On Tuesday, the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and MIT were called before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce to answer how their noble institutions have turned into hotbeds of anti-Semitism.
The whole debacle is a remarkable display of elite higher education’s fall from grace — and how their years-long neglect of free speech has allowed radicalism and anti-semitism to run rampant on campus.
Where free speech dies, institutional stupidity takes its place.
The hearing comes after Jewish students were mobbed by pro-Palestinian protesters at Harvard and protesters were heard chanting “revolution Intifada” on the UPenn campus this weekend — leading the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights to investigate both schools for violations of Title VI discrimination.
“Antisemitism is a symptom of ignorance, and the cure for ignorance is knowledge,” said Harvard president Claudine Gay, who was dragged for initially failing to condemn Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel. “Harvard must exemplify what it means to preserve free expression while fighting prejudice.
Harvard President Dr. Claudine Gay claims that free speech is alive and well at Harvard — which recently ranked last in a ranking of free speech on campus. Getty Images
“We take on that hard, long-term work with the intention and intensity it needs,” he added.
Really gay. Dialogue is essential to combat ignorance. But unfortunately, it seems he only realized the importance of free speech after it bit his institution in the bank account.
Although Gay claimed in his testimony that “The free exchange of ideas is the foundation on which Harvard is built,” that is clearly not the case.
Protesters at UPenn on Saturday were reportedly heard chanting “Intifada revolution.” ChayaRaichik/ X
When the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) released its campus free speech rankings earlier this year, Harvard came in a dismal last place — scoring 0 out of a possible 100 points.
The debate is clearly not yet settled on the Ivy League campus. And, therefore, ignorance has developed. When competing ideas cannot compete in civil discourse, they are driven underground to fester.
Students retreat to echo chambers where their beliefs run wild, and they are easily swept down radical rabbit holes where Zoomer TikTokers vaguely celebrate Osama bin Laden’s philosophy.
In the face of international conflict, those students have re-emerged and shown themselves to be what they were: elite college students celebrating the rape and murder of innocent civilians in the name of “decolonization” and “progressivism.”
University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill testified that the university is working to combat antisemitism on campus. Getty Images
And, while I’m glad to see administrators finally realizing that free speech is essential to fostering a well-informed community, I worry it’s too little too late. Campus radicals have shown their faces — and they’re getting the attention they crave.
Student activists are always desperate to fight for the next fashionable cause. They gathered to mourn the election of Donald Trump. They are demonstrating for Black Lives Matter. They protested the release of Kyle Rittenhouse.
But, every time these students raise their fists for a progressive cause, their professors and administrators come to their support — canceling classes to accommodate student protesters (like a UPenn professor did the day after Trump’s election), sending campus-wide solidarity emails (like UC Santa Cruz did following the Rittenhouse decision) and also acted on behalf of student protesters who disrupted events (as the Stanford DEI dean did earlier this year).
A pro-Palestinian rally has been held at Harvard University since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel. AFP via Getty Images
Do you really speak truth to power when the admin supports you? Nothing to worry about that.
Young radicals want to push the envelope. And, when professors and authority figures are themselves young radicals who never grew up, the next generation will understand the next frontier.
Today’s professors are no longer mostly curmudgeonly, tie-wearing classic liberals. They are critical theorists with pierced noses and dislike Western values.
Badassing the Founding Fathers and wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt isn’t radical anymore. Desperate lawbreakers have to dig deeper to find a cause for concern — and they’ve found one in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Vigils for Israel were held at Harvard amid rising antisemitism on campus. @StandWithUs/X
Today’s campus radicals have stooped so low that they celebrate the words of Osama bin Laden and the killing of civilians in Israel.
Harvard, Penn and other elite campuses must fight the radicalism they have fostered on their campuses. Now that they’re finally paying the price with donors pulling their dollars, maybe they will.
But, as much as this university president might want to sweep the issue under the rug, this sudden recommitment to free speech can’t fix the polarization that developed in his absence.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
