Category: censorship

The University of Chicago tops FIRE’s new free-speech rankings

September 10, 2026 • 9:45 am

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) has issued its yearly free-speech rankings of American colleges and universities, and I’m happy to say that, after a few years of hovering below the top rank, the University of Chicago is back at #1 among the 261 schools surveyed. We get an overall “green light” for free expression. The bad news is that the “grade” assigned to my school is a paltry “B-“. (No school got an “A”.) When I asked Grok why we got such a low grade, the bot said this:

FIRE’s composite score combines student survey responses (~63,000 students), written policies, and how schools handle controversies. Student perceptions of the climate carry heavy weight, which makes an A extremely difficult.

 

The drag [our B- grade] comes from student attitudes and culture, which FIRE measures in components such as self-censorship, comfort expressing ideas, disruptive conduct, and political tolerance. Even at the top school these remain well short of an ideal:

  • 35% of Chicago students said they self-censored at least once or twice a month.
  • 72% said shouting down a speaker is acceptable at least in rare cases.
  • 29% said using violence to stop a speaker is acceptable at least in rare cases.
  • “Disruptive Conduct” is a relative weak spot (mid-pack nationally).
  • Absolute letter grades on several student-perception components are modest (D+ on comfort expressing ideas and self-censorship) even when the school ranks well relative to peers.

Nationwide, students report difficulty discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Donald Trump, Charlie Kirk, and abortion. FIRE treats the overall student climate as the main limiter: excellent policies and a clean controversy record cannot produce an A when a large share of students still self-censor or condone disruption. Chicago’s administration and formal commitments outperform almost every peer, but the survey data on student culture keeps the composite score in B- territory.

Those statistics on Chicago bespeak a country-wide problem. Shouting down a speaker or using violence to stop a speaker are never acceptable practices, and are inimical to free speech. Yet 72% of our students thought that shouting-down is okay, and 29% said that violence to stop speech can sometimes be okay. Both of those figures should be o%

You can read the whole article with links to specific schools, their ratings, and FIRE’s written summaries, by clicking on the link below:

The searchable database is here. You’ll want to look up your school. As for my college and graduate schools, William & Mary gets a respectable rank of #28 and Harvard ranks #74, up a hundreds points for its score last year when it was rock bottom, the worst school in the lot.

The best and worst schools:

The highest-ranked colleges for free speech:

1. University of Chicago
2. Claremont McKenna College
3. Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus
4. Michigan Technological University
5. Vanderbilt University
6. Dartmouth College
7. Purdue University-Main Campus
8. Appalachian State University
9. University of Virginia-Main Campus
10. George Mason University

The lowest-ranked colleges for free speech:

252. Howard University
253. University of Miami
254. Loyola University Chicago
255. Boston College
256. Indiana University-Bloomington
257. Rutgers University-New Brunswick
258. Northeastern University
259. Texas State University
260. University of Washington-Seattle Campus
261. New York University

From their announcement:

  • The University of Chicago takes the top spot, while Texas State University, the University of Washington, and New York University sit at the bottom
  • Most difficult topics for students to discuss on campus include the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Donald Trump, Charlie Kirk, and abortion
  • Some schools fall in rankings following Charlie Kirk-related controversies
  • 121 of the 261 schools ranked got an “F” for their speech climate

Here is some more information from FIRE:

One hundred and twenty-one of the 261 schools ranked got an F for their speech climate, while only 24 schools received a speech climate grade of C or higher. The lowest-rated schools have restrictive speech policies and some of last year’s most shocking anti-free speech moments. Several incidents cited in the report include:

  • The terminations of Thomas Alter, a tenured professor of history, and Idris Robinson, a professor of philosophy by Texas State University, for off-campus protected expression.
  • Multiple disruptions, attempted disruptions, and event cancellations — six in total since 2024 — at the University of Washington.
  • The cancellation of a planned lecture by Raz Segal, an Israeli historian and genocide scholar, after the Northeastern University Police Department demanded a list of names of all the registered attendees.

. . . Encouragingly, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s seventh annual College Free Speech Rankings found the percentage of students who said it was acceptable to shout down a speaker, block entry to a campus speech, or use violence to stop a campus speech declined slightly from last year’s record highs.

Here’s the graph, over the last seven years, of the percentage of students who think it’s okay to impede or stop speakers they don’t like.  It’s pretty depressing, as all three forms of impediment are unwarranted if you favor freedom of speech. And they’ve all gone over this period, with the okaying of violence rising nearly ten points: from 18% to 30% nationwide.

Self-censorship is also way too high, but of course students are timorous, so I’m less likely to criticize a monthly rate of 35% self-censoring than I am to criticize any approval of blocking, shouting down, or using violence against speakers.  But remember, the same factors that make students think it’s okay to impede speakers are the factors that make students reluctant to express opinions on difficult topics.

