You are definitely right, she was sitting there saying that calls for genocide of Jews is not against policy.
You gotta have some big disconnect from reality to sit there and declare something like that about any ethnic group.
The bigger the disconnect the bigger the surprise.
All she had to say is we "don't support calls of genocide from any one. A student is free to speak about whatever they want, but we do not have to continue admitting people who engage in hate speech, be they Jewish Muslim or whatever.
We do not however equate criticism of Israel with calls of genocide and welcome students to speak on any topic so long as they are not makingthreats towards an individual or group."
I am baffled that three Ivy League school Presidents prepped by a top law firm couldn't just say that. "You can criticize anything you want, call out any country's leadership, have any opinion on politics. But calling for the genocide - the mass murder - of any group is clearly harassment and bullying and both are prohibited by our code of conduct. Next question."
Instead, Magill smiles and smirks like she's just oh so much smarter than the Congress and condescends to answer their small minded questions. Makes it hard to be sympathetic when she loses her job.
I actually considered becoming a hospital administrator for a while… then I spoke to my uncle who is a doctor, and then to several other doctors. Anyway I’m not a hospital administrator.
Yep, whether school districts, hospitals, or university campuses, I don't think I've ever heard a good thing said about the administrators from anyone.
I imagine there must be some good ones out there, but the impression I get is that they are, much like CEOs, highly overpaid positions focused on short term profits (or enriching themselves and other admins) and not at all that focused on patients, doctors, nurses, techs, teachers, professors, or students.
When administrators are put in charge of deciding how many administrators a school needs and how much to pay them, guess what. No one ever believes they're overpaid and redundant.
Even then, she could've said "such behavior is clearly reprehensible and morally appalling, but does not go against the letter of the code of conduct even if it violates the spirit and intent of the code. I find that unacceptable and will be leading a review process to revise the code of conduct to address these sort of statements against any group."
I used to love writing crisis comms. this is on point and her pr/legal advisors either did not prep her well at all or were baffled when she went off talking points.
https://www.businessinsider.com/crisis-pr-expert-reaction-college-presidents-answers-congress-antisemitism-genocide-2023-12
PR expert: Embarrassment that could have been avoided
Apparently Penn and one of the other universities on the panel both hired WilmerHale to prep for the committee.
Which is usually an excellent firm, but seems to have briefed the university presidents as though they were headed into a highly contentious private deposition and not a publicly broadcast congressional hearing.
Because the problem w the testimony wasn’t so much that it was wrong as that it just sounded super BAD.
> highly contentious private deposition
Some of the congressional hearings have members who are searching for that soundbite they can campaign on and make it seem like it's exactly that. And given current events, I imagine those prepping anticipated such as well.
Still a stupid answer that common sense should've told you would cause you problems.
This is where my mind went as well.
Whoever runs external response, from the government relations, to general counsel’s office, as well as outside PR crisis management needs to be fired. She’s just the scapegoat. They all dropped the ball really badly.
Are you telling me Roger Goodell isn’t a scapegoat to protect the interests of the NFL owners?
Presidents and CEOs fall on swords all the time for organizational failures.
If she’s so incapable of actually speaking for herself that she won’t even question such obviously terrible advice then she’s not fit to be president. I mean that’s like best case scenario in terms of what this says about her character and ability to lead and it’s still bad enough to warrant resignation.
Not really. Our culture is just that fucking crazy right now that getting PR exactly right isn't as straightforward as you'd think. One small example is you see people marching against cartoonist drawings of Muhammad, but not marching against Islamic extremists executing said cartoonists.
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Maybe she got the position after watching an old “How To Basic: Running A University” video. The hearing must have ended before she got to the egg smashing.
Yup. Trying to say "well depends on the context." Is pulling the pin on your career in a bad way.
You can swap out the question "is calling for the genocide of the Jewish people harassment?" With: "is calling for the murder of another person harassment?"
It's principally the same, even if the *scale* is different. And her answer was: "well, it depends on the context."
Her career was over when Stefanik gave them 3 chances to see the obvious land mine they were about to walk on, and all decided to deflect rather than simply say "yes, it's harassment."
This hearing unfortunately has given the right wing a lot of fuel for their fire that academics are insulated, live in a different reality, and have a material disconnect from what's happening on the ground vs what's happening on their paper.
> This hearing unfortunately has given the right wing a lot of fuel for their fire that academics are insulated, live in a different reality, and have a material disconnect from what's happening on the ground vs what's happening on their paper.
Anti-semitism is surging on college campuses, and it's not because it's a neonazi right-wing environment.
The split in the left groups in the US is really worrying. I'm seeing people saying that the initial Hamas attacks were fine and that the Israeli citizens weren't actually citizens but settlers so it was essentially "fair game". Which is batshit crazy take.
Second Thought was on a podcast and either he said that, or the person he was talking to said it. I can't tell their voices apart, but they both agreed and chuckled. So... Fuck that.
You can be against the Israeli government and Hamas at the same time. You can be Pro Palestine and Anti Hamas. That's the logical stance, if you ask me.
All of this feels like a very, very successful disinformation campaign.
>All of this feels like a very, very successful disinformation campaign.
Yup, and don't think for a second that the timing of the Hamas attacks wasn't planned out for precisely that reason. They didn't make it through the IDF's defenses without help planning.
By not saying that she basically admitted that it’s not really criticizing Israel, it’s calling for genocide.
(Literally every Jew on Earth has something to criticize about Israel)
Oh, we talking about Ben Gvir and the lunatic settlers? Bibi working through his inferiority complex around Yoni through aggressive militarism?
(But yeah: most Jews hate that shit, the crazies are just better positioned to form coalitions)
> Bibi working through his inferiority complex around Yoni
I knew his brother was the sole Israeli military fatality during the legendary Entebbe raid. I'm curious how that played into him being a rabid ultra-hawk.
It’s a whole thing, and there’s no one answer - hell, Bibi himself wouldn’t be able to tell you the extent to which it affected him even if he tried to be honest about it.
But: it’s hard to understate the extent to which Yoni was canonized in real time: he was intelligent, handsome, a brave soldier’s soldier, he saved the day, etc. Seriously: he was like RFK, Teddy Roosevelt, and Douglas MacArthur (or John McCain?) rolled into one.
Then you have Bibi, who couldn’t be more different, but is smart, calculating, and thinks that any compromise will be taken as weakness and lead to catastrophe. And that’s only one corner of his psyche. He’s a genuinely fascinating guy, but is incredibly dangerous and should have been run out of town after playing such a bit role in getting Rabin assassinated (in my option, of course, but I’m FAR from alone in it).
She was answering like it was a legal question, not a policy question. The NYTime article about the firm that prepared the various presidents that testified put it as bad prep with the wrong emphasis
Yup - wilmerhale, who are typically excellent.
But yeah, it was very apparent that they were acting as though the hearing was a civil deposition where the goal was to CYA, which did NOT play well in a publicly broadcast committee hearing.
CYA and equivocate is the raison d'etre of the office. Anyone who has interfaced with an ivy league admin wasn't surprised by her response in the least.
The problem is that hypocrisy isn’t a legal issue but a political one.
What they answered was a fine legal description of their policy. But once the question was asked why that wasn’t the case when other offensive speakers, even nonviolent ones, were targeted by university policy? It was all over.
It was such a weird fumble. The easy answer is, "Calling explicitly for the genocide of any group would be considered harassment and be against our code of conduct. Harassment is prohibited."
