Category: freedom of expression

The Supreme Court, free speech, and therapy: a big screwup by the Supremes

April 1, 2026 • 10:15 am

Yesterday, by a rare vote of 8-1, the Supreme Court struck down Colorado’s ban on “conversion therapy” for minors (we’re talking about a ban on speech, not medical procedures).  Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, breaking from her two liberal colleagues.

The background: in 2019, Colorado passed a bill banning “conversion therapy for a minor” (HB19-1129), which you can see here.  it defined “conversion therapy” this way:

(5.5) (a) “CONVERSION THERAPY” MEANS ANY PRACTICE OR TREATMENT BY A LICENSED PHYSICIAN SPECIALIZING IN THE PRACTICE OF PSYCHIATRY THAT ATTEMPTS OR PURPORTS TO CHANGE AN INDIVIDUAL’S SEXUAL ORIENTATION OR GENDER IDENTITY, INCLUDING EFFORTS TO CHANGE BEHAVIORS OR GENDER EXPRESSIONS OR TO ELIMINATE OR REDUCE SEXUAL OR ROMANTIC ATTRACTION OR FEELINGS TOWARD INDIVIDUALS OF THE SAME SEX.

(b) “CONVERSION THERAPY” DOES NOT INCLUDE PRACTICES OR TREATMENTS THAT PROVIDE:

(I) ACCEPTANCE, SUPPORT, AND UNDERSTANDING FOR THE FACILITATION OF AN INDIVIDUAL’S COPING, SOCIAL SUPPORT, AND IDENTITY EXPLORATION AND DEVELOPMENT, INCLUDING SEXUAL ORIENTATION-NEUTRAL INTERVENTIONS TO PREVENT OR ADDRESS UNLAWFUL CONDUCT OR UNSAFE SEXUAL PRACTICES, AS LONG AS THE COUNSELING DOES NOT SEEK TO CHANGE SEXUAL ORIENTATION OR GENDER IDENTITY; OR

(II) ASSISTANCE TO A PERSON UNDERGOING GENDER TRANSITION.

This is aimed only at minors—people under 18.  Conversion therapy was not characterized as a criminal offense, but as a violation of professional discipline—a form of “unprofessional conduct” that could be punished by licensing boards, including suspension of licenses and fines.

Note that although we hear a lot about the law banning “affirmative therapy,” most of us see that as a kind of therapy that urges children who are gender dysphoric to alter their gender or their sex. But the law as written also bans “gay conversion therapy”: attempts, once in vogue when homosexuality was seen as a mental illness, to prevent people from being gay—to keep them “straight.” There are laws in 27 states and the District of Colombia, as shown in the map below from the Measurement Advancement Project, prohibiting this kind of therapy.

As the SCOTUS blog reports (as does the Supreme Court’s decision, linked below), the ban was challenged by a therapist who wanted to help her clients transition the way they wanted:

The Supreme Court on Tuesday sent a challenge to Colorado’s ban on “conversion therapy” – treatment intended to change a client’s sexual orientation or gender identity – for young people back to the lower courts for them to apply a new standard. By a vote of 8-1, the justices agreed with Kaley Chiles, the licensed counselor challenging the law, that the ban discriminates against her based on the views that she expresses in her talk therapy. A federal appeals court, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the majority, should have applied a more stringent standard of review, known as strict scrutiny, to determine whether the law violates the First Amendment as applied to Chiles.

But the Supreme Court also strongly hinted that the ban would fail that test. In his 23-page opinion, Gorsuch stressed that in cases like Chiles’, Colorado’s ban “censors speech based on viewpoint.” Because the First Amendment “reflects … a judgment that every American possesses an inalienable right to think and speak freely, and a faith in the free marketplace of ideas as the best means for discovering truth,” Gorsuch continued, “any law that suppresses speech based on viewpoint represents an ‘egregious’ assault on both of those commitments.”

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the lone dissenter. She argued that the majority’s opinion “could be ushering in an era of unprofessional and unsafe medical care administered by effectively unsupervised healthcare providers.”

Chiles went to federal court in Colorado to challenge the constitutionality of the 2019 law and block Colorado from enforcing it against her. She contended that she did not attempt to “convert” her clients. Instead, she said, she merely tried to help them “with their stated desires and objectives in counseling, which sometimes includes clients seeking to reduce or eliminate unwanted sexual attractions, change sexual behaviors, or grow in the experience of harmony with one’s physical body.”

A divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit allowed the state to continue to enforce the law. The majority concluded that the conversion therapy ban simply regulated conduct – a licensed mental health professional’s treatment of a client – that also happened to involve speech. Therefore, the court of appeals concluded, it would review the ban using the least stringent test for constitutional challenges, known as the “rational basis” test – a relatively low bar, the court of appeals said, that the ban passed.

Chiles came to the Supreme Court in 2024, asking the justices to weigh in. On Tuesday, they reversed the 10th Circuit’s ruling and sent the case back to the lower courts for another look.

Curiously, Chiles apparently wasn’t trying to force her clients to adopt one course of action over another, but to achieve the course of action they wanted:

[Chiles] contended that she did not attempt to “convert” her clients. Instead, she said, she merely tried to help them “with their stated desires and objectives in counseling, which sometimes includes clients seeking to reduce or eliminate unwanted sexual attractions, change sexual behaviors, or grow in the experience of harmony with one’s physical body.”

The issue here is that it’s still “affirmative” in that Chiles went along with what their (minor) patients wanted rather than examining what they wanted.

The grounds for the decision were narrow: banning conversion therapy violated the First Amendment’s provision for freedom of speech (my bold below):

Gorsuch characterized the question before the justices as “a narrow one”: whether Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy violates the First Amendment as applied to the talk therapy that Chiles provides, and in particular whether the 10th Circuit was correct in applying “rational basis review” to the ban.

The Supreme Court, Gorsuch observed, “has long held that laws regulating speech based on its subject matter or ‘communicative content’ are ‘presumptively unconstitutional’” and therefore trigger strict scrutiny, which requires the government to show that a restriction on speech is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling government interest. “Under that test,” Gorsuch added, “it is ‘“rare that a regulation . . . will ever be permissible.”’”

The court has also acknowledged, Gorsuch continued, “the even greater dangers associated with regulations that discriminate based on the speaker’s point of view. When the government seeks not just to restrict speech based on its subject matter, but also seeks to dictate what particular ‘opinion or perspective’ individuals may express on that subject, ‘the violation of the First Amendment is all the more blatant,’” Gorsuch stressed. “’Viewpoint discrimination,’” Gorsuch said, “represents ‘an egregious form’ of content regulation, and governments in this country must nearly always ‘abstain’ from it.”

“Applying these principles,” Gorsuch continued, “we conclude that the courts below failed to apply sufficiently rigorous First Amendment scrutiny in this case.” First and foremost, Gorsuch wrote, although “the First Amendment protects many and varied forms of expression, the spoken word is perhaps the quintessential form of protected speech. And that is exactly the kind of expression in which Ms. Chiles seeks to engage.”

. . . The majority rejected the state’s contention that the conversion therapy ban targets conduct or medical treatments, rather than speech, and therefore should be subject to a more deferential standard of review. Although the ban “may address conduct—such as aversive physical interventions” – Gorsuch wrote, Chiles “seeks to engage only in speech, and as applied to her the law regulates what she may say,” as well as “what views she may and may not express.” “Colorado,” Gorsuch concluded, “does not regulate speech incident to conduct; it regulates ‘speech as speech.’”