It is the chilling of student and University speech that prompted the University of Chicago to become the nation’s first school to make a policy of institutional neutrality—as embodied in our Kalven Report of 1967. The number has grown a lot recently, and now 50 schools follow a version of the Kalven principle. Since there are 5600 higher-education schools in the U.S., however, that is only 1% of all schools. And among the Kalvenists you won’t find Williams College, whose President refuses to adopt a policy of institutional neutrality, something I’m always harassing Luana about.

And so it begins: Bari Weiss gets a “60 Minutes” segment pulled from the show

December 22, 2025 • 9:50 am

As you know, when Paramount Skydance acquired the television station CBS, Bari Weiss, still editor of the Free Press, was also appointed editor-in-chief of CBS News. I worried about that, as CBS has a long reputation for quality news, and I couldn’t see Weiss—whose Free Press site seems both center-right and lacking gravitas as well as reportorial quality—actually improving CBS News. But we’ll give her a chance. So far, she’s blown it, but it’s early days.

Weiss is new on the job, but is already putting her fingerprints on the broadcast news, and not in a good way. First, she held a Town Hall in which Weiss (unusual for an editor) appeared as an interviewer questioning Erika Kirk, the widow of the assassinated Turning Point USA head Charlie Kirk. It was a debacle, with Weiss not pressing Erika and letting her spew Christianity all over the show. (We’re promised more town halls with Weiss in the future.)

Now, according to several sources, including the NYT article below, Weiss has done something even more serious: she had a segment of the excellent news show “60 minutes” pulled—and apparently for ideological reasons, Click below to read, or find the article archived free here.

Here’s an excerpt:

In a move that drew harsh criticism from its own correspondent, CBS News abruptly removed a segment from Sunday’s episode of “60 Minutes” that was to feature the stories of Venezuelan men deported by the Trump administration to what the program called a “brutal” prison in El Salvador.

CBS announced the change three hours before the broadcast, a highly unusual last-minute switch. The decision was made after Bari Weiss, the new editor in chief of CBS News, requested numerous changes to the segment. CBS News said in a statement that the segment would air at a later date and “needed additional reporting.”

But Sharyn Alfonsi, the veteran “60 Minutes” correspondent who reported the segment, rejected that criticism in a private note to CBS colleagues on Sunday, in which she accused CBS News of pulling the segment for “political” reasons.

“Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices,” Ms. Alfonsi wrote in the note, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times. “It is factually correct. In my view, pulling it now, after every rigorous internal check has been met, is not an editorial decision, it is a political one.”

Ms. Weiss said in a statement late Sunday: “My job is to make sure that all stories we publish are the best they can be. Holding stories that aren’t ready for whatever reason — that they lack sufficient context, say, or that they are missing critical voices — happens every day in every newsroom. I look forward to airing this important piece when it’s ready.”

Here’s an excerpt from Wikipedia about Alfonsi, who’s been with the show for a decade:

Sharyn Elizabeth Alfonsi (born June 3, 1972) is an American journalist and correspondent for 60 Minutes. She made her debut appearance on the show on March 1, 2015. In 2019, she received the Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award journalism award and has reported from war zones in Iraq, Gaza, and Afghanistan.

More clues as to why the story was spiked:

The segment was focused on Venezuelan men who were sent by the Trump administration to the Terrorism Confinement Center, a notorious prison in El Salvador. In a news release on Friday promoting the segment, CBS News said that Ms. Alfonsi had spoken with several men now released from the prison “who describe the brutal and torturous conditions they endured.”

Ms. Weiss first saw the segment on Thursday and raised numerous concerns to “60 Minutes” producers about Ms. Alfonsi’s segment on Friday and Saturday, and she asked for a significant amount of new material to be added, according to three people familiar with the internal discussions.

One of Ms. Weiss’s suggestions was to include a fresh interview with Stephen Miller, a White House deputy chief of staff and the architect of Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown, or a similarly high-ranking Trump administration official, two of the people said. Ms. Weiss provided contact information for Mr. Miller to the “60 Minutes” staff.

Ms. Weiss also questioned the use of the term “migrants” to describe the Venezuelan men who were deported, noting that they were in the United States illegally, two of the people said.

In her note, Ms. Alfonsi said that her team had requested comment from the White House, the State Department, and the Department of Homeland Security. “If the administration’s refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a ‘kill switch’ for any reporting they find inconvenient,” Ms. Alfonsi wrote.

