We Are Back!
We are back from our holiday-turned-hellfire hiatus and will resume our regular posting. The beginning of 2025 has been jarring and our thoughts and hearts are with those affected by the catastrophic fires. A number of USC faculty—including members of our group—have lost their homes. LA will rebuild, but the scars will remain…
Our Substack Gains Visibility
We launched our Substack in April 2024 in the middle of Valedictoriangate and the post-October 7 protests, out of frustration with our biased campus media outlets. Our mission: give a voice to those who are willing to speak up against antisemitism and anti-Zionizm on USC and other campuses. Since then, we have grown our readership considerably—we currently have 516 subscribers and an average post is read about 700–900 times.
These have been the most-read posts:
Three of the most-read posts are guest posts! We hope to publish more contributions from the community and welcome guest-post submissions from faculty, staff, parents, and, especially, students.
Censorship, Academic Freedom, and a New USC Task Force
In the past few weeks, we have been occupied with the Big Event—the conference “Censorship in the Sciences: Interdisciplinary Perspectives,” which took place last weekend. The event was a great success—it has generated lots of excitement and initiated important conversations about the future of academe, some of which are highlighted in this Heterodox at USC newsletter:
If you missed the event, you can watch the recordings—the first day is already posted, with the rest coming soon. Although the main focus of the conference was on censorship of scientific findings, several speakers touched upon the broader issue of free speech on American university campuses. John Strauss’ case came up several times. Greg Lukianoff, the president of FIRE, discussed how censorship and suppression of free speech undermines the public’s trust in experts, academia, and higher education.
Several speakers mentioned academic boycotts and the shouting down of Israeli and Jewish speakers by pro-Palestinian groups as examples of the current anti–free-speech cancel culture on campus.
Lukianoff also discussed FIRE’s free speech rankings, according to which USC is the seventh-worst college or university in the nation. We hope that holding a major conference on free speech at USC will be a first step towards digging our university out of this hole.
This brings us to an important development at USC—the creation of the Provost–Senate Joint Task Force on Academic Freedom and Professional Responsibility (Anna has been appointed to the task force). According to the provost’s memo, the task force will:
Summarize the state of academic freedom and open discourse in higher education.
Summarize the legal environment regarding academic freedom, including federal laws (especially Title VI and Title IX), California’s Leonard Law, and agency rulings such as those from the Department of Education, and how those laws and regulations affect the university’s practices.
Summarize the rights and responsibilities of faculty with respect to academic freedom and open discourse under current university policies, procedures, and practices.
Consider whether modifications to university policies, procedures, and practices would support the core values of USC and help the university to advance its mission.
This is a lot of work, and I hope we will be successful in accomplishing these goals. As the events of the last spring illustrated, many in the USC community lack even a basic understanding of free speech and academic freedom. University policies are quite reasonable already, but their enforcement needs to be more consistent. And the biggest challenge is cultivating a culture of academic freedom on campus, without which even the best policies will not succeed. How will we do that? Definitely not through mandatory trainings!
Note to new new readers: we have previously covered these issues here, here, here, and here.
The Fall of Academic Freedom with a DEI Twist (Steven Lubet, SPME Newsletter, December 27, 2025; originally published in The Hill)
USC is not an exception in its poor standing of freedom of speech and academic freedom—the problem is pervasive in academe. In his op-ed, Steven Lubet explains from where the threats originate (illiberal ideology). He highlights the complicity of the AAUP, which has embraced Woke ideology, including its inherent antisemitism and its anti–free-speech agenda. AAUP is active on the USC campus. We covered its ideological takeover here and here.
[T]he American Association of University Professors (AAUP), once the “most prominent guardian of academic freedom” in the U.S., has lost its way.
As reported by the Chronicle of Higher Education, the AAUP has lately been under fire from erstwhile allies who believe that the 109-year-old organization has turned away from political neutrality and compromised its core mission.
In just the last four months, the AAUP has repeatedly taken positions that undermine rather than support academic freedom.
In August, the AAUP rescinded its longstanding opposition to academic boycotts, adopted in 2006. The new policy — clearly aimed at Israeli universities in response to the brutally destructive Gaza war — now holds that such boycotts “can legitimately seek to protect and advance … academic freedom and fundamental rights.”
That assertion is self-contradictory. Academic boycotts inevitably create restrictions on scholarly exchanges by barring contact with targeted institutions or faculty. As a former chair of the AAUP Committee on Academic Freedom once explained, “The whole idea of boycotting academic institutions in order to defend academic freedom is utterly wrongheaded.”
Pressure from the movement to boycott Israel evidently led the AAUP into an oxymoron. Next came a statement approving the equivalent of intellectual loyalty oaths, imposed by faculties themselves.
In October, the AAUP’s Committee on Academic Freedom issued a statement ostensibly supporting “diversity goals” in higher education, as a way of achieving better “knowledge production [and] correcting blind spots.”