Note as well that Colorado’s ban wasn’t fully negated, nor were similar bans throughout the U.S.. Rather, the case was sent back to the lower courts for reevaluation on these grounds (from Grok, with sources); the applicable appellate courts must:

  • Apply strict scrutiny (the most demanding level of First Amendment review) to the law as it applies to Chiles’s talk therapy. Under this standard, Colorado bears the burden of proving that the restriction on Chiles’s speech is narrowly tailored to serve compelling state interests.
  • Reconsider the case in light of the Court’s determination that the law engages in viewpoint discrimination (banning one set of views on sexual orientation/gender identity while expressly permitting the opposing “affirmative” views, such as acceptance, support, identity exploration, or assistance with gender transition).

The Court’s opinion, concurrences, and Justice Jackson’s dissent can be found by clicking on the screenshot below:

I’ll be brief here (I hope): the Court screwed up big time here, failing to recognize, as Justice Jackson said in her 35-page dissent (which she read from the bench in toto), that in the case of therapy, medical or psychological, talk is more than just speech, it’s treatment. From her dissent:

No one directly disputes that Colorado has the power to regulate the medical treatments that state-licensed professionals provide to patients. Nor is it asserted that, when doing so, a State always runs afoul of the Constitution. So, in my view, it cannot also be the case that Colorado’s decision to restrict a dangerous therapy modality that, incidentally, involves provider speech is presumptively unconstitutional. In concluding otherwise, the Court’s opinion misreads our precedents, is unprincipled and unworkable, and will eventually prove untenable for those who rely upon the long-recognized responsibility of States to regulate the medical profession for the protection of public health.

Remember that medical therapy uses speech as well. Any doctor who simply told a patient to go home and drink vinegar with herbs to treat their cancer would be guilty of professional misconduct. Note that here the doctor doesn’t do anything, but could still be punished for malpractice.  The doctor must adhere to reasonable and accepted forms of treatment, and that includes treatments suggested only through speech.

Brown notes that conversion therapy is “dangerous,” and nearly everyone would agree with that vis-à-vis gay conversion therapy. It’s long been recognized by therapists and their organizations that trying to force someone out of becoming gay, instead of simply talking over the issue, is acting unethically and, insofar as this causes stress and may change someone’s life in a negative way, i.e. causing harm.

We’re beginning to recognize that the same holds for “affirmative therapy” as well.  If it works, affirmative therapy puts young people on a one-way treadmill leading to to puberty blockers, then to adult hormones, and perhaps to surgery.  Britain’s Cass Review, as well as studies in Scandinavian countries, have already recognized that “affirmative therapy” that leads to blockers and hormones is of unproven efficacy and could be dangerous over the long term. Insofar as talk therapy promotes these actions, then, it too is dangerous—much like telling someone they should take vinegar for cancer. It seems only rational that when a minor has a psychological problem around gender or sexuality, the therapist should be giving objective treatment—helping the patient sort out their feelings—and not imposing some outside ideology on the therapy. For outside ideology is exactly what is polluting “conversion therapy”: you shouldn’t be gay on the one hand, and on the other your gender dysphoria should be roundly affirmed (e.g., you feel like a girl inhabiting a boy’s body, and thus should go that route) rather than examined.

Perhaps when this case is remanded to lower courts, they will clarify these issues, notably that talk therapy is equivalent to action.  But surely the Supreme Court could have said that, and, as far as I can see, they messed up big time. I’m especially disappointed that the other two liberal justices, Kagan and Sotomayor, deemed the Colorado law a case of “viewpoint discrimination.” It may have been that way for legislators, but the law as written doesn’t deal with motivations. It is trying to prevent harm to minors.

I disagree strongly with the Court’s decision, while at the same time remembering that the law it banned is aimed at minors, not adults.

PEN America gets captured: organization accepts Palestine as a member and rejects Israel; Jewish chief executive resigns after accusations of being a “Zionist” and not signing on to Israel’s “genocide”

February 19, 2026 • 9:40 am

Every day, it seems, another group gets ideologically captured, valorizing Palestine (or Hamas) and demonizing Israel.  This is dispiriting for Jews, but the latest such capture—of the free-expression literary group PEN America—is especially depressing.

The decline of PEN American was first evidenced to me when, in 2015, it decided to give a “freedom of expression” award to the magazine Charlie Hebdo, many of whose writers (and a few others) were killed in an attack by al-Qaeda, presumably for making fun of Islam and Muhammad. The award was formally called the “PEN/Toni and James C. Goodale Freedom of Expression Courage Award”, and was to be conferred with other awards at a literary gala banquet.

But six PEN members refused to be “table hosts” at the banquet, and then 139 other members (now 242) signed a letter taking issue with the award. Why? Because although Charlie Hebdo is well known to be an “equal opportunity offender,” whose metier is mocking everyone, including politicians and religions, those PEN members said that it was a no-no to mock Islam because its adherents were “already marginalized, embattled, and victimized.” From the letter:

In the aftermath of the attacks, Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons were characterized as satire and “equal opportunity offense,” and the magazine seems to be entirely sincere in its anarchic expressions of principled disdain toward organized religion. But in an unequal society, equal opportunity offence does not have an equal effect.

Power and prestige are elements that must be recognized in considering almost any form of discourse, including satire. The inequities between the person holding the pen and the subject fixed on paper by that pen cannot, and must not, be ignored.

To the section of the French population that is already marginalized, embattled, and victimized, a population that is shaped by the legacy of France’s various colonial enterprises, and that contains a large percentage of devout Muslims, Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons of the Prophet must be seen as being intended to cause further humiliation and suffering.

Our concern is that, by bestowing the Toni and James C. Goodale Freedom of Expression Courage Award on Charlie Hebdo, PEN is not simply conveying support for freedom of expression, but also valorizing selectively offensive material: material that intensifies the anti-Islamic, anti-Maghreb, anti-Arab sentiments already prevalent in the Western world.

It’s embarrassing to read the letter and see the list of signers who apparently surrendered their backbones in the face of Islamist outrage. This is a shameful episode.

But wait! There’s more! Two years ago PEN America canceled its literary gala because of controversy about the organization’s stand—or rather, lack thereof—on the war in Gaza. As Jennifer Schuessler reported in the NYT (she’s followed PEN for a while). (Bolding is mine.)

The free expression group PEN America has canceled its 2024 literary awards ceremony following months of escalating protests over the organization’s response to the war in Gaza, which has been criticized as overly sympathetic to Israel and led nearly half of the prize nominees to withdraw.

The event was set to take place on April 29 at Town Hall in Manhattan. But in a news release on Monday, the group announced that although the prizes would still be conferred, the ceremony would not take place.

“We greatly respect that writers have followed their consciences, whether they chose to remain as nominees in their respective categories or not,” the group’s chief officer for literary programming, Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf, said in the release.

“We regret that this unprecedented situation has taken away the spotlight from the extraordinary work selected by esteemed, insightful and hard-working judges across all categories. As an organization dedicated to freedom of expression and writers, our commitment to recognizing and honoring outstanding authors and the literary community is steadfast.”

In recent months, PEN America has faced intensifying public criticism of its response to the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel, which killed roughly 1,200 people, according to Israeli authorities, and Israel’s military response in Gaza, which has left about 34,000 people dead, according to health officials there.

In a series of open letters, writers have demanded that PEN America support an immediate cease-fire, as its global parent organization, PEN International, and other national chapters have done.