This is ludicrous. The story was vetted five times and cleared by CBS sttorneys. The team working on the story asked for comment from the three most relevant agencies: the White House, the State Department, and the Department of Homeland Security.  They refused to participate.  That would have been enough to add to the story: three “no comments”. But Weiss stuck her nose in and helpfully supplied Alfonsi with yet another administration official, a deputy chief of staff in the White House. (Did Weiss know what that person would say? If so, how?) It’s not the job of the reporter to keep asking administration officials until they find a cricial comment. Alfonsi is right: this appears to be Weiss’s attempt to get someone to badmouth or contradict the story. Alfonsi added this:

“We have been promoting this story on social media for days,” Ms. Alfonsi added. “Our viewers are expecting it. When it fails to air without a credible explanation, the public will correctly identify this as corporate censorship. We are trading 50 years of ‘gold standard’ reputation for a single week of political quiet.”

“I care too much about this broadcast to watch it be dismantled without a fight,” she wrote.

Reached on Sunday evening, Ms. Alfonsi said, “I refer all questions to Bari Weiss.”

Here, from “X”, is Alfonsi’s full email to the “news team,” presumably those people who worked on the story (click screenshot to go to site, Stelter is CNN’s chief media analys):

Alfonsi is clearly pissed off, and is going to fight (given Weiss’s position, Alfonsi will probably lose). But the whole thing smacks not only of censorship, but of Weiss’s attempt to micromanage “60 Minutes” stories, makng sure the Trump administration can weigh in publicly.  That’s not what reporting should do.,  Alfoni’s memo and stand is proper, and is that of a working reporter. Weiss has little experience with this end of reporting, and she screwed up by desperately trying to get someone from the Trump administration to criticize the story. Weiss’s overweening ambition to build news organizations is already starting to do her in. If she keeps acting this way towards CBS reporters, they will leave and the station will be left with a bunch of neophytes. (Some CBS employees are already threatening to quit.)

If you want other versions of this story, you can find them at CNN, NBC News, The Wall Street Journal, and Fox News, which adds a response from Weiss:

“My job is to make sure that all stories we publish are the best they can be. Holding stories that aren’t ready for whatever reason — that they lack sufficient context, say, or that they are missing critical voices — happens every day in every newsroom. I look forward to airing this important piece when it’s ready,” Weiss said in a statement.

Weiss should never have taken this job, for I foresee a lot of micromanagement that is not to the taste of the newspeople themselves. She is is clearly not ready to be CBS’s news editor-in-chief, and we may have to watch the news division go down the tubes before Weiss learns enough to manage the news section properly.

 

h/t: Douglas, David

USC forbids its hijab-clad valedictorian to speak at graduation because she minored in genocide

April 16, 2024 • 9:20 am

This is a true test of people like me who are pro-Israel in the current conflict but are also in favor of free speech. But it’s not a hard decision, for if you’re a hard line free-speech advocate, you must accept the fact that it’s most important to allow freedom of speech when what the person says offends you or many others.

And that is the situation in the case of Asna Tabassum, the valedictorian of the University of Southern California (USC), who, apparently because she might talk about (Israeli) genocide or advocate for a Palestine “from the river to the sea”, isn’t going to be allowed to speak at graduation. (Of course, the USC administration uses other excuses for censorship, like “safety”.)

I was alerted to the situation by this tweet sent to me by Luana:

Is this the case? Does USC really have a minor in genocide? Did the valedictorian minor in genocide?  And did USC also prevent its valedictorian from speaking because of the possibility she might discuss genocide? The answer to all four questions appears to be “yes”. But I think it’s wrong to prevent her from speaking—not if USC has a tradition of having valedictorians speak, which there is.

First, yes, USC does have a minor in genocide, or rather “resistance to genocide”. Here are part of the details of that minor (click to read), but if you look at the the courses, there’s nothing about Israel/Palestine: most of them are about the Shoah (Holocaust of Jews during WWII), Native American genocide, the Armenian genocide, and genocide and the law. It seems like a creditable minor.  Of course one suspects that Tabassum might have minored in this because of a belief that Palestine is undergoing genocide, but we don’t know that, and at any rate it’s irrelevant to this kerfuffle.

This article from the school’s site USC Today (click headline below to read) confirms that Tabassum was indeed the valedictorian:

USC’s 2024 valedictorian, Asna Tabassum, was also recognized. Tabassum, who is graduating with a major in biomedical engineering a minor in resistance to genocide, has studied how technology, immigration and literacy affect the type of medical care people receive. She has also been an advocate for the community through her service with the Muslim Student Union and the Mobile Clinic at USC.

 

And here are two articles, the first from the Los Angeles Times and the second from USC Annenberg Media, both confirming that Tabassum has indeed been banned buy USC’s administration from speaking. Click both to read, though the quotes below come from the L.A. Times.

From the L.A. Times:

And from the USC Annenberg site:

Quotes from the LA Times:

Saying “tradition must give way to safety,” the University of Southern California on Monday made the unprecedented move of barring an undergraduate valedictorian who has come under fire for her pro-Palestinian views from giving a speech at its May graduation ceremony.

