Category: demonstrations

The Encampment, Days 1 and 2: The layout

April 30, 2024 • 9:45 am

I thought I’d simply show some photos of the encampment and its residents. Here’s a pretty good panoramic shot, but you’ll have to click on it to see the whole thing. Seven of the tents are the green-and-white jobs that you can see at other schools’ encampments, and are surely supplied by some organization, whether SJP National or someone else.

One of two large boards blocking the main sidewalk from the center of the quad to the administration building. The presence of these is of course in violation of University regulations.

 

There’s a fence around the encampment. I don’t know who put it up:

Two deans on call, who didn’t want their photo taken (I was told by a reporter that I could photograph anybody there as it was out in public.  They simply observe the process and have no real power to do anything, though they can ask for IDs.  I was told that no real member of the administration, including deans and the like, had even come down to the protest, but I don’t know if that’s true.

Below: one of the leaders of the protest at the welcome tent. He was giving instructions to the protestors, which you can see in the video below. I’ve never seen this guy at any other Palestinian protestors, so he may be an “outsider” not affiliated with the University. A reporter told me that he’d seen buses dropping off non-students at the protests in Northwestern, and clearly a large percentage of protestors here and elsewhere are non-University people. I just verified that by talking to a person who went through the encampment asking people if they were students, and most of them said “no”. (They could of course by lying.)

The putative leader tells the students not to interact with “Zionists.”  How can he distinguish between a Jewish student and a Zionist? He adds “we’re keeping everyone’s identity private.” The wearing of masks by nearly all the protestors, but not by any of the Jewish students, shows that they are cowardly, for real practitioners of civil disobedience do not try to hide their identity, nor do any of the Jewish students.

Update on the encampment

April 29, 2024 • 4:06 pm

From Jerry: I spent about 45 minutes walking through the pro-Palestinian encampment this afternoon, listening and taking pictures.  I did not engage anybody save campus cops and deans and call.

The demonstration clearly violates both campus regulations and the law in several ways (I’ll show photos tomorrow, but see the Dean of Student’s email below.)

It blocks university sidewalks and thus impedes access to buildings

It is likely loaded with outsiders not from the University. I can’t tell this for certain, but I’ve been to a lot of pro-Palestinian demonstrations and don’t recognize most of the people. Any outsiders are therefore trespassing by camping out on University property.

The demonstration itself is almost certainly illegal, as it is taking up large amounts of space on the quad, depriving other students of using it. (This is an area where students like to sit, chat, or lie in the sun.) Further, one is not allowed to set up tents in the quad and sleep there overnight (see below).

There is chilling of speech. I heard one of the leaders announce, through a megaphone, something like “Do not talk to the press. Do not talk to deans on call, as they are no different from the police. And do not talk to Zionists.” I recorded some of this and will put up a movie tomorrow. The anti-Zionist trope is, of course, not only a form of anti-semitism, but a chilling of speech of any Jewish or pro-Israeli person who walks through the encampment. (I have never seen that protest leader before; I suspect he was sent in by some organization like SJP National.)

And yes, most of the tents look alike, implying that some organization funded their purchase or rental, or supplied them. There is a medical tent and lots of food and supplies, implying not only that this demonstration was well planned and funded, but that the protestors plan to be here for a long time.

I finally received a response from my email this morning to the Dean of Students asking what parts of this demonstration violate university regulations. It was a response not to me personally, but to the entire University community. Among the paeans to free expression, which I agree with, is this:

As part of our free expression principles, the University is fundamentally committed to upholding the rights of protesters to express a wide range of views. At the same time, University policies make it clear that protests cannot jeopardize public safety, disrupt the University’s operations, or involve the destruction of property.

Setting up tents on the Quad or erecting other structures and obstructions without prior approval, as happened in this case, is a violation of University policy and will result in disciplinary action. We are monitoring the situation closely. The individuals involved are on notice that the University is prepared to take further action in the event of continued violations of our time, place, and manner policies governing protests, threats to public safety, disruption of operations or academic activities, or destruction of property.