. . .In recent months, PEN America has faced intensifying public criticism of its response to the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel, which killed roughly 1,200 people, according to Israeli authorities, and Israel’s military response in Gaza, which has left about 34,000 people dead, according to health officials there.

In a series of open letters, writers have demanded that PEN America support an immediate cease-fire, as its global parent organization, PEN International, and other national chapters have done.

In March, a group of prominent writers, including Naomi Klein, Lorrie Moore, Michelle Alexander and Hisham Matar, announced that they were pulling out of next month’s World Voices Festival, one of PEN America’s signature events. And over the past several weeks, growing numbers of nominees for the literary awards, including Camonghne Felix, Christina Sharpe and Esther Allen, announced that they were withdrawing their books from consideration.

In a letter that PEN America leadership received last week, 30 of the 87 nominated writers and translators (including nine of the 10 nominees for one prize) criticized the group’s “disgraceful inaction” on the situation in Gaza, accusing it of “clinging to a disingenuous facade of neutrality while parroting” what the letter characterized as Israeli government propaganda. The letter also called for the resignation of the group’s longtime chief executive, Suzanne Nossel, and its president, the novelist Jennifer Finney Boylan, along with that of the group’s executive committee.

“PEN America states that ‘the core’ of its mission is to ‘support the right to disagree,’” the nominees stated. “But among writers of conscience, there is no disagreement. There is fact and fiction. The fact is that Israel is leading a genocide of the Palestinian people.”

That letter drew a brief but forceful response last week in which the organization described the war in Gaza as “horrific” but challenged what it said was the letter’s “alarming language and characterizations.”

“The perspective that ‘there is no disagreement’ and that there are among us final arbiters of ‘fact and fiction’ reads to us as a demand to foreclose dialogue in the name of intellectual conformity, and one at odds with the PEN Charter and what we stand for as an organization,” the organization said in a statement.

In other words, PEN America was criticized for organizational neutrality: the writers wanted it to take a stand against the “genocide” of Israel.  They even claim “there is no disagreement” about this!  That is a crock, and again the PEN America membership shamed itself.  But the turmoil continued, and, as you see below, its chief executive, Suzanne Nossel, eventually was forced out (characterized by the NYT as “leaving the organization”).

A new article in Tablet magazine summarizes the recent anti-Israel and anti-Jewish stands of PEN America and PEN International.  It’s not a pleasant read.  I’ve reproduced a few excerpts (indented) below:

Here’s yet another action that appears to be antisemitic:

PEN America has quietly retracted its public statement condemning the cancellation of comedian Guy Hochman’s recent speaking engagements. In its original statement, PEN rightly “condemned placing a litmus test on someone to appear on stage,” calling such tests a “profound” violation of free expression and affirming that “shutting down cultural events is not the solution.”

That principled stance did not last.

This reversal is particularly striking given PEN America’s longstanding history of condemning the cancellation of controversial figures across the political spectrum, including music artist Kehlani (on two separate occasions) and political commentator Milo Yiannopoulos. PEN has even defended the right to gather for Moms for Liberty, an organization that actively fuels the book-banning campaigns PEN America claims to oppose.

In these cases, and many others, PEN defended a clear and consistent principle: Free expression must be upheld even when the speech is unpopular, provocative, or deeply offensive to some.

Yet, following internal and external pressure driven by anti-Israel—and, in many cases, overtly antisemitic—activism, PEN reversed itself. In doing so, it abandoned its own stated standards and effectively endorsed the very discrimination it had previously acknowledged as wrong.

The message this sends is unmistakable: PEN America supports free expression, except when Jews are involved. When it comes to Jewish artists and Israeli voices, PEN now appears willing to endorse ideological litmus tests, condemnation, cancellation, and boycotts.

Hochman has been accused of “inciting genocide in Gaza”. I’m not sure what he said, but I doubt it was “kill all the Gazans, civilians or not.” And regardless, PEN America is supposed to foster free expression, not foster it and then withdraw. Note their hisory of supporting other controversial artists, including, for crying out loud, Milo Yiannopoulos.  There’s more (bolding is mine):

This incident does not stand alone. It follows PEN America’s recent deeply flawed report alleging that Israel intentionally sought to destroy Palestinian culture and education in Gaza, a report reliant largely on information supplied by Hamas, riddled with glaring omissions, and marred by demonstrably false and inflammatory claims.

By downplaying the atrocities and the horrors of Oct. 7 and largely dismissing Hamas’ own actions that led to the current situation in Gaza, PEN America further silenced Israeli and Jewish voices in literature and culture.

That bias is not confined to PEN America alone. It echoes the inherent bias, anti-Zionism, and antisemitism embedded in the recently passed “Resolution on Freedom of Expression in Palestine and Israel” at the 90th PEN International Annual Congress. Notably, Palestine was granted membership in PEN International, while Israel was rejected, a decision that speaks volumes about whose voices are deemed worthy of protection and whose are excluded.

Compounding this pattern, PEN America forced out its longtime CEO, Suzanne Nossel, after she was labeled a “Zionist” and refused to have the organization publicly declare that Israel was committing genocide. This episode sent a chilling message to Jewish professionals: Adherence to certain political dogmas is now a prerequisite for leadership within the organization.

Yes, the organization cannot afford to have a “Zionist” (they mean “a Jew”) as CEO, especially a “Zionist” who won’t sign on to the ridiculous “genocide” canard.  One moore bit of information:

Over the past two years, many leaders in the literary and cultural world have attempted to engage PEN’s leadership in good faith. The pattern has been consistent: They listen, offer no meaningful response, and then double down on a hostile anti-Zionist and anti-Israel posture.

In doing so, PEN America has helped legitimize antisemitic discrimination at a moment when antisemitism in the United States is at historic levels. This is not an isolated failure of judgment, but a structural rot in the organization, one that reflects leadership choices, institutional culture, and a governing board that has failed to intervene.

This past week, the organization formalized the leadership of interim co-executives Summer Lopez and Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf, a move that signals continuity rather than course correction and suggests the organization is unlikely to return to viewpoint-neutral principles anytime soon.

Especially because of its supposed mission to foster free speech and open discourse, it’s important for PEN America (and PEN International) to remain viewpoint neutral, like the University of Chicago—except on issues that threaten the organization’s mission. Those issues would involve censorship. But PEN America is now okay with censorship so long as it’s Jews and Israel who are being censored.  The organization’s ridiculous “genocide” stand serves only to chill the speech of members (notably Jewish ones) who dissent. The supposed “genocide” in Gaza (actually the declared mission of Hamas, not Israel), is contentious and not something that PEN should weigh in on.  But as we all know, among left-wing intellectuals in America the going ideology is to praise Palestine, ignore the horrors and war crimes of Hamas, and to damn Israel, full speed ahead. PEN America has been captured by this ideology.

Jennifer Schuessler wrote about Nossel’s resignation firing in the Oct. 31, 2024 NYT. By all accounts Nossel did a good job with the organization. Her only flaw was to be a “Zionist” and to refuse to sign on to the “genocide” canard:

Suzanne Nossel, the chief executive of the free expression group PEN America, is leaving the organization, six months after escalating criticism of the organization’s response to the war in Gaza led to the cancellation of its literary awards and annual literary festival.

Nossel will become the president and chief executive of Freedom House, a nonprofit organization based in Washington that promotes democracy and human rights around the world. PEN America announced that it has elevated two current senior members of its leadership team, Summer Lopez and Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf, to serve as interim co-chief executives, effective immediately, with a national search for a permanent leader to follow.