The move, according to USC officials, is the first time the university has banned a valedictorian from the traditional chance to speak onstage at the annual commencement ceremony, which typically draws more than 65,000 people to the Los Angeles campus.

In a campuswide letter, USC Provost Andrew T. Guzman cited unnamed threats that have poured in shortly after the university publicized the valedictorian’s name and biography this month. Guzman said attacks against the student for her pro-Palestinian views have reached an “alarming tenor” and “escalated to the point of creating substantial risks relating to security and disruption at commencement.”

. . .“After careful consideration, we have decided that our student valedictorian will not deliver a speech at commencement. … There is no free-speech entitlement to speak at a commencement. The issue here is how best to maintain campus security and safety, period,” Guzman wrote.

The student, whom the letter does not name, is biomedical engineering major Asna Tabassum. USC officials chose Tabassum from nearly 100 student applicants who had GPAs of 3.98 or higher.

But after USC President Carol Folt announced her selection, a swarm of on- and off-campus groups attacked Tabassum. They targeted her minor, resistance to genocide, as well as her pro-Palestinian views and “likes” expressed through her Instagram account.

Here’s an Instagram post quoting Tabassum and calling for her deplatforming. Her own Instagram site is now private, but note that the words are probably not hers, but from a link in her own Instagram biography.

And even if the words quoted above were hers, do they promote imminent violence (presumably towards Jews)? Nope. It’s not a First-Amendment exception to call Zionism a “racist settler-colonial ideology, nor to call for the complete abolition of Israel. If it were, half of Twitter would be taken down.

As expected, Tabassum didn’t like this decision, and issued a mature but passionate statement:

In a statement, Tabassum opposed the decision, saying USC has “abandoned” her.

“Although this should have been a time of celebration for my family, friends, professors, and classmates, anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian voices have subjected me to a campaign of racist hatred because of my uncompromising belief in human rights for all,” said Tabassum, who is Muslim.

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“This campaign to prevent me from addressing my peers at commencement has evidently accomplished its goal: today, USC administrators informed me that the university will no longer allow me to speak at commencement due to supposed security concerns,” she wrote.

“I am both shocked by this decision and profoundly disappointed that the university is succumbing to a campaign of hate meant to silence my voice. I am not surprised by those who attempt to propagate hatred. I am surprised that my own university—my home for four years—has abandoned me.”

And of course the university issued a weaselly decision:

In an interview, Guzman said the university has been “in close contact with the student” and would “provide her support.” He added that “we weren’t seeking her opinion” on the ban.

“This is a security decision,” he said. “This is not about the identity of the speaker, it’s not about the things the valedictorian has said in the past. We have to put as our top priority ensuring that the campus and community is safe.”

A screenshot from Provost Andrew Guzman, who singlehandedly decided to ban Tabassum (he doesn’t even have the guts to name her in the letter):

Some of those who objected were, of course, Jewish groups:

We Are Tov, a group that uses the Hebrew word for “good” and describes itself as “dedicated to combating antisemitism,” posted Tabassum’s image on its Instagram account and said she “openly promotes antisemitic writings.” The group also criticized Tabassum for liking Instagram posts from “Trojans for Palestine.” Tabassum’s Instagram bio links to a landing page that says “learn about what’s happening in Palestine, and how to help.”

The campus group Trojans for Israel also posted on its Instagram account, calling for Folt’s “reconsideration” of Tabassum for what it described as her “antisemitic and anti-Zionist rhetoric.” The group said Tabassum’s Instagram bio linked to a page that called Zionism a “racist settler-colonial ideology.”

Well, I have little doubt, based on the above, that Tabassum is pro-Palestinian, may feel that Israel is committing genocide, and has made social-media posts that may smack of antisemitism and perhaps a desire to eliminate Israel.  But none of that is relevant here. The only consideration is whether Tabassum’s words are calculated and intended to promote imminent and lawless violence—something that would violate her First-Amendment freedom to speak. And, as a private university, USC doesn’t need to adhere to the First Amendment. They could ban Tabassum without citing freedom of speech. But, like any decent university, public or private, USC should follow the First Amendment. The only exception is that universities should allow “time, place, and manner” expressions of speech that don’t disturb the mission of the university. That means no disrupting speeches or blocking access to university facilities like classes.

Further, USC promotes First-Amendment-like freedom of speech on their website.  Here’s one bit from USC’s Policy on Free Speech:

As the Faculty Handbook declares, the University recognizes that students are exposed to thought-provoking ideas as part of their educational experience, and some of these ideas may challenge their beliefs and may lead a student to claim that an educational experience is offensive.  Therefore any such issues that arise in the educational context will be considered in keeping with the University’s commitment to academic freedom.

