McCarthy can’t be Speaker, he doesn’t want to play. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, Kev.

         If McCarthy gets depressed and stops eating wonder whether Trump will return the favor owed by coming to visit him in Bakersfield?

         1. That is plain weird. Trump was probably rage eating. And just think, if McCarthy stuck to his resolve after 1/6 that Trump was responsible and needed to be held accountable, instead of kissing his ring…I mean helping his appetite…he and the entire GOP (and America) would be in a far better place today. Instead, there is a continuous storm of chaos and insanity in American politics.

            Since I know you’re in Florida, I’ve been following Ziegler-gate; quite the scandal going on down there. Something is rotten in the state of Florida. 😉

8. I got a comment held in moderation up above – can it be released?

   1. Thank you

9. I don’t really understand. Rep. Elise Stefanic asked whether “calling for a genocide of Jews” was bullying and harassment according to each university’s code of conduct. Because all three Presidents didn’t answer “we do not have such a code of conduct” I presume that they do. So it’s not a question of free speech according to the American Constitution but the question of adherence to every university’s internal “code of conduct”. And if there is a code of conduct forbidding “bullying and harassment” then calling for the genocide of Jews (presumably, inclusive Jewish faculty and students at the university) seems to be a clear case of bullying and harassment.

   1. This point about violations of a private university’s code of conduct (as opposed to a First Amendment issue) is the main reason, I suspect, that many of us who otherwise support Jerry’s and the University of Chicago’s stance on free speech are also thoroughly disgusted with these university presidents and their institutions. Even as a constitutional issue, I’m not so confident that the line between speech and either harassment or hostile workplace hasn’t been crossed.

      The test case, as others have pointed out, is to reformulate Representative Stefanik’s question: “Does calling for the lynching of blacks violate your university’s code of conduct or rules regarding bullying or harassment?”

      We all know the answer. The presidents deserve their condemnation.

   2. Thank you, Malgorzata. I don’t understand why there has been so much discussion about 1st Amendment given that these are private institutions.

      The heart of the matter is that how code of conduct is applied and when you do “nuance and context” depends on political leanings of universities. For me that is the crux. And clearly, we know how selective they are in the application of this.

      And there is plenty of video on social media showing how far the harassment, verbal and implied physical, of Jewish students has gone.

      I am very happy that Rep. Stefanic was aggressive with the three presidents….who smirked their way through testimony and gave crappy answers.

10. Unfortunately, bullying witnesses is common practice by both sides. When Matt Taibbi and Michael Michael Shellenberger testified in congress on the “censorship industrial complex” several months ago, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Dan Goldman (both dems) behaved abominably; the exchange was surreal, comical even.

    Agree that a bullying manner -both in tone and body language, not so much in content- was adopted by Stefanik in the exchange between Gay (Harvard) and Elise Stefanik (R, NY). Despite the bullying -which I did not like- the questions posed by Stefanik were important and revealing. I’m glad the questions were asked.

    Incidentally, the take-away from this hearing (for me) was the glaring hypocrisy inherent in the application of DEI/safety policies by administrators when it comes to antisemitism vs most other “isms”.

    Here is the response by the FreePress: which I agree with while being ambivalent about the definition and application of the word *workplace* in the context of the 1st amendment. Note*, the question discussed relates to “codes of conduct”, not the 1st amendment.
    +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
    https://www.thefp.com/p/covid-china-antisemitism-israel-rambo-haidt (scroll to the bottom):

    “A Jaw-Dropping Congressional Hearing on Antisemitism
    ===================================
    Excerpt:
    Tuesday’s congressional hearing on campus antisemitism saw the presidents of Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, and MIT opt for exactly the kind of equivocation and double standards that have defined elite schools’ responses to hateful speech directed at Jews on their campuses since October 7.

    In one particularly astonishing turn, Rep. Elise Stefanik asked the university chiefs whether calling for the genocide of Jews breached their schools’ codes of conduct. Not a single one of them responded with a yes.

    Bill Ackman, an investor and Harvard donor who has been critical of the school’s weak response to campus antisemitism since October 7, said the answers reflected the three presidents’ “profound moral bankruptcy” and called on them to resign. “If a CEO of one of our companies gave a similar answer, he or she would be toast within the hour,” he concluded. ”

    ===================================
    ** Also this:
    “Penn students sue over ‘egregious’ antisemitism on campus that they claim is ’emboldened’ by the administration’s ‘tolerance and enabling’” (this goes to the “safe” workplace discussion).
    https://fortune.com/2023/12/05/penn-sued-students-antisemitism-israel-hamas-gaza/

    Segue: for another jaw dropping hearing, where 100% of the democrats advocate for biological males in female sports, watch this:
    https://www.c-span.org/video/?532209-1/transgender-athletes-school-sports You won’t be disappointed.

11. “My own prediction is that Gay won’t be President of Harvard much longer. She just doesn’t seem to have the composure or judgement to hold such a position.” If that
    position had a requirement for judgement, let alone a requirement to think on one’s feet, it would risk Presidents like, say, Larry Summers. Perish the thought! These days, credentials for the office of university Presidency are different. Dr. Gay, like the current President of Hamline University, specializes in the matter of Diversity, the summum bonnum of all contemporary academic endeavor.

