From The New York Times (gift link):
The president of the University of Pennsylvania, M. Elizabeth Magill, resigned on Saturday, four days after her testimony at a congressional hearing in which she seemed to evade the question of whether students who called for the genocide of Jews should be disciplined.“Seemed to evade”? No, evaded.
In a comment on a related post, I suggested an appropriate answer. I’ll share it where it can be more visible:
“Congresswoman, of course calling for genocide is against the standards of what’s acceptable on our campus. And if our code of conduct doesn’t take into account that kind of hateful speech, we will revise it immediately so that it does.”
comments: 4
And ask for a clarification of what constitutes "calling for". Publishing an opinion in the student newspaper? Standing in the quad on a soapbox? Drunkenly ranting phrases you don't quite understand to roommates or partners?
Perhaps even inquire if the Congresswoman can point to an incidence of someone on their campus "calling for" the extermination of Jews, as opposed to a hypothetical designed to cause the ruckus it has.
Great answer, and perfectly obvious one would think.
Why didn’t the Penn president say something like that, do you know?
I think all of your examples would qualify as “calling for.” But I hope it’s not likely that a letter along those lines would be published.
As I wrote in that previous post, I find Elise Stefanik’s politics abhorrent. And of course, she was stunting. But it’s not difficult to answer her question in a way that would avoid a ruckus. When I see Magill responding with a slight smile on her face to questions about a call for genocide, I see a genuine moral failure. Everyone’s guilty of such failures, but when it comes to a question of whether a call for genocide is acceptable, the stakes are pretty high.
Fresca, I didn’t see your comment when I wrote mine. The Times reports that Magill and Gay were both coached by people from a law firm: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/08/business/dealbook/wilmerhale-penn-harvard-mit-antisemitism-hearing.html.
John Gruber (Daring Fireball) just posted a link to a statement from the president of Drexel about threatening chants and vandalism — quite a contrast.
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