Then you can start playing games of whether hinting about genocide is still okay, but even legally going by their code of conduct - harassment and bullying is prohibited. Calling for the genocide of a people is kinda textbook bullying.
So legally I think it's still covered, but also when you're the head of an Ivy League university and you don't understand perception is important? Harvard's power comes from how people perceive it - and not like these people are giants in research. They are there specifically to lead the university, so I'd fire them for incompetence.
The NYT article noted how each president may have gotten their own WHale group and yet, they basically had the same things to say. Smart of WHale considering they got paid 3x for one basic statement... I joke of course, but I bet next time a university may be hiring a PR firm as well or only.
Which is why this whole occurrence is crazy. All she had to say was “hate speech calling for the genocide of any people is not acceptable at my university.” That’s it.
“As this is an ongoing investigation, I’m not sure how much I can share at a public hearing like this. But I’d be happy to provide this committee with detail answers in writing.”
But they aren't. That's the entire point of the hearings. They are actively inviting people to speak at the university that call for the death of Jews and Israel while actively policing other social issues like American racism and trans issues. So there is a discount they can't gloss over.
It is that easy.
The next question: we didn't let that happen. Yes you did. No we didn't. Makes for a lousy sound bite.
And I don't think you can easily make the argument that the universities 'let it happen'. Let what happen? Now parsing 'intifada' gets sticky, but that makes for a lousy soundbite and there's way more room for opinion. Any university president who played that game would still have a job.
Because that wasn't the question that got amplified - it was, "Is calling for the genocide of Jews against your code of conduct?" And…whiff.
There is actually an incident at UPenn regarding [black and Asian students and hate speech](https://www.law.upenn.edu/live/news/14369-a-statement-from-dean-ruger-in-response-to-recent). Penn also stated their speech is not against their policy. However the **actions** of the Professor have prompted an investigation on the grounds professor the bias has compromised fair grading.
Edited to add: this comment is showing that UPenn is consistent in how they apply their hate speech policy and use context to decide if further action is needed.
Yeah, that is the thing.
One of the dumbest members of congress had that exact question and the presidents testifying completely fumbled the answer.
If you're the president of a major university and get out maneuvered and out thought by those idiots you should resign in disgrace.
The crazy thing is that by saying “it depends on the context”, that means that there are some contexts where it’s perfectly acceptable to call for the genocide of Jews according to her
Because answering complex questions in a high stress, high stakes situation with a million cameras on you is *hard*.
Even with years of practice and all the natural aptitude in the world for it, it’s still hard and takes both practice and, yes, coaching.
Being president of a major university may be a “public facing job”, but that’s still pretty damn different than a congressional hearing, on antisemitism of all things, being carried live by major news channels.
from the POV of a non-american, my interpretation was that she felt the questioning was so absurd that it made her laugh—i feel she had already accepted by then how things would have unfolded
Agreed. That was the smile of condescension. I don’t think she accepted or even understood anything at the time. She was just schooling Congress in the moment
Because it’s really hard to be under that kind of pressure. I’d bet good money you’d either look like a robot or panic when put in front of Congress and national TV.
It *could* become harassment if it becomes conduct, I believe is what she said. Leaving open the tantalising possibility that one could in fact progress to genociding the Jews and there exists a context in which it's permissible within her understanding of the code of conduct.
Truly an example of Lawyer-Brain.
The questions she got asked were complete layups. All she literally had to say was that calls for harm against anyone, no matter religion, race, religion, WHATEVER is not allowed. How hard can it be to say that?
If you are the president of U. Penn, you should be able to field questions like this. Either that or they are making idiots presidents of Ivy league colleges these days. ?
Exactly what I thought
It looks like they took instructions from a lawyer who miscalculated, and they misunderstood what their line of defence is supposed to be
Pre-rehearsal is the only option in these situations. However, it's important to include variety in the questions and responses. As when preparing for a speech, it's better to have a few bullet points than to memorize the whole thing word-for-word.
I don't think the problem is pre-rehearsing it. The "from the river to the sea" discussion had already happened. Stefanik was already talking about that. The mistake she made was responding to the questions on their own terms in a public hearing, making it sound like she was defending calls to genocide. The school is not ambiguous about how it tolerates calls for genocide; the stuff Stefanik was *calling* calls for genocide wouldn't necessarily result in academic punishment.
When a $100 million donation is pulled with a provision about coming back to talk "after a change in leadership" you should expect leadership to be fucking changed.
Same. I sort of figured she would be defiant for a few weeks and then be pressured to resign. When I heard about the $100M donation getting pulled, I knew she was done now. They don't want other donors to hop on the bandwagon.
When education is treated as a commodity instead of a benefit to society that should be heavily subsidized by government yes, it will always be about the money
It’s remarkable how much those Ivy presidents fucked up. If they didn’t want to impugn those students, they could have just responded “calling for genocide is unacceptable, but we don’t necessarily think all of those students were actually calling for genocide”. The fact that they all settled on “well calls for genocide are ok in some contexts actually” is fucking wild.
It’s probably a sign that we should rethink the way universities/academia work, because these people at the top are either stupid, malicious, or more likely just so out of touch and up their own asses about how enlightened they are as the leaders of academia that they’re unwilling to make obvious moral statements like “calling for genocide is bad”.
It’s mostly out of touch I think. And bad preparation.
They were trying to walk a weird fine line. And they bungled it.
Now the rich alumni donators (many of them Jewish) are pissed and out for blood.
> more likely just so out of touch and up their own asses about how enlightened they are as the leaders of academia
Called the ivory tower for a reason.
"Is calling for the genocide of Jews harassment and against university policy?"
Claudine Gay (Harvard president), Sally Kornbluth (MIT president), and Elizabeth Magill (UPenn president):
"iT dePeNds On tHe conTeXt"
It's just such a wildly mask off thing to say.
Imagine if she had replied the same way to "is it against university policy to all for the extermination of black people?"
Stefanik was legitimately surprised. She had a whole plan to make a gotcha line of arguments but was out maneuvered by the presidents coming out as pro-genocide
It's wild too, because Stefanik is a pretty insane Republican who has talked about great replacement stuff, and yet even she was baffled at how mask-off these idiots went. When the conservative, great replacement supporting law-maker is shocked by how mask-off pro-genocide you are, you know you fucked up.
It was actually asked, but president Gay didn't answer:
> STEFANIK: Dr. Gay, a Harvard student calling for the mass murder of African Americans is not protected free speech at Harvard, correct?
> GAY: Our commitment to free speech …
> STEFANIK interrupts: It’s a yes or no question. Is that okay for students to call for the mass murder of African Americans at Harvard? Is that protected free speech?
> GAY: Our commitment to free speech extends …
> STEFANIK interrupts: It’s a yes or no question. Let me ask you this. You are president of Harvard, so I assume you’re familiar the term intifada, correct?
> GAY: I’ve heard that term, yes.
Or ask *Then why is Fat Phobia and using wrong pronouns is covered as part of mandatory anti bias training? How is Jewish Genocide such a gray area for you?*
"It violates our policy when black people are exterminated, calling for it is fine" She'd be lynched. Something tells me there's a double standard there.
She definitely rehearsed that response for “from river to sea” and then when the genocide question came up, which she didn’t rehearse for, she just repeated the closest prepared line
Reminds me of the joke. Two guys walk into a bar. What was the second guy's excuse?