Except, of course, when the issue arises in a graduation speech!

Yes, there may have been threats, but it’s up to USC to have enough security on hand to both protect Ms. Tabassum and also allow her to speak without heckling. The mere citation of threats and palaver about “security decisions” is simply a way that USC can ban a controversial speaker without having to provide the conditions where and when she can speak freely.

Tabassum is a valedictorian, valedictorians traditionally speak at USC, and her speech is almost certainly not designed to incite imminent lawless violence. Even if she accuses Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, that is not sufficient grounds to ban her. (If USC is worried about First-Amendment exceptions, they can vet her speech in advance, but they better have constitutional lawyers look at it, too!).

In my view, USC is cowardly and censorious in preventing Tabassum from speaking at graduation.  The school is, as she notes, robbing her of her big moment: her reward for working hard over four years to become the best student in her class. I urge USC to change their minds and let her speak, but of course it’s too late.  The gutless wonders, fond of selective censorship, appear to be running USC. And the great irony here is that although the school offers a minor in genocide, it prevents someone from speaking because they might bring up the subject.

_______________

Full disclosure: I was the valedictorian in my college class, too, and was also prevented from the traditional (short) speech because the administration knew I was an antiwar activist. Thus they announced my award from the stage while I was in the audience. I got to stand up when I was recognized, but I was wearing a black armband and made the “Black Power” fist salute. (That cost me a summer job.)  I, too, felt a bit cheated, and for reasons similar to those of Tabassum. But I think that  the censorship of Tabassum is a much bigger deal than mine given that she was supposed to make a full speech and not just an elongated “thank you”. And, of course, free speech is especially important to emphasize these days.  Too many schools are using “safetyism” as a reason to cancel speakers, which merely empowers those who are encouraged to give the “heckler’s veto” and make threats. If a speaker isn’t going to violate the First Amendment, it’s up to the university to protect her and remove those who try to shout her down.

h/t: Luana Maroja

Theater tries to cancel Israeli film due to protests by pro-Palestinian activists, court overturns cancellation, Streisand effect goes into action

April 11, 2024 • 11:30 am

NBC 10 in Philly reports a disturbing case of censorship, and of course it’s Jewish stuff that’s censored. Fortunately, a court stepped in and undid the censorship with a restraining order. Click the headline to read, and you can also find a shorter account on ABC 6 in Philly.

What happened is summarized by the bullet points in the report above:

 

What’s bizarre about all this is that while the pro-Palestinian groups wanted to cancel the entire showing, the BMFI decided to pull just one of the movies, and one that had absolutely nothing to do with the war, or anything related to it.

Guy Brodetzki, an Israeli man who currently resides in Lower Merion, also organized a grassroots group of concerned citizens called the Hope for Israel Alliance – Philadelphia. Brodetzki told NBC10 “The Child Within Me” has nothing to do with the Israel-Hamas War.

“Very famous singer. The movie is about him. And he’s very special,” Brodetzki said. “He was gay when it wasn’t that easy to be gay. He’s the son of Holocaust survivors. Many of his songs are about being a child of Holocaust survivors. This is the movie. There’s no mentioning of the Arab-Israeli conflict at all. There’s no mentioning of the war. There’s no mentioning of Palestinians. Nothing. It’s all about him. It’s about Jewish-Israeli culture. So why on earth would you want to cancel the showing of this kind of movie?”

Before lawyers got involved, BMFI issued a pathetic excuse for canceling the movie. Get a load of this dissimulation!:

“Bryn Mawr Film Institute is not a political organization. We don’t endorse or oppose any causes. In past years, we have not regarded hosting a screening from the Israeli Film Festival as a political partnership or taking a stance on any issues,” a BMFI spokesperson wrote. “This was our feeling when we arranged the 2024 screening many months ago. However, as the situation in Israel and Gaza has developed, it has become clear that our showing this movie is being widely taken among individuals and institutions in our community as an endorsement of Israel’s recent and ongoing actions. This is not a statement we intended or wish to make. For this reason, BMFI is canceling the sole screening of the music documentary, The Child Within Me.”

That’s pathetic, showing a complete lack of backbone and principle. It’s like a library pulling a book from the shelves because it offends some of the public. If they’re not political, then they shouldn’t worry about looking as if they endorsed a film. Does a library endorse Mein Kampf, for crying out loud?  As ABC 6 reported, “Film Institute Executive Director Samuel Scott said the issue was not the film itself but concerns over heated political protests regarding the film’s screening.

