And that is what Stefanik asked Magill to judge: “Calling for the genocide of Jews,” Ms. Stefanik asked, “does that constitute bullying or harassment?”
It was Stefanik who interpreted ‘intifada’ as calling for genocide so as she framed it, it was not a trick question.
Pete
Other than the now-ubiquitous “river to the sea” chant, I don’t know - because I don’t know what specific examples of speech Stefanik was planning to cite. And supporting intifada alone is a really tough call - I wouldn’t ban that speech, but I also wouldn’t take some of the actions that universities take (or allow students to take) in response to speech that makes their students express feeling threatened, either.
A complicated question, but a different one than what I think was being asked. Under current campus speech codes, I believe a person who was openly demonstrating in favor of apartheid would be subject to discipline as violating conduct codes at private colleges like Harvard or Penn, based on the effect those statements would have on other students. That’s the contrast Stefanik was going for, IMHO - the effect-based review vs. the intent-based review. That’s why it was a surprise that they went the other way, and intimated that there might be a context where they would permit a group to demonstrate in favor of genocide.
The immediate response to Stefanik by the UPenn Prez was “If it is directed and severe, pervasive, it is harassment.”
She answered the question from Stefanik’s POV. The mistake was being overly intelligent and trying to look at the broader issue. For example, if a group of friends are meeting and someone blurts out a Bud Lite-induced call for the “genocide of (fill in the blank)” that is overheard by a passerby and reported, is that grounds for punishment? There was no intent of harassment or intimidation.
Students often say stupid things that they don’t really mean and regret later.
Shouldn’t the response of the university be “context-dependent”?
That is perhaps the crux of ALL of these debates. The vocabulary around these issues is not equally understood in a consistent context by all of the parties involved. Attempting to answer someone else’s question that is loaded with inconsistent implications among listeners of the question and forthcoming answer is nearly a pointless exercise if you actually intend on enlightening the conversation.
That is what is so frustrating about the university leaders’ appearances. As someone pointed out in another forum, it turns out all three of these leaders were coached, probably for HOURS, by the same elite law firm prior to this appearance on how to navigate the rhetorical mine field before them. Yet none had the sense to deconstruct these loaded questions and answer them one clause at a time to both convey to listeners how the question itself was purposely adding confusion to the debate and also educate everyone on the priority of responsibilities and freedoms we ALL have to each other in our actions and speech.
All three of these universities have faced issues over the last few months regarding complaints about selected enforcement of “free speech” that pointed out how fraught their attempts were at claiming to support free speech while also claiming to support an environment free of “trigger words” whose interpretations had no uniformity across the campus much less the world. They should have seen this question coming from the moment they were asked to appear.
WTH
By vetoing a UN call for a Ceasefire, the US expressly indicated they want the war to continue.
I guess we don’t stand for peace anymore (if we ever did).
Negotiations of a peace agreement can only occur during a ceasefire.
We are fully complicit with Israeli tactics - and there is no rational plan for an exit.
Israel has a reputation for being able to selectively ‘remove’ bad actors individually, but apparently choose not to do so with Hamas leadership.
Surely the money support for Hama is not coming from within Gaza.
It shouldn’t be hard to win a war where the other side has no army, no navy, no air force, no tanks, no nuclear weapons etc.
Wrong. The proper request for a Ceasefire should have demanded Hamas stop attacking Israel. Like THAT will ever happen…
Wrong, that’s part of the negotiation for a peace agreement.
A ceasefire is just that - everyone stops shooting while negotiations occur.
Sure. But a ceasefire can only happen when both parties are in a position where peace negotiations could possibly result in an agreement they could live with. Israel’s position right now is that they cannot accept Hamas remaining as a viable organization that exercises any governance over Gaza or retains the capacity to launch material terror operations against Israel. Hamas will not agree to give those things up. There’s no way that a ceasefire could achieve a peace agreement, and it would eventually be violated by one or both of the parties.
The entire history of asymmetric warfare disagrees with you.
Which is why Israel does not like, but has to deal with, the Palestinian civilian death toll. The US voting population became disenchanted with the Vietnam Was as a result–and the politicians stopped it.
That’s not the way I remember it. The US population got tired of seeing their boys come home in boxes without any clear definition of when the war would end.
Or, maybe, when the college deferment ended in the fall of 71, and the middle class faced the possibility of It’s spawn coming home in a box, vs the spawn of the poor?
Steve
I think there is something much more blunt in the discussion on campuses. Arab students feel very free at times to call for an end to Israel. That is a norm for them. It means a great deal of death and destruction to call for the end of Israel.
Whether Jewish students feel threatened or not is not central.