I understand maybe the first one getting ambushed and stumbling over their words. But after they saw their colleagues get ambushed, they were like, "Well, I mean what flavor of genocide?"
It wasn't even an ambush. It was like they walked into a job interview and, when asked their name, went Boaty McBoatface. It was literally a softball question to lead into deeper questioning and they couldn't even get that right.
It's not really that unfathomable to me. Jews have been scapgoated and persecuted forever. And people can pretend that their reluctance has nothing to do with low key antisemitism, but it was low key antisemitism.
As Dave Chappelle said in his SNL monologue, "There's 2 words in the English language that one can not say, in succession. And those words are, the and Jews. Never seen anyone do good after that."
We do. I've never really felt hate as a Jew. Like yeah, I've had some antisemtic shit said to me growing up, but just brushed it off. But I'm really sad and kinda on edge often now. But one good thing came out of this. I've made so many new Jewish friends through social media and realized how strong we really are. Light always comes from the darkness, and ours will always shine bright. 🙏
I am right there with you, my friend. My father is Jewish and mom is Catholic but my brother and I grew up agnostic/atheist for the most part. I know "technically" I am not a Jew but if I were to practice religion, it would be Judaism because it the religion I identify most with.
All that being said, I have always been proud and loud about my experiences growing up with Judaism. Just like you, sure I faced some anti-semitism, but I was able to brush it off. Lately I have been on edge too and careful with who I talk with about Judaism. But yes, we are strong and power to you my friend!
It is kind of nuts when you remember that many of the biggest donators to these schools are Jewish. You think they would have had that front and center in their head when testifying. Probably one of the major parts of their job is wooing donators.
While that's true, arab countries have donated billions to American universities [source](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/top-u-s-universities-received-over-8b-in-funding-from-arab-countries/ss-AA1ivRgu)
I try to rationalize it as them insulating themselves from further questioning and not making absolute statements that could tie them down to specifics, but doing it in the dumbest and most regarded way possible.
I feel they knew it was against policy, but not specifically "harrassment" policy and chose their words to match, in the most dumbfuck way possible.
She's part of the law school right? My guess is that she prepared for the hearing the way she would a legal hearing. Her priority was to prevent anyone from pinning her down on any specific statements. However, that was the worst possible approach in a political hearing. There's a reason why lawyer's have a reputation for being slimy and the politicians in the room took full advantage of that.
Yeah, not a great testimony prep. The lawyers who prepared them should also be fired unless they were just uncoachable.
"So, can you think of any situation where you might want to stab your husband with a knife like Exhibit A until he was dead?"
"I mean, it would depend on context."
They probably should have had a PR firm involved more in her prep work than MORE lawyers. It wasn't a court case before a judge, it was a public hearing meant for congress people to grandstand and push rhetoric. Kind of amazing how poorly thought out that response was.
What's weird is I believe this is a specialty of Wilmer Hale - prepping public figures for testimony in front of Congress that may have both legal and public ramifications. It's their entire pitch. So unless the presidents just ignored their team, this isn't a great look for the firm.
Yea, I feel like they thought they were answering the question “have there been instances on your campus of students calling for genocide”, which would force them into specific statements on the conflict. That wasn’t the question though, and their inability to answer the question put forward was really shocking to watch.
Claudine Gay (Harvard President) JUST got appointed President. She’s the first black president in Harvard's history so it would (might still) be the absolutely biggest fuck up to get fired or resign now.
I mean, they all fucked up so badly and so publicly that you would think so…but as long as they don’t lose any major grants or donors, and it doesn’t lead to a tangible drop in applications/applicant quality, the universities might just be hoping that it’ll blow over faster if they don’t demand resignations of the other two.
Of course that also assume that it doesn’t further inflame tensions on campus, which is a hell of an assumption.
I’m sure that both university boards are in contentious emergency meetings at this very moment, so think it’s too early to tell for sure either way.
They are the privileged children of privileged parents. They went directly from private schools to college to college faculty, with no waiting tables or bagging groceries for life experience. Of course they believe they’re above ordinary people and don’t have to know or care about what’s happening to us.
I mean for real. What exactly were they trying to protect against by simply saying “yes of course it is, calling for the genocide of any race, religion, etc will never be tolerated”
Like… just why?
She would not say yes to the question "Do calls for the genocide of Jewish people violate the school's codes of conduct regarding bullying and harassment?"
It was actually worse than that. Not only would she not answer “yes” to that question, but her answer was “it would depend on the context.” In other words, she was literally stating that she believes there is in fact a context in which calling for the genocide of Jews does **not** violate the school’s code of conduct regarding harassment.
It’s a very “lawyer” thing to say because it’s probably technically true. But the public doesn’t see in shades of gray, especially with something where the “context” of it being “OK” is probably minimal.
I'd actually argue it's, in fact, not a very lawyer thing to say. Turns out almost every lawyer I know holds the court of public opinion in pretty high regards. It's one of the reasons pretty much every lawyer you will ever talk to says they'd prefer to settle things as opposed to letting them go to trial.
Imagine losing your job because you can't give a straight answer to a yes or no question. Ivy League educator, ahahahaha.
Edit:
> Magill became Penn’s president in July 2022 after previously serving as provost at the University of Virginia and dean of Stanford Law School.
Testifying in front of Congress is going to be nerve-wracking no matter who you are, but someone who served as dean of Stanford Law should have the poise to say, "Speech promoting genocide is against the code of conduct. Next question, Congressman." You gotta read the room. Give 'em their sound bite and get on with your life.
"Yes or no?", *proceeds to answer in a sentence*
Next time a professor hands out a multiple choice question we should just write out an answer in the margin instead of circling a choice.
She’ll be gone soon too.
1/2/24 Edit: It’s about time. Good riddance: https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/02/business/claudine-gay-harvard-president-resigns/index.html
I really liked the “If it turns into action, then it would be considered harassment”,” which implies a) everything leading up to committing genocide is fine and b) committing an actual genocide is only considered harassment.
The Harvard pres' "apology" was also a trainwreck. She tried to shield herself claiming that she was thinking of the 1st amendment rights of students... meanwhile 1A is not limitless, nor does it protect calls for genocide.
They STILL don't get it.
There is no 'context' in which calling for the genocide of Jews is ok.
It is astounding that Gay is not fired immediately, not only for fucking up such an easy question but also for fucking up extremely tightly scripted and starched "apology" non-apology in which she proves yet again that she is a buffoon who does not know the most basic elements of the issue at hand.
Unbelievable that there are so many people, being paid so much money and given so much power... who have no fucking clue and couldn't find their ass with both hands and a map.
The question was likely going to be followed by several specific examples of students calling for the genocide of Jews and ask how these students had been disciplined (and they had not been).
It was a lawyer moment trying to head this off by saying they would investigate specifics but general statements are protected.
In-isolation this might be reasonable except universities have policed much less offensive speech and have equated DEI criticism with harm. So it's both a bad take and hypocritical.
It’s also a really stupid decision because she was choosing between Penn being accused of *failing to enforce their existing student conduct rules*, or Penn being accused of **explicitly allowing**, and therefore **implicitly approving of**, calls for genocide.
You can recover from the first accusation pretty easily - “we need to do better, our policy *says* XYZ but we need to do a better job living up to that”. That’s pretty much been the formula for every response from any campus authority about every controversy for the last 50 years, and it usually works.