This is heartening, though I am not sure that these individuals really were put on notice. I’ll take the Dean’s word for it. What this means is that the participants, at least those who are U of C members, might be punished. We shall see.

The President of the University has sent out an incredibly ambiguous and waffling email implying that the demonstrators really are violating university policy but he’s not going to do anything about it right now, though he may in the future. I will reproduce that tomorrow morning. The Jewish students are incredibly upset with this statement, as am I. The Dean of Students has far more guts than our President.

In sum, our University won’t even follow its own regulations–regulations put in place to promote free speech–by preventing obstructive and illegal demonstrations. Nor will they even attempt to ascertain which participants belong in the University of Chicago community and which don’t.

Were I President, the first thing I would do is to send university police through the encampment, asking to see their U of Chicago IDs. If they have them, fine; leave them alone for the moment. But do take their names for purposes of University punishment (see above). For those without University IDs, make them leave campus, escorted by the police. This is a relatively peaceful and nonviolent way to initially deal with the demonstration. .

Speaking of the cops, I asked the University police (only a few were there) why they didn’t do anything. They said they couldn’t without orders from “above” (meaning the administration). I then grilled three “Deans on Call”, who are supposed to monitor the demonstration. I asked them what they were doing about the illegal bits of the demonstration. They said they could not do anything, not without “orders from above.” Again, that means the administration. Deans on Call are useless in these situations.

So far, then, we have an ambiguous email from the President and a harder-hitting one from the Dean of Students. Whether the University will really act to remove the encampment remains to be seen. After all, Columbia University was supposed to take down its encampment at 2 pm New York time yesterday. It is still there as of this evening. And I am not at all confident, based on previous episodes, that the illegally protesting students will be punished.

Stay tuned. Photos and video tomorrow. But this is incredibly time-consuming!

The “encampment” has begun at Chicago

April 29, 2024 • 10:34 am

A photo from a colleague. Note that most of the tents are similar, so they likely reflect purchase by one agent.

And this demonstration is clearly illegal.  Now is the true test of our administration. Do they have the spine to remove these protestors?

Blocking access to campus and buildings, chanting and disturbing classes, tresspassing (for non-students, and I suspect there are many), and camping illegally on the quad: these are violations. So far the deans on call are on the site but are doing nothing. I suspect the administration is sweating bullets, not knowing what to do and therefore doing nothing.

More photos from my colleague Peggy Mason. The signs are clearly blocking the sidewalk:

Two demonstrators:

A new Free Press film: “American miseducation”

January 31, 2024 • 12:00 pm

The Free Press has a new 20-minute film called “American miseducation”, centered on pro-Palestinian protests on American campuses.  Given the pro-Israeli stand of that site, the tenor of this film is not surprising: its thesis is that aggressive pro-Palestinian demonstrators are not just anti-Zionist, but largely antisemitic, and on some campuses are intimidating and even attacking Jewish students, who have no “safe space” of their own. (The attack on the Cooper Union library, shown in this film, is an example.)

The film is made by Olivia Reingold, a Free Press staff writer whose bona fides are these:

Olivia Reingold co-created and executive produced Matthew Yglesias’s podcast, “Bad Takes.” She got her start in public radio, regularly appearing on NPR for her reporting on indigenous communities in Montana. She previously produced podcasts at POLITICO, where she shaped conversations with world leaders like Jens Stoltenberg.

And this is her intro to the film:

That was one of 14 pro-Palestinian rallies I’ve attended since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7. Like the Rockefeller Christmas tree, the activists behind these events consider innocuous institutions to be their enemies: Memorial Sloan Kettering’s Cancer Center, the American Museum of Natural History, and the U.S. Holocaust Museum.

They insist that their aim is to liberate Palestinians, and that they are not antisemitic. But attend enough of these demonstrations and you’ll start to see the swastikas. Some people have looked me in the eyes and said that Israelis are the new Nazis, the prime minister of Israel is the new Hitler, and Palestinians are the new Jews. Out of the scores of people I’ve spoken to, only two demonstrators told me that Israel has a right to exist.