 

And then the law stepped in:

Brodetzki’s group planned a protest outside the Bryn Mawr Film Institute on Tuesday. After the protest was planned, Lori Lowenthal Marcus, an attorney representing the Israeli Film Festival, told NBC10 the movie would still be screened at BMFI Tuesday evening following a court order. Marcus accused BMFI of breaching its contract when they attempted to pull the film from the festival.

Here’s the restraining order forcing the BMFI to show the movies. It’s short and sweet:

 

That’s all it took, and the film festival caved, saying that they were “flawed human being” making “bad calls” (see below).  Their intention was surely not to hurt and offend Jews, but it was certainly to avoid Palestinian ire.  It is due to fear of Palestinian action against the film that the BMFI took action. I wonder if they would bow to pressure from any other group about non-Israeli films.

So here’s the apology, which, as Shania Twain said, “don’t impress me much.”

h/t: Alex

Israeli writer pulls out of scheduled talks before she gets canceled for having “wrong views”

March 14, 2024 • 11:00 am

Dina Rubina is a prominent Russian Israeli Jew who writes in Russian. Wikipedia gives this precis:

Rubina is one of the most prominent Russian-language Israeli writers. Her books have been translated into 30 languages. Her major themes are Jewish and Israeli history, migration, nomadism, neo-indigeneity, messianism, metaphysics, theatre, autobiography and the interplay between the Israeli and Russian Jewish cultures and languages.

This letter from Rubina comes from a site I don’t know, Truth of the Middle East (click on screenshot). It shows how Rubina staved off cancelation (for being Jewish) by canceling her appearance first. Click to read:

First, the intro:

Not long ago the Pushkin House in London together with the University of London invited the famous Israeli writer Dina Rubina to hold a meeting.
The topic was to be literary – a discussion of the writer’s books.
 Some time ago, Dina received a letter from the moderator of the meeting:

Then the email came that smells strongly like an impending cancelation:

“Good afternoon, Dina
The Pushkin House advertised our upcoming discussion on social media and immediately received critical messages regarding your position on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. They would like to understand your position on this issue before reacting in any way.
Could you formulate your position and send it to me as soon as possible?”
Natalia! “

That letter is an arrant insult. Rubina was going to discuss her books, and her political stand on the war has no bearing on that. Even if it did, she had already been invited.  But the Pushkin House and the University of London are spineless, and surely wanted some groveling letter from Rubina that smacked of “both side-ism.” But that’s stupid given that she is an Israeli, a fact that, again, has no bearing on her book talk.

But Rubina has spine, and I put her response below. Instead of being canceled, she canceled her own talk and rebuked Pushkin House. I put her whole letter below because you should read it, because it’s “open”, and because she says exactly what needed to be said in response to Natlia’s insulting communication.

AN OPEN LETTER

from Dina Rubina

Dear Natalia!

    You have written beautifully about my novels; I am very sorry for the time you have wasted. But it seems we’ll have to cancel our meeting. The University of Warsaw and the University of Torun have just cancelled lectures by the remarkable Israeli Russian-speaking writer Yakov Shechter on the life of Jews in Galicia in the 17th and 19th centuries – “to avoid aggravating the situation”. I suspected that this would also happen to me, because now the academic environment is the main nursery of the most disgusting and rabid anti-Semitism, hiding behind the so-called “criticism of Israel”. I was expecting something like this, and even sat down three times to write you a letter on the subject… but I decided to wait, and so I have waited.

That’s what I want to say to all those who expect from me a quick and obsequious account of my position on my beloved country, which now (and always) lives in a circle of ardent enemies who seek its destruction; on my country, which is now waging a just patriotic war against a violent, ruthless, deceitful and sophisticated enemy:

The last time in my life I apologised in the headmaster’s office, in the ninth grade. Since then, I have done what I think is right, listening only to my conscience and expressing only my understanding of the world order and human laws of justice.

And so on.

I’m really sorry, Natalia, for your efforts and the hope that you could “cook something with me” – something that everyone will like.

Therefore, I ask you personally to send my reply to all those who are interested:

On Saturday 7 October, the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, the ruthless, well-trained, carefully prepared and perfectly equipped with Iranian weapons Hamas terrorist regime ruling the Gaza enclave (which Israel left some 20 years ago) attacked dozens of peaceful kibbutzim and simultaneously pelted the territory of my country with tens of thousands of rockets. Atrocities that even the Bible cannot describe, atrocities and horrors that make the crimes of Sodom and Gomorrah pale in comparison (captured, by the way, by the frontal and chest cameras of the murderers themselves and boastfully sent by them in real time to the Internet), can shock any normal person. For several hours, thousands of gleeful, blood-drunk animals raped women, children and men, shot their victims in the crotch and in the head, cut off women’s breasts and played football with them, cut babies out of the bellies of pregnant women and immediately beheaded them, tied up small children and burned them. There were so many charred and completely burnt bodies that for many weeks the pathologists could not cope with the enormous burden of identifying individuals.