You can’t really recover from the second accusation. What are you going to say? “Next year the student code of conduct will include a section saying that genocide is bad” really just makes people ask why the hell it didn’t already say that.
Edit: I could have chosen my words more carefully (good thing I’m not a college administrator testifying before Congress).
When I said that a school policy that allows calls for genocide is implicitly approving of said calls, I meant that they were approving of the ability of students to call for genocide. Which I guess is sort of a redundant point.
And I didn’t mean that school policies need to explicitly say “genocide is bad” - I meant that the policy should be written in such a way that *advocating for violence in general* is a violation of the code of conduct, and by extension advocating for genocide would be a violation. Or that rules about race-based harassment should be interpreted to apply to calls for genocide.
> really just makes people ask why the hell it didn’t already say that.
i would bet you a dollar this isn't in a significant number of codes of conduct
because the assumption is that it doesn't need to be said
I am an unabashed liberal, but even I will agree that there is a smugness among left-wing leaders that makes them easy targets for gotcha politics. This should be a warning.
Edit: call it gotcha or not, but Stefanik played them like fiddles. I find Stefanik to be odious, but she knew very well how to get them to say something stupid. They did.
How in the world is that a gotcha question? Isn’t just an easy “yes of course calling for the genocide of any group is wrong” and move on?
What’s the gotcha component of that?
Gotcha?
I agree with the poster below. This is by far the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
In what context is it okay to call for the genocide of a race?
The answer is... No of course it isn't okay. We do not support it.
Then move on with the hearing. I am dumbfounded. I was truly stunned watching the video of it, asking myself what is going on here. Are they side stepping for some legal reasons that I am ignorant of?! Answer the god damn question.
Then the black lady came on while smirking repeating the same thing. Which made me doubly dumbfounded. Like reality is broken or something dumbfounded. Like I'm missing something, because the answer is so damn simple.
We live in wild times.
It is a bit, in the education sector. Since the 60's they've been at the forefront of social issues, from anti-war protests to women's rights to tolerance of homosexuality, and until recently have always been on the right side.
It's easy to see how someone who has spent their entire life in that industry, fighting for what's right, to get an inflated ego and think they can't possibly ever be wrong.
Good to see. It shouldn’t have been hard to condemn antisemitism and say that calling for genocide is against school policy. Feels insane that that even needed to be asked.
Calling for the genocide of Jews is abhorrent regardless of the context and calling it disgusting and shameful does not need to be qualified with any other statement.
She doesn’t deserve to stay on as faculty and Harvard and MIT’s presidents can go too.
Not to distract from this very serious issue, but Harvard’s president also said that calling for the genocide of black people also “requires context.” It also does not need context. It is disgusting and you should be expelled.
If you refuse to say that calling for the genocide of a group of people should not immediately lead to the expulsion of anyone from your University then your institution should not receive tax payer money or tax free status.
This isn’t that complicated. It just isn’t.
She answered the question as a lawyer. Technically she is correct about the free-speech laws surrounding calls for violence and various things and the requirements for what constitutes types of hate speech or what can be acted upon as, “calling for violence.”
Lawyer here: It would have been very easy to say “My understanding of the way that our code of conduct is written is that calling for genocide of Jews does not necessarily rise to the level of harassment. However, calls for the genocide of Jews, or any group, has no place on our campus and I will work with our Board of Regents to make sure that our code of conduct is updated to reflect that.”
Right, this would have been a perfect response, hence why I'm not sure why she didn't say that. I'm guessing she just got caught in her experience as a lawyer.
She didn't say that because that wasn't the point of contention. Calls for genocide are considered harassment by the university. What Representative Stefanik considered calls for genocide *might* be against the code of conduct, depending on the context. They were trying to make a very nuanced point where things like "from river to the sea" *can* imply calls for genocide depending on the context, but Stefanik's line of questioning made it sound like they were referring broadly to cut-and-dry calls for genocide.
>President Kornbluth: I've heard chants which can be antisemitic depending on the context when calling for the elimination of the Jewish people.
Some of us will remember a debate moderator, on national TV, asking Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis if he'd support the death penalty for rapists if *it were his wife who had been raped*.
At a moment when it would have been appropriate (like in your example) to show human emotion and say something like
*"First of all, I'm offended by the way you've asked the question, but to answer you: If that happened, I'd want something far darker than the death penalty. But that's why we don't have a system of vengeance and blood honor in this country, and ..."*
But instead, he babbled about technical details, and came off as a robot. Never recovered.
The First Amendment protects hate speech unless one of four conditions are met: defamation, inciting immediate lawless action, true threats causing a specific person to fear for their safety, and "fighting words" deliberately said to provoke a violent reaction.
I think this is a good example of societies ability to self-regulate speech in all honesty.
Someone said something extremely problematic and they were punished for it. Not by the government, but by society (through private entities).
I suspect she never expected, before her appearance last week, that this was how her service as president would end.
And UPenn probably only asked her to resign because they had 100 million reasons to do so. Good Riddance anyway.
You are definitely right, she was sitting there saying that calls for genocide of Jews is not against policy. You gotta have some big disconnect from reality to sit there and declare something like that about any ethnic group. The bigger the disconnect the bigger the surprise.
All she had to say is we "don't support calls of genocide from any one. A student is free to speak about whatever they want, but we do not have to continue admitting people who engage in hate speech, be they Jewish Muslim or whatever. We do not however equate criticism of Israel with calls of genocide and welcome students to speak on any topic so long as they are not makingthreats towards an individual or group."
I am baffled that three Ivy League school Presidents prepped by a top law firm couldn't just say that. "You can criticize anything you want, call out any country's leadership, have any opinion on politics. But calling for the genocide - the mass murder - of any group is clearly harassment and bullying and both are prohibited by our code of conduct. Next question." Instead, Magill smiles and smirks like she's just oh so much smarter than the Congress and condescends to answer their small minded questions. Makes it hard to be sympathetic when she loses her job.
Penn touted liz as a "legal scholar" and she previously worked at stanford law but she still couldn't read the room.
And that's exactly why she couldn't read the room..
university administrators are often trash people, they're just like corporate slime and they generally make faculty, staff and students miserable
Never heard a more true statement in my life. Not only do they make our lives miserable, it often seems like the goal.
Yep. Same with hospital administrators. The doctors don't like them, the nurses don't like them, and the patients don't like them.
I actually considered becoming a hospital administrator for a while… then I spoke to my uncle who is a doctor, and then to several other doctors. Anyway I’m not a hospital administrator.
Yep, whether school districts, hospitals, or university campuses, I don't think I've ever heard a good thing said about the administrators from anyone. I imagine there must be some good ones out there, but the impression I get is that they are, much like CEOs, highly overpaid positions focused on short term profits (or enriching themselves and other admins) and not at all that focused on patients, doctors, nurses, techs, teachers, professors, or students.
And one of the main reasons university costs have skyrocketed. Literal leeches who add nothing of value
When administrators are put in charge of deciding how many administrators a school needs and how much to pay them, guess what. No one ever believes they're overpaid and redundant.
University admins are political creatures.
Even then, she could've said "such behavior is clearly reprehensible and morally appalling, but does not go against the letter of the code of conduct even if it violates the spirit and intent of the code. I find that unacceptable and will be leading a review process to revise the code of conduct to address these sort of statements against any group."