The word Jew is rarely uttered by these protesters. Instead, people hurl terms like Zionist, settler-colonialist, and occupier. They speak of academic theories like decolonization and intersectionality—concepts many told me they learned at elite institutions like Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania.

I decided to go to the source of these ideas: The American campus, where I spoke to scores of anti-Israel activists and dozens of Jewish college students across the country.

I asked: How did an ideology once restricted to the ivory tower come to inspire masses of Americans chanting on behalf of Hamas and Yemeni Houthis? How did Gen Z, the most educated generation in U.S. history, become sympathetic to terrorism? And, most fundamentally, how did our colleges come to abandon the pursuit of truth in pursuit of something far darker?

The result is The Free Press’s first-ever documentary, American Miseducation.

The questions she asks in her last paragraph aren’t really answered, although Critical Theory seems to be a good solution: the oppressor-narrative combined with some undercover anti-Semitism. But the movie poses its own questions.  Is there really a difference between antisemitism and anti-Zionism?  Should antisemitic or anti-Palestinian speech be deemed hate speech?  Who is being most targeted by campus demonstrations: the pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinian students? (I’ve seen both groups claim that they are being oppressed.)  My sympathies have been made clear on this site, but I’ll withhold them for now, for you should just watch this short movie.

After seeing this movie, Malgorzata told me glumly. “The good life for American Jews is coming to an end. . . . they are now more or less in the same situation that German Jews were in after Hitler came to power in 1933.  The antisemitism started slowly, but then grew over time until it became too late escape.”  As to what kind of anti-semitism will grow in America, she said, that cannot be predicted.

Pro-Palestinian protestors demonstrate illegally, cops do nothing; kids learn antisemitic slogans in Philadelphia

January 7, 2024 • 11:10 am

All over the Western world, aggressive pro-Palestinian protestors are breaking the law, blocking traffic and shouting slogans. Yes, this is a form of civil disobedience, but it differs from the classic civil disobedience of the civil rights movement of the Sixties—a movement that was actually effective—in three ways.  First, the pro-Palestinian protestors do not want to get arrested, and certainly don’t want to get hurt, but that was the explicit aim of Martin Luther King’s nonviolent protests. For it was the sight of peaceful protestors having police dogs attack them, getting bashed with billy clubs, and being drenched with fire hoses, that outraged the world and eventually bent the moral arc towards justice.

Second, the pro-Palestinian protestors break the law by deliberately inconveniencing people by blocking traffic—a tactic that won’t make anybody sympathetic towards them, either on the scene or watching their antics from afar. In contrast, the civil rights protestors marched peacefully alongside the road, sat in at lunch counters, or tried to get black people to vote—tactics that outraged racists but didn’t inconvenience anyone.  As far as I can see, these pro-Palestinian demonstrations are attempts to intimidate people by being loud, aggressive, and shouting threatening slogans (The well known “From the river to the sea. . . ” chant was always intended to call for the end of Israel and the expulsion and/or death of Jews. The “river to the sea” phrase is in fact in the original charter of Hamas.)

Third, in many of these pro-Palestinian demonstrations, the police stand by and allow the protestors to demonstrate illegally, often blocking traffic.  In one case, below, the cops even brought coffee to the protestors! (Granted, the movement paid for it, but, like employees of Uber Eats, the cops had to carry it from Tim Horton’s over a blocked bridge to the bawling keffiyeh-clad miscreants.)

Here’s one in Seattle (sound up). Cops do nothing.

Here they block the airport in Portland. (I don’t endorse the opening cartoon, which immediately segues into the video):

Below is the kicker: Toronto cops bring Tim Horton’s hot coffee (and it looks like donuts, too!) to the pro-Palestinian protestors.  The cops act are acting like Saint Bernard dogs and of course do nothing to break up an illegal demonstration.

Here’s an article from Canada’s conservative National Post about the reaction to the cops acting as waiters. Click to read:

An excerpt:

Facing mounting criticism for an alleged tolerance of a series of road-closing anti-Israel protests, Toronto police members have sparked renewed outrage thanks to a video showing them delivering coffee to said protestors.