In addition to goals, however, the committee endorsed the use of statements that “require faculty members to address their skills, competencies and achievements regarding DEI [diversity, equity, inclusion]” as factors for “appointment, reappointment, tenure and promotion.”
The use of such mandatory DEI statements in faculty hiring has been criticized as a “litmus test” for adherence to an approved ideological viewpoint, while screening out potential dissidents. Even for those who agree with many DEI objectives (including myself), compulsory statements go too far.
The AAUP’s DEI and boycott positions were seriously misguided, but at least they addressed real issues. In the latest development, an AAUP chapter raised an alarm over pretty much nothing at all.
The article discusses the AAUP’s in a recent “controversy” at Cornell:
Cornell University’s AAUP chapter berated Interim President Michael Kotlikoff, for an “egregious threat to bedrock principles of academic freedom” that could “degrade the quality of education” at Cornell. From the heated rhetoric, it might appear that Kotlikoff had fired an iconoclastic faculty member or squelched a professor’s controversial research.
In fact, Kotlikoff had simply responded to an email from adjunct law professor, who had complained about the approval of a course titled “Gaza, Indigeneity and Resistance.”
In a private email, Kotlikoff said he “personally [found] the course description . . . radical, factually inaccurate, and biased,” but also noted that course approvals by the faculty are protected by academic freedom. …
These three episodes typify what one critic has called “the fall of the AAUP,” sadly progressing from the abandonment of an admirable principle, to the endorsement of intellectual discrimination, and arriving at a near parody of snowflake academics who rail at imaginary dangers.
The Trumpistas may be celebrating the AAUP’s self-destruction of its credibility. Faculties everywhere can only mourn.
A Few Highlights from the News: Bad and Good
TGIF: Hard Pivot (The Free Press, January 17, 2025)
→ Biden’s money for Jewish institutions went to pro-Hamas groups: The Biden administration’s fund to protect institutions that are at risk of terrorist attacks—and which Biden touted as one of his big Jewish safety measures—has actually been funding mosques that preach pro-terrorist attacks. Mosques receiving the funding have leaders who call October 7 “a miracle” and such (you can imagine). Curious how that cash got rerouted specifically to the most antisemitic mosques I’ve ever read about.
Christmas in the Gulag. Trudeau in Trouble. How the Drone Theories Stack Up. Plus. . . (The Free Press, December 17, 2024)
Columbia University professor Lawrence Rosenblatt announced his resignation after learning that Joseph Massad, a professor at the college who called Hamas’s October 7 massacre “awesome,” will be allowed to teach a class on the “history of the Jewish Enlightenment in 19th century Europe and the development of Zionism through the current peace process.” Democratic congressman Ritchie Torres compared the situation to getting former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke to teach a course on antiracism.
Sustaining Unprecedented Growth in Jewish Engagement (Jay Solomon, Jewish Insider, January 16, 2025)
This is an interesting (and somewhat positive) observation—that the toxic wave of antisemitism has led to increased self-awareness among Jewish students.
Across the Jewish world, our community has united in record numbers. According to a recent study conducted by Jewish Federations of North America, some 43% of Jews have sought to or have engaged more with Jewish life since October 2023.
At Hillel Ontario, we see this surge firsthand. As the largest Hillel in the world, we’ve experienced a 40% year-over-year growth in student engagement and, already this school year, we’re poised to increase that growth further.
From the Hillel International Newsletter:
This spring, Florida Atlantic University (FAU) will host a training to educate federal and state agencies and public safety officers about antisemitism following the rise in antisemitic incidents in the U.S. and worldwide over the past 15 months. The training will focus on countering antisemitism on college campuses, and cover the history of Hamas and its connection to Iran and other proxies, such as Hezbollah.
and
Following an investigation conducted by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, Lehigh University agreed to address allegations of antisemitic harassment on campus, including through training, making clear statements about student safety, and by conducting regular bias assessments. The federal probe into the school found multiple instances of antisemitic acts since October 7, 2023, including reports of mezuzahs being stolen from dorm rooms.
We detest and reject mandatory trainings of any kind, but support broad educational efforts and a firm institutional stand against the harassment. USC experienced many instances of antisemitic harassment, as documented in our Report on Campus Climate and Call for Action.
Here’s How Colleges Should Respond to Destructive BDS Resolutions on Campus (Ben Stone, SPME Newsletter, December 27, 2024; originally published in Algemeiner)
On November 7, 2024, the Duke Divestment Committee (DDC), a close ally of Duke Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), petitioned the Duke Advisory Committee on Investment Responsibility (ACIR) to call for Duke to “Divest direct and indirect holdings in all companies and entities that support or profit from Israeli apartheid…”
This proposal was based on false antisemitic propaganda, and it promoted dangerous blood libels against the Jewish people. The baseless accusations of apartheid and genocide are more than just words — they have led to global violence against Jews, which has also spread to US college campuses.