    1. What would be the reaction of the wokerati should Harvard’s first female black president be removed from her position?

    2. With “diversity” having a specific single-minded self-serving definition that seems counter-intuitive to us foreigners.

       1. Oh, but foreigners to the north are well acquainted with “Diversity”. For example:
          “On January 22, 2021, former Clerk of the Privy Council and Secretary to the Cabinet, Ian Shugart, issued a Call to Action on Anti-Racism, Equity, and Inclusion in the Federal Public Service to all Deputy Ministers, Heads of Separate Agencies and Heads of Federal Agencies. Senior leaders were asked to take accountability, as well as to make it a collective responsibility for all public servants. “Our leadership across the public service must be more diverse.” “

          1. I hear you, Jon.

             “Diversity” in Canada for a long time simply meant “Asian” in all the cosmetic, intellectual, and culinary diversity contained in that vast continent. “Asian”-Canadians (who have accounted for nearly all our immigration for at least three decades) didn’t need affirmative action to succeed and indeed the very idea seemed to be un-Canadian: an unhealthy American solution to a uniquely American problem. In those days the vacuous shibboleth, “Diversity is our strength,” was at least harmless niceness and didn’t require reverse discrimination in atonement for the chattel slavery we never had.

             But as your citation indicates, diversity is all of a sudden decreed through elite fiat* to mean the same as it does in America: find a way to advance black people who are uncompetitive on merit. We have to copy the trendy American idea of systemic anti-black racism to give it traction. The civil service is a low-stakes place to start, but it won’t end there. It’s legal in Canada to advertise job postings as open only to people of non-white race, or that visible minorities will be given preference. Private-sector employers are uncomfortable doing this openly but the civil service is not.
             ————-
             * This means, in essence, that the Prime Minister said, “Make it so.”

12. Throughout the last several hundred years of European and Islamic history, either when or soon after groups of people gather together and publicly call for the death of the Jews, Jews are murdered because they are Jews. Murdered in small groups or pograms. Murdered in Holocausts. Targeted as “the other” once again. A liberal reading of the first amendment may add to that history. Freedom of speech must cross the line into sanctioned hate speech at some point. Calling for the Jews to be murdered one more time crosses that line for me

13. Those university presidents should have used their “exasperated but patient” teacher voices to tell Stefanik her questions cannot be answered with a simple “yes” or “no”.

    1. Yes, like the old example of “Have you stopped beating your wife?”

14. If these universities, as well as others, actually stuck to 1st Amendment principles in academic and student affairs, I can see invoking 1st Amendment rights regarding call for genocide or for that matter, lynchings.

    But they clearly pick and choose who can say what when about whom and about what.

15. Sam Harris’ excellent latest:
    What Is “Islamophobia”? *12 min out of a longer episode.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fCiMQviTiw

    D.A.
    NYC

16. “It makes it an unsafe workplace”

    “No, the classroom, not the campus, is the workplace” (?!)

    “So if a group yelled ‘gas the Jews’ right outside the physics building (but not IN the classroom), and you walk past them to get to physics, does that not make the workplace, that is INSIDE the classroom, also unsafe (for obvious reasons – proximity, riling those who DO want to listen right near your class, having to walk past them to get to your class…)?”

    “Well, let me invent more minutiae that will make it okay – they should be a certain distance from the building, even though they are already outside the building. They should not chant too loudly, so you can’t hear it in the classroom. Also, the fact that you can decide to avoid them and not listen, clearly means that there is no hostility…hostility and hate only exists within earshot.”

    Ah, I am Millian for free speech. Very very open to what can be said and thought and heard.
    But the American free speech experiment will eat its own. It seems to have a corrupted view of free speech – you basically need to have the detrimental action happen, so that you can retrospectively condemn speech as hateful, or inciteful.

    In a free speech academic vacuum, you do not see the (obvious) signs of the increase it hate and hateful rhetoric and violent words – much like the climate – until the tipping point is reached. Before that, you argue yourself out of concern.

    So easy to game the system also – I just turn up to campus, and yell “Gas the Jews – no one in particular people, just in general”, or I can face a wall and yell the most hateful stuff’The Jews are Nazis and the Nazis should be eliminated’, but because I am yelling at a wall, it’s okay. So easy to abide by the free speech rules – which should make it clear that this is problematic. Free speech IS vital, and should be defended – but you now have bureaucratic rules around it that allow it to be abused, and allow hate and hostility to rise.

    I wish there was more room to expound, and not just give this emotional outburst (sorry for that), but the constant appeal to the ‘rules of the (free speech) game’ annoy me.

    Last word: at least the ‘Left’, pro-Palestine, anti-Israel, allowing hateful speech – at least when they hear (imagine) microaggressive speech re trans, POC, neurodiverse people – we can equally say “well, it depends on the context”.

    (Time for a decaf – riled up after watching more hamas videos, so probably should have taken a breath first…)

Comments are closed.