University Presidents Face Backlash for Unclear Stance on Antisemitism
Last week, a hearing of the U.S. House of Representatives saw the presidents of Harvard, M.I.T., and the University of Pennsylvania under fire for their stance on the prevalence of antisemitism on their campuses. The key moment occurred when Representative Elise Stefanik asked whether “calling for the genocide of Jews” would violate school policies. The responses given by the presidents seemed to be unlikely for the public, as they gave lawyerly versions of “it depends” or “context matters.”
Their response garnered outrage, forcing the president of Penn, Elizabeth Magill, to resign on Saturday. Genocide is unacceptable, so should the context matter in this kind of situation? This raised a bar of concern for the public. The former litigation and the legal career of the writer made them consider that the presidents’ answers were not wrong legally, but that their hypocrisy created a campus crisis. The universities possess enormous freedom to fashion their own custom speech policies as private institutions, but they must protect students against discriminatory harassment.
Issues have emerged from public universities when speech becomes targeted harassment that bars a victim’s access to education. It indicated that there is a mixture of protected antisemitic speech and prohibited harassment on campus, emphasizing the importance of context in free speech cases. In reaction, the network of speech codes, bias response teams, and other campus policies have been viewed as hypocritical when looking at the universities’ stance on free expression.
Some solutions the writer recommended include:
1. Enacting clear free speech policies.
2. Adopting a posture of “institutional neutrality” on public controversy.
3. Dissipating cultural change.
4. Disempowering a diversity, equity, and inclusion apparatus that can be an engine of censorship and extreme political bias.
The writer emphasizes that facing hatred with courageous speech is far better than confronting hatred with censorship. Protecting students from harassment is essential, and the Department of Education is opening numerous Title VI investigations in response to reports of harassment on campus. But they ultimately assert that it is crucial for students to engage with challenging ideas.
The conclusion: the answer to campus hypocrisy isn’t more censorship. It’s true freedom. Without that liberty, the hypocrisy is predicted to persist for decades more.