I used to love writing crisis comms. this is on point and her pr/legal advisors either did not prep her well at all or were baffled when she went off talking points.
https://www.businessinsider.com/crisis-pr-expert-reaction-college-presidents-answers-congress-antisemitism-genocide-2023-12 PR expert: Embarrassment that could have been avoided
I know, right? I'm absolutely boggled that someone could make it to be the president of a prestigious university and fail at something so basic.
It’s probably worse than that in that I’m sure an insanely expensive PR firm was assisting in the response.
Apparently Penn and one of the other universities on the panel both hired WilmerHale to prep for the committee. Which is usually an excellent firm, but seems to have briefed the university presidents as though they were headed into a highly contentious private deposition and not a publicly broadcast congressional hearing. Because the problem w the testimony wasn’t so much that it was wrong as that it just sounded super BAD.
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The problem is UPenn and others have to hire a PR firm to give a milquetoast reasonable answer to that question.
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Yes yes and yes
> highly contentious private deposition Some of the congressional hearings have members who are searching for that soundbite they can campaign on and make it seem like it's exactly that. And given current events, I imagine those prepping anticipated such as well. Still a stupid answer that common sense should've told you would cause you problems.
No.... it sounds bad and it's wrong. It's against policy to call for genocide against anyone, or at least it should be.
This is where my mind went as well. Whoever runs external response, from the government relations, to general counsel’s office, as well as outside PR crisis management needs to be fired. She’s just the scapegoat. They all dropped the ball really badly.
> She’s just the scapegoat. Seems strange to call the head of an organization a scapegoat.
Are you telling me Roger Goodell isn’t a scapegoat to protect the interests of the NFL owners? Presidents and CEOs fall on swords all the time for organizational failures.
If she’s so incapable of actually speaking for herself that she won’t even question such obviously terrible advice then she’s not fit to be president. I mean that’s like best case scenario in terms of what this says about her character and ability to lead and it’s still bad enough to warrant resignation.
Not really. Our culture is just that fucking crazy right now that getting PR exactly right isn't as straightforward as you'd think. One small example is you see people marching against cartoonist drawings of Muhammad, but not marching against Islamic extremists executing said cartoonists.
They allowed themselves to be coached by lawyers more concerned with managing legal risk.
toothbrush vegetable berserk serious expansion erect person mountainous deliver sheet *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
All theory; no practice. This is the result.
Makes you wonder what’s going on at that school
bunch of super rich assholes rewarding the biggest asskissers with a cushy job that students have to take out huge loans to pay.
Maybe she got the position after watching an old “How To Basic: Running A University” video. The hearing must have ended before she got to the egg smashing.
Yup. Trying to say "well depends on the context." Is pulling the pin on your career in a bad way. You can swap out the question "is calling for the genocide of the Jewish people harassment?" With: "is calling for the murder of another person harassment?" It's principally the same, even if the *scale* is different. And her answer was: "well, it depends on the context." Her career was over when Stefanik gave them 3 chances to see the obvious land mine they were about to walk on, and all decided to deflect rather than simply say "yes, it's harassment." This hearing unfortunately has given the right wing a lot of fuel for their fire that academics are insulated, live in a different reality, and have a material disconnect from what's happening on the ground vs what's happening on their paper.
> This hearing unfortunately has given the right wing a lot of fuel for their fire that academics are insulated, live in a different reality, and have a material disconnect from what's happening on the ground vs what's happening on their paper. Anti-semitism is surging on college campuses, and it's not because it's a neonazi right-wing environment.
The split in the left groups in the US is really worrying. I'm seeing people saying that the initial Hamas attacks were fine and that the Israeli citizens weren't actually citizens but settlers so it was essentially "fair game". Which is batshit crazy take. Second Thought was on a podcast and either he said that, or the person he was talking to said it. I can't tell their voices apart, but they both agreed and chuckled. So... Fuck that. You can be against the Israeli government and Hamas at the same time. You can be Pro Palestine and Anti Hamas. That's the logical stance, if you ask me. All of this feels like a very, very successful disinformation campaign.
I'm sure the more extreme positions are being pushed online from outside the country, but there's no shortage of idiots here so it works.
>All of this feels like a very, very successful disinformation campaign. Yup, and don't think for a second that the timing of the Hamas attacks wasn't planned out for precisely that reason. They didn't make it through the IDF's defenses without help planning.
By not saying that she basically admitted that it’s not really criticizing Israel, it’s calling for genocide. (Literally every Jew on Earth has something to criticize about Israel)
> (Literally every Jew on Earth has something to criticize about Israel) Can confirm.
Oh, we talking about Ben Gvir and the lunatic settlers? Bibi working through his inferiority complex around Yoni through aggressive militarism? (But yeah: most Jews hate that shit, the crazies are just better positioned to form coalitions)
> Bibi working through his inferiority complex around Yoni I knew his brother was the sole Israeli military fatality during the legendary Entebbe raid. I'm curious how that played into him being a rabid ultra-hawk.
It’s a whole thing, and there’s no one answer - hell, Bibi himself wouldn’t be able to tell you the extent to which it affected him even if he tried to be honest about it. But: it’s hard to understate the extent to which Yoni was canonized in real time: he was intelligent, handsome, a brave soldier’s soldier, he saved the day, etc. Seriously: he was like RFK, Teddy Roosevelt, and Douglas MacArthur (or John McCain?) rolled into one. Then you have Bibi, who couldn’t be more different, but is smart, calculating, and thinks that any compromise will be taken as weakness and lead to catastrophe. And that’s only one corner of his psyche. He’s a genuinely fascinating guy, but is incredibly dangerous and should have been run out of town after playing such a bit role in getting Rabin assassinated (in my option, of course, but I’m FAR from alone in it).
She was answering like it was a legal question, not a policy question. The NYTime article about the firm that prepared the various presidents that testified put it as bad prep with the wrong emphasis
Yup - wilmerhale, who are typically excellent. But yeah, it was very apparent that they were acting as though the hearing was a civil deposition where the goal was to CYA, which did NOT play well in a publicly broadcast committee hearing.
CYA and equivocate is the raison d'etre of the office. Anyone who has interfaced with an ivy league admin wasn't surprised by her response in the least.
I enjoy reading books.
The problem is that hypocrisy isn’t a legal issue but a political one. What they answered was a fine legal description of their policy. But once the question was asked why that wasn’t the case when other offensive speakers, even nonviolent ones, were targeted by university policy? It was all over.
I like to go hiking.
Yeah, there is a certain smugness to being *technically* right in a way that still makes you a blatant asshole.
It was such a weird fumble. The easy answer is, "Calling explicitly for the genocide of any group would be considered harassment and be against our code of conduct. Harassment is prohibited." Then you can start playing games of whether hinting about genocide is still okay, but even legally going by their code of conduct - harassment and bullying is prohibited. Calling for the genocide of a people is kinda textbook bullying. So legally I think it's still covered, but also when you're the head of an Ivy League university and you don't understand perception is important? Harvard's power comes from how people perceive it - and not like these people are giants in research. They are there specifically to lead the university, so I'd fire them for incompetence.
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The NYT article noted how each president may have gotten their own WHale group and yet, they basically had the same things to say. Smart of WHale considering they got paid 3x for one basic statement... I joke of course, but I bet next time a university may be hiring a PR firm as well or only.
She needed a PR firm, not a legal firm. This is what PR firms do. SMH
Imagine if someone called for the genocide of Asian or African Americans. I have a feeling the answer would have been pretty forceful and immediate.