Posted to social media platform ‘X’ at 2 p.m. on Saturday by Toronto lawyer and online commentator Caryma Sa’d, the video shows a Toronto police constable — his face concealed behind a black neck gaiter — delivering a cardboard urn of Tim Hortons coffee and a stack of cups — to anti-Israel protestors occupying the closed Avenue Road bridge over Highway 401.

The bridge, located within Toronto’s largest Jewish area, was the site of numerous demonstrations by anti-Israel activists.

That prompted Toronto police to close the bridge during the protests, prompting criticism of police kowtowing to protestors over enforcing the law.

Toronto police tweeted at 1:16 p.m. on Saturday that the bridge would against be closed, and that officers would be on scene to “keep demonstrators and passing traffic safe.”

When questioned by Sa’d’s videographer, the protestor who received the coffee said that somebody had bought the coffee for them, but were unable to bring it to the bridge protestors as police were restricting access.

“The police are becoming our little messengers,” said the grinning man wearing black jacket and keffiyeh.

. . .The National Post reached out to Toronto police for comment, but spokesperson Const. Laurie McCann told the Toronto Sun that officers at the scene of the protest were “managing a dynamic situation,” and insisted that the gesture wasn’t a sign of support.

“Their top priority is maintaining order in a tense environment on the Avenue Road bridge,” she said. “In performing a helpful act today, our officer’s motivation was to help keep tensions low and should not be interpreted as showing support for any cause or group.”

Sorry, but that doesn’t wash. The cops should be enforcing the law, and someone must have given them orders not to. Such is Justin Trudeau’s new Woke Canada. One more excerpt and a tweet:

Liberal MP Marco Mendicino — whose Eglinton-Lawrence riding is home to these ongoing anti-Israel protests — urged police to start enforcing the law.

“Good intentions aside, police serving coffee and food to protestors will just embolden more deliberate obstruction of traffic, undermine public safety, and add to local frustrations,” he posted on X.

“Laws exist to prevent this. They need to be enforced!”

Right on, Mendocino!

I asked a Canadian friend about this situation, and here’s the reply:

I tend to agree with the politicians that say the cops need to enforce the law. I compare this to protests in British Columbia by people stopping clear-cutting of old growth forest. There, the federal cops (the Mounties) violently arrested people, sprayed them right in the face with pepper spray when they were being peaceful, dumped out their water so they had nothing to drink. It goes on. I have seen some of this happen with indigenous protests but that is because there is a history where indigenous people have been killed unjustifiably and the cops are now extra careful. This, I think, is a bit much and I’m frankly tired of all the coddling of these protestors. My Jewish friends in Toronto are pretty sick of it and feel unsafe.

Oh, but it’s fine when those who feel unsafe are merely Jews! Note that the Mounties actually took drinks away from the protestors. 

Below is a recent protest in London in which the protestors are pro-Houthi, which is worse than being pro-Palestinian, as the Houthis are a purely terrorist group now trying to block all ship traffic (and not just Israeli or American ships) in the Red Sea.  Yes, they’re anti-Semitic, but who cares about a bunch of Jews?

I don’t know if this demonstration is illegal, or whether, if so, the cops tried to stop it. They’re not doing that here, at any rate. “Yemen, Yemen make us proud; how many ships have you turned around?” Oy gewalt!

And this is a clearly illegal demonstration in my own town, with pro-Palestinian protestors blocking Lake Shore Drive, close to where I live. The cops did nothing. What’s worse, this happened after some prominent Illinois Democrats for whom I voted, like Senator Dick Durbin, helped raise funds for CAIR (the Council on American-Islamic relations), an Islamist organization that was designated as a terrorist group by the UAE.

From Wikipedia:

The White House disavowed CAIR on December 7, 2023, after the director Nihad Awad said in a speech “The people of Gaza only decided to break the siege, the walls of the concentration camp, on Oct. 7,” he said. “And yes, I was happy to see people breaking the siege…” he continued “And yes, the people of Gaza have the right to self-defense, have the right to defend themselves, and yes, Israel as an occupying power does not have that right to self-defense,” referring to the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel.

