We come from two sides of the political spectrum, write Christopher F. Rufo and Jenin Younes. But both of us agree that the Antisemitism Awareness Act is profoundly misguided.
I think Rufo was just trying to express thanks in a language even a Columbia or Yale freshman might understand( provided they have not already been indoctrinated to believe that saying thank you is a racist and oppressive concept). Thanks for all you do Chris.
It's a respectful thank you often done in SEAsia. In Laotian it's a nop, in Thai it's a wai. Often people simply smile a thank you, or to be even more respectful and to show deeper appreciation they wai.
This law is an expansion of the DEI victim ideology and DEI must go. There are plenty of laws on the books to handle the unlawful , violent behaviors we have been witnessing.The WOKE culture is tolerant and even encouraging of the Jews hatred. This can’t be fixed with legislation . The hatred is the problem, and just as in Gaza there will be a need for an educational upheaval to stop inculcating hate towards Jews, the same thing must happen here. How do we as Americans dismantle DEI / Marxist academic structures that is now entrenched in every level of education and bureaucracy? That is our challenge but laws that do nothing practical, yet at the same time give legitimacy to the victim pyramid, only furthers DEI core beliefs. Are there enough Americans of all persuasions who will come together to uphold real American, not Marxist values?
DEI WOKE is corrosive and is destroying the very fabric of our society.
The hatred is not the root of the problem, though it is a very bad problem. The root of the hatred is the notion that the world is comprised of the oppressors and the oppressed. This is the root of the hatred. As for teaching the children of Gaza not to hate Jews, that's going to be pretty hard with the ongoing bombings and destruction. I visited the West Bank in 2007, and I'm half Jewish, not that the soldiers at the checkpoints knew or cared, and the treatment of the regular people (Palestinians) by the soldiers alone at the checkpoints - during a relatively peaceful time - tended to increase anti-Jewish sentiment. "Educating" people to have beliefs that differ from what they see on the ground is doable - how many US women think that sexual harassment by men in the workplace is a worse problem than woman-on-woman bullying in the workplace, even though the former is more rare than the latter - but when the experienced reality is so completely at odds with what you are being taught, it doesn't go over well. After all the "reeducation" I've been subjected to, for example, I still don't believe that women can have penises of their own.
We will have to disagree. Jew hatred has been around for millennia, long before the 1948 and the reestablishment of Jewish sovereignty in the land of Israel. The current conflict gives cover for all resurgence and unmasking of the rabid antisemitism in the US, Canada, Europe Australia.
I do agree with you that sex is binary, male - female.m
Jew hatred was indeed around for millennia, but mostly in Europe. When the Catholics took over Spain, they kicked out the Moors and the Jews, for example, but until Zionism became a successful political movement, Jewish communities thrived, relatively speaking, in the Middle East. That's partly why there are usually so many Jews at the anti-Israel demonstrations - some people think that Zionism brought anti-semitism to the Arab world. I watched Arabs in the early 2000s discover The Elders of the Protocols of Zion, and get into it. Lots of Jews have less than enthusiastic views on Israel, for religious reasons as well as the "poisoning the well" reason.
Yeeeaaahhh...not so much. While it is true that there weren't periodic massacres of Jews by their neighbors as frequently as in Europe, life was no bed of roses for Jews in the North African or Middle Eastern diaspora. Jew hatred is baked into the Koran, so let's not pretend the Muslims ever loved their Jewish neighbors. There were pogroms in those places as recently as the 1941 Farhud in Baghdad and the 1945 riots in Tripolitania. Further there was, due to Jews being considered dhimmi under Islam, the equivalent (better or worse depending on a variety of factors which varied over time) of living under Jim Crow for several hundred years. (If you are not American, I apologize for the possibly unfamiliar refence, but you can easily look it up.)
It’s a shame that you chose to indulge in revisionist history.
Zionism as a political movement was a response to the intermittent but brutal pogroms that Jewish people were subjected to in Eastern Europe. Zionism however has always been an integral part of Jewish life for millennia.
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is unadulterated anti Jew propaganda, concocted in Russia in the early 1900s , translated into many languages and widely distributed. Copies of it along with Mein Kampf are required reading throughout the Islamic world and other Jew hating people.
If you are interested in serious academic history read Benny Morris.
Clearly you have no idea what you’re talking about, even if you are “half Jewish.” Arab and Islamic violence and discrimination against Jews long predates Israel, and many of those past massacres read a lot like Oct. 7. There’s the 1941 Farhud in Baghdad, the 1934 Constantine pogrom, the 1929 Hebron massacre, the 1834 plunder of Safed, even the 1066 Granada massacre. This is just off the top of my head and I could go on. Stop trying to erase Jewish history in an effort to make a clearly political point.
