Upholding Standards, Not Labels

Can we excuse evil, terror, and barbarianism with context-dependent ambiguity? The far-left ideology of anti-oppression, anti-colonialism, and neo-Marxism, an illiberal dogma predicated on crude racial lines, ignorant of history and facts, and deriving from the decadent, “everything-goes” postmodernism, seems to think so. 

The ideology-driven, intentional conflation of right and wrong has reached a pressure point during a congressional committee hearing on college campus antisemitism on December 5, 2023. When pressed to address rising incidents of antisemitism on their campuses, Harvard president Claudine Gay, University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill and Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth declined to acknowledge pro-Hamas protestors’ calling for the genocide of Jews as in violation of their schools’ policies on free speech. 

Under a situation that is demonstrably black-and-white regardless of the “context,” these higher education bureaucrats from America’s most prestigious institutions, along with their allies and enablers who pledge support in the name of “academic freedom,” are inexcusably displaying a chilling level of arrogance and a tasteless lack of moral clarity. 

Notably, American intellectual elites’ moral relativism in defending the indefensible is not just about violent antisemitism, or antisemitism in general. As Bill Ackman pointed out in his scathing letter to Harvard President Claudine Gay, “[a]ntisemitism is the canary in the coal mine of other discriminatory practices at Harvard.” While the society-wide outrage at these university leaders, from donors, lawmakers, business leaders, and so on, is directed at antisemitism, the eventful incident exposes deeper issues in American higher education and beyond. 

It is not only a double standard, but also a complete distortion of morals and integrity. Chanting “Death to Israel” should not be protected speech as provoking genocide and violence crosses the line of civility. Harassing Jewish students in the name of fighting racism, colonialism and oppression is not academic freedom or free expression. 

Promoting or excusing antisemitism is going to be the intelligentsia’s waterloo moment as the race-grifting business at the expense of a historically marginalized group, the majority of whom are not so called “people of color,” becomes politically incorrect. 

But the moral lesson is beyond fighting antisemitism. It is what kind of moral standards and constitutional principles we as a nation of a free people must aspire to. 

Making a case to “contextualize” outcries for violence, while calling speech “violence,” showcases a shameless double standard the intellectual establishment applies to themselves versus to their fellow Americans whose opinions they find disagreeable. 

The irony is not lost when heterodox thinkers and activists are frequently targeted for exercising their right to free speech. In Texas v. Johnson (1989), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that flag burning constitutes “symbolic speech” protected by the First Amendment. Yet, many states like California, Nebraska, Missouri and Iowa now investigate and persecute burning pride flags or Black Lives Matter flags as hate crimes. 

Have we simply lost our way, when different rules and principles are applied to different people based on identity and viewpoint? Why do our leaders of the intellectual kind, those who should champion reason and civility, acquiesce in the celebration of the Hamas massacre of October 7? Are we still a nation priding itself on liberty and justice, when anti-racism guru Ibram Kendi is hailed for his evidently racist rant against “whiteness” but a 7-year-old girl was punished for writing “All Lives Matter”? What is the justification our law enforcement and justice systems have for not prosecuting the group of pro-Palestinian protestors who stormed Capitol Hill on October 19, 2023, when those who did the same on January 6, 2021 were relentlessly pursued and hunted down?

Antisemitism is the tip of the iceberg in the grand scheme of rising tides against equal treatment and merit in our society. While all Americans of good conscience should be rightfully outraged by the three university leaders’ refusal to condemn antisemitism, we must be cautious about giving the label “antisemitism” too much meaning in justifying calls for their resignation.

Accommodating antisemitism is not the only reason why these presidents should be fired. Their selective outrage at violations of free speech and the consequent double-standard are at the heart of the problems facing American universities. In the case of Harvard President Caludine Gay who has a proven record of plagiarism and shoddy professional work, along with her promotion of discriminatory policies, a painful lack of standards in identifying the leader of our most elite university is coming to light. 

Labeling the incident on December 5^th as an episode of “antisemitism” also lends unearned legitimacy to organizations like the Anti-Defamation League. These nominally pro-Israel and Jewish nonprofits, hiding behind the cause of fighting antisemitism, have for years pushed for propagating the very ideology that undergirds the moral bankruptcy plaguing American universities and dividing Americans by color and race. 

We need to be able to have honest and constructive dialogues on consequential questions of our times: Are we defined by our group characteristics or a shared destiny as individual Americans? Can America move beyond tribalism and come together under commonly held values and norms granted by our Constitution? How do we deal with free speech and viewpoint diversity? Do people and organizations get a pass to practice discrimination and ideological dogmatism for a non-majority group, or should we all be judged by the same moral and legal standards? 

Unless we can answer these questions with context-neutral clarity, public trust will continue to be eroded and we will be divided by all these unhelpful group labels. We will suffer the consequences of ignoring standards, morals and principles in a futile search for superficial diversity, equity, anti-racism and so on. 

Let’s do all we can to avoid these dire results.