"Free Speech" At Harvard, Penn, MIT And Other Elite Universities

Francis Menton  December 11, 2023 @ Manhattan Contrarian 

Six days ago, on December 5, the Presidents of three elite universities — Harvard, Penn and MIT — appeared at a Congressional hearing to testify about their responses to pro-Hamas and anti-semitic demonstrations and advocacy on their campuses. In the most widely-viewed exchange at the hearing, Rep. Elise Stefanik asked each of the Presidents whether “calling for the genocide of Jews” violated their codes of conduct. The three answered by emphasizing the importance of freedom of speech on their campuses, and by saying that they could not give a definitive answer as to whether calling for genocide of Jews violated their codes of conduct, because the answer was “context-dependent.”

Over the intervening days, the responses of the three Presidents have generated widespread backlash, including harsh criticism from even some mainstream press sources, and even pushback from some major donors. The Presidents’ responses appeared to be, and were, tone deaf and highly legalistic. But were they wrong?

This may surprise you, but I’m going to stand up for the three Presidents on this particular point. If you have been a reader here for any substantial period, you know that I am close to what may be called a “free speech absolutist.” I think that people ought to be able to say even the most hateful and despicable things, short of immediate threats of violence. By saying such things they discredit themselves, and for the government (or a university or corporation) to claim the power to shut them up is an even worse problem than allowing the speech.

The problem with the statements of the three Presidents is not their position as to upholding freedom of speech for the pro-Hamas and anti-semitic speakers. The problem is that the Presidents don’t apply the same true free speech principles at all when it comes to political opinions with which they disagree, or that are out of line with current woke orthodoxy. Their claim to be real defenders of freedom of speech is completely bogus, and everybody knows it. In fact, they are active speech suppressors on dozens of important topics. Their claim to have suddenly discovered the importance of freedom of speech in the context of supporters of people who behead babies makes them look completely ridiculous and morally reprehensible, which they are.

To the great credit of our Supreme Court, it has drawn the line as to speech that can be regulated by the government at a point that gives near complete license to speakers, even hateful ones. Note that a private university does not need to follow the freedom of speech principles that apply to the government. Thus, for example, a private university can be explicitly anti-semitic if it wants to be — at the risk of losing most of its students and financial support. But if a university proclaims that it supports the principles of robust freedom of speech in accordance with the First Amendment, the public should rightfully expect that it follows principles at least close to, if not the same, as those that the Supreme Court has articulated as restricting the government.

For a concise statement of what those principles of robust freedom of speech are, I recommend this L.A. Times op-ed from yesterday by Eugene Volokh and Will Creeley. For those who don’t recognize his name, Eugene Volokh is a Professor at UCLA Law School and a bona fide top authority on Supreme Court First Amendment law. For a number of years I served on the Executive Committee of the Freedom of Speech Section of the Federalist Society, and Eugene was the Chairman. I was somewhat of an interloper on that Committee, but Eugene is the true expert.

Here are some key excerpts from the Volokh/Creeley piece (I recommend the whole thing if you want a deeper understanding of First Amendment law on this subject):

[I]f freedom of expression is to survive on American campuses — and for our nation’s vitality, it must — Magill’s original answer was right. Context does matter. The categorical exceptions to the 1st Amendment are few, narrow and carefully defined by precedent. And while Penn is a private university not bound by the 1st Amendment, its policies commit the school to 1st Amendment standards. . . .

Under the 1st Amendment, speech intended to and likely to cause imminent illegal conduct is unprotected “incitement.” Discriminatory harassment targeting particular students isn’t protected. True threats — serious expressions of an intent to engage in illegal violence against a particular person or group of people — aren’t protected. Promising to “bring an assault rifle to campus and shoot all you pig jews,” as a Cornell student allegedly did in October, is a punishable true threat. Whether other statements are constitutionally protected does turn on context. . . .