While I probably agree with the sentiment here, I do find it profoundly confusing and upsetting that Jews came to America as barely breathing refugees in many cases, (and Europe before that)and played by the rules: study hard, get an education, live the dream, take care of your family. Yet everywhere we turn, we’re told we cheated—by righties (cabal),and that we don’t count—by lefties (we look like ‘the man’). Hey America, here’s a thought: you want to help other minorities and poor whites get a piece of the pie? Do what many Jews do (probably because of their traditions based in the book (s): study hard, get a job, positively worry about your children, and become part of a community bigger than yourself. There, I fixed it for you.
It is the same thing we have seen with Asian and Indian immigrants, who frequently observe the same work ethic, resulting in their children’s achievement. If there is any good coming out of what is happening now, hopefully it will be a greater recognition of the injustice that has been done to those deemed to be part of the “oppressor” class.
This is a bit disingenuous. Gazans, especially Hamas, do not want a "tight to self-determination" within Gaza, or a 2-state solution. They want control of the land "from the river to the sea." They're demanding Israel.
Didn’t gazans vote in Hamas? Doesn’t Israel have the right to control its border with Gaza? Didn’t Hamas and Israel agree to a ceasefire before 10/6? Haven’t billions in foreign aid gone into Gaza in the past 20 years? I too wondered exactly what was meant by the phrase “right to self determination”?
In a way it's true. Their right to self-determination is being denied by Hamas (unless they are determined to act as human shields for terrorists), and Hamas is the primary impediment to peace.
"[O]ne of us believes that the denial of Palestinians’ right to self-determination is the primary impediment to peace." This "one" is presumably Jenin Younes - and Younes is wrong. The Palestinians have repeatedly been offered a "two-state solution" that would give them their own state and the right to self-determination; they have repeatedly rejected the offer. This offer is still being made as part of the hostage negotiations; it is still being rejected. Both in Gaza and in the West Bank the Palestinians are being denied the right to self-determination - by their own leadership! Once the Palestinian Authority came to power in the West Bank, elections ceased; once Hamas came to power in Gaza, elections ceased. Palestinians are being denied the right to self-determination not by Israel, but by the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank and in Gaza.
While I agree whole-heartedly with the ideas presented in this piece, I'm skeptical about whether it's the right approach at this time.
Yes, DEI is a cancer that eats away at civilized society. It codifies the concept that people should be coddled on the sole basis of their claimed identity. It needs to go.
I also agree that free speech is vital and even these KKK-wannabe masked and kerchiefed warriors have a right to express hate.
But it is far too late to save universities like Columbia and UCLA. Their administrations are too vast and too powerful. Universities throughout the country employ people who openly advocate the destruction of Israel and, often enough, the deaths of every Jewish person anywhere. Their employers protect them. It may be the only time they ever invoke the First Amendment these days.
They cannot be trusted to educate our young people any more. They must not be funded by the American people. A new educational system is necessary - one that better represents the values of our country - freedom, opportunity, equality for all (not equity, its functional antonym).
> the values of our country - freedom, opportunity, equality for all (not equity, its functional antonym).
==========================================
The fundamental dichotomy of a Lockean conception of liberalism, which allowed it to be subverted, is the promise of both freedom and equality. While these are not oppositional, there are obvious levers governments can pull to increase one while decreasing the other, or achieve one with a different conception. Most leftist thinkers - the smart ones, at least - can make arguments from within this framework even if they don't agree with the underlying presupposition. Eg the WEF/Jacinda Ardern types can talk about how "misinformation is dangerous to democracy," because they have a narrow and specific interpretation of liberalism.
Of course, the prevailing thought now in many universities and younger people is that Locke, Hobbes, Voltaire, JS Mill, etc, were all old white men, and therefore the concepts of laws applying equally to everyone is just there to enforce white supremacy and the patriarchy. However, even the most mad of these policies will at some point appeal to the Enlightenment ideals.
For example, in the Portland Public Schools, "historical oppression" is taken into account when deciding punishment for students -- so a little 5-year-old white boy will be punished with detention, but a black kid can do the same thing and not be punished. The historical way something like that would be justified by racial superiority or racial differences, And the more extreme CRT people will say that whites are predisposed to violence and oppression or whatever. But the more common go-to explanation is "restorative justice" -- it's a post-enlightenment appeal to the idea of equality, only applied to collectives instead of individuals, and over all of history instead of immediately. That by punishing the white kid, you're making up for the fact that a long time ago, the black kid would have been punished. You're achieving equality.
