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On the bird site (or is it the letter site now?) I'm seeing increasing calls to oust Harvard President Claudine Gay. Famously, during her recent Congressional testimony she was asked this question:
"Dr. Gay, at Harvard, does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s rules of bullying and harassment, yes or no?"
Her memeworthy reply was: "It can be, depending on the context".
This of course, is pretty weak sauce considering that Harvard is ranked dead last out of 245 institutions for Freedom of Expression according to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. It would appear to an outside observer that Harvard's standards of what is acceptable speech vary greatly depending on who is doing the speaking.
Bill Ackman, billionaire and Harvard alum, didn't pull any punches tweeting "Resign in Disgrace".
Predictably the scandal has caused people to dig into Ms. Gay's academic work, and accusations were made that she plagiarized parts of her thesis. Nevertheless, many have come to her defense with more than 650 Harvard faculty signing a letter of support for Dr. Gay, who became the institution's first black President earlier this year.
It would appear that Harvard is in a no-win situation.
If they fire Dr. Gay, they will have fired a black, female President and will enrage the social justice left who constitute the vast majority of Harvard's students and staff.
If they don't fire her, they will have proven that Harvard has no consistent free speech principles and, furthermore, that calls for genocide are acceptable as long as they are against the appropriate targets.
There is perhaps a third option, in which Dr. Gay cracks down hard on anti-Semitic speech and makes an example of a few students or staff who crossed the line, thus blaming it on a few bad apples and going back to the status quo.
Whatever happens, I think that Harvard's reputation has been damaged by this incident. There is an opportunity for another school in the elite ranks to set itself apart as the "sane" alternative and perhaps capture Harvard's crown at the top of the academic food chain.
As always, I believe that donations to elite institutions are harmful and the donors should be laughed at, taxed, and shamed.
I don’t want to start another antisemitism thread and this will do but an interesting survey came out recently on Holocaust denial.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/1-5-young-americans-say-holocaust-was-myth-twice-many-democrats-republicans
43% of the under 29 age group believe the Holocaust is a myth or heavily exaggerated.
Personally I thought Holocaust denial on TheMotte was a fringe group representing some 1-3% of the overall population and largely alt-right. Turns out it’s rapidly becoming the dominant view of college students and a normie belief for the next generation.
My understanding of popular opinion on the issue was completely off and one of my worst beliefs. It’s probably a sign I am just not up to date with the young kids. I can take comforting in being completely wrong because it is a fringe belief in older age groups.
My gut would say places like ADL completely missed this too. One could right off all the right wing bashing as a pivot to justify their existence because existential antisemitism was gone and everyone agreed with it in the last generation. Will be interesting to see if they pivot back to their primary purpose and start approaching Ackman types for cash to attack Holocaust denialism.
Fundamentally I think issues l should be viewed in the following light:
I and many other Americans who don’t have any affiliation with Israel are asking if this is in our national interest. Many more democrats than republicans do not think it is and Democratic support is required to make this pass. Rather than debating this issue on its merits the adl and other Israel supporters are doing their best to make it a conversation about anti semitism. In my opinion suggesting that universities are antisemitic places is even more preposterous than suggesting that they are racist places and anyone who cares a wit about freedom of speech should should be concerned that the wealthy donors have this much influence over public institutions (by which I mean u penn.). I can’t believe that I am actually in support of something Harvard is doing (this is probably the first time ever), but it sort of refreshing that their endowment is so big that they can ignore these kinds of donor demands.
By any definition that people like me get accused of being white supremacists, fascists, pick your label, etc - these schools are far past the line I’m judged by on their antisemitism.
I think being pro-Palestine after what they did is very very tough line to draw before your antisemitic. You Can asks for mercy from Israel and things like that but what happened was really bad.
I’ve seen a lot of reports that most young people saying “river to the sea” don’t actually know what that term means and change their view when they realize it means Jewish genocide. But Harvard students aren’t some stupid kid at a directional state school. They know geography and what that means.
And I disagree with you that Israel isn’t strategically important to the US. 30-50% of scientific output comes from the Jewish population (nobels so boundary pushers not the grinders pushing others ideas to implementation). The US having a technological edge on China etc completely depends on the Jews. Nukes were invented by Jews. AI led by Altman (a Jew) is the next big military tech. The Jews matter as allies.
For every Bill Gates and Elon Musks there is a Mark Zuckerberg and Sergei Brin/Larry Page.
I think you’re completely missing my point which is that it’s questionable that giving Israel a lot of money to destabilize the Middle East is a good idea (not the least of which is because you are mostly propping up Netanyahu). The us needs to be preparing to compete with China, not wasting our energies on regional fights in the Middle East and
As for Israel’s alleged strategic importance, every example you have was of Jews working in america. Israel itself is not particularly productive or important.
I’d also encourage you to look at the domestic Israeli political situation, before advocating American political involvement.
“Destabilize the Middle East” is doing a lot here and unfounded. As far as I can tell no one in the ME likes Palestine and a lot of them do like Israel.
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