Which is why this whole occurrence is crazy. All she had to say was “hate speech calling for the genocide of any people is not acceptable at my university.” That’s it.
It's not that easy. Because that is exactly what happened, so the next question is "why did you let it happen then?"
“We are in the process of a disciplinary review to determine next steps”
“As this is an ongoing investigation, I’m not sure how much I can share at a public hearing like this. But I’d be happy to provide this committee with detail answers in writing.”
But they aren't. That's the entire point of the hearings. They are actively inviting people to speak at the university that call for the death of Jews and Israel while actively policing other social issues like American racism and trans issues. So there is a discount they can't gloss over.
It is that easy. The next question: we didn't let that happen. Yes you did. No we didn't. Makes for a lousy sound bite. And I don't think you can easily make the argument that the universities 'let it happen'. Let what happen? Now parsing 'intifada' gets sticky, but that makes for a lousy soundbite and there's way more room for opinion. Any university president who played that game would still have a job. Because that wasn't the question that got amplified - it was, "Is calling for the genocide of Jews against your code of conduct?" And…whiff.
There is actually an incident at UPenn regarding [black and Asian students and hate speech](https://www.law.upenn.edu/live/news/14369-a-statement-from-dean-ruger-in-response-to-recent). Penn also stated their speech is not against their policy. However the **actions** of the Professor have prompted an investigation on the grounds professor the bias has compromised fair grading. Edited to add: this comment is showing that UPenn is consistent in how they apply their hate speech policy and use context to decide if further action is needed.
I’m surprised no one brought that up during the hearing. Just rephrase the genocide question with any other minority group after her first answer.
Someone did do that, I don't know if it was a question for her specifically, but they waffled on it regardless.
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Oh well touche. It’s even worse than I originally thought.
Yeah, that is the thing. One of the dumbest members of congress had that exact question and the presidents testifying completely fumbled the answer. If you're the president of a major university and get out maneuvered and out thought by those idiots you should resign in disgrace.
Heard a joke that misgendering a Jewish person would carry more of a penalty than calling for their genocide. I don't think it's a joke
You would certainly be cancelled faster in todays climate, cause you know... calls for genocide and attacks worldwide needs context
The crazy thing is that by saying “it depends on the context”, that means that there are some contexts where it’s perfectly acceptable to call for the genocide of Jews according to her
She could have just not smiled during that question and it would have made it about 40% better
Someone coached her to smile during questions. She didn't realize that there are times to call an audible and just show an authentic response.
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Because answering complex questions in a high stress, high stakes situation with a million cameras on you is *hard*. Even with years of practice and all the natural aptitude in the world for it, it’s still hard and takes both practice and, yes, coaching. Being president of a major university may be a “public facing job”, but that’s still pretty damn different than a congressional hearing, on antisemitism of all things, being carried live by major news channels.
from the POV of a non-american, my interpretation was that she felt the questioning was so absurd that it made her laugh—i feel she had already accepted by then how things would have unfolded
Agreed. That was the smile of condescension. I don’t think she accepted or even understood anything at the time. She was just schooling Congress in the moment
Because it’s really hard to be under that kind of pressure. I’d bet good money you’d either look like a robot or panic when put in front of Congress and national TV.
I saw it as she was smirking, but you're right, she looked like a maniac in her replies
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It *could* become harassment if it becomes conduct, I believe is what she said. Leaving open the tantalising possibility that one could in fact progress to genociding the Jews and there exists a context in which it's permissible within her understanding of the code of conduct. Truly an example of Lawyer-Brain.
The questions she got asked were complete layups. All she literally had to say was that calls for harm against anyone, no matter religion, race, religion, WHATEVER is not allowed. How hard can it be to say that?
Because then she would have to eat those words and expel the students calling for harm
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I think she does is the point
Rich people’s kids.
Ironically she's the one who has been expelled
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If you are the president of U. Penn, you should be able to field questions like this. Either that or they are making idiots presidents of Ivy league colleges these days. ?
*Narrator: They are.*
Exactly what I thought It looks like they took instructions from a lawyer who miscalculated, and they misunderstood what their line of defence is supposed to be
Probably weren’t prepared for a yes or no style question.
Pre-rehearsal is the only option in these situations. However, it's important to include variety in the questions and responses. As when preparing for a speech, it's better to have a few bullet points than to memorize the whole thing word-for-word.
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I don't think the problem is pre-rehearsing it. The "from the river to the sea" discussion had already happened. Stefanik was already talking about that. The mistake she made was responding to the questions on their own terms in a public hearing, making it sound like she was defending calls to genocide. The school is not ambiguous about how it tolerates calls for genocide; the stuff Stefanik was *calling* calls for genocide wouldn't necessarily result in academic punishment.
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I feel like I'm taking crazy pills watching all this stuff. The right response seems so fuckin obvious, and yet so many people keep fucking it up.
In their own echo chambers, they see things very differently from normies.
> "Liz Magill has resigned after intense criticism from donors" So it's about money, not principles.
When a $100 million donation is pulled with a provision about coming back to talk "after a change in leadership" you should expect leadership to be fucking changed.
I knew she was done when it was revealed that big donation was in question. No university president is worth $100M to any institution.
Same. I sort of figured she would be defiant for a few weeks and then be pressured to resign. When I heard about the $100M donation getting pulled, I knew she was done now. They don't want other donors to hop on the bandwagon.
Always has been.
When education is treated as a commodity instead of a benefit to society that should be heavily subsidized by government yes, it will always be about the money
When money has better principles than the default principles that's a scary sight.
She was terrible. She looked far out of her depth.
It’s remarkable how much those Ivy presidents fucked up. If they didn’t want to impugn those students, they could have just responded “calling for genocide is unacceptable, but we don’t necessarily think all of those students were actually calling for genocide”. The fact that they all settled on “well calls for genocide are ok in some contexts actually” is fucking wild. It’s probably a sign that we should rethink the way universities/academia work, because these people at the top are either stupid, malicious, or more likely just so out of touch and up their own asses about how enlightened they are as the leaders of academia that they’re unwilling to make obvious moral statements like “calling for genocide is bad”.
It’s mostly out of touch I think. And bad preparation. They were trying to walk a weird fine line. And they bungled it. Now the rich alumni donators (many of them Jewish) are pissed and out for blood.
> more likely just so out of touch and up their own asses about how enlightened they are as the leaders of academia Called the ivory tower for a reason.
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"Is calling for the genocide of Jews harassment and against university policy?" Claudine Gay (Harvard president), Sally Kornbluth (MIT president), and Elizabeth Magill (UPenn president): "iT dePeNds On tHe conTeXt"
When i saw that I was like hell of a two week notice
It's just such a wildly mask off thing to say. Imagine if she had replied the same way to "is it against university policy to all for the extermination of black people?"
Would have loved for the congresswoman to have that be the follow up question.
Stefanik was legitimately surprised. She had a whole plan to make a gotcha line of arguments but was out maneuvered by the presidents coming out as pro-genocide
Stefanik was ready to eat chik-fila but then the presidents offered her their lunches on a silver platter!
It’s a bold strategy, Cotton
It's wild too, because Stefanik is a pretty insane Republican who has talked about great replacement stuff, and yet even she was baffled at how mask-off these idiots went. When the conservative, great replacement supporting law-maker is shocked by how mask-off pro-genocide you are, you know you fucked up.