Similarly, there was an interview with Maher, the new CEO of NPR, where she was talking about how the first amendment was great because it allowed private platforms to remove content they didn't like, but not so good because it sometimes made it hard for the government to do that. It was a backwards reading of the first amendment as a justification for censorship. But it was a somewhat valid reading, just in the most evil interpretation possible.
Ultimately, as long as "conservatives" appeal to liberalism as defined by Locke et al, we're gonna lose. Because while those values are noble and good, they're such a wide range of beliefs which can easily be subverted. At this point, the appeal needs to be to a better world -- one in recent memory. You need to say, "weren't things better 20 years ago, when we *didn't* have microaggressions?"
Sadly, that too is a losing argument, but it's an experiential and moral argument instead of philosophical. And, since IQ and education attainment is going down, these arguments end up being more effective, while the abstract ones end up being less effective.
Right. Was my intent not clear? I certainly didn't write the words you quoted.
It's odd and illuminating that the Ivy League universities have suddenly discovered a love for free speech now that the kids are regurgitating the words of Hamas. Sure, they can go on, and other students - the ones not majoring in Starbucks barista - should be free to address their lack of cranial capacity. But (and here's a but you can put in quotes), we all know the universities won't let them.
There's a reckoning coming for higher education these days. Administrative bloat has destroyed their academic mission. Many universities have been on a hiring freeze for years now... they cannot budget a single new professor and encourage existing professors to retire. But they can hire a passel of gender administrators and pay them six-figure salaries to enforce a code of "free speech for me, but not for thee" - and that's another but you can quote.
This is unsustainable. Soon enough, if this continues, parents will have to send their kids to China if they want a science education.
Your intent is more clear here, and I agree with this comment. (As an aside, I didn't mean to quote your words, but was trying to get across that there are some people I've been reading of who use that sort of speech while justifying limiting free speech.)
Rufo and Younes appropriately assess the impetus and likely impact of this hastily written act. Further imposition on free speech will only add mud to opaque waters. Less imposition on free speech is direly needed - a retreat from persecution and prosecution of supposed perpetrators of verbal micro-aggressions, pronoun language nonconformity, and other apparent lexical non-compliance is required.
Assessment of the rhetoric used at demonstrations would be straightforward if these institutions held conviction. Many universities have no principled stance on free speech - moral compasses were calibrated on an oppressor/oppressed narrative - once great institutions are lost in the wilderness and many have followed or trusted similarly calibrated navigational instruments.
While I agree that this is bad legislation, I can understand why the people in Congress felt that they needed to do *something.*
For weeks now, these protests have been allowed to continue under the pretense that they were merely engaging in "free speech." The fact that the protesters have been breaking the law (trespassing, vandalism, harassment, inciting violence, and even kidnapping) has been completely ignored by the leaders of these universities.
How do you propose that Congress force these universities to enforce the law?
Doing a bad and wrong thing is worse than doing nothing. They can do things besides passing terrible bills. Defund these schools. Tax their endowments. Disa.low foreign governments to “ donate” ant pay amount of money to these schools.
Hold the presidents who lied under oath to Congress accountable for that crime. Large fines?
Deport the terror supporting professors and students who are here only to spread terror.
Right. Choosing the lesser of two evils never works out well in my opinion. These schools get a LOT of money from the US gov't. So defund. And yes, prevent foreign money from going to these schools.
I listened to Megyn Kelly's recent interview with Andrew McCarthy about what could/should be done. The answer is with the Justice Dept which would do its job if it wasn't so polluted with politics at this point. Threatening any person with harm, as the "demonstrators" have been doing, is a felony. Giving material support to a terrorist organization is a felony.
The FBI has spent time investigating parents at schools board meetings and ignores the very real threat of these revolutionaries. Unbelievable times.
Let's take it further than universities enforcing the law. How do you get US and states' attorneys to enforce the law?! These ridiculous acts and laws do nothing but deepen the administrative state to a point where enforcing them would put all of us in jail. This unfortunately leads to politicization of who they're enforced on.
God is merciful. Humans are not. I grow more pessimistic every day. I just want to live.
If no one is above the law, come up with sham prosecutions, if necessary, by the fed as we see happening now. I'm thinking of 1/6 people who have been in solitaire confinement for years. And are now being freed from at least one conviction by the legal system, for obstruction that appears to be bogus.
Or do it the biden way. Prosecute them for what ever the hell you want and then let the courts figure out if it is right or wrong.
The position advanced in this article is very well articulated and precisely consistent with the US Constitution and my personal libertarian views. Kudos!