Nossel, a Harvard-trained lawyer, took the helm at PEN America in 2013, after previously working at the U.S. State Department, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International USA. During her tenure, its membership increased to more than 4,500, while its annual revenue grew to about $25.8 million, up from $4.3 million.

The group, by far the largest of the national PEN International chapters worldwide, also expanded beyond its traditional focus on the literary world, starting initiatives relating to free speech on campus, online harassment, book bans and the spread of state laws restricting teaching on race, gender and other “divisive concepts.”

I’m glad that Nossel has found a home where, I hope, she can promote free expression and human rights and not be required to condemn Israel and its “genocide”, but PEN America seems to be a lost cause now, but just one more organization that has abandoned its principles in favor of ideology (viz., the ACLU, the Southern Poverty Law Center).

Tablet author Ari Ingel, director of the Creative Community for Peace, ends his article this way:

If PEN America is serious about its mission, its board must urgently reevaluate who is running the organization, issue a clear and public apology to the Jewish community, and recommit itself to defending free expression without exception or favoritism.

That ain’t gonna happen. It’ll be a freezing day in July (in the Northern Hemisphere) when PEN apologizes to the Jews.

Here’s Nossel, and I wish her well:

Emma.connolly5, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Here’s a 4-minute video in which Nossel explains and defends PEN America’s principles (she has a book on free speech):

Should there be even more curbs on free speech?

January 12, 2026 • 10:00 am

Reader Gingerbaker called my attention to a Substack post by Elder of Ziyon (henceforth “EoZ”), who also has an extensive and useful pro-Israel website I’ve cited several times. The post, which you can access by clicking the screenshot below, advocates for restrictions on the kind of freedom of speech presently allowed by America’s First Amendment.  The Elder’s view that the courts’ construal of our First Amendment needs to be modified is in fact shared by many, though the restrictions demanded are varied. All, however, try to restrict varieties of “hate speech.”

There are already well-known exceptions to freedom of speech as outlined in the First Amendment.  These, adjudicated by courts over the years, include speech that is defamatory, constitutes harassment, poses the thread of imminent and predictable violence, “fighting words,” false advertising, and so on (Wikipedia has a list of more exceptions).

The EoZ uses as his example the fundamentalist Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahir, which is active in Western countries. Several of them have banned it for its Islamist views, but it’s banned even more widely. As Wikipedia notes,

Hizb ut-Tahrir has been banned in Bangladesh, China, Russia, Pakistan,India, Germany, Turkey, the United Kingdom, Kazakhstan and “across Central Asia”, Indonesia, and all Arab countries except Lebanon, Yemen and the UAE. In July 2017, the Indonesian government revoked Hizb ut-Tahrir’s legal status, citing incompatibility with government regulations on extremism and national ideology.

Why the banning in paces like America?  EoZ explains:

The justification for these bans usually begins with the group’s stated aims. Hizb ut-Tahrir rejects liberal democracy and advocates replacing it with a global Islamic caliphate governed by sharia law. It presents Islam not merely as a religion but as a political system destined to supersede Western civilization. Its rhetoric is frequently antisemitic, dismissive of pluralism, and grounded in a vision of Muslim supremacy.

It is no stretch to say that the group’s ideas are hostile to Jews, to women, to dissenters, and to the moral assumptions that underlie liberal societies. If Hizb ut-Tahrir ever held power, its worldview would translate into repression.

There is a problem, though. Hizb ut-Tahrir is explicitly non-violent. It does not carry out attacks. It does not issue operational instructions for terrorism in Western countries. Its leaders insist, consistently and publicly, that their method is ideological persuasion rather than armed struggle. Their ideas are corrosive, but they remain ideas.

It appears to have used socialist concepts to build itself this way specifically to take advantage of Western freedoms and inoculate it from being banned legally in the West.

This brings up the question of where free speech ends and where limiting speech is better.

The EoZ gives this photo in his article, widely published without attribution, but it’s not clear that the people pictured are from Hizb ut-Tahi. Still, the issue under discussion is instantiated by that poster.

The EoZ notes that banning peaceful organizations for what they believe is not only a very slippery slope, but one that’s been descended many times.  And, for example, calling for the destruction of America or replacement of democracy with ideologies like Communism still counts as free speech in America. So why ban this particular group?  According to EoZ, it’s because the “violence” that may be produced by such organizations is delayed,  so that minds can be changed by gradually contemplating a group’s message, eventually leading—in the case of Hizb ut-Tahir—to the replacement of democracy with Islamist autocracy.

At the same time, pretending that Hizb ut-Tahrir is merely another set of opinions that should be ignored is willfully naive. Its ideology does not sit in a vacuum. It is a sustained narrative that delegitimizes Western society, portrays Jews and non-Muslims as exploiters, and presents the destruction of the existing order as morally necessary. It may not tell followers to commit violence, but it devotes considerable energy to explaining why violence committed by others is understandable, justified, or admirable. Over time, that difference becomes less sharp than Western legal categories would like it to be.

The problem, as I see it, is that the West’s concept of free speech is unnecessarily expansive and out definition of incitement is needlessly and extraordinarily narrow. We tend to locate responsibility almost entirely at the moment of explicit instruction, as though speech and action are cleanly separable until a specific verbal threshold is crossed. That approach forces societies to wait until violence is imminent before acting, while treating years of ideological conditioning as irrelevant. It assumes that moral preparation is harmless so long as it avoids certain words.

Hizb ut-Tahrir operates comfortably within that space.

But this case can also be made for many organizations, including the Communist Party and the many Islamist groups of young people who adhere to Islamism and want to see the end of “Turtle Island”.  Groups like antifa and sundry anarchists feel likewise.  Should they be banned, too? But the EoZ somehow sees Hizb ut-Tahrir as an exception, probably because it’s a threat to Jews, and the EoZ is ardently pro-Jewish (he mention that threat several times.)

 . . . . the problem posed by Hizb ut-Tahrir is not that it holds extreme beliefs, but that it functions as a preparatory environment. It habituates listeners to a worldview in which violence by others becomes morally intelligible. That places it in a different category from ordinary dissent or even radical critique, and it justifies a different kind of response.

This does not require banning ideas. It requires acknowledging that speech operates within systems. A society can restrict organizational activity, funding, coordination, and amplification when those structures predictably serve as pathways toward violence, without criminalizing theology or private belief. That approach is narrower, more defensible, and far less likely to metastasize than ideological prohibition.

Free speech in the West has gradually ceased to be treated as an instrument and has come to resemble an article of faith. . .

. . . The question, then, is not whether Hizb ut-Tahrir should be banned. It is whether Western societies are capable of developing a more mature understanding of incitement, one that accounts for moral enablement and foreseeable harm without granting the state a license to police belief.

I find this unconvincing, and I see no distinction between Hizb ut-Tahrir and the many other groups that want to replace democracy (in this case American democracy) with various forms of autocracy or theocracy, including groups that cry, “Globalize the intifada”—an explicit call for Islamic theocracy and violence. But note that this group doesn’t even call for violence, so how is it possible to blame future violence on its pronouncements?

