December 10, 2023

Watching Congresswoman Elise Stefanik’s questioning of the presidents of MIT, Harvard, and the University of Pennsylvania may have been eye-opening for many, but for those of us who have been paying attention, it wasn’t. Their answers were dumb and once the full extent of their discriminatory policies are exposed in private litigation and Title VI federal and congressional investigations, it will be clear why they answered as they did, hoping to avoid the scrutiny they deserve. Even dumber are the students being taught at these and most of our colleges and universities. Dumbest are the boards which have for the past decades ignored the policies which have led to this, a clear violation of their fiduciary responsibilities to these institutions which have been rotted out under their watch.

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Dumb

Stefanik asked Claudine Gay (Harvard), Elizabeth Magill (University of Pennsylvania) and Sally Kornbluth (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) whether “From the river to the sea” is genocidal, and they all agreed it is. She then asked whether calling for the genocide of Jews violate their schools’ code of conduct. With smirks Gay said, “It can be, depending on the context,” Magill replied “It is a context-dependent decision, Congresswoman.” Kornbluth indicated it would, “If targeting individuals, not making public statements.” Since then, Gay and Magill have submitted “clarifying” statements. Both Gay and Magill’s schools rank at the very bottom of FIRE’s free speech ranking of 248 universities. Nevertheless, either because of confusion or attempted distraction, the presidents of three of the leading universities in the country muddied the water between free speech and their obligations to provide a safe space for students and scholars. 

David Burge provides more clarity on the subject:  

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Fun facts: (A) calling for genocide against Jews, if not delivered to incite a mob to violence, is 100% Constitutionally protected speech — only in the sense it can’t be punished by government. (B) You are not the government; you are a cowardly college administrator and in no way does the 1st Amendment force you to accept brain dead neo-Nazis in your student body.  

I’m no Constitutional legal scholar, but I believe “incitement” has a high threshold, to wit: Online celebration of Oct 7, Holocaust denial, “Hitler was right”, repeating dopey anti-Jew conspiracy theories, “Globalize the Intifada”: shitty opinions but not incitement. Standing in the middle of an angry nighttime student mob outside the campus Hillel House and yelling “let’s give those Jews what they deserve” into a bullhorn: this is incitement.

This is by design, otherwise you would have to accept the “stochastic violence” narrative in which misgendering someone, by some convoluted logic, would theoretically result in violence against trans people. [quote]

In his usual terse way, he highlights the problem their testimony opens up: A long history of discriminatory policies that puts their hypocritical defense to shame. There are countless examples, but here are a few:

MIT: “Jewish students are blocked from attending classes, and fearful of setting foot on campus. Jewish employees fear bringing their children to MIT Daycare. The law-breaking and rule-defying is explicitly intended as a challenge [to] the presence of Jews at MIT… MIT openly acknowledged it failed to take action against those harassing Jewish students because it feared it would cause them to lose their student visa status. (The extra money it gets from full tuitions by foreign students is not an inconsiderable factor in their admission and in rising campus antisemitism.)

Harvard: The school would most certainly never tolerate a Ku Klux Klan club that advocated lynching blacks but it refused to condemn student groups that blamed the atrocities of October 7 “entirely on Israel,” and allowed open harassment of Jewish students.