However, I suggest 'something' indeed needs to be done. First, all the DEI legislation and the entire DEI movement needs to be dismantled immediately. So there is legislation needed, but just to repeal those destructive programs. It is a virus that has spread throughout society and needs to be eradicated. Second, while we must always support free speech ...that does not extend to infringing upon the rights of others, which is precisely what has been going on at college campuses. Actions that do so, particularly by mobs, should not be tolerated. Existing laws are sufficient for that purpose, what is needed is a greater measure of common sense and the courage to act more timely and purposefully by those in charge of these institutions.
I think it is right on the money. Let students scream any nonsense they want but punish unlawful behavior swiftly. Also, let the market decide. Let us see how many parents will pay 90 k$ a year for "intifada intifada". Or how many Bill Ackmans will close their purses. Or what the employability is for someone who believes that Jews need to go BACK to Poland. (I am not sure about the last one, because this is where most of extermination camps were, or because they all came from that country)
There is something the government (CIA, FBI, etc…) should do, and that is to investigate the funding and organizations behind these protests. I am certain they will fail close scrutiny and require legal prosecution.
Um…small quibble…calling for a one state solution and denying Jewish people their own state (like Muslims have, everywhere else in the Middle East) IS antisemitic. Whether that should be written into law is another thing. But it’s not just “another viewpoint” on the conflict. There’s no other ethnic group that people claim doesn’t deserve its own state. (Indeed, isn’t that what the Palestinians claim to want? Their own state, in their ancestral homeland?). Nobody during the protests against ACTUAL Apartheid called for South Africa to cease to exist. What, you say? Nobody’s calling for Israel not to exist? That’s what a one-state solution is, unfortunately. The ultimate result of a one-state solution, even if the state is initially conceived as being for Jewish people and Muslims, will be a Muslim state. The Muslims kicked all Jews out of the other Muslim states in the region. So, it’s not as simple as the author makes it out to be. This isn’t “can’t they all just live together and get along?” They can’t. That’s why Israel exists in the first place. South Africa with blacks and whites integrated is still South Africa. Israel “integrated” means Israel without Jews, which is not Israel.
Free speech is hard. That's why hardly any other countries have it.
Abhorrent and controversial speech is, as a functional matter, the only speech the First Amendment protects. It's the only kind of speech that needs protecting.
Americans calling for a one state solution on college campuses is antisemitic. But if it's a threat it's a threat to people thousands of miles away, not students on campus or even in this country, so it needs to be protected, not prohibited.
If they could legislate consistent application of speech and behavioral policies on college campuses I might support it. But it's likely schools would call in the FBI for the vaguest whiff of antisemitism rather than abandon their moral imperative to stamp out any microaggressions against their preferred oppressed groups, so probably not.
If they could require any protestors to actually know and understand what they are protesting for or against I'd be all in. It would be nice if people saying antisemitic (or racist, or sexist, or what have you) stuff would just admit it, but enforcement of that brings us back to DEI and struggle sessions and the rest.
So no to this legislation. But I hope the next protest happens when all those "oppressed groups" realize their universities are telling them they are too weak to participate in a free society.
I relate the proposed legislation to that of the Dobbs decision by the SCOTUS.
The “professionals” in both situations waffle on how to apply the rules due to what THEY see as the general language of the law.
Doctors are afraid to deal with ectopic pregnancies and chromosomal abnormalities in fetuses because of their perception that those both are considered abortions. Likewise, I believe some university administrators will be too hard-nosed while others will be too cautious resulting in the law being applied unevenly at different colleges.
As other commenters have stated already, there are laws on the books to deal with what is going on. College administrators and police departments, along with the district attorneys need to get a backbone and enforce the laws we already have.
The persistent “do something… do anything” mentality will only hasten the road to hell for this country.
This post is a thing of beauty - concise, and principled.
I have long believed that the very concept of a 'protected class' is an anathema to any free society.
🙏
please . no "signs". cant you write?. it seems that you can.. so a nice thank you would be suitable. is that a prayer.. a thank you or a hat?
He took the time to be gracious, which only makes me think more highly of him.
I think Rufo was just trying to express thanks in a language even a Columbia or Yale freshman might understand( provided they have not already been indoctrinated to believe that saying thank you is a racist and oppressive concept). Thanks for all you do Chris.
agreed. i just this "emojis" are the lazy way out. plus they are so small I cant see them LOL
Lazy? After he has taken the effort to pen such concise and effective points? I see the reply as efficient!
Well, I have to squint through my bifocals!
It's a respectful thank you often done in SEAsia. In Laotian it's a nop, in Thai it's a wai. Often people simply smile a thank you, or to be even more respectful and to show deeper appreciation they wai.
It defies the concept of equal justice under law.
Agree. That is Rufo's style.
