Hey everyone. I’m currently working on a couple of things that will hopefully see the light of day within the next couple of weeks that I think you’ll all (or at least most of you) will enjoy. But in the meantime, I just wanted to share with you an email I received from the President of my university where I’m attending graduate school:
A few things are worth noting here. First, is that I too am pretty disappointed (well, the word really is unsurprised, given the small community of vocal Hamas-stans that seem to exist on my campus) that a professor was accused of holding what this contingent of activist students would call “Zionist views” seemingly on account of the fact that he’s a Jew. The wording is vague, as you guys can see, but the implication is pretty clear and, thus, disturbing. Last I checked, there were plenty of American Jews (and Israelis for that matter) who aren’t Zionists, or who hold monolithic views regarding the conflict between Israel and Hamas. But apparently, this professor’s Jewishness was enough evidence for these people that he needed to be singled out. I did in fact see these fliers—plastered in the midst of the hostage posters that have been replaced since being ripped down—and I did notice that they were singling out a professor’s name, but I didn’t really give them a second look or understand the context. If they’re still there when I’m back on campus next week, I’ll try and snap a photo and add it to this post so you all can see it for yourselves. I can’t honestly say I recall the flier coming off as a threat, especially when I didn’t know the context, but given the additional context that was given by my university’s president in this email, it’s likely reasonable to read it in a threatening way. How a bunch of 20-something Zoomers studying humanities in southern California constitute any kind of real threat is a different story, but regardless.
I wanted to highlight something else though, and that is how I see this relatively anodyne email as a positive example of how to respond to what is colloquially called “campus craziness.” It doesn’t take a side, it condemns all forms of hate, it condemns what the administration sees as hate speech speech, and it upholds the principle of free speech on a college campus. I can’t imagine this similar kind of standard being held up on elite college campuses like Harvard, UPenn, or MIT, given everything that happened late in 2023. Whether or not any kind of disciplinary action behind the scenes is occurring is anyone’s guess—and I honestly hope there isn’t any unless there were some very real and tangible threats to this professor’s physical safety—but on paper, this is how you handle an issue of speech on a college campus. It’s pretty obvious that this response is likely beyond the pale or evidence of some kind of bigotry or bias to the people who put up or supported these posters; the counterfactuals of posters depicting a Muslim or Arab professor’s fictional wrongthink write themselves. But I still think this is how you thread the needle instead of mumbling about calling for anti-Jewish genocide being “about the context” (and honestly, because he’s the expert, I’m curious how
and FIRE would rate this response).Anyway. Performative anti-Semitism from self-professed “decolonialists”/”anti-imperialists”/ “anti-Zionists” of the progressive variety is nothing new, and clearly there are some lunatics at my current asylum. But also clearly, it doesn’t appear that they are running it.