On December 10, 2024, the Duke ACIR rejected the DDC’s proposal. Faced with the option to cave into the antisemitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction (BDS) movement, the Duke University leadership decided to stand up for truth and justice, and abide by the university’s mission statement to foster a “community of students who embrace growth, collaboration, creativity and integrity.” …
Israel is known as “The Start-up Nation” — with around one start-up for every 1,400 people. It would be a catastrophe if the BDS movement was successful in driving capital away from Israel. It is not possible to strangle the Israeli economy and support the Arab Israeli community at the same time. Growth and innovation are contagious. The BDS movement is not pro-Palestinian or pro-Arab. It is anti-Israel. SJP and similar groups’ hatred for Jews blinds them to the harm they cause to Arab Israelis and Palestinians.
As students graduating from universities in the United States seek interesting and challenging careers in Silicon Valley and elsewhere, there is a vibrant startup ecosystem raging across the Middle East. Founders and venture capitalists are investing in a vital, diverse and inclusive “Silicon Wadi.” …
Since the historic Abraham Accords were signed, the UAE has invested more than $10 billion, alongside Israel, to bolster the economic cooperation between the two countries. These funds were invested across many sectors, including energy, manufacturing, water, space, healthcare, and agri-tech….
Anyone who cares about a future generation of Jews and Arabs prospering together, should be looking towards the Silicon Wadi as a beacon of hope. Universities who care about the growth, collaboration, creativity, and integrity of their students, should be looking towards Silicon Wadi as a beacon of tech and innovation — and should be boycotting groups like Students for Justice in Palestine.
Agitprop at the AHA (Jeffrey Herf, Quillette, January 15, 2025)
Here is another sad example of the ideological takeover of a professional organization.
On 5 January 2025, at a business meeting of the American Historical Association (AHA) held in New York City, the assembled members voted 428 to 88 in favour of a “resolution to oppose scholasticide in Gaza.” The resolution had been proposed by an organisation of left-wing historians calling themselves Historians for Peace and Democracy (HPD)….
The term “scholasticide” was invented by UN officials in 2009 to describe Israel’s military response to one of the first, smaller wars launched by Hamas, just four years after Israel’s unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip. The term emerges from the UN Human Rights Council, which is rightly infamous for its anti-Israel bias. As the organisation UN Watch notes, these biases reflect those of the UN General Assembly. Since 2015, 156 of the UNGA’s 226 resolutions concerning human-rights issues have attacked Israel, compared with only eight against Iran, nine against North Korea, eleven against Syria, and 24 against Russia.
The AHA resolution adopts the terminology and the central accusation of the UNHRC’s April statement. It asserts that the basis for the charge of “scholasticide” was “the IDF’s [Israel Defense Force’s] destruction” of schools, university campuses, archives, libraries, cultural centres, museums, bookstores, heritage sites, and mosques in Gaza. It calls for a “permanent cease fire to halt the scholasticide” and for the AHA to “form a committee to assist in rebuilding Gaza’s educational infrastructure.” …
Exculpating Hamas for the destruction of educational institutions in Gaza during a war that it started and refuses to end serves neither peace nor democracy. It simply aids the strategy of a terrorist organisation that believes Palestinian life is expendable in pursuit of its eliminationist goals. Repeating Hamas propaganda is not the purpose of an organisation of professional historians.
Columbia “Museum of Terror” Brings the Intifada to America (Babbling Beaver, January 18, 2025)
We conclude with a bit of satire—“real fake news”—courtesy of the Babbling Beaver. Follow the links to see what this piece is based on. It is not a joke, it’s for real.
Few American institutions of higher learning offer a more welcoming sanctuary for enlightened activists seeking social justice than Columbia University. One can only be inspired by the students who assembled their own Museum of Terror, curating artifacts celebrating the Palestinian cause as well as their own campus protests, inviting motivational speakers to inspire fellow students to take action.
Not only did this exhibit laud the noble Hamas freedom fighters seeking to liberate Palestine, but it provided detailed instructions on steps that can be taken to make New York City Zionist-free.
“A Zionist-free NYC is the only way that we can ensure that our universities don’t have the power to kick us out and silence us and to continue to fund Israeli genocide on our watch,” explained ringleader Nerdeen Kiswani to the applause of a throng of keffiyeh draped students hanging on her every word.
And to Columbia’s credit, standing firm against false charges of antisemitism, it’s not just students that have rallied to the intifada. Professor Joseph Massad, praised for calling Hamas’ Oct. 7th attack “awesome,” will be teaching a course on the evils of Zionism this spring, ensuring a steady flow of impressionable young acolytes.
In other news, Columbia University receives approximately one-and-a-half billion dollars a year in federal funding.
To this we add that Colombia was ranked second-from-last in FIRE’s free speech rankings (just imagine what’s going on at Harvard!).
Good stuff. Keep it up!