This law is an expansion of the DEI victim ideology and DEI must go. There are plenty of laws on the books to handle the unlawful , violent behaviors we have been witnessing.The WOKE culture is tolerant and even encouraging of the Jews hatred. This can’t be fixed with legislation . The hatred is the problem, and just as in Gaza there will be a need for an educational upheaval to stop inculcating hate towards Jews, the same thing must happen here. How do we as Americans dismantle DEI / Marxist academic structures that is now entrenched in every level of education and bureaucracy? That is our challenge but laws that do nothing practical, yet at the same time give legitimacy to the victim pyramid, only furthers DEI core beliefs. Are there enough Americans of all persuasions who will come together to uphold real American, not Marxist values?
DEI WOKE is corrosive and is destroying the very fabric of our society.
The hatred is not the root of the problem, though it is a very bad problem. The root of the hatred is the notion that the world is comprised of the oppressors and the oppressed. This is the root of the hatred. As for teaching the children of Gaza not to hate Jews, that's going to be pretty hard with the ongoing bombings and destruction. I visited the West Bank in 2007, and I'm half Jewish, not that the soldiers at the checkpoints knew or cared, and the treatment of the regular people (Palestinians) by the soldiers alone at the checkpoints - during a relatively peaceful time - tended to increase anti-Jewish sentiment. "Educating" people to have beliefs that differ from what they see on the ground is doable - how many US women think that sexual harassment by men in the workplace is a worse problem than woman-on-woman bullying in the workplace, even though the former is more rare than the latter - but when the experienced reality is so completely at odds with what you are being taught, it doesn't go over well. After all the "reeducation" I've been subjected to, for example, I still don't believe that women can have penises of their own.
We will have to disagree. Jew hatred has been around for millennia, long before the 1948 and the reestablishment of Jewish sovereignty in the land of Israel. The current conflict gives cover for all resurgence and unmasking of the rabid antisemitism in the US, Canada, Europe Australia.
I do agree with you that sex is binary, male - female.m
Jew hatred was indeed around for millennia, but mostly in Europe. When the Catholics took over Spain, they kicked out the Moors and the Jews, for example, but until Zionism became a successful political movement, Jewish communities thrived, relatively speaking, in the Middle East. That's partly why there are usually so many Jews at the anti-Israel demonstrations - some people think that Zionism brought anti-semitism to the Arab world. I watched Arabs in the early 2000s discover The Elders of the Protocols of Zion, and get into it. Lots of Jews have less than enthusiastic views on Israel, for religious reasons as well as the "poisoning the well" reason.
Yeeeaaahhh...not so much. While it is true that there weren't periodic massacres of Jews by their neighbors as frequently as in Europe, life was no bed of roses for Jews in the North African or Middle Eastern diaspora. Jew hatred is baked into the Koran, so let's not pretend the Muslims ever loved their Jewish neighbors. There were pogroms in those places as recently as the 1941 Farhud in Baghdad and the 1945 riots in Tripolitania. Further there was, due to Jews being considered dhimmi under Islam, the equivalent (better or worse depending on a variety of factors which varied over time) of living under Jim Crow for several hundred years. (If you are not American, I apologize for the possibly unfamiliar refence, but you can easily look it up.)
It’s a shame that you chose to indulge in revisionist history.
Zionism as a political movement was a response to the intermittent but brutal pogroms that Jewish people were subjected to in Eastern Europe. Zionism however has always been an integral part of Jewish life for millennia.
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is unadulterated anti Jew propaganda, concocted in Russia in the early 1900s , translated into many languages and widely distributed. Copies of it along with Mein Kampf are required reading throughout the Islamic world and other Jew hating people.
If you are interested in serious academic history read Benny Morris.
You thoroughly mis-read what pariah wrote.
Clearly you have no idea what you’re talking about, even if you are “half Jewish.” Arab and Islamic violence and discrimination against Jews long predates Israel, and many of those past massacres read a lot like Oct. 7. There’s the 1941 Farhud in Baghdad, the 1934 Constantine pogrom, the 1929 Hebron massacre, the 1834 plunder of Safed, even the 1066 Granada massacre. This is just off the top of my head and I could go on. Stop trying to erase Jewish history in an effort to make a clearly political point.
What does “around for millennia “ mean to you?
Bravo! Well said!
“one of us believes that the denial of Palestinians’ right to self-determination is the primary impediment to peace”
Oh PLEASE ……
If 10/7 and the events following the massacre have not proved this idea wrong, I just don’t know what else to say.
Certain Islamist fundamentalists do not want any Jews on Muslim land.
Period.
They want all of it.
Not a state next to Israel.
All of it.
Wake up.
