In this newsletter: DOE issues warnings to 60 universities of potential enforcement action for antisemitism; UCLA announces antisemitism initiative; physicists versus poets at Columbia; should Mahmoud Khalil be deported; DEI shape-shifts at USC; Purim-inspired thoughts and stories; and more.
Thank you again for these insightful and important updates. Thoughts on 2 subjects from today's posting:
1. Mahmoud Khalil's actions clearly warrant deportation. There is simply no free speech argument to make because Khalil's actions go far beyond speech. It troubles me greatly that FIRE, an organization with limited resources that cannot and does not help many others who have legitimate cases of discrimination engaging in speech that has nothing to do with terrorist activity, chooses to direct its resources to defend someone like Khalil. I understand the concept of defending the worst of the worst...but when you fail to defend the free speech rights of normal academics so you can devote resources to the "free speech" rights of a terrorist that begins to look like selective respect for these rights...and frankly...an endorsement of the terrorist's views. FIRE loses credibility when it does this. Further, if I were the Trump administration...I would consider investigating FIRE given its conduct in this matter as it starting to look more and more like the ACLU than an actual defender of free speech and academic freedom.
2. It is unfortunate that the STEM faculty at Columbia are disproportionately affected by the federal funding cuts arising from the universities antisemitic behavior...but that is a result of science being over funded relative to other academic disciplines. The STEM faculty at Columbia have the same voice, responsibility and duty to keep Columbia on track as their peers in the humanities. Their disproportionate share of revenues via grants actually gives them more power per capita than the liberal arts. How have they used that power? At least in the geosciences...Columbia faculty based at Lamont Doherty have been some of the loudest and strongest proponents of DEI in the nation and have used their positions in the leadership of "professional" societies not only to promote their position but to turn the levers of cancel culture against those who dare to speak out for such little things as due process and academic freedom. In their own way, they are no more in support of the academic mission of Columbia than Mahmoud Khalil. So...given their conduct in favor of lawful discrimination (cancel culture) and failure in their duty to act against antisemitism...they deserve to be defunded and go down with the sinking SS Columbia (SS is deliberate word choice). Failing to defend your Jewish neighbors being attacked in the street because you have grant application deadline is not going to shield you from the bombing of your city to stop the pogroms...nor should it.
Liberals slept through the last decade of cancellations, speech codes, bias response teams, mandatory pronoun displays and "diversity statements" as requirements for employment. They've only rediscovered their devotion to the First Amendment now that a Jew-hating Islamist may have to face the consequences for his actions.
Sad to say, modern liberals have been infected by the campus Left's moral framework of WHO/WHOM.
They can't be roused to defend normal Americans, white men or Jews (as they believe these people are protected by their "privilege"), but they will fight to the death for the rights of anyone who seems vaguely brown, oppressed and who chants the right slogans about Death to America and the evil Zionist entity.
Nothing seems to matter to them except the approval of their tribe and which actions can score them the most virtue points. (With "virtue" meaning performative subversion.)
You Zionists are subverting civil rights in America. Freedom of speech, due process of law. I'm an American Jew and I say Zionism is antisemitic, anti-Judaism, anti-Israel, and Anti-American. Israel does not have the right to exist as a Democracy according to Torah law. Mosaic law ordains Israel be a Monarchy. You defy HaShem and abandon the Moschiach. So you forfeit your claim to the Holy Land.
Thank you again for these insightful and important updates. Thoughts on 2 subjects from today's posting:
1. Mahmoud Khalil's actions clearly warrant deportation. There is simply no free speech argument to make because Khalil's actions go far beyond speech. It troubles me greatly that FIRE, an organization with limited resources that cannot and does not help many others who have legitimate cases of discrimination engaging in speech that has nothing to do with terrorist activity, chooses to direct its resources to defend someone like Khalil. I understand the concept of defending the worst of the worst...but when you fail to defend the free speech rights of normal academics so you can devote resources to the "free speech" rights of a terrorist that begins to look like selective respect for these rights...and frankly...an endorsement of the terrorist's views. FIRE loses credibility when it does this. Further, if I were the Trump administration...I would consider investigating FIRE given its conduct in this matter as it starting to look more and more like the ACLU than an actual defender of free speech and academic freedom.
2. It is unfortunate that the STEM faculty at Columbia are disproportionately affected by the federal funding cuts arising from the universities antisemitic behavior...but that is a result of science being over funded relative to other academic disciplines. The STEM faculty at Columbia have the same voice, responsibility and duty to keep Columbia on track as their peers in the humanities. Their disproportionate share of revenues via grants actually gives them more power per capita than the liberal arts. How have they used that power? At least in the geosciences...Columbia faculty based at Lamont Doherty have been some of the loudest and strongest proponents of DEI in the nation and have used their positions in the leadership of "professional" societies not only to promote their position but to turn the levers of cancel culture against those who dare to speak out for such little things as due process and academic freedom. In their own way, they are no more in support of the academic mission of Columbia than Mahmoud Khalil. So...given their conduct in favor of lawful discrimination (cancel culture) and failure in their duty to act against antisemitism...they deserve to be defunded and go down with the sinking SS Columbia (SS is deliberate word choice). Failing to defend your Jewish neighbors being attacked in the street because you have grant application deadline is not going to shield you from the bombing of your city to stop the pogroms...nor should it.
Liberals slept through the last decade of cancellations, speech codes, bias response teams, mandatory pronoun displays and "diversity statements" as requirements for employment. They've only rediscovered their devotion to the First Amendment now that a Jew-hating Islamist may have to face the consequences for his actions.
Sad to say, modern liberals have been infected by the campus Left's moral framework of WHO/WHOM.
They can't be roused to defend normal Americans, white men or Jews (as they believe these people are protected by their "privilege"), but they will fight to the death for the rights of anyone who seems vaguely brown, oppressed and who chants the right slogans about Death to America and the evil Zionist entity.
Nothing seems to matter to them except the approval of their tribe and which actions can score them the most virtue points. (With "virtue" meaning performative subversion.)
You Zionists are subverting civil rights in America. Freedom of speech, due process of law. I'm an American Jew and I say Zionism is antisemitic, anti-Judaism, anti-Israel, and Anti-American. Israel does not have the right to exist as a Democracy according to Torah law. Mosaic law ordains Israel be a Monarchy. You defy HaShem and abandon the Moschiach. So you forfeit your claim to the Holy Land.