Hate speech is a scourge. Combatting it is an important goal of any society. Speech that incites violence or creates a threatening environment cannot be tolerated within civilized communities or public or private institutions.
There are other dangers associated with hate speech, however. These include a lack of clarity in defining what is hateful or dangerous or worse, abuse of the impulse to regulate such speech.
As much as the dangers of recent weeks have revealed the pervasive nature of the threats of antisemitism and Islamophobia within society and, in particular, within American universities, sadly they have also revealed our vulnerability to heat-of-the-moment driven definitions of what poses a threat, and mob mentality regarding how and when to regulate speech.
The debate surrounding the testimony of the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and Penn (regarding their views on hate speech and creating a safe campus environment) is more likely to compound the current drift toward authoritarianism in the U.S. than it is likely to help solve these difficult problems.
In particular, the pressure to fire those presidents for seeking to present appropriately nuanced answers to questions posed to them is misguided. The fact that it has already forced the resignation of one widely respected academic leader, Elizabeth Magill, the now ex-president of Penn, is not the victory over the “woke left” that some on the right would have you believe it is.
Magill’s resignation does not move us a step closer to producing campuses that are free of antisemitism, Islamophobia, or other forms of hate. Quite the contrary, given the track records of many of those who are leading the condemnation of the university presidents, it is a step toward further perverting the nature of academic discourse in America.
While it may move us a step away from the tortured legalisms of the remarks of the three college presidents before Congress, it also makes it more likely that university administrators will increasingly (to paraphrase Lillian Hellman) have to cut their consciences to fit the views which are fashionable among their donors and other influential special interest groups.
What is and is not suitable academic discourse will in such a world be determined by those with leverage over university budgets. While that has always been true to a degree, this moves us further away from the aspirational ideal of setting the bounds of on campus discourse based on sound principles of openness, fairness, and fact-based guidelines for what is or is not acceptable.
Consider the current debate.
The question that triggered public anger was one posed by Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), a woman associated with election denial, replacement theory, and contempt for the laws of the United States. She asked whether calling for genocide would be considered a violation of school rules. The response of the university presidents, in a nutshell, was it would depend on context.
A lot of people did not like that response. But it was in fact, however unpopular or politically incorrect it might be, the correct response. One can make many statements, including offensive ones, that could be presented in ways that were outrageous but not threatening—and thus should be treated differently from such statements that would actually contribute to an unsafe environment.
You might argue that genocide is so repulsive, such an egregious crime, that no one could ever argue for it when it did not constitute the creation of a threatening environment or hate speech. And you would be right.
That said, one can reasonably argue about whether a political statement actually constitutes a call for genocide or whether the tenor of such an argument constituted harassment or contributed to an unsafe environment. As in this case, the problem becomes particularly thorny because the word genocide is being defined differently—yet emphatically—by various groups. (I should add that there is not, to my knowledge, any instance being cited by the critics of the three presidents in which there was actually an explicit call for genocide. So definitions matter a great deal.)
It is argued by some, for example, that the use of the phrase “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” constitutes a call for genocide. While this may be true if it is uttered by a Hamas terrorist, it could very well not be true for many who, for example, see it as simply a call for one contiguous Palestinian state. It does not necessarily imply the eradication of Jews but, rather, could envision their relocation or their willingness to live in a Palestinian state. That’s a political issue that one should be able to debate within clear ground rules in academia.
Or take this statement from GOP candidate Nikki Haley, “If you don’t think Israel has a right to exist, that is antisemitic.” This is a variation on a theme, promoted actively by the Israeli government and its supporters, that being anti-Zionist is antisemitic.
Is this something that should be codified into law? Should questioning the Zionist thesis that Israel has a greater claim to the land Israel occupies than those who occupied it for hundreds of years prior be grounds for being silenced or kicked out of a university for hate speech?
History and political theory are involved here. There are legitimate debates to be had. (Many Jews have opposed the modern idea of Zionism since the idea was first proposed by Theodor Herzl in 1897. And many more believe the current Israeli state has compromised its legitimacy by its mistreatment of Palestinians and the anti-democratic policies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli right.)
Who answers these questions? Should it be big donors to academic institutions? Political action organizations that advocate on behalf of the current government of Israel? Politicians who have promoted white supremacist ideas like “replacement theory” or who have called neo-Nazis “fine people?”
We should, of course, work tirelessly to combat all hate speech and to promote greater understanding and cohesiveness within our country and worldwide. That said, we must acknowledge other dimensions to our current reality.
For example, as noted earlier, contrary to the arguments of the internet mobs targeting these academic leaders, there were no crowds explicitly calling for genocide at these universities. Further, for the reasons cited above, anti-Zionism or the opposition to the policies of the Israeli government should not automatically be seen as antisemitic.
“Progressives” cannot fairly be assessed to support Hamas terrorism simply because they are critical of Israel. Indeed, all but a demented handful of extremists actively and openly oppose all terror groups. “From the river to the sea” is not necessarily a call for genocide. Context does matter. And academia should be as open as possible to diverse ideas so long as they do not put anyone at imminent risk and so long as the ideas promoted are intellectually sound.
Remember the very same people who are arguing today to condemn what they call “antisemitism” (by which they mean support for the right wing ethno-nationalist Israeli government) are the ones supporting a presidential candidate who has lifted up neo-Nazis and hate-fueled, white supremacist garbage.
In a country lurching toward authoritarianism as we may be, it is vitally important we see such efforts at politically motivated campus censorship for the warnings of potential future abuses that they are.
In such a world, we will need academic leaders to be independent referees who do understand and respect ideas like nuance, principle, and context. Those aren’t “soft” or “woke” or “progressive” ideas. Indeed, they may be among our most important protections against censorship and, by extension, for the rights of all groups especially those out of favor with those in power.
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