Yes, the “protesters” are quite aggressive in shouting down anyone who calls for a two state solution, so 2010s
While I probably agree with the sentiment here, I do find it profoundly confusing and upsetting that Jews came to America as barely breathing refugees in many cases, (and Europe before that)and played by the rules: study hard, get an education, live the dream, take care of your family. Yet everywhere we turn, we’re told we cheated—by righties (cabal),and that we don’t count—by lefties (we look like ‘the man’). Hey America, here’s a thought: you want to help other minorities and poor whites get a piece of the pie? Do what many Jews do (probably because of their traditions based in the book (s): study hard, get a job, positively worry about your children, and become part of a community bigger than yourself. There, I fixed it for you.
It is the same thing we have seen with Asian and Indian immigrants, who frequently observe the same work ethic, resulting in their children’s achievement. If there is any good coming out of what is happening now, hopefully it will be a greater recognition of the injustice that has been done to those deemed to be part of the “oppressor” class.
I agree with this article, but how can somebody seriously still believe in this:
"one of us believes that the denial of Palestinians’ right to self-determination is the primary impediment to peace"
This is a bit disingenuous. Gazans, especially Hamas, do not want a "tight to self-determination" within Gaza, or a 2-state solution. They want control of the land "from the river to the sea." They're demanding Israel.
Didn’t gazans vote in Hamas? Doesn’t Israel have the right to control its border with Gaza? Didn’t Hamas and Israel agree to a ceasefire before 10/6? Haven’t billions in foreign aid gone into Gaza in the past 20 years? I too wondered exactly what was meant by the phrase “right to self determination”?
In a way it's true. Their right to self-determination is being denied by Hamas (unless they are determined to act as human shields for terrorists), and Hamas is the primary impediment to peace.
Yes, I agree. This quote is delusional.
The quote is from a leftist. Q.E.D.
"[O]ne of us believes that the denial of Palestinians’ right to self-determination is the primary impediment to peace." This "one" is presumably Jenin Younes - and Younes is wrong. The Palestinians have repeatedly been offered a "two-state solution" that would give them their own state and the right to self-determination; they have repeatedly rejected the offer. This offer is still being made as part of the hostage negotiations; it is still being rejected. Both in Gaza and in the West Bank the Palestinians are being denied the right to self-determination - by their own leadership! Once the Palestinian Authority came to power in the West Bank, elections ceased; once Hamas came to power in Gaza, elections ceased. Palestinians are being denied the right to self-determination not by Israel, but by the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank and in Gaza.
While I agree whole-heartedly with the ideas presented in this piece, I'm skeptical about whether it's the right approach at this time.
Yes, DEI is a cancer that eats away at civilized society. It codifies the concept that people should be coddled on the sole basis of their claimed identity. It needs to go.
I also agree that free speech is vital and even these KKK-wannabe masked and kerchiefed warriors have a right to express hate.
But it is far too late to save universities like Columbia and UCLA. Their administrations are too vast and too powerful. Universities throughout the country employ people who openly advocate the destruction of Israel and, often enough, the deaths of every Jewish person anywhere. Their employers protect them. It may be the only time they ever invoke the First Amendment these days.
They cannot be trusted to educate our young people any more. They must not be funded by the American people. A new educational system is necessary - one that better represents the values of our country - freedom, opportunity, equality for all (not equity, its functional antonym).
> the values of our country - freedom, opportunity, equality for all (not equity, its functional antonym).
==========================================
The fundamental dichotomy of a Lockean conception of liberalism, which allowed it to be subverted, is the promise of both freedom and equality. While these are not oppositional, there are obvious levers governments can pull to increase one while decreasing the other, or achieve one with a different conception. Most leftist thinkers - the smart ones, at least - can make arguments from within this framework even if they don't agree with the underlying presupposition. Eg the WEF/Jacinda Ardern types can talk about how "misinformation is dangerous to democracy," because they have a narrow and specific interpretation of liberalism.
Of course, the prevailing thought now in many universities and younger people is that Locke, Hobbes, Voltaire, JS Mill, etc, were all old white men, and therefore the concepts of laws applying equally to everyone is just there to enforce white supremacy and the patriarchy. However, even the most mad of these policies will at some point appeal to the Enlightenment ideals.
For example, in the Portland Public Schools, "historical oppression" is taken into account when deciding punishment for students -- so a little 5-year-old white boy will be punished with detention, but a black kid can do the same thing and not be punished. The historical way something like that would be justified by racial superiority or racial differences, And the more extreme CRT people will say that whites are predisposed to violence and oppression or whatever. But the more common go-to explanation is "restorative justice" -- it's a post-enlightenment appeal to the idea of equality, only applied to collectives instead of individuals, and over all of history instead of immediately. That by punishing the white kid, you're making up for the fact that a long time ago, the black kid would have been punished. You're achieving equality.
