Everyone seems to be piling it on the presidents of Harvard University, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania. From many quarters, people are calling for the resignation of these university presidents and the UPenn president has already resigned. And why not? On video, they have shown a moral relativism that is repugnant.
Think about it. If students marching and calling for the genocide of Jews is not grounds for expulsion, then what is? Or, to alternatively frame the situation, suppose that these students marched and called for the extermination of all Palestinians. What if they called for the genocide of American blacks? What if they decided that transsexuals needed to be wiped from the Earth? What if white male marchers demanded the extermination of anyone?
Ivy League: Jews are Fair Game
Would such statements and sentiments get the offending students expelled? You know the answer, and so do the university presidents. Nonetheless, these three University presidents essentially intimated that Jews are “fair game.” All of the rules and regulations about what can be expressed on campus and the type of remarks permissible apparently get thrown out the window when it comes to Jews.
Based on the congressional testimony of these three ladies, we are left with the notion that tolerance on campus is highly conditional. Jews have no rights or protections, and every other minority group receives the full basket of rights and protections.
We all understand these ladies’ transgressions, not only in their testimony displayed before the Congressional Committee but as part and parcel of their respective university administrations. Each is at the forefront of why, en masse, their students have acted in such malevolent ways. Each, due to her inability to maintain their university’s code of conduct, has implicitly encouraged students to behave abominably.
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Terminate? Not so Fast
We can conclude that each of the three privately know marchers who call for discrimination against, say, blacks, Latinos, gays, women, or transsexuals would be expelled in a nanosecond. Yet, somehow, marchers who express extreme hate for Jews and Israel are subject to “interpretation” and “context.” How did this come to be?
Here is one explanation: According to Azra Nomani, former Georgetown professor, “Those testimonies [by the three presidents] are a manifestation of six decades of work by Muslim organizations that have as one mission in their lives, the destruction of the state of Israel and the removal of Jews from the river to the sea.”
Despite all that has transpired, I would not suggest terminating them. Firing any of those three college presidents would make it too easy for the campus to carry on in the fashion that has already transpired. Latecomers to the party could say that those university presidents represented the fundamental problem that doesn't extend deeper. Perhaps then the public outcry for the genocide of Jews would cease; perhaps not. In this case, the sentiment would carry on, if only underground.
Instead, I suggest retaining the remaining two presidents and having both of them establish and lead a campus-wide forum discussing how the university has gone astray. Have both of them craft a statement revealing that they were too caught up in the rhetoric all around them to adhere to this basic truth: No group deserves to experience genocide.
Who Can Navigate?
Rather than fire university presidents anywhere, have them lead the resurrection of sanity on their respective campuses. All university presidents where abhorrent marches occurred need to say publicly I was wrong. I do not tolerate students marching in favor of the genocide of Jews, Israel, or any other group. University presidents must inform all students that such speeches and demonstrations will not be tolerated. Indeed, such behavior will result in expulsion.
Not incidentally, it's understandable that the three presidents testifying could not surmise what to say or do when grilled by Congresswoman Elise Stefanik. Why? Because to be politically correct is irrational, and each of the three ladies could not muster the logic consistent with the chaotic liberal mind to extract herself from the dilemma.
How do you discriminate against one group while preferring all other groups? How do you appease college donors and alumni based on a faulty premise? How do you square up with ultra-generous Jewish donors? It's a dilemma that any university president on a campus gone woke will face. Not merely Harvard, MIT, and UPenn need to be enlightened as to what constitutes hate speech and what does not.
95% of the campuses across the U.S. likely require such enlightenment.
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