“The fear in higher education isn’t new; the groups who fear have simply flipped”
So true, there has been a reign of terror on campuses for a generation against almost everyone right of center and in the last decade pro Israel. Turns out the boycotters don’t like being boycotted.
There is so much hyperbole about attempts by the Trump administration to exclude and remove Jihadist terrorism supporting foreigners here on visas or green cards. The comparisons to Nazi Germany are legion at this point – when haven’t they been when the left doesn’t get its way?
My position, staked out in numberous media interviews, is that foreign visitors here do have ‘free speech’ rights but also are subject to the immigration laws (unlike citizens), and if the government can prove a ground under the immigration laws for exclusion or removal, then that’s not a ‘free speech’ violation. The Constitution gives the Congress the power to control immigration, and the Congress has passed restrictions that the president is enforcing.
There’s more than a certain amount of hypocrisy at play, particularly in academia, which has been the least free place in society for a long time.
Just scroll through our Cancel Culture tag, particularly the earlier posts dating back a decade, to see how we documented in real time the absolute reign of terror against almost anyone right-of-center throughout higher education. Also scroll through the BDS tag, to see the internationally-funded and backed attempt to deprive Israelis and Israel-supporters of their free speech. There has been almost no ‘academic freedom’ for non-liberals and pro-Israel faculty – it’s very diffucult (almost impossible) to get hired or promoted holding either openly ‘conservative’ or pro-Israel views.
We have several hundred posts over 15 years devoted to cancel culture against conservatives and BDS attempts to smother pro-Israelis and pro-Israel viewpoints. Shout-downs, distruptions, violence — it all predated the pro-Hamas protests starting after October 7, it has become baked into campus culture.
How bad has it been? Scroll through the Christina Hoff Sommers tag to see how she was tormented when she tried to speak on campuses. One of the nicest and most intellectually-rigorous non-liberal speakers was hounded relentlessly. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of similar stories in our archives of 15+ years at Legal Insurrection.
Now that the tide has turned politically, and campus DEI and pro-Jihadism are under pressure, it’s hard to have sympathy either intellectually or personally for the people who hunted people like me and the others who have born testimony to the repression.
Which brings me to a Letter to the Editor in The Wall Street Journal (h/t Steve McGuire), from which I pulled the headline to this post:
Regarding your editorial “Columbia Learns a Hard Lesson” (March 24): In a recent report about the Trump administration’s investigation into higher ed, Wesleyan University President Michael Roth says: “There is a lot of fear. I’ve never seen anything like it. . . . People are afraid to speak out.”
If so, Mr. Roth hasn’t been paying attention. During my terms on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Corporation, from 2015-21, many of my fellow trustees were afraid to speak out against MIT’s curtailment of free speech and excesses of affirmative action and DEI. The fear in higher education isn’t new; the groups who fear have simply flipped.
John D. Chisholm
My response on X:
So true, there has been a reign of terror on campuses for a generation against almost everyone right of center and in the last decade pro Israel. Turns out the boycotters don’t like being boycotted.
In a better world, the aggressors of the past two decades would recognize the error of their ways. But this is not a better world. They are showing no signs that they have learned from the past, so they will try to repeat history if they gain the power again.
[Featured Image Student Mob at Middlebury Attacks Speaker and Sends Prof to Hospital – March 4, 2017]
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Comments
You can only convince someone for so long that you are oppressed if you are the oppressor. Both sides would do well to remember this.
The left has spent decades crafting these institutions with the expectation that they would always be in charge of them.
Now they are absolutely TERRIFIED that Trump will actually use them against them.
You can avoid it by continuing to do whatever you’re good at and not playing, whichever side you’re on.
Game theory says otherwise.
You can tell who has the power by who you cannot make fun of.
This is an underrated barometer IMO.
It could help a lot of people “read the room” as it tracks well with context and timing.