And this is the worst one, though not a protest. It is a video of Muslim children in Philadelphia being indoctrinated in martyrdom (Jew killing) and Jew hatred, just like their young counterparts in Palestine. (MEMRI is a very reliable source.) Sound up, though there are English subtitles.

What chance do these kids have? They’ve already been propagandized to hate and approve of killing.

h/t Orli

Students sympathizing with Palestine demonstrate on campus, block access to administration building

November 3, 2023 • 10:45 am

I don’t believe an incident like this has occurred since the Vietnam war, but within the last two hours students and other sympathizers with Palestine (and those who hate Israel) demonstrated in front of the administration building on campus (Levi Hall), blocking access to the building. I was told that those in the building couldn’t get out, and those wishing to enter couldn’t get in.

I was also told that this was a violation of university regulations in several ways: demonstrating without a permit, disrupting campus activities with loud noise, blocking access to University offices, and constituting a fire hazard.  Also, the University police told me that several demonstrators actually entered the building, which is also a violation if you don’t have business there. And while it would be free speech if it were a more quiet and a permitted demonstration, and didn’t block entry to buildings, it should have been broken up by the University. The police told me that couldn’t do anything as they were “waiting for orders from above” (i.e., the administration).  I have no idea what the administration did, if anything.

The demonstration lasted well over an hour, and then, at about 10 a.m., the students who blocked the building entry scuttled away very quickly. I don’t know if someone in the administration spoke to them, or there was a time constraint on the demonstration.

For the last such demonstration I recall (I wasn’t here), look on this page under “1960s protests and sit ins“.

Here are some photos and a video I took. Click photos to enlarge them.

Students and their supporters blocking access to the administration building. The masks they’re all wearing may be to avoid identification, as I think they could be suspended or punished for what they’re doing:

A group of students holding signs. There were many, and of course no openly pro-Israel student dared show up:

One of the students (I’m not sure, of course, if these are all students) shouting slogans through a microphone. Several students took over the mike, and the slogans included the “From the river to the sea” chant calling for Israel’s elimination, as well as a call for the University to disinvest from Israel (we have an ideologically-neutral investment policy), and other calls, most of them strongly anti-Israeli. It was very loud, as the demonstrators chanted in a call-and-response with the person holding the microphone. There was also one chanter with a megaphone.

A short video of the demonstration:

 

MIT President and Provost respond (lamely) to Abbotgate, say free speech at their school is alive and well, and apologize to students rather than Abbot

October 19, 2021 • 9:15 am

Here we see two college administrators trying to pretend that they were not committing an act of speech suppression when they disinvited a speaker, Dorian Abbot, who had made ideologically incorrect statements before he was invited to speak.

An anonymous comment gave me the link to the public statement below by MIT’s President L. Rafael Reif. Reif was apparently badly burned and defensive after his University disinvited University of Chicago Professor Dorian Abbot from giving the prestigious Carlson Lecture, with his topic being global warming. The disinvitation had nothing to do with Abbot’s talk itself; it came after people on social-media besieged MIT upon finding out that Abbot had made videos and written articles questioning diversity, equity, and inclusion principles (DEI). When it go into the mainstream press, MIT decided it had to respond. You can see Abbot’s account of the fracas here.

See the President’s “explanation” by clicking on the screenshot below, but his letter also links to a related “explanation” by MIT’s Provost, which you can see by clicking on the second screenshot:

The related response from Provost Martin A. Schmidt. My guess is that MIT found it necessary to issue both statements because the disinvitation of Abbot violated the University’s own principles of free speech, got national publicity, including the piece on Bari Weiss’s site but, importantly, in an op-ed in the New York Times by Bret Stephens calling out MIT. (“EAPS” is MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary sciences.)