Similarly, there was an interview with Maher, the new CEO of NPR, where she was talking about how the first amendment was great because it allowed private platforms to remove content they didn't like, but not so good because it sometimes made it hard for the government to do that. It was a backwards reading of the first amendment as a justification for censorship. But it was a somewhat valid reading, just in the most evil interpretation possible.
Ultimately, as long as "conservatives" appeal to liberalism as defined by Locke et al, we're gonna lose. Because while those values are noble and good, they're such a wide range of beliefs which can easily be subverted. At this point, the appeal needs to be to a better world -- one in recent memory. You need to say, "weren't things better 20 years ago, when we *didn't* have microaggressions?"
Sadly, that too is a losing argument, but it's an experiential and moral argument instead of philosophical. And, since IQ and education attainment is going down, these arguments end up being more effective, while the abstract ones end up being less effective.
Interesting. Thanks.
Right. Was my intent not clear? I certainly didn't write the words you quoted.
It's odd and illuminating that the Ivy League universities have suddenly discovered a love for free speech now that the kids are regurgitating the words of Hamas. Sure, they can go on, and other students - the ones not majoring in Starbucks barista - should be free to address their lack of cranial capacity. But (and here's a but you can put in quotes), we all know the universities won't let them.
There's a reckoning coming for higher education these days. Administrative bloat has destroyed their academic mission. Many universities have been on a hiring freeze for years now... they cannot budget a single new professor and encourage existing professors to retire. But they can hire a passel of gender administrators and pay them six-figure salaries to enforce a code of "free speech for me, but not for thee" - and that's another but you can quote.
This is unsustainable. Soon enough, if this continues, parents will have to send their kids to China if they want a science education.
Your intent is more clear here, and I agree with this comment. (As an aside, I didn't mean to quote your words, but was trying to get across that there are some people I've been reading of who use that sort of speech while justifying limiting free speech.)
Rufo and Younes appropriately assess the impetus and likely impact of this hastily written act. Further imposition on free speech will only add mud to opaque waters. Less imposition on free speech is direly needed - a retreat from persecution and prosecution of supposed perpetrators of verbal micro-aggressions, pronoun language nonconformity, and other apparent lexical non-compliance is required.
Assessment of the rhetoric used at demonstrations would be straightforward if these institutions held conviction. Many universities have no principled stance on free speech - moral compasses were calibrated on an oppressor/oppressed narrative - once great institutions are lost in the wilderness and many have followed or trusted similarly calibrated navigational instruments.
While I agree that this is bad legislation, I can understand why the people in Congress felt that they needed to do *something.*
For weeks now, these protests have been allowed to continue under the pretense that they were merely engaging in "free speech." The fact that the protesters have been breaking the law (trespassing, vandalism, harassment, inciting violence, and even kidnapping) has been completely ignored by the leaders of these universities.
How do you propose that Congress force these universities to enforce the law?
Doing a bad and wrong thing is worse than doing nothing. They can do things besides passing terrible bills. Defund these schools. Tax their endowments. Disa.low foreign governments to “ donate” ant pay amount of money to these schools.
Hold the presidents who lied under oath to Congress accountable for that crime. Large fines?
Deport the terror supporting professors and students who are here only to spread terror.
Great first sentence!!
Best typo ever!
Right. Choosing the lesser of two evils never works out well in my opinion. These schools get a LOT of money from the US gov't. So defund. And yes, prevent foreign money from going to these schools.
I listened to Megyn Kelly's recent interview with Andrew McCarthy about what could/should be done. The answer is with the Justice Dept which would do its job if it wasn't so polluted with politics at this point. Threatening any person with harm, as the "demonstrators" have been doing, is a felony. Giving material support to a terrorist organization is a felony.
The FBI has spent time investigating parents at schools board meetings and ignores the very real threat of these revolutionaries. Unbelievable times.
And cut ALL the federal aid to these schools NOW. Rescind all federal grants to any of these students and faculty.
Let's take it further than universities enforcing the law. How do you get US and states' attorneys to enforce the law?! These ridiculous acts and laws do nothing but deepen the administrative state to a point where enforcing them would put all of us in jail. This unfortunately leads to politicization of who they're enforced on.
God is merciful. Humans are not. I grow more pessimistic every day. I just want to live.
If no one is above the law, come up with sham prosecutions, if necessary, by the fed as we see happening now. I'm thinking of 1/6 people who have been in solitaire confinement for years. And are now being freed from at least one conviction by the legal system, for obstruction that appears to be bogus.