The 1st Amendment doesn’t have an “advocacy of genocide” exception, nor do the promises of student free speech that many private universities properly make. And for good reason: Students must be free to debate what is proper to do in war, and what wars are just. . . .

So do Harvard, Penn or MIT allow the same robust freedom of speech for facts and opinions contrary to woke orthodoxy that they allow to the pro-Hamas and anti-semitic protesters? Not even close — it’s the difference between night and day. I’ll give a few examples for your consideration.

Here is my December 16, 2022 blog post, title “Goodnight, Poor Harvard,” written on the announcement that Claudine Gay would become the next President of the institution. The post covered some of Gay’s actions during the time prior to becoming President-designate, when she had most recently been Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. My conclusion was “The picture emerges of Gay as the enforcer-in-chief of wokist orthodoxy at Harvard.” Examples of Gay’s actions as Dean of FAS:

• Gay was the person directly responsible for derailing the career of Harvard’s hottest young black professor, economist Roland Fryer. Go to my December 2022 piece for details, but here is the summary. Fryer had committed the mortal sin of publishing research (in 2016) which found “no racial differences” in police use of force in places where he collected data. The next year (2017) a personal assistant lodged a complaint with Harvard about alleged improper sexual conduct by Fryer, which however involved no allegations of requests for sex or of unwanted touching, but rather basically a small number of off-color jokes. An investigation by a Harvard committee (Office for Dispute Resolution) found most of the charges baseless, and for the remaining handful recommended some “sensitivity training.” Then Gay intervened, and sought the revocation of Fryer’s tenure — basically, that he be fired. Ultimately, that sanction was not supported by Harvard’s then President, but Fryer got a two year suspension without pay and his research lab was closed. For some reason that I cannot understand, Fryer appears to still be at Harvard.

• Then there’s the case of Ryan Enos. Enos, a professor of political science, came up with some research (also published in 2016) supportive of the woke narrative, namely that demolition of public housing in Chicago demonstrated a “racial threat” theory of political behavior. Again, go to my December 2022 piece for details. In 2018 an anonymous whistleblower emerged who accused Enos of altering data to make the research come out as he wanted. The report was leaked in 2022. At that point it emerged that the complaint had been referred to something at Harvard called the Committee on Professional Conduct but, at the instance of Gay, the CPC had issued a letter declining to investigate on the ground that the complaint was not within its “purview.” But the CPC’s own website states as part of its portfolio that it handles “allegations of research misconduct involving FAS investigators.”

At Gay’s Harvard, if your speech supports the conservative position, the thinnest allegation against you can destroy your career. If you support the woke narrative, even the most explosive allegations against you can be buried.

Here are a couple more examples from Harvard from the Washington Examiner, December 7:

• Last year, . . . a Title IX training at Harvard reportedly instructed students that refusing to use an individual's preferred pronouns could violate the school's code of student conduct and result in discipline.

• In 2021, Harvard professor Carole Hooven faced intense backlash from a university diversity, equity, and inclusion official for stating that biology determines whether a person is male or female. The on-campus reaction to Hooven's scientific statements was so severe that she was forced to take a leave of absence from the university.

And from the same piece in the Examiner, here’s a good one from the University of Pennsylvania:

• In 2022, members of the women's swim team at the University of Pennsylvania were told not to speak to media outlets about Lia Thomas, a biological male who identifies as female and was competing as a woman, eventually winning a national championship that year.

Many more such examples can easily be found. Try to speak out against Covid vaccines or climate change orthodoxy on an Ivy League campus, and see what happens to you. Meanwhile, don’t expect any sanctions to be imposed on pro-Hamas or anti-semitic protesters. The supposed defense of robust free speech by these university Presidents is completely phony.

I’m hoping that some conservative students at these campuses will seize the moment. Now is the time to invite Heather Mac Donald or Charles Murray to campus!