What is amusing about these “explanations” is their attempt to claim that MIT still retains its principles of free speech. After all, after Abbot’s big and prestigious public lecture was canceled. Instead, the department invited him to give a smaller lecture to the EAPS department: a smaller technical lecture that doesn’t involve the public and is much less prestigious.

What’s equally amusing (actually sad), is that both the President and Provost spend a lot of time apologizing to the MIT students for being on the receiving end of “online targeting and hate mail from outside MIT”, none of which is specified. It’s certain that some MIT students got flak for Abbot’s disinvitation, but most of it must have been directed at the President and the chair of EAPS.  If you read both letters, you will find no apology to Abbot himself, but will see plenty of apologies to MIT students and faculty who supposedly got criticized on social media. It is they, not Abbot, claim the administrators, who have been grievously injured. That’s ludicrous. Their explanation is actually an apology to people at MIT who suffered because of the University’s disinvitation.

I’ll give a few quotes from both letters.

President Reif:

First, an apology to the MIT community—not because the school acted badly, but for the “harm” the students suffered:

The controversy around this situation has caused great distress for many members of our community, in many quarters. It has also uncovered significant differences within the Institute on several issues.

I would like to reflect on what happened and set us on a path forward. But let me address the human questions first.

To the members of the EAPS community: I am deeply disturbed that as a direct result of this situation, many of you – students, postdocs, faculty and young alumni – have suffered a tide of online targeting and hate mail from outside MIT. This conduct is reprehensible and utterly unacceptable. For members of the MIT community, where we value treating one another with decency and respect, this feels especially jarring.

I encourage anyone who is subjected to harassing or threatening behavior or language to reach out for support and guidance to the Institute Discrimination and Harassment Response (IDHR) office.. . 

Then a lame and unconvincing defense of free speech at MIT:

Let me say clearly what I have observed through more than 40 years at MIT:

Freedom of expression is a fundamental value of the Institute.

I believe that, as an institution of higher learning, we must ensure that different points of view – even views that some or all of us may reject – are allowed to be heard and debated at MIT. Open dialogue is how we make each other wiser and smarter.

This commitment to free expression can carry a human cost. The speech of those we strongly disagree with can anger us. It can disgust us. It can even make members of our own community feel unwelcome and illegitimate on our campus or in their field of study.

I am convinced that, as an institution, we must be prepared to endure such painful outcomes as the price of protecting free expression – the principle is that important.

If they’re prepared to allow free speech that can make members of their own community feel “unwelcome and illegitimate”, why did they cancel Abbot’s public talk? After all, he wasn’t going to say anything that made students feel that way: he was going to talk about global warming! What upset the students was Abbot’s writing and videos on DEI before he was supposed to arrive at MIT. 

Then the caveat, “free speech. . .  but”.  What the following means, as clarified below, is the admission that free speech can offend people, and it’s up to MIT’s administration to soothe the offended:

I am convinced that, as an institution, we must be prepared to endure such painful outcomes as the price of protecting free expression – the principle is that important.

I am equally certain, however, that when members of our community must bear the cost of other people’s free expression, they deserve our understanding and support. We need to ensure that they, too, have the opportunity to express their own views.

They already do, President Reif! They have social media access, a student newspaper, and can give their own talks. No, as you see below the President is calling for more “dialogue” in the wake of this incident, but you can bet your sweet bippy that this will be scripted dialogue that attacks Abbot’s views on DEI. For Abbot’s views are taboo, so I suspect MIT plans a one-sided discussion—in other words, an indoctrination session. Or so I predict, for students on Abbot’s side will be too cowed to express their views.

The “open discussion”:

 I believe it is vital now that we engage in serious, open discussion together.

As the provost’s letter described, we will begin with a faculty forum, being planned for the last week of October. Discussion in this working session might address questions like these: Given our shared commitment to open inquiry and free expression, are there further steps we should take to practice it consistently? Should we develop guidelines to help groups in their own decision making? Does the concept need more prominence in our curriculum? How should we respond when members of our community bear the disproportionate cost of other people’s speech?

It will be essential in this overall process to include the perspective and experience of graduate and undergraduate students; I have asked Chancellor Melissa Nobles to work with student leaders to decide the best way to do so.

