This week on Blocked and Reported, Jesse and Katie discuss the recent Congressional hearings on antisemitism and free speech on campus. Plus, NaNoWriMo updates (sorry).
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Jonathan Chait: “The College Presidents Were Right About Campus Antisemitism”
NYT: “College Presidents Under Fire After Dodging Questions About Antisemitism”
“FIRE to Congress, university presidents: Don’t expand censorship. End it.”
Jesse cosplays as an Ivy president:
Representative Stefanik, our conduct codes attempt to balance free speech, which is an important value to our university, with the safety and well-being of students. Because of this balance, which can be tricky, there might be instances in which truly grotesque statements — statements that I, as the president of the university, denounce unequivocally — fall beyond the scope of what we can punish. In certain instances, yes, that could even include calls for genocide. Our conduct codes are written in a manner in which a student or student group could be punished for these statements if they targeted individual students or student groups in a pervasive manner, or if they constituted a true threat or incitement to violence, but it really is context dependent. I know that’s an unsatisfactory answer, but it’s the only answer I can give you as a representative of my university. As an individual, of course I find calls for genocide against any group, and particular a group like Jews that have faced genocide in recent history, unbelievably offensive. But that’s a different question from what powers I have to punish these statements without running afoul of our own conduct code, which could lead to legal trouble for my university.
Shadi Hamid thread: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1732419156828463382.html
Lee Kovarsky, UTexas law prof, thread: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1732423346380521593.html
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