The call for mass slaughter to get your way is not acceptable on a college campus. That is not education. It is not just a sensitivity thing.
I am skipping some of the other words like genocide. That is more formal.
The issue is calling for murder. Not of necessarily anyone in the US.
If I use the word “murder” on Facebook about Putin’s oligarchs rising up my post will be stripped automatically by Facebook.
Why would calling for murder be batted around as okay on a college campus?
War is a different question. But tempers run hot. The wording breaks down because the folks avoiding a two-state solution are the Arabs. Netanyahu first recognizes it won’t happen and then says rhetorically we will do without the two-state solution. That is his path and he is tough.
Again Hamas can stop surrendering and negotiate and Netanyahu can not refuse if Hamas insists on peace. The evidence of peace has to be free fair open elections routinely in Gaza.
BTW I am asking literally nothing of the Palestinians.
Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima accidents were caused by Jews?
Russian invasion of Ukraine was caused by Jews?
The First World War was caused by Jews?
The Viking raids down the rivers of Eastern Europe were caused by Jews?
The destruction of the Roman Empire was caused by Jews?
The rise and fall of Napoleon was caused by Jews?
The collapse of Czarist Russia was caused by Jews?
The collapse of Soviet Union was caused by Jews?
The Crusades were caused by the Jews?
I believe that Jews are a very minor player in Western World History.
As the literalism of the New and Old Testament began to falter the differences in experience became a flashpoint between concrete thought and relativism. Not all Jews but many became a necessary vessel in the modern world. The first to stretch or bridge between the old and new as the chains of kings and church were broken.
You can not have the history of a modern Western world without Judaism.
The first group in the New World to capture this eloquently were the Unitarians. In numbers big enough to take Harvard and Yale away from being theological schools but too small to take up the weight of a much larger US population after WW II as the New Deal and Great Society rewrote the power of the US. We are the first great power not conquering lands to colonize them. It is a different day in human evolution.
If that were a rationale for warding off Hamas it would add up as necessary. It would not add up to conquering or colonizing. Just as taking the needed steps for human beings away from a literalism of good and evil as religious texts portray. That does not excuse any of the violence but there is the need unfortunately to defend the republic.
While that might have been Stefanik’s intent, it does not seem to be what the trap actually turned out to be. The college presidents are not being criticized for inconsistency in their free speech policy. They are being condemned specifically for anti-Semitism. It all stems from whether “intifada” means “calling for the genocide of the Jews”, rather than a comparison with the treatment of anti-LGBTQ speech.
They did see it coming. Problem is that there is no good answer. The boundaries of what constitutes protected free speech is always messy, inconsistent, and controversial. The UPenn president gave a completely accurate answer, what speech should be protected and what should be regulated is context dependent. Circumstances matter. Definitions matter. The audience matters. The intent matters. That’s why the New York Times has a legal department.
The mistake made was that the answer was too direct and concise. This was the time to be academic. This was the time to give an answer that compared Kierkegaard with Noam Chomski, analyzed the impact of post-modernism on linguistic meaning, while ending with a history of the term intifada. Obfuscate and overwhelm with big words.
Folks like Stefanik want their intended victims to give easy to understand sound bites that they can then take out of context.
You’re giving them too much credit. The intifada argument was what was going to follow their answer that “of course calling for genocide is against campus conduct codes.” But they never got there, because they got the previous question wrong, and said that whether calling for genocide violated campus codes was context-dependent.
But it is context dependent. We all agree that anyone seriously calling for the genocide of any group is unacceptable. It is hate speech. But there are such things as comedy (even if in bad taste), satire, and alcohol-induced stupidity. The movie “The Producers” included the musical “Springtime for Hi*tler”. Only the humor-impaired would consider it anti-Semitic. Context is critical.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but that’s too lawyerly. Or rather, the lawyerliness is being applied at the wrong place. Someone who pens a call for genocide as part of a satire isn’t themselves calling for genocide. Jonathan Swift wasn’t calling for people to eat babies. A satire that skewers calls for genocide isn’t calling for genocide.
The correct answer is that calls for genocide do violate campus codes of conduct. Whether something is actually a call for genocide (satire vs. sincere), or what the consequence should be (private conversation or public demonstration) can be context-dependent. But not the question of whether a call for genocide is itself a violation. Which is why the Presidents got into so much trouble with some of their stakeholders.
The high school I went to, 50+ years ago, had an annual musical production, featuring student acts, and a big production number from the school’s orchestra and dancers.
This is the yearbook pic of the set for their big production number in early 69.
Anyone ever hear of some rabble-rouser long-haired hippie by the name of Jesus Christ?
I didn’t think so.