I have also asked Provost Marty Schmidt, Chancellor Nobles and Chair of the Faculty Lily Tsai to begin immediately assembling a special ad hoc working group to consider the insights and lessons we should take away from this situation. I believe this extremely important topic deserves and will benefit from this kind of thoughtful, deliberative, nuanced approach, perhaps including experts from outside MIT. The themes that emerge from the initial faculty forum will help inform the working group’s charge.

You know, about seven or eight years ago I would have believed this palaver. But now, turned cynical by history and campus culture,  I’m pretty sure that the forum will concentrate on the question, “How should we respond when members of our community bear the disproportionate cost of other people’s speech?”  And what does it even mean to claim that MIT suffered a “disproportionate cost of other people’s speech”? Whose speech are they talking about—Abbot’s or those who targeted MIT? I doubt that they’ll even discuss how to make speech at MIT more free.

Finally, a few words from Provost Schmidt:

Schmidt explains in more detail why Abbot was disinvited. I’ve put in bold the most important part:

The Carlson Lecture is not a standard scientific talk for fellow scientists. It is an outreach event, open to the public, with a speaker who is an outstanding scientist and role model. Typically held at a major venue away from campus, it is geared to build public understanding of and appreciation for climate science, and to inspire young people to consider careers in STEM. Each year students from local high schools are invited.

The speaker invited in early 2020 was Professor Abbot, an expert in mathematical and computational approaches to planetary sciences.

While all of us can agree that Professor Abbot has the freedom to speak as he chooses on any subject, the department leadership concluded that the debate over both his views on diversity, equity, and inclusion and manner of presenting them were overshadowing the purpose and spirit of the Carlson Lecture. Professor van der Hilst, after broadly consulting his community, decided the public lecture should not go forward and that instead the department should invite Professor Abbot to give a campus lecture where he can present his climate work directly to MIT faculty and students.

In a phone call with Professor Abbot last Thursday, Professor van der Hilst conveyed both the decision about the Carlson Lecture and the new invitation. Professor Abbot welcomed the offer to speak, and the department is in ongoing conversation with him to set a date.

It’s important to emphasize that both the department and the Institute respect and support Professor Abbot’s freedom to express his views, as well as the freedom of those who disagree to do the same.

To translate: “Professor Abbot has the freedom to speak about whatever he wants, but his views on DEI expressed elsewhere might cause trouble like shouting and disruption at the Carlson Lecture. So, rather than deal with that, which is our responsibility to prevent, we prefer to let Abbot give a smaller and less prestigious lecture where the possibility of bad publicity is minimized.”  And make no mistake about it, Abbot is not happy at the alternative offered him. He is gracious about it, but he’s plenty upset at being disinvited for the Carlson lecture. As he should be! (Read Abbot’s piece on Bari Weiss’s site.)

The last sentence in the quote above is, of course, a lie. Abbot will not even be talking about what he was going to discuss in his Carlson lecture (global warming and other worlds); rather, he’ll be giving a narrower technical talk. This means that he’s effectively been told what to talk about.

Provost Schmidt’s final statement echoes that of the President, apologizing to MIT’s faculty and students rather than Abbot. Get a load of this:

Finally, this situation has been very hard on everyone involved, especially faculty, researchers, students and young alumni of EAPS, many of whom have been subjected to online targeting and hate mail. As a community built on foundational principles of respect and openness, we are horrified by this mistreatment and reject it in the strongest possible terms.

Again we get the trope of online targeting without any examples. “Targeting” (whatever that means) and “hate mail” (whatever that means) are, of course, not reasoned discourse, and may be illegal, but MIT has to realize that to the extent that these issues arose because of MIT’s cancelation policy, they initiated it.

It’s time that MIT learn what freedom of speech really means. In this case, it means not disinviting someone who’s already been invited—especially because it’s certain that the invitee wasn’t going to talk about the DEI stuff that riled people up in advance. It is MIT’s responsibility to monitor such talks so they are not disruptive.