When the Censorship Industrial Complex Refused to Play By Its Own Rules
It has been a few weeks since the heads of US Universities at Harvard, M.I.T. and Penn evaded questions about whether it violated their university’s code of conduct if someone called for the genocide of Jews. Their answers to the question - polemically posed it should be granted - was incoherent, hesistant, and bizarrely evasive. No surprises that one of them, Dr. Elizabeth Magill, immediately made a video apologizing for her inability to condemn Jewish genocide. In her case it was not enough, she soon resigned, falling on her sword either on principle or due to pressure.
Calling for the genocide of any group should illicit a gut reflex of revulsion and condemnation. But the three university administrators stumbled, as if they knew they should condemn someone calling for the genocide of Jews, but somehow could not bring themselves to actually say it.
Think about it. If someone had called for the genocide of blacks, Latinos, queers, Muslims, or the disabled, there would be an instinctive condemnation - and rightly so! So why the hesitancy to condemn someone calling for the genocide of Jews, especially in an age where we remain all too aware of the chilling history of the Holocaust?
I think the answer is two-fold.
First, progressive political culture has brought into a moral hierarchy of identities.
Every debate and issue, no matter how morally complex, no matter how historically complicated, comes down to dividing everybody into the categories of either (a) the oppressor or (b) the oppressed. In this case, the Israelis, and all “Jews” for that matter, are oppressors when juxtaposed with the Palestinians. No question of history, context, nuance, or balance, just “Jews bad, Palestinians good,” ergo, Hamas good.
“I think the university should commit itself to free speech. But there’s another question, and this involves a much longer-term and more systemic problem. Why are universities so surprisingly congenial to Hamas in the first place?
- Steven Pinker
Consider too a recent study - though it has been criticized - where people were asked if Jews are oppressors and should be treated as such. Most people said “No!” However, for those in the 18-24 age bracket, 67% said “Yes.” How messed up is that?
Some things, whether it is ethics or geo-politics, cannot be reduced to the multiple-choice option of oppressor or oppressed. Sometimes we need essays that wrestle with complexities and moral dilemmas.
NB: Just to be clear, while I abhor Hamas, and believe in Israel’s right to self-defense, my sympathies are generally with the Palestinian cause for a free homeland.
Second, championing freedom of speech, but only when it suits you.
I think what many people found difficult to swallow was not just the blasé attitude towards anti-semitism, it was the naked hypocrisy, the double standard on free speech. These universities have created an bureacratic industry built on safetyism, censorship, canceling speakers, speech codes and language policing, DEI and its fanatical enforcement … except when it applied to themselves.
Harvard President Claudine Gay declared in her remarks to the congress, “I have sought to confront hate while preserving free expression.... The free exchange of ideas is the foundation upon which Harvard is built.” Yet, a mere two days after Gay uttered these words the Harvard adminstration canceled a student event featuring two Democratic lawmakers—one of whom had been critical of Gay’s testimony. How does anyone take a University seriously when they engage in censorship of certain views (e.g., gender critical feminists), champion free speech to defend anti-Semitism, and then ban critics of the University President from a speaking event?
As Sohrab Ahmari puts it:
It would be one thing if Gay’s commitment to free speech were the real deal. As it is, anyone with a sense of institutional memory knows that Gay doesn’t believe a word she said in Washington. Heck, you don’t even need institutional memory: Just behold her institution’s conduct with respect to a member of Congress who dared criticize her.
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