   My friend, who worked in a New York hospital waiting room for 20 years and then spent another 15 years in Israel identifying remains, was one of the first to arrive in the burned and blood-soaked kibbutzim with a group of rescuers and medics… She still can’t sleep. A medic used to cutting up bodies – she fainted from what she saw and then vomited all the way back to the car. What these people have seen is beyond words.

    Together with the Hamas fighters, the “civilian population” rushed into the holes in the fence, joined the pogroms on an unprecedented scale, robbed, killed and dragged whatever they could get their hands on into Gaza. Among these “peaceful Palestinians” were 450 members of the UN’s UNRWA scum. Everyone was there, and judging by the stormy total joy of the population (also captured in these inconvenient times by hundreds of mobile cameras) – there were a lot of people – Hamas supports and approves, at least before the real fighting starts, of almost the entire population of Gaza… The main problem: our residents were dragged into the beast’s lair, more than two hundred of them, including women, children, the elderly and non-essential foreign workers. About a hundred of them are now rotting and dying in the Hamas dungeons. Needless to say, these harassed victims are of little concern to the “academic community”.

But that’s not what I’m talking about. I am not writing this to make anyone sympathise with the tragedy of my people.

For all these years, when the world community has literally poured hundreds of millions of dollars into this piece of land (the Gaza Strip) – and the annual budget of the UNRWA organisation alone is a BILLION dollars! – All these years, Hamas has used this money to build an empire of the most complex underground tunnel system, to stockpile weapons, to teach primary school children how to dismantle and reassemble a Kalashnikov assault rifle, to print textbooks in which the hatred of Israel defies description, in which even the maths problems go like this: “There were ten Jews, Shahid killed four, how many are left?” – with every word calling for the murder of Jews.

And now that Israel, shocked at last by the monstrous crime of these bastards, is waging a war to destroy the Hamas terrorists, who have prepared this war so carefully, planting thousands of shells in all the hospitals, schools, kindergartens… – here the academic world of the whole world has risen up, worried about the “genocide of the Palestinian people”, based, of course, on data provided by… who? That’s right, by the same Hamas, by the same UNRWA… The academic community, which was not concerned about the massacres in Syria, the massacre in Somalia, the mockery of the Uighurs or the millions of Kurds persecuted for decades by the Turkish regime – this very concerned public, wearing “Arafat” around their necks, the trademark of the murderers, rallies under the banners “Free Palestine from the river to the sea! – which means the total destruction of Israel (yes, many of these “academics”, as surveys show, have no idea where this river is, what it is called, where some borders are…). – Now this very public asks me to “take a clear position on this issue”.

Are you serious?! Are you serious?!!

You see, I’m a writer by profession. All my life, for more than fifty years, I have been folding words. My novels have been translated into 40 languages, including Albanian, Turkish, Chinese, Esperanto… and many others.

Now, with great pleasure, without using too many expressions, I sincerely and with all the strength of my soul send all the brainless “intellectuals” interested in my position go to ass. In fact, very soon you will all be there without me”.

Dina Rubina

********************

It’s their loss.

Notice that she says there were 450 UNRWA members at the October 7 massacre. I knew that there were 13 who had been fired, but this higher figure may well be accurate, though I can’t confirm it yet. There are 13,000 UNRWA staff in Gaza, so if it was 450, that would be 3.5% of the entire staff, all present at the butchery.

And I wonder how many Palestinian writers or Arab writers would be asked to “clarify” their position before they gave a book talk.

FIRE gives awards for the Ten Worst Censors of 2024; Harvard gets sixth Lifetime Censorship Award

February 13, 2024 • 9:00 am

At midnight last night, FIRE (The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) put up its list of the “10 Worst Censors of 2024”.

Part of the intro:

Each year, FIRE names and shames the worst-of-the-worst silencers, bowdlerizers, and steamrollers of free speech.

This year, we’ve included five free speech villains whose chilling misdeeds happened off of  college campuses. Thelist belowincludes people guilty of many forms of censorship  including raiding a small-town newspaper, punishing a middle schooler for wearing eye black at a football game, canceling students and professors for their views on the Israel-Hamas war, and retroactively censoring famous authors without their consent. The 13th annual Lifetime Censorship Award went to Harvard University, a university as censorial as it is famous.

Previous lists were limited to campuses, but no longer: off-campus censors were also in the running.  The list below is in no particular order, and there’s a longer explanation of each ranking at the website given at the top.

I was particularly interested in the Razzies given to the California Community Colleges (for requiring faculty to pledge allegiance to DEI) and Texas A&M (a state school) for its pattern of firing, deplatforming, and censorship.