The reasons I’m unconvinced are several, and not new.  First, it’s probably impossible to determine when a group’s beliefs or utterances promote eventual violence rather than imminent or predictable violence.  There’s a difference between a lone moron on the Quad crying “Gas the Jews”, and a person saying the same thing in front of a synagogue or group of Jewish people (who in America aren’t violent anyway). If someone eventually torches a synagogue, even citing certain groups in a written manifesto for the actions, those groups cannot be retrospectively indicted for violating the First Amendment, as we cannot be sure how much they contributed to the violence. “Imminent” is far easier to prove than “much later”. After all, many people who commit acts of violence are deranged, and have a mixture of motives that may be mixed up with mental illness. Thus, although P. Z. Myers, contemplating Joe Lonsdale, has said “maybe it’s time to hang a few billionaires to teach a lesson to those greedy parasites“, I don’t think Myers should be arrested even if someone who reads his site hangs or kills a billionaire after citing Myers’ posts.

Just think of all the manifestos written by violent criminals who have cited a variety of influences! We can’t simply go back and arrest them all because they contributed to violence, for contributions are fuzzy, unpredictable, and often mixed up with mental illness or a propensity to be violent per se.

Second, the remedy for “hate speech” like the nonviolent calls for Islamism by Hizb ut-Tahrir is, as we all know, counterspeech. And that involves pointing out how Islamism is a repressive, theocratic form of government that is inimical to the well being of its believers—and of any country that adopts Islamic tenets. Women and gays are oppressed, people of other faiths (or of no faith) are endangered, and free speech itself is usually outlawed or greatly restricted.  That alone guarantees the failure of Islamism to replace American democracy, but in fact there is no way, given our Constitution, that a democracy would vote itself out of power in favor of Islamism or any government that violates the Constitution. (I’m not speaking of Trump’s probable violations of the Constitution to buttress his own power, as they will eventually be sorted out by the courts.) Even despite Trump, America remains a democracy, though a currently dysfunctional one.

Third, as John Stuart Mill pointed out in On Liberty, allowing people to say odious things has a number of beneficial effects, including “outing” those people who believe such stuff and would otherwise remain underground. Such odious views also help us us to sharpen our arguments against them, and their utterance also gives us the chance to correct the misapprehensions of their opponents (see this blog post on “Mills’s trident”).

Now I understand where EoZ is coming from. The Elder is certainly Jewish and is appalled by hearing things like “globalize the intifada”. Jews are being attacked throughout the world, and the EoZ holds antisemitic speech responsible. Indeed, many countries, like Germany and Canada do ban antisemitic speech or “hate speech” that demonizes identifiable groups.

Why shouldn’t we follow them? In my view, the reasons for banning “hate speech” are weaker than for allowing it, so long as that speech doesn’t lead to imminent and predictable violence or violates other restrictions the courts have put on the First Amendment. People can differ on this, just as I differ with the good Elder of Zion. But Mill laid out the reasons against speech bans in 1859, and in my view his reasons are still good.

Law professor argues that universities can’t be institutionally neutral

January 4, 2026 • 10:15 am

As we all know by now, American universities are starting to follow the University of Chicago’s Kalven Report, which declares that our school is to be “institutionally neutral.” This means that no moiety of the University—no department, no center, and no official unit—can make an official ideological, moral, or political pronouncement unless it has to do with the mission of our University.  (In reality, such statements, as I note below, are really the purview of  only the University President, not subunits.)

But what is our mission? It’s pretty much outlined in the page on the foundational principles of the University of Chicago.  In short, it combines the usual goals of a university—the promotion, promulgation, and preservation of knowledge, as well as teaching it—with a fierce dedication to preserving free expression.

And it’s the latter, free expression, that institutional neutrality is meant to preserve.  If there were some departmental or university presidential statement, for instance, endorsing Governor Pritzker as a better Presidential candidate than J. D. Vance (I’m looking ahead), that would chill the speech of those favoring Vance. Because the statement is official, it could inhibit the speech of pro-Vance untenured faculty (or even tenured ones) as well as students, who would fear punishment or other sanctions for bucking what’s is an official stand.  The Kalven Report, of course, emphasizes that any member of the University community can speak privately on any issue (we have First-Amendment-ish free speech). And we’re encouraged to speak our minds as individuals. But in fact, the only person who can decide what the University can say publicly about such issues is the University President. (This has been violated in the past, but we try to police it. Because of some violations, President Bob Zimmer issued a clarification of Kalven in 2020, affirming that it applied to all official units of the University.)

One example of a political issue on which the University of Chicago spoke publicly was to favor DACA, as the University believed that its mission would be enhanced by allowing all students to compete for admission (or, if admitted, remain here) regardless of their immigration status. (The “Dreamers” came to America as children and grew up here.) And we have a policy that we do not reveal anything about the immigration status of students, for losing them would make our student body depauperate of diversity. (Yes, “diversity” is a principle of the U of C, too: see our Foundational Principles of Diversity and their codification here), but we are seeking viewpoint and experiential diversity, not ethnic diversity.

The University of Chicago was the first school to officially codify institutional neutrality, but now, according to FIRE, 41 universities have adopted neutrality. That’s still pathetically few: only 1% of the 4,000-odd degree-granting institutions in America.  In contrast, 115 have adopted the Chicago Principles of Free Expression. But the list of Kalven-adopting schools is growing fast, for we’ve seen what happens when universities take gratuitous political stands.

However, Brian Soucek, a law professor at UC Davis, disagrees, claiming that it’s impossible for universities to be neutral.  In his misguided and poorly-written piece at the Wall Street Journal‘s “Education News section”, Soucek  says that “the neutrality so many are touting and pledging is an illusion.” That’s wrong, which becomes clear when you read his argument. Further, he says that “by one estimate, over 150 universities” have adopted the principles of the Kalven report.  He gives no link, and I don’t believe it, because FIRE is punctilious in keeping the list linked above and, as I said, it lists but 41 schools.

I argue that, with the exception of schools like Brigham Young and Catholic University, in which promulgating faith is part of their mission, and schools like West Point and Annapolis, which produce future military officers, all universities should adopt institutional neutrality, for neutrality promotes free speech and free speech promotes learning, teaching, and academic freedom. (I may have missed a few exceptions, but I can’t think of any.)

Click the headline below to read:

So why is it impossible for universities to be truly neutral? Why is neutrality “largely an illusion”?  It may be hard to maintain, and be violated in some schools, but the reason Soucek gives for the “illusory” nature of neutrality (which should apply to many companies, too!) are unconvincing.  I’ll summarize his two main reasons in bold, but indented statements are from the article.

1). Universities sometimes have buildings named after people, expressing admiration for them. And sometimes those names are taken down. Both acts are, says Soucek, political. 

More common are the choices around the names that universities give to their schools, buildings, scholarships and chairs. Schools express something with each of these choices.

At UC Davis, I am lucky to work at King Hall, named after Martin Luther King, Jr., but some neighboring law schools haven’t been so fortunate. UC Berkeley no longer refers to its law school as Boalt Hall, having discovered how grossly anti-Chinese its namesake was. And the first law school in California, once known as UC Hastings, is now UC Law SF—less catchy but no longer associated with the massacre of Native Americans. Renaming efforts may strike some as hopelessly woke, but choosing to keep a name for the sake of tradition, or branding, is no less value laden.

Even the University of Chicago has dealt with this. A few years ago, the university renamed what was formerly its Oriental Institute, partly to avoid the “pejorative connotations” of the word “oriental.” Chicago also quietly gave its Robert A. Millikan chair a new title after other schools had removed Millikan’s name because of his ties to eugenics. In each of these decisions, Chicago, like other universities, did exactly what its former provost, Geoffrey Stone, said universities shouldn’t do: “make a statement about what is morally, politically and socially ‘right’”—and wrong.

