By Don Schmitz
America 2023: Demonstrators chant at University of Pennsylvania, “We are Hamas!” Hamas, those vile animals that murder babies in their cribs, gang rape women to death as a tool of war, hiding in hospitals using civilians as human shields. Hamas is a designated terrorist organization by the UK, US, and the EU.
Harvard junior Tara Tarawneh is still in class after publicly supporting the psychopathic Hamas attack as “Glorious Oct. 7.”
“I remember feeling so empowered and happy, so confident that victory was near and so tangible,” she stated. “I want all of you to hold that feeling in your hearts. Never let go of it.”
Campus graffiti includes “The Jews R Nazis.” Cooper Union College had to barricade Jewish students in the library as Hamas demonstrators banged on the doors and windows. Cornell University police are investigating Greek life website posts threatening to kill and rape Jewish students and “shoot up” the kosher dining hall, and a Cornell professor said he found the Hamas attack “exhilarating” and “energizing.” When Harvard President Claudine Gay last November issued a statement opposing antisemitism, more than 100 Harvard professors issued a statement condemning her. This is systemic and institutionalized. Perhaps that is why President Gay, when asked by Rep. Elise Stafanik (R-N.Y.), “Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s code of conduct,” she replied that it depended on the “context.”
Free speech is Constitutionally sacred, and should be a foundation at our universities, as Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote in his 1957 opinion in Sweezy v. New Hampshire: “The essentiality of freedom in the community of American universities is almost self-evident.” Yet free speech has been stifled for several decades now, with PC rules whereupon students and faculty get into big trouble for uttering anything remotely offensive to some ethnic groups, women, gays, or transgender people.
Harvard has been ranked dead last when it comes to free speech on campus, but now they hide behind a newfound reverence for the First Amendment to allow Hamas supporters to chant for “Global Intifada,” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which means the destruction of Israel and the genocide of her people according to the Hamas charter. Harvard has rescinded admissions to students for sharing memes deemed racists, excoriated them for affirming there are only two genders, but so far students calling for murderous genocide face no repercussions. The real story here is the blatant double standard, which they can’t hide.
Last Friday, 70 bipartisan members of Congress called for the dismissal of the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and Penn for giving the same “it depends on the circumstances” answer on the vile antisemitism rocking their campuses. UPenn President Liz Magill resigned Saturday in disgrace. How has America, which defeated the genocidal antisemitic Nazis, been infected with this hatred?
Between 2014 and 2019, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, along with other Middle East nations, donated at least $5 billion to U.S. colleges. A report from the Network Contagion Research Institute concluded 200 universities pulled in $13 billion in foreign donations during those five years, some from allies like Canada and Germany, some from authoritarian regimes like China. Much is being made of Stone Ridge Asset Management, a major donor to UPenn, withholding a $100 million donation because they “are appalled by the university’s stance on antisemitism on campus.” That hurts, but they have a $25 billion endowment, so that’s a drop in the bucket. Follow the money.
Another culprit is the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs. They sound nice, but are rooted in “social justice philosophy,” aka racial preferences. The Supreme Court deemed racial preferences unconstitutional, but the well-intentioned programs have created a cancer in our society, epitomized in our universities. DEI promotes diversity of skin color, not ideas — identify politics epitomized. Some groups are given extraordinary preferences, which, of course, translates into discrimination against other groups, notably Asians, white males, and Jews. DEI seeks to counterbalance past prejudices. Ironically, American Jews (and Asians) historically faced horrible prejudice and were barred from Harvard, but now they excel academically and economically by the sweat of their brow. Left to a meritocracy DEI advocates fear that they will edge out other ethnic groups, so DEI programs discriminate against them. The DEI activists assert that there are oppressors and the oppressed, individually, culturally, and with nations. In their simpleton world, the successful and powerful are obviously oppressors, and must be fought. The oppressed can never be criticized, even when they murder babies. American Jews and Israel as a nation are successful and powerful. In the anti-Western Civilization, anti-capitalism leftist crowd, that makes them oppressors. Israelis, living in their homeland for thousands of years are therefore “colonizers,” the Palestinians the “oppressed.” The screeching leftist hatred is deep, and inevitable.