Last but not least, Harvard University will receive FIRE’s sixth Lifetime Censorship Award, reserved for those colleges that deserve special recognition for their commitment to censorship. The school earned the award for landing at the bottom of FIRE’s annual free speech rankings, threatening the New York Post with a defamation lawsuit, driving out lecturer Carole Hooven for arguing that biological sex is real, and rescinding a fellowship for form

I wanted to show you why Harvard got the lowest ranking; and the ranking was assigned well before Claudine Gay and the Presidents of MIT and Penn were excoriated for their testimony before a House committee:

Harvard University came in dead last on this year’s College Free Speech Rankings — achieving a worst-ever score. When asked about Harvard’s abysmal ranking during her congressional testimony in December, then-Harvard President Claudine Gay said she didn’t think the ranking was “an accurate representation” of Harvard’s respect for free speech. But all one needs to do to understand Harvard’s disrespect for free speech is look at its record of censorship.

Only a few weeks before Gay’s testimony, Harvard hired self-advertised “media assassins” to threaten the New York Post with a defamation lawsuit and “immense” damages if the paper published a story alleging Gay plagiarized some of her scholarship. So much for placing “a high priority on freedom of speech” — or freedom of the press for that matter. Gay resigned on Jan. 2, after more than 40 allegations of plagiarism came to light.

Long before Harvard threatened news outlets with litigation for their reporting, it punished faculty and students for their speech. School administrators drove out lecturer Carole Hooven for arguing that biological sex is real. It rescinded a fellowship for former Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth over his purported “anti-Israel bias.” It effectively fired an economics professor for an op-ed he published in India. It canceled a professor’s course on policing following student uproar. It fired professor Ronald Sullivan from his deanship after students protested his role on Harvey Weinstein’s criminal defense team. It bizarrely demanded students take down a Nicki Minaj flag because the community could find it “offensive.” And the list goes on.

Even outside speakers invited to campus aren’t safe from Harvard’s censorial glare. In 2022, feminist philosopher Devin Buckley was disinvited from an English department colloquium because of her views on sex and gender. Her talk was supposed to be on the separate topic of British romanticism.

Harvard students clearly feel the chill. Students report low administrative support for free speech and low comfort expressing ideas, placing the school near the bottom of FIRE’s College Free Speech Rankings in both individual categories. Unfortunately, Harvard students themselves may also contribute to the problem. If the efforts to oust Sullivan and cancel the policing class aren’t evidence enough, an alarming 30% of Harvard students think using violence to stop a campus speech is acceptable in at least some circumstances.

For its long track record of censorship, Harvard is receiving FIRE’s Lifetime Censorship Award. It joins Georgetown University, Yale University, Syracuse University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and DePaul University in receiving this “honor.” It’s past time Harvard truly commits to its ostensible truth-seeking mission and the principles of free speech and academic freedom that make it possible. But that may be wishful thinking, the triumph of hope over experience.

The new President of Harvard hasn’t yet been chosen, but I suspect it will have to be another black woman lest Harvard be criticized for, well, Sarah Haider talks about this in her nice new analysis of DEI, including a tweet:

This is why there were numerous calls to replace Claudine Gay with another black woman. The honor was bestowed on Black Womanhood, the political category, not on the black woman herself. This illustrates one important sense in which modern tokenism is unlike its predecessor: far from being objected to as a sign of contempt and condescension, tokenism today is demanded by activists.

Hill is a professor of CUNY and a “television personality”.

Banned and censored scenes from Tom and Jerry cartoons

December 29, 2023 • 12:30 pm

When I was in Cambridge I watched some cartoons with my friend’s grandchildren, and I was struck at how anodyne they were. Nothing dark happened, everything was wonderful and happy (and of course diverse), and there wasn’t anything I thought the least bit funny. Nevertheless, the kids were engaged. I wonder if that’s because all the cartoons that are on t.v. these days.  Now think of Bugs Bunny, the Roadrunner, and Tom & Jerry, which had many moments that weren’t sweetness and light.

In fact, when some of these cartoons (masterpieces of the genre: remember “Acme”?) are shown today, they censor them.  Granted, some feed into racist stereotypes, and are best seen by adults who can put them in context of the time, but others show violence (tail severing, spanking hammer blows, etc.), and other bad stuff like smoking, aggression, and even Tom painted up like HITLER.  But of course Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner had tons of violence.  Here’s a 20-minute narrated video of all the Tom & Jerry scenes that have been banned or censored.

The YouTube notes:

Tom and Jerry is a beloved cartoon series that originally ran from 1940 – 1957. And has since become a timeless classic over the years. But since it’s original airing, the series has actually undergone some major censoring, some resulting in a few scenes being cut, whilst others resorting to the banning of entire episodes.

Skip the first 2 minutes and 45 second, as it’s a big ad for VPN.