“They are showing no signs that they have learned from the past, so they will try to repeat history if they gain the power again”
Perhaps, if they are made to eat their own sh*t, they will learn.
The top photo is another reminder that the clowns who whine the loudest about Nazi salutes are the same clowns who make them the most often — except they are holding a cell phone at the same time.
This is probably one of the best ones I’ve ever seen. Charlie Kirk is a national treasure.
https://youtu.be/E32-5naqlu0?si=DuqetXzU-BiE-yNM
Beyond the 1A distinction of application between Aliens and Citizens is the distinction between 1A actions and criminal actions. Taking over common areas, occupation of buildings preventing ingress/egress to/from a building, extortion and basic tort violations are not 1A protected activities. By all means speak, publish your opinions, get a permit to hold a protest gathering to scream, shout, stomp your feet… but don’t engage in unlawful conduct and try to misuse 1A as a shield.
The jig is up. 50 years past due.
Kids can go and get a job and develop a career right out of high school at slave wages —-OR—- they can rack a 100k + in debt and do the same thing 4-6 years later.
Mike Rowe didn’t kill higher ed, but he sure made a safe alternative for those who decide to not buy into the lie.
the left blames kids in the wheel chairs for “proving” their tormentors
this has been one of the mainstays of the “civil rights” movements as
whitey has to prove that they arent racist no matter that the cultures cant co-exist no matter how nice those tv commercials try and convince us
correction:
“provoking”
I’m shocked at John Chisolm’s letter to the Editor. I had assumed Trustees had enough power not to fear anyone. Clearly, I was mistaken. Worse, far worse, I am reminded of David Sabatini, who was described as a genius and predicted to win the Nobel Prize for his research into cancer. He was driven out of his MIT lab by a vindictive female researcher. The woman had her own lab. And a long list of petty complaints against a man who did not love her as much as she thought she deserved. This happened in 2020-2021. Suzy Weiss of the Free Press wrote a detailed account of Sabatini’s personal tragedy, and of the loss to this country’s medical research. So much for science. So much for the countless future cancer patients.
Professor, when has the government ever used the Secretary of State’s unilateral authority to revoke visas for “foreign policy threat” reasons to detain and remove a lawful permanent resident for nothing more than their pro-Israel speech on campus? Or even use it to detain and remove someone on an F-1 visa for nothing more than pro-Israel speech on campus? Indeed, for any speech you would call “conservative”?
How can you claim this is just what different people were experiencing before?
Show me a foreign born Israel supporter that organized occupation of various parts of universities and worked hard to make the campus a place where Palestinians felt unsafe to attend classes. You say this “for nothing more than pro-Israel speech on campus?” but that is not what I saw happening.
One of the oldest maxims in medicine is “Beware the bitter taste of your own treatment”. It so applies here. Radical faculty for years have been beating down students and forcing them to regurgitate pure crap. On one hand, it’s been an easy “A” for so many other students I have known. I wasn’t so lucky—Hillsdale isn’t THAT kind of campus—their unofficial motto is, “If you still have a tail, we’ll work it off!”
6-1 ’80 here.
John D. Chisholm, shame on you and your fellow trustees of the MIT Corporation. During Rafael Reif’s terrible presidency, I wondered “where is the MIT Corporation in this?” If anyone should have spoken up, it was his literal bosses. Instead, you say you were scared.
What were you scared of, for God’s sake? You were the last line of defense, and Reif even got more than 10 years in office that you could have stopped.
The new president Sally Kornbluth seems determined to bring back MIT’s greatness, but for years you let Reif sit in the chair and damage the place. Shame!
In a recent report about the Trump administration’s investigation into higher ed, Wesleyan University President Michael Roth says: “There is a lot of fear. I’ve never seen anything like it. . . . People are afraid to speak out.”
Apparently Wesleyan President has been asleep at the wheel.DuckDuckGo:fear of expressing political opinions among college students.
From that search, here is an article from 2021.Half of college students fear expressing ideas in the classroom: survey