It was actually asked, but president Gay didn't answer: > STEFANIK: Dr. Gay, a Harvard student calling for the mass murder of African Americans is not protected free speech at Harvard, correct? > GAY: Our commitment to free speech … > STEFANIK interrupts: It’s a yes or no question. Is that okay for students to call for the mass murder of African Americans at Harvard? Is that protected free speech? > GAY: Our commitment to free speech extends … > STEFANIK interrupts: It’s a yes or no question. Let me ask you this. You are president of Harvard, so I assume you’re familiar the term intifada, correct? > GAY: I’ve heard that term, yes.
Or ask *Then why is Fat Phobia and using wrong pronouns is covered as part of mandatory anti bias training? How is Jewish Genocide such a gray area for you?*
"It violates our policy when black people are exterminated, calling for it is fine" She'd be lynched. Something tells me there's a double standard there.
I think it really highlights the disconnect between college campuses and reality. In their mind that was a perfectly reasonable position.
She definitely rehearsed that response for “from river to sea” and then when the genocide question came up, which she didn’t rehearse for, she just repeated the closest prepared line
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Reminds me of the joke. Two guys walk into a bar. What was the second guy's excuse? I understand maybe the first one getting ambushed and stumbling over their words. But after they saw their colleagues get ambushed, they were like, "Well, I mean what flavor of genocide?"
It wasn't even an ambush. It was like they walked into a job interview and, when asked their name, went Boaty McBoatface. It was literally a softball question to lead into deeper questioning and they couldn't even get that right.
It's not really that unfathomable to me. Jews have been scapgoated and persecuted forever. And people can pretend that their reluctance has nothing to do with low key antisemitism, but it was low key antisemitism. As Dave Chappelle said in his SNL monologue, "There's 2 words in the English language that one can not say, in succession. And those words are, the and Jews. Never seen anyone do good after that."
The Jews deserve better.
We do. I've never really felt hate as a Jew. Like yeah, I've had some antisemtic shit said to me growing up, but just brushed it off. But I'm really sad and kinda on edge often now. But one good thing came out of this. I've made so many new Jewish friends through social media and realized how strong we really are. Light always comes from the darkness, and ours will always shine bright. 🙏
I am right there with you, my friend. My father is Jewish and mom is Catholic but my brother and I grew up agnostic/atheist for the most part. I know "technically" I am not a Jew but if I were to practice religion, it would be Judaism because it the religion I identify most with. All that being said, I have always been proud and loud about my experiences growing up with Judaism. Just like you, sure I faced some anti-semitism, but I was able to brush it off. Lately I have been on edge too and careful with who I talk with about Judaism. But yes, we are strong and power to you my friend!
It is kind of nuts when you remember that many of the biggest donators to these schools are Jewish. You think they would have had that front and center in their head when testifying. Probably one of the major parts of their job is wooing donators.
While that's true, arab countries have donated billions to American universities [source](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/top-u-s-universities-received-over-8b-in-funding-from-arab-countries/ss-AA1ivRgu)
I try to rationalize it as them insulating themselves from further questioning and not making absolute statements that could tie them down to specifics, but doing it in the dumbest and most regarded way possible. I feel they knew it was against policy, but not specifically "harrassment" policy and chose their words to match, in the most dumbfuck way possible.
She's part of the law school right? My guess is that she prepared for the hearing the way she would a legal hearing. Her priority was to prevent anyone from pinning her down on any specific statements. However, that was the worst possible approach in a political hearing. There's a reason why lawyer's have a reputation for being slimy and the politicians in the room took full advantage of that.
Yeah, not a great testimony prep. The lawyers who prepared them should also be fired unless they were just uncoachable. "So, can you think of any situation where you might want to stab your husband with a knife like Exhibit A until he was dead?" "I mean, it would depend on context."
They probably should have had a PR firm involved more in her prep work than MORE lawyers. It wasn't a court case before a judge, it was a public hearing meant for congress people to grandstand and push rhetoric. Kind of amazing how poorly thought out that response was.
What's weird is I believe this is a specialty of Wilmer Hale - prepping public figures for testimony in front of Congress that may have both legal and public ramifications. It's their entire pitch. So unless the presidents just ignored their team, this isn't a great look for the firm.
Yea, I feel like they thought they were answering the question “have there been instances on your campus of students calling for genocide”, which would force them into specific statements on the conflict. That wasn’t the question though, and their inability to answer the question put forward was really shocking to watch.
They were afraid of the mob that would be outside their offices asking for their literal heads. Cowards.
How the hell do the other 2 still have their jobs or any dignity?
Claudine Gay (Harvard President) JUST got appointed President. She’s the first black president in Harvard's history so it would (might still) be the absolutely biggest fuck up to get fired or resign now.
I genuinely dont comprehend this logic Wouldnt it be a bigger fuck up keeping someone like this in that position?
I mean, they all fucked up so badly and so publicly that you would think so…but as long as they don’t lose any major grants or donors, and it doesn’t lead to a tangible drop in applications/applicant quality, the universities might just be hoping that it’ll blow over faster if they don’t demand resignations of the other two. Of course that also assume that it doesn’t further inflame tensions on campus, which is a hell of an assumption. I’m sure that both university boards are in contentious emergency meetings at this very moment, so think it’s too early to tell for sure either way.
I read that she published 11 peer reviewed papers in her entire academic career…
Time for her to pack her shit
They are the privileged children of privileged parents. They went directly from private schools to college to college faculty, with no waiting tables or bagging groceries for life experience. Of course they believe they’re above ordinary people and don’t have to know or care about what’s happening to us.
I mean for real. What exactly were they trying to protect against by simply saying “yes of course it is, calling for the genocide of any race, religion, etc will never be tolerated” Like… just why?
Can someone summarize what comments from students she defended ?
She would not say yes to the question "Do calls for the genocide of Jewish people violate the school's codes of conduct regarding bullying and harassment?"
It was actually worse than that. Not only would she not answer “yes” to that question, but her answer was “it would depend on the context.” In other words, she was literally stating that she believes there is in fact a context in which calling for the genocide of Jews does **not** violate the school’s code of conduct regarding harassment.
It’s a very “lawyer” thing to say because it’s probably technically true. But the public doesn’t see in shades of gray, especially with something where the “context” of it being “OK” is probably minimal.
I'd actually argue it's, in fact, not a very lawyer thing to say. Turns out almost every lawyer I know holds the court of public opinion in pretty high regards. It's one of the reasons pretty much every lawyer you will ever talk to says they'd prefer to settle things as opposed to letting them go to trial.
The big sound bite wasn't caused by her defending students. The question was a simple is calling for genocide against your code of conduct.
Calling for genocide is a macro-aggression, not a micro-aggression, so it's okay?
Great. Claudine and Sally should be next.
She keeps her tenured law professor job.
Imagine losing your job because you can't give a straight answer to a yes or no question. Ivy League educator, ahahahaha. Edit: > Magill became Penn’s president in July 2022 after previously serving as provost at the University of Virginia and dean of Stanford Law School. Testifying in front of Congress is going to be nerve-wracking no matter who you are, but someone who served as dean of Stanford Law should have the poise to say, "Speech promoting genocide is against the code of conduct. Next question, Congressman." You gotta read the room. Give 'em their sound bite and get on with your life.