Or do it the biden way. Prosecute them for what ever the hell you want and then let the courts figure out if it is right or wrong.
The reason this piece can be written by two people from different political sides in the US is that we all believe in a liberal democracy.
"the rule of law, equality under it, free speech, and the protection of our individual, natural rights"
The position advanced in this article is very well articulated and precisely consistent with the US Constitution and my personal libertarian views. Kudos!
However, I suggest 'something' indeed needs to be done. First, all the DEI legislation and the entire DEI movement needs to be dismantled immediately. So there is legislation needed, but just to repeal those destructive programs. It is a virus that has spread throughout society and needs to be eradicated. Second, while we must always support free speech ...that does not extend to infringing upon the rights of others, which is precisely what has been going on at college campuses. Actions that do so, particularly by mobs, should not be tolerated. Existing laws are sufficient for that purpose, what is needed is a greater measure of common sense and the courage to act more timely and purposefully by those in charge of these institutions.
I think it is right on the money. Let students scream any nonsense they want but punish unlawful behavior swiftly. Also, let the market decide. Let us see how many parents will pay 90 k$ a year for "intifada intifada". Or how many Bill Ackmans will close their purses. Or what the employability is for someone who believes that Jews need to go BACK to Poland. (I am not sure about the last one, because this is where most of extermination camps were, or because they all came from that country)
There is something the government (CIA, FBI, etc…) should do, and that is to investigate the funding and organizations behind these protests. I am certain they will fail close scrutiny and require legal prosecution.
All so-called "Hate Speech" laws should be opposed on the same grounds. People who pass such laws do indeed hate speech.
One more slippery, well-intentioned brick paving the road to hell.
Um…small quibble…calling for a one state solution and denying Jewish people their own state (like Muslims have, everywhere else in the Middle East) IS antisemitic. Whether that should be written into law is another thing. But it’s not just “another viewpoint” on the conflict. There’s no other ethnic group that people claim doesn’t deserve its own state. (Indeed, isn’t that what the Palestinians claim to want? Their own state, in their ancestral homeland?). Nobody during the protests against ACTUAL Apartheid called for South Africa to cease to exist. What, you say? Nobody’s calling for Israel not to exist? That’s what a one-state solution is, unfortunately. The ultimate result of a one-state solution, even if the state is initially conceived as being for Jewish people and Muslims, will be a Muslim state. The Muslims kicked all Jews out of the other Muslim states in the region. So, it’s not as simple as the author makes it out to be. This isn’t “can’t they all just live together and get along?” They can’t. That’s why Israel exists in the first place. South Africa with blacks and whites integrated is still South Africa. Israel “integrated” means Israel without Jews, which is not Israel.
“one of us believes that the denial of Palestinians’ right to self-determination is the primary impediment to peace”.
Great.
How do you give the right of self determination to people who have promised to do everything in their power to kill you? For 100 years.
If Jenin can somehow explain that in non-gibberish im willing to listen.
In my opinion there has never been a chance
Free speech is hard. That's why hardly any other countries have it.
Abhorrent and controversial speech is, as a functional matter, the only speech the First Amendment protects. It's the only kind of speech that needs protecting.
Americans calling for a one state solution on college campuses is antisemitic. But if it's a threat it's a threat to people thousands of miles away, not students on campus or even in this country, so it needs to be protected, not prohibited.
If they could legislate consistent application of speech and behavioral policies on college campuses I might support it. But it's likely schools would call in the FBI for the vaguest whiff of antisemitism rather than abandon their moral imperative to stamp out any microaggressions against their preferred oppressed groups, so probably not.
If they could require any protestors to actually know and understand what they are protesting for or against I'd be all in. It would be nice if people saying antisemitic (or racist, or sexist, or what have you) stuff would just admit it, but enforcement of that brings us back to DEI and struggle sessions and the rest.
So no to this legislation. But I hope the next protest happens when all those "oppressed groups" realize their universities are telling them they are too weak to participate in a free society.
I relate the proposed legislation to that of the Dobbs decision by the SCOTUS.
The “professionals” in both situations waffle on how to apply the rules due to what THEY see as the general language of the law.
Doctors are afraid to deal with ectopic pregnancies and chromosomal abnormalities in fetuses because of their perception that those both are considered abortions. Likewise, I believe some university administrators will be too hard-nosed while others will be too cautious resulting in the law being applied unevenly at different colleges.
As other commenters have stated already, there are laws on the books to deal with what is going on. College administrators and police departments, along with the district attorneys need to get a backbone and enforce the laws we already have.
The persistent “do something… do anything” mentality will only hasten the road to hell for this country.