2023-12-11 16:30:00
The question, despite the complexity of the matter, was not a trap. The answer was obvious, yet the leaders of three prestigious American universities offered an embarrassing performance in front of elected representatives of Congress.
Republican Representative Stefanik (a Harvard graduate) asked a simple question: “Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate your university’s rules or code of conduct?”
Rather than answer yes, the three women skirted the question. I’m still pinching myself…
A conflict that divides on campuses
The conflict between Hamas and Israel is causing the planet to react. If we generally share the anger of Israelis following the massacre perpetrated by Hamas in October, we consider that the response of the Israeli Army is comparable to a war crime.
In the United States, demonstrators are not bothered by the complexity of the conflict and are resolutely in one camp or the other, leading to an outbreak of Islamophobia and anti-Semitism.
On the campuses of many universities, including the most prestigious, students exercise their right to demonstrate and take advantage of their freedom of expression. So far, nothing abnormal in a country which has seen many others.
The situation escalated when several supporters of Palestine, and sometimes Hamas, called for the genocide of the Jews. We should have intervened at that moment rather than evoking, as the presidents of Harvard, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania did, any context which would justify such comments.
Universities considered progressive, where you are lectured if you express reservations regarding gender theory or systemic racism, had a duty to curb the use of a call to violence that violates the limits of freedom of expression.
Not to do so is to harm the cause and serve those who brush aside very real social problems which are conveniently grouped under an expression which no longer means anything because it is so abused: wokism.
- Listen to the American political column with Professor Luc Laliberté via QUB radio :
Condemnation and malaise
Public condemnation of the three presidents’ responses was immediate and bipartisan. In this regard, Doug Emhoff, the husband of Kamala Haris, might not be more categorical: “(…) that lack of moral clarity is simply unacceptable”. On a moral level, what the three women did is unacceptable.
If I too can only condemn the tolerance towards hate speech, I am uncomfortable with the behavior of the generous donors of each of the universities who are now demanding the dismissal of the three women.
Why my discomfort? Billionaires already have disproportionate influence over universities, their children are privileged there and inequality of opportunity in American society is maintained. Should we also give them the right of life or death over the fate of the leaders? It’s unhealthy.
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#Genocide #Jews #lands #academics #embarrassment