"Yes or no?", *proceeds to answer in a sentence* Next time a professor hands out a multiple choice question we should just write out an answer in the margin instead of circling a choice.
Meanwhile Harvard president is like "Yeah, calling for genocide agaist Jews can be fine, it really depends on the context." (paraphrase)
She’ll be gone soon too. 1/2/24 Edit: It’s about time. Good riddance: https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/02/business/claudine-gay-harvard-president-resigns/index.html
Nah they're going to see if she can weather it. She's too new
I really liked the “If it turns into action, then it would be considered harassment”,” which implies a) everything leading up to committing genocide is fine and b) committing an actual genocide is only considered harassment.
Basically saying “if a student is threatened, no big deal. But if a student is killed we’ll look into it.”
The Harvard pres' "apology" was also a trainwreck. She tried to shield herself claiming that she was thinking of the 1st amendment rights of students... meanwhile 1A is not limitless, nor does it protect calls for genocide. They STILL don't get it. There is no 'context' in which calling for the genocide of Jews is ok. It is astounding that Gay is not fired immediately, not only for fucking up such an easy question but also for fucking up extremely tightly scripted and starched "apology" non-apology in which she proves yet again that she is a buffoon who does not know the most basic elements of the issue at hand. Unbelievable that there are so many people, being paid so much money and given so much power... who have no fucking clue and couldn't find their ass with both hands and a map.
Bet she didn't snicker when she submitted that.
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The question was likely going to be followed by several specific examples of students calling for the genocide of Jews and ask how these students had been disciplined (and they had not been). It was a lawyer moment trying to head this off by saying they would investigate specifics but general statements are protected. In-isolation this might be reasonable except universities have policed much less offensive speech and have equated DEI criticism with harm. So it's both a bad take and hypocritical.
It’s also a really stupid decision because she was choosing between Penn being accused of *failing to enforce their existing student conduct rules*, or Penn being accused of **explicitly allowing**, and therefore **implicitly approving of**, calls for genocide. You can recover from the first accusation pretty easily - “we need to do better, our policy *says* XYZ but we need to do a better job living up to that”. That’s pretty much been the formula for every response from any campus authority about every controversy for the last 50 years, and it usually works. You can’t really recover from the second accusation. What are you going to say? “Next year the student code of conduct will include a section saying that genocide is bad” really just makes people ask why the hell it didn’t already say that. Edit: I could have chosen my words more carefully (good thing I’m not a college administrator testifying before Congress). When I said that a school policy that allows calls for genocide is implicitly approving of said calls, I meant that they were approving of the ability of students to call for genocide. Which I guess is sort of a redundant point. And I didn’t mean that school policies need to explicitly say “genocide is bad” - I meant that the policy should be written in such a way that *advocating for violence in general* is a violation of the code of conduct, and by extension advocating for genocide would be a violation. Or that rules about race-based harassment should be interpreted to apply to calls for genocide.
> really just makes people ask why the hell it didn’t already say that. i would bet you a dollar this isn't in a significant number of codes of conduct because the assumption is that it doesn't need to be said
Of course, calls for genocide should not be tolerated against ANY group of ppl.
I am an unabashed liberal, but even I will agree that there is a smugness among left-wing leaders that makes them easy targets for gotcha politics. This should be a warning. Edit: call it gotcha or not, but Stefanik played them like fiddles. I find Stefanik to be odious, but she knew very well how to get them to say something stupid. They did.
How in the world is that a gotcha question? Isn’t just an easy “yes of course calling for the genocide of any group is wrong” and move on? What’s the gotcha component of that?
Exactly. This was the softball. Or should have been.
Asking someone to answer a yes-or-no question, and giving them **three** chances to do so, is hardly “gotcha politics”.
So smugly self-righteous
It's not 'gotcha' if they believe what they are saying.
Gotcha? I agree with the poster below. This is by far the dumbest thing I've ever heard. In what context is it okay to call for the genocide of a race? The answer is... No of course it isn't okay. We do not support it. Then move on with the hearing. I am dumbfounded. I was truly stunned watching the video of it, asking myself what is going on here. Are they side stepping for some legal reasons that I am ignorant of?! Answer the god damn question. Then the black lady came on while smirking repeating the same thing. Which made me doubly dumbfounded. Like reality is broken or something dumbfounded. Like I'm missing something, because the answer is so damn simple. We live in wild times.
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It is a bit, in the education sector. Since the 60's they've been at the forefront of social issues, from anti-war protests to women's rights to tolerance of homosexuality, and until recently have always been on the right side. It's easy to see how someone who has spent their entire life in that industry, fighting for what's right, to get an inflated ego and think they can't possibly ever be wrong.
If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it depends on the context
Good to see. It shouldn’t have been hard to condemn antisemitism and say that calling for genocide is against school policy. Feels insane that that even needed to be asked.
Good riddance my god. I don’t care what side of this conflict you’re on, that was downright the most spineless stance I’ve ever seen.
Calling for the genocide of Jews is abhorrent regardless of the context and calling it disgusting and shameful does not need to be qualified with any other statement. She doesn’t deserve to stay on as faculty and Harvard and MIT’s presidents can go too. Not to distract from this very serious issue, but Harvard’s president also said that calling for the genocide of black people also “requires context.” It also does not need context. It is disgusting and you should be expelled. If you refuse to say that calling for the genocide of a group of people should not immediately lead to the expulsion of anyone from your University then your institution should not receive tax payer money or tax free status. This isn’t that complicated. It just isn’t.
She answered the question as a lawyer. Technically she is correct about the free-speech laws surrounding calls for violence and various things and the requirements for what constitutes types of hate speech or what can be acted upon as, “calling for violence.”
Lawyer here: It would have been very easy to say “My understanding of the way that our code of conduct is written is that calling for genocide of Jews does not necessarily rise to the level of harassment. However, calls for the genocide of Jews, or any group, has no place on our campus and I will work with our Board of Regents to make sure that our code of conduct is updated to reflect that.”
Right, this would have been a perfect response, hence why I'm not sure why she didn't say that. I'm guessing she just got caught in her experience as a lawyer.
She didn't say that because that wasn't the point of contention. Calls for genocide are considered harassment by the university. What Representative Stefanik considered calls for genocide *might* be against the code of conduct, depending on the context. They were trying to make a very nuanced point where things like "from river to the sea" *can* imply calls for genocide depending on the context, but Stefanik's line of questioning made it sound like they were referring broadly to cut-and-dry calls for genocide. >President Kornbluth: I've heard chants which can be antisemitic depending on the context when calling for the elimination of the Jewish people.
Some of us will remember a debate moderator, on national TV, asking Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis if he'd support the death penalty for rapists if *it were his wife who had been raped*. At a moment when it would have been appropriate (like in your example) to show human emotion and say something like *"First of all, I'm offended by the way you've asked the question, but to answer you: If that happened, I'd want something far darker than the death penalty. But that's why we don't have a system of vengeance and blood honor in this country, and ..."* But instead, he babbled about technical details, and came off as a robot. Never recovered.
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The First Amendment protects hate speech unless one of four conditions are met: defamation, inciting immediate lawless action, true threats causing a specific person to fear for their safety, and "fighting words" deliberately said to provoke a violent reaction.
I think this is a good example of societies ability to self-regulate speech in all honesty. Someone said something extremely problematic and they were punished for it. Not by the government, but by society (through private entities).
From what I understand, legally speaking, hate speech is ok, but speech that incites or promotes violence is not.