Well, sometimes buildings are named after donors, and it may be in the donation papers that the donors’ names must stay on the building.  Renaming the “Oriental Institute,” is not chilling speech, but expressing the faculty’s feeling that the word “Oriental” had bad connotations (thanks, Edward Said). And renaming a chaired professorship in the rush to purge people who had views we considered reprehensible may be something to argue about, but one thing it does not do is chill speech.  There was no official statement about the badness of eugenics (actually, some eugenics is still practiced today, but not in the way it was once conceived). This was simply a renaming. Further, will not see any official statement of our University about eugenics or about prenatal screening for genetic diseases, or aborting genetically defective fetuses. In fact, you will find no official statement in our University about abortion at all.  (I was told that OB-GYN had a big argument about this when the Supreme Court issued its Dobbs decision, and the upshot was that this medical department could not make any official statement about Dobbs.) That was the right decision. I myself opposed Dobbs, but I would not want universities saying so officially.

This stuff about renaming, while you might be able to squeeze a drop of juice out of it, misses the main point, which is not about names but official statements. The latter chill speech; the former almost never do.

2). Universities have different missions, and so even if they adopt neutrality, they will make different exceptions to neutrality. 

Soucek shows that he misunderstands Kalven when he says stuff like this:

The University of Chicago itself has spoken out on any number of politically fraught issues in recent years, from abortion to DACA to Trump’s Muslim ban, which Chicago filed a legal brief to oppose. Some see this as hypocrisy. I see these choices as evidence of what Chicago considers integral to its mission. In its brief, Chicago claimed it “has a global mission,” which is what justified its stance on immigration law. Not every university shares that global mission; some exist to serve their states, their local community or people who share their faith. We’re not all Chicago, and that is OK. We can be pluralists about universities’ distinctive missions.

First, the University of Chicago has not spoken out officially on abortion. If it has, let Soucek give a reference.There are no official statements I know of.  As far as DACA and banning Muslims, those are both conceived of as limiting the pool of students we could have, and that violates the University’s mission.  This is well known, and doesn’t violate Kalven.  Ergo, “having a global mission” was not the justification for our stands on immigration. Those came from seeing our mission to allow qualified faculty and students to form a diverse community regardless of immigration status.

Second, I am baffled by Soucek’s statements that “some universities exist to serve their states and their local community” (serving faith is okay for religious schools and allows Kalven violations, but faith-based universities are inimical to free thought and as an atheist I don’t approve of them). Even a community college or a state school should maintain institutional neutrality as a way to promote free speech.  “Serving your community” can be one mission of a school, but it’s not one that should allow a school to make official pronouncements on morality, ideology, or politics.

Soucek goes on to explain that he taught a “great books” curriculum at three different schools (Chicago, Columbia, and Boston College, with the latter a Jesuit school, but one that encourages free expression).  Again, with the exception of religious and military schools, most universities should share a similar mission, one that I outlined above. And insofar as they do that, they should have institutional neutrality. Because Columbia and Chicago taught great books courses for different missions (they used to, but no longer!) does not mean they should differ in what political/moral/ideological statements they make officially. It is the commonality of missions that lead to a commonality of reasons for neutrality.

In fact, Soucek himself seems to realize that secular schools shouldn’t make Kalven-violating statements, and in a weird paragraph, he endorses neutrality (bolding is mine).

The real question universities need to be asking, then, isn’t whether some statement, policy or investment strategy counts as “political,” especially in a world where nearly every aspect of higher education has become politicized. Instead, I would replace all of the recent committee reports and neutrality pledges with something like this: “The university or its departments should make official statements only when doing so advances their mission.”

The last paragraph is in fact what institutional neutrality is for.

One more confusing paragraph.  What is the sweating professor trying to say here?

Some issues, for some schools, so thoroughly implicate their mission that they need to be addressed no matter how controversial. Catholic University and the University of California were both right to talk about Dobbs, the Supreme Court’s abortion decision, though in opposite ways, and for different reasons.

Maybe Catholic University was okay to talk about Dobbs, as its stated mission is cultivation of Christianity (read Catholicism) for CU says this in its “aims and goals” statement:

As a Catholic university, it desires to cultivate and impart an understanding of the Christian faith within the context of all forms of human inquiry and values. It seeks to ensure, in an institutional manner, the proper intellectual and academic witness to Christian inspiration in individuals and in the community, and to provide a place for continuing reflection, in the light of Christian faith, upon the growing treasure of human knowledge.

But no, it was not okay for the University of California to talk about Dobbs. I don’t know what they said, but if they officially attacked the dismantling of Roe v. Wade, which is what Dobbs did, they would chill speech of those who are opposed to abortion, and members of the University community should have the right to say that without fear of retribution. Again, Soucek seems to misunderstand why Kalven is there, and gives no reason why the University of California should be okay with violating it.

Soucek also seems to think that maintaining silence in the face of a controversy means that you are taking sides–and defining your “mission”. He’s wrong. Have a gander at this:

More recently, when the Trump administration has denied the existence of transgender people and demanded that universities do so as well, so-called neutrality pledges give them nowhere to hide. If universities must speak out about threats to their mission but can’t speak otherwise, every choice about when to speak ends up defining what their mission is. Staying quiet when trans students, faculty and staff are under attack isn’t silence in that case. It is a loud expression that trans rights, and trans people, aren’t relevant to that school’s mission. There is nothing neutral about that.

In the end, Kalven’s loophole ensures that universities will always be saying something—about their mission, if nothing else—even when they maintain the institutional silence the Kalven Report has become so famous for recommending.

The University is not “hiding” about various transgender controversies. Au contraire, it is encouraging discussion about them by refusing to take any official position, which would squelch debate.  A school not saying anything about Trump’s views on trans people does not mean that the University endorses those views. Rather, each person is free to say what they want without fear of retribution from the school.  I, for example, think that Trump is wrong to ban transgender people from the military. Others may feel differently, and that difference leads to the kind of debate that college is about.  Soucek’s big error is to think that by NOT issuing statements, the University is making statements,  That’s the old ‘silence = violence” trope and again shows the authors’s ignorance of Kalven, an ignorance surprising coming from a professor of constitutional law. Soucek seems a bit short on logic.

As one of my colleagues said:

[Soucek] complains that if the university does not speak up against Trump’s statements about trans people, then trans people are not part of the university’s mission.  Well, that seems reasonable to me.  I don’t see that any particular group or identity is the “university’s mission”, no matter how topical.  Individual faculty, students, and staff who research, treat, and advocate for trans people have that mission. But that’s not the university’s mission.

Is that so hard to understand?

Just when I finished this post, Luana sent me this tweet, saying “I hope he means it.” So do I.

New South Wales bans anti-Jewish rhetoric in wake of Bondi Beach attack

December 22, 2025 • 11:30 am

The attack on Jews celebrating Hanukkah at Bondi Beach near Sydney (the capital of New South Wales), was horrific: fifteen people were killed (not including the perps) and 40 injured. It was clearly a terrorist attack designed to kill Jews, putting the lie that this kind of violence is “anti-Zionist” rather than antisemitic.

Australian Jews have been warning for a while that something like this could happen, as antisemitism is not rare in the country and there have been plenty of anti-Israel demonstrations.  Further, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been criticized for not doing enough to combat the growing antisemitism in his country.

Now the PM and the state of New South Wakes are trying to do something, by banning certain forms of “hate speech”. But it’s too little and too late, and banning “hate speech” that doesn’t threaten to create imminent and predictable violence won’t work. (This kind of “hate speech” is, in my view, properly permitted under the U.S.’s First Amendment.)

