EDITORIAL: University presidents embarrass themselves, their schools

Apologists for the three college presidents who embarrassed themselves at a congressional hearing last week on antisemitism are now attempting to portray them as brave defenders of free speech. That’s utter garbage.

Last week, the leaders of Harvard, Penn and MIT appeared before a congressional committee and couldn’t bring themselves to acknowledge that “calling for the genocide of Jews” amounts to bullying and harassment on campus and would be a violation of their codes of student conduct. “It depends on the context,” one of them said.

In the ensuing firestorm, two of the presidents apologized. The third, Penn’s Elizabeth Magill, resigned.

Since then, some leftist defenders of these academics have said that, while their testimony was unfortunate, they were simply trying to acknowledge First Amendment concerns regarding the regulation of offensive speech. If so, that would be entirely out of character. These university presidents — and others across the country — have a track record of suppressing expression they find distasteful, particularly if it offends progressive sensibilities.

At Penn, for instance, officials have moved to a fire law professor for comments she made embracing Western civilization. Other professors at the school have been targeted, The Wall Street Journal reported this week, for papers criticizing racial preferences and “antiracism efforts in medical schools.”

At MIT, the Journal reports, university officials in 2021 canceled a lecture by a University of Chicago scientist because “faculty and graduate students complained that his criticisms of affirmative action were unacceptable.” Meanwhile, Harvard was number 248 — dead last — in rankings by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which monitors free speech on campuses. Penn came in at 247.

Concern for free speech? Context? Please. These administrators have actively helped foster an authoritarian culture on campuses across the country in which students are taught that “free speech” is a tool wielded against the oppressed minority by majority oppressors. A 2022 survey for FIRE found that 63 percent of college students were worried about speaking up on controversial issues for fear of damaging their reputation. Campus activists routinely attempt to shout down conservative speakers.

“It’s hard to see these schools present themselves as bound by these promises of free expression,” Will Creeley, legal director of FIRE, told the Journal, “when they are very happy to ignore them or violate them in other instances.”

Indeed. Free speech is a two-way street. But it’s highly revealing that the one time these campus leaders choose to defend the First Amendment is when the speech in question involves calling for the death of Jews. They are moral cowards and raging hypocrites.