Click below to read the story from the Times of Israel:

 

Excerpts:

The Australian state of New South Wales is planning to ban “Globalize the intifada” chants, according to a Saturday BBC report, amid a crackdown on “hateful” rhetoric and slogans in the wake of Sunday’s devastating terror attack at a Bondi Beach Hanukkah event.

New South Wales is home to Sydney and its iconic Bondi Beach, where 15 people were killed and dozens wounded by two gunmen who opened fire on a crowd celebrating the Jewish holiday.

. . . .The mass shooting was Australia’s worst in nearly 30 years and is being investigated as an act of terrorism targeting Jews. Authorities have ramped up patrols and policing across the country to prevent further antisemitic violence.

Since the attack, New South Wales Premier Chris Minns has said he plans to convene the state’s parliament and pass stricter hate speech and incitement laws.

According to the BBC, Minns is looking to classify the “Globalize the intifada” chant, popular among anti-Israel activists, as illegal hate speech, and aims to encourage a “summer of calm,” without mass anti-Israel demonstrations.

Critics point in particular to a now-infamous protest in Sydney held a few days after October 7, 2023, where video footage appeared to show demonstrators celebrating the attack and chanting “gas the Jews” and “f— the Jews,” rhetoric they say foreshadowed later acts of violence.

However, New South Wales police later claimed there was no evidence of the chant. The pro-Palestinian rally, which gathered over 1,000 people, also included the burning of an Israeli flag and the firing of several flares.

“Foreshadowing” apparently means that the chants occurred before the violence, and presumably quite a while before. Under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, such chants would be legal. They’re prohibited only if they are likely to involve either “fighting words” or to create “imminent and predictable violence”. As Wikipedia says in its article on exceptions to the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech:

Hate speech is not a general exception to First Amendment protection. Per Wisconsin v. Mitchell, hate crime sentence enhancements do not violate First Amendment protections because they do not criminalize speech itself, but rather use speech as evidence of motivation, which is constitutionally permissible.

. . . The Supreme Court has held that “advocacy of the use of force” is unprotected when it is “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action” and is “likely to incite or produce such action”.

A bit more from the TOI:

Under pressure from critics who say his center-left government has not done enough to curb a surge in antisemitism, the prime minister has vowed to strengthen hate laws in the wake of the massacre.

“We can’t be in a position where we see a repeat of Sunday. We need to do everything within our power to make that change,” Minns told reporters.

As I implied, banning “hate speech”, which is a slippery slope if ever there was one, is not the way to go in this case—not if Australia wants to have free speech like the U.S. does. Now you can argue that the U.S. is too permissive, or that Australia, with its particular situation, needs hate speech laws that America doesn’t have.

That said, I don’t think banning “globalize the intifada”—or perhaps “From the river to the sea. . .  “, which could be construed as hate speech, and certainly “Gas the Jews—will reduce the amount of antisemitism, or the frequency of antisemitic acts, in Australia. All that will do is drive the antisemitism underground, but also prevent us from knowing who holds those views since they can’t espouse them publicly.  And yes, I would even favor the already-conferred right of people to stand in the middle of a public park (or the quad at the University of Chicago as well as at public universities) and shout “Gas the Jews.”  That isn’t liable to lead to imminent lawless action on the part of the targets.

And, of course, “hate speech” is very often subjective. Criticism of the tenets of Islam, for example, can be deemed “Islamophobic hate speech.”  Calls for banning trans-identified males from competing in women’s sports can be deemed “transphobic”. But in both cases there can be no palpable hate, but simply the desire to discuss rights and harms.

How do you stop antisemitism in Australia without banning “hate speech,” then?  Counter speech is a good way, though it’s not guaranteed to work.  But for sure banning “hate speech” is not going to reduce antisemitism in Australia. What it will do is reduce the frequency of publicly expressed antisemitic sentiments. That is not the same thing.

h/t: Peggy

The University of Auckland passes free speech and institutional neutrality policy

December 16, 2025 • 10:17 am

The newish government of New Zealand is finally seeing the light, and has mandated that every one of the country’s eight universities (all government funded) must at some point adopt a policy of freedom of speech and institutional neutrality (the latter resembles Chicago’s Kalven Report).

The University of Auckland, the country’s flagship university and its best and most important one, issued a public announcement after adopting this policy, which happened this month via the University’s council. The PR announcement is here, and reads like this:

Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland has formally adopted its Freedom of Expression Statement, following approval by the University Council at its meeting on 10 December.

The statement outlines the University’s commitment to protecting and promoting freedom of expression and academic freedom, and reaffirms its role as a critic and conscience of society. It sets expectations for lawful, constructive and civil debate across the University and outlines the principle of institutional neutrality, which helps create an environment where conversations can freely take place.

Vice-Chancellor Professor Dawn Freshwater says the statement reflects extensive engagement and consultation with the University community.

“Freedom of expression and academic freedom are foundational to our role as a university. This statement provides clarity about our responsibilities and expectations as a community, and reaffirms our commitment to fostering an environment where diverse viewpoints can be expressed lawfully and constructively.”

The statement’s development involved an extended period of careful discussion and refinement through both a Senate working group and the Vice-Chancellor’s Advisory Group.

Professor Cathy Stinear, Pro Vice-Chancellor Equity and a member of the Advisory Group, says the work was challenging but rewarding for those involved.

“I’m particularly proud of the way we respectfully debated the issues and carefully balanced the tensions between free expression and caring for the diverse communities that make up our University.”

istinguished Professor Sir Peter Hunter, who chaired the Senate working group and led the development of the statement with support from Professor Nikki Harré and the Vice-Chancellor’s Advisory Group on Freedom of Expression, says the process was shaped by robust feedback.

“In my view, the process of finding common ground between many different points of view has been as important as the statement itself. Universities must demonstrate the ability to freely debate contentious issues.

“I would like to thank the members of the groups involved and the near unanimous endorsement from Senate.”

And below is the official statement itself. Notice the critical neutrality phrase, “The University will not take public positions on matters that do not directly concern university roles, functions or duties.”  That’s very similar to the Kalven report. Further, the last sentence justifies institutional neutrality as a way to avoid chilling speech—exactly the same rational that the University of Chicago has.

I’ve also obtained a copy of the Senate’s minutes that resulted in this outcome, and here’s a brief excerpt:

The majority of Senate voted in favour of the motion with only a few votes against and abstentions recorded.

The motion was declared carried.

Professor Hunter expressed appreciation for the extensive work undertaken by the Working and Advisory Groups and all contributors throughout the consultation process. He observed that the process had demonstrated the value of constructive debate and the willingness of participants to listen and adapt their views. He acknowledged all involved in the process and specifically Professors Stinear and Clements and encouraged commitment to ongoing dialogue and improvement.

The Vice-Chancellor concluded by encouraging Senate to continue fostering an environment in which open and respectful debate could take place and the voice of academic excellence could be heard. She recommended that Senate would continue to provide leadership in this regard.

Note that Sir Peter Hunter, the head of the working group, thanks not only Professor Cathy Stinear for help, but also Kendall Clements, one of the demonized signers of the infamous “Listener Letter” arguing why indigenous “ways of knowing” are not the same as modern science.  I find it interesting and heartening that all three of these people are in STEM: Hunter is a bioengineer, Stinear a neuroscientist, and Clements is an evolutionary biologist and ichthyologist. And note that there was very little dissent about passing this.  I suspect, though I don’t know, that the administration of Auckland Uni had put this on the back burner for years.  I find it ironic as well that the Vice-Chancellor, Dawn Dishwater, now says she’s in favor of this policy when for years she has put roadblocks on freedom of speech. (Remember when she promised an open discussion of indigenous versus modern science and then it never took place?)

Now why is this important?  Because it codifies what the rules are in the country’s most notable university, and one hopes that other universities will follow suit. They will more or less have to in principle, and draft their own statements, but what happens in practice in New Zealand could be quite different.  The country and its universities are rife with intimidation and peer pressure, and, as I’ve written about repeatedly, there is a huge amount of self-censorship. Nobody dares criticize indigenous “knowledge” nor even arrant preferences given to indigenous people. If you criticize any of that, you’re likely to lose your job. This kind of pressure has turned the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi into a sacred document, in effect the Constitution of New Zealand, despite the fact that “Te Tiriti,” as it’s called, is both ambiguous and wasn’t even signed by all the indigenous leaders. The Treaty has been interpreted as saying that indigenous people get half of everything, including presence of indigenous “ways of knowing”—which include superstition, legends, morality, and rules for living)—in science classes

 

This intimidation is especially notable in New Zealand’s universities.  The hope of those who pushed this policy is that the University of Auckland will be a model for the country’s other schools. But the policies outlined above will face stiff opposition—opposition from an entrnched academic and ideological culture based on identity politics. Fingers crossed! At least it looks like a step forward.

The “anti-Zios” are back

November 19, 2025 • 10:45 am

A lot of the protests and kerfuffles on campus two years ago involved a student organization, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).  Their favorite metier seemed to be disrupting access through the Quad, using bullhorns to shout slogans (“river to the sea. . . ” etc.), and in general touting the actions of Hamas and demonizing Israel.  Now when these actions are done according to campus rules, they’re fine—it’s free speech, and that kind of expression is of the glories of our University.  But often SJP people are involved in violating campus regulations; in April of last year I documented four instances of the organization or its members violating campus regulations. Those included sit-ins that constituted trespassing and led to the arrest of both students and faculty. But, this being Chicago with a woke mayor, all charges were dropped.

What about the rest of the violations? There was almost no discipline: the University, as noted in the link above, simply gave SJP a slap on the wrist, for the last thing the University of Chicago wants to see is officials or police “laying hands on students”. Below is the “punishment” that the Standing Disciplinary Committee on Disruptive Conduct meted out to SJP after they shouted down a Jewish “teach-in” in 2023, violating campus rules.


This isn’t even a slap on the wrist, but a tap on the wrist. It’s even lighter punishment than the warning the cops give you if they catch you speeding a little.

In light of SJP’s repeated violations of university rules, I wrote a letter to the student newspaper in January of last year asking “Should Students for Justice in Palestine be a recognized student organization?” I provided no answer save to say that the University should mete out genuine punishment to people who repeatedly violate campus rules about public demonstrations.  The University did get serious once, when it used the UC police—the Chicago police refused to participate—in taking down the illegal encampment that defaced our quad and prevented free access to buildings.

Things have been quiet for the last year, and probably for two reasons: Hamas has been trounced in Gaza, and a lot of the participants in anti-Israel demonstrations appear to be outsiders rather than members of the University community.  Demonstrators may well be afraid to have a public presence because Trump sent ICE to Chicago, and if you entered the country illegally, now is not the time you want to fall into the hands of the authorities.

Regardless, I continue to promote free speech that adheres to our policies while at the same time deploring the hatred and antisemitism that seems to motivate groups and individuals like the SJP.  And so they’ve put up a legal “installation” on our quad again. It’s okay that they did so, but it’s a performative, misguided, and hate-filled “installation.”  It went up a few days ago for a week, and here are some photos:

Note that it was  erected by SJP.

What we have here is a work of art accusing one John Kirby of genocide. Well, I didn’t know who John Kirby was, but Wikipedia says he was a rear admiral in the U.S. Navy who later took up positions in the media and also in the government under Democratic Presidents:

In the Biden administration, he served as United States Department of Defense Press Secretary and Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs from 2021 to 2022 and as White House National Security Communications Advisor from 2022 to 2025. He worked as a military and diplomatic analyst for CNN from 2017 to 2021. In the second Obama administration, he served as United States Department of Defense Press Secretary from 2013 to 2015 and as Spokesperson for the United States Department of State and Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs from 2015 to 2017.

Kirby has also just been appointed as director of the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics, a nonpartisan venue for free discussion aimed at inspiring students to go into politics and public service.  It has invited people from all sides of the ideological spectrum to speak, though when someone who doesn’t hate Israel speaks, miscreants sometimes have demonstrations outside the building or have even invaded the building (they were heaved out).  Again, those demonstrations are legal if they don’t violate university rules, but they sometimes have (I have heard of no punsihments).

At any rate, Kirby’s position in the military, and some words he said, prominently displayed in the first photo below, convinced SJP that he is complicit in GENOCIDE.  In fact, Kirby has been careful about the use of the word than has SJP, applying it only to Hamas. This is from the Guardian when Kirby was working under Biden:

Challenged at a White House briefing to confront the term “Genocide Joe” by some protesters to described Biden, Kirby, who had previously ruled out “drawing red lines” for Israel’s actions in Gaza, embarked on an animated exposition.

“People can say what they want on the sidewalk and we respect that. That’s what the first amendment’s about,” he said. “But this word genocide’s getting thrown around in a pretty inappropriate way by lots of different folks. What Hamas wants, make no mistake about it, is genocide. They want to wipe Israel off the map.

“And they’ve said that they’re not going to stop. What happened on the 7th of October is going to happen again and again and again. And what happened on the 7th of October? Murder; slaughter of innocent people in their homes or at a music festival. That’s genocidal intentions.

“Yes, there are too many civilian casualties in Gaza … And yes, we continue to urge the Israelis to be as careful and cautious as possible. But Israel is not trying to wipe the Palestinian people off the map. Israel’s not trying to wipe Gaza off the map. Israel is trying to defend itself against a genocidal terrorist threat. If we’re going to start using that word – fine. Let’s use it appropriately.”

There are three quotes from Kirby (one of them fell over last night), including one that apparently refers to the U.S. providing aid to Israel (second photo). The other two seem to show him claiming that Israel did not violate international human rights law (you can read them by clocking twice on the first photo to enlarge it).

Two points:

1.)  This is a performative “installation” that accomplishes nothing. There was never a “genocide,” and even if you think there was, there’s now a cease-fire.

2.)  Why do you never see students demonstrating against a real genocide: the one that’s a huge goal of Hamas, which wants to kill all the Jews and wipe out Israel? (Read the Hamas Covenant of 1988, especially the introduction and Article Seven.)

3.)  It shows, in my view, that hatred of Jews and Israel hasn’t disappeared here (who would ever think that, anyway?) but is bubbling under the surface, waiting to emerge should the conflict in Gaza begin again.

4.) These installations, while they should be legal, nevertheless forment the atmosphere of hatred that, in my view, keeps Jewish students (who never erect similar “installations” about Hamas) from speaking their minds or wearing paraphernalia like Stars of David and yarmulkes (I’ve heard this directly from Jewish students).  This kind of intimidation—which in America also chills discussions about abortion and gender issues,—still falls within University regulations, so there’s nothing to do about it, but according to statistics, it does chill speech.