UPDATE, December 12: It has come to my attention that there is a petition on this subject, dated December 10, addressed to Harvard’s Board, that has thus far been signed by more than 750 Harvard faculty members. Here is the full text:

We, the undersigned faculty, urge you in the strongest possible terms to defend the independence of the university and to resist political pressures that are at odds with Harvard’s commitment to academic freedom, including calls for the removal of President Claudine Gay. The critical work of defending a culture of free inquiry in our diverse community cannot proceed if we let its shape be dictated by outside forces.

I love the central phrase “Harvard’s commitment to academic freedom,” an obvious term of art that all insiders would have to understand to refer to the disparate treatments of pro-Israel versus pro-Hamas members of the community, as well as of Fryer and Enos, and of conservative versus liberal speech generally. Looking at the list of signers, right at the top at number 3 (and therefore likely one of the organizers of the effort) is none other than Ryan Enos! This is how deep the rot at Harvard has gone.

The Ladies Auxiliary of the Knights of Marcuse

By Christopher Chantrill  December 11, 2023

I really felt sorry for the three diverse presidents of the Ivy League, when jumped-up congress-critter Elise Stefanik (R-NY) humiliated them before the whole world for simply doing their jobs and reciting Sacred Narrative from the Book of Woke about antisemitism on campus. Did you know that, according to La Wik:

[Elise Stefanik's] parents own Premium Plywood Products, a wholesale plywood distributor based in Guilderland Center.

By what right -- what right! -- does the jumped-up daughter of jumped-up white immigrants from the Czech Republic and Italy get to humiliate the Grand Mistresses of the Order of the Knights of Marcuse? Did I get that right? Are the leaders of the Woke Order of the Knights of Marcuse Grand Priests or Grand Masters?.......Editor's Note:  This is a sarcasm article, and for those who don't know who Herbert Marcuse was.  He and the other misfits of the Frankfurt School of far left socialists fled Germany, a far left socialist domain, also antisemitic, and were installed in America's universities and contaminated those institutions with their filth.  RK

Elise Stefanik: smiting the unworthy  - December 11, 2023 By J.R. Dunn - It can’t be denied that it has been a real pleasure to see the lady college presidents brought low over the past few days. The condescending, arrogant smugness that they displayed before the House Education and Workforce committee is standard behavior for the elites so eager to rule us for our own good. We see it from the congressional Democrats, from the DoJ and the rest of the bureaucracy, from the WEF, from Blackrock and Vanguard execs… and, needless to say, from academia.

We saw this clearly at the hearing. The lady presidents had their noses so high in the air that they couldn’t see the elephant trap that Elise Stefanik so adroitly prepared for them. Sally Kornbluth and Claudine Gay’s robotic delivery and raised-eyebrow disdain were bad enough, but the champ here was the smirking Liz Magill of UPenn, who fairly oozed smug superiority as she set out to put this uppity backwoods congresswoman in her place (“Stefanik? Realllly? What kind of a name is that, anyway?”) Magill fell hard, resigning on Saturday night, the most opportune point of the news cycle, and taking the university trustees board chairman with her. Elise S. can stencil two victories on the side of her fighter jet, with more to come.......

Follow the Science: MIT Brainiac Calls for Immediate End to Covid Jabs

By J.D. Rucker Jan. 31, 2023

There are few technical institutes in the world that match the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. MIT is the gold standard for science, and Retsef Levi is one of the most respected professors there. That’s why it behooves everyone to pay attention to him when he says it’s “indisputable” that the Covid-19 “vaccines” are causing harm to young and otherwise healthy people.

HIs statistical analysis determined that the risks far outweigh any benefits to the jabs, and that’s assuming there are any benefits at all. For an experimental drug to do literally nothing to stop the spread of the disease and, according to some studies, actually aids in the spread, the bar must be set as low as possible for anyone to make any claim to their efficacy.........To Read More.....

Goodbye, MIT

As the university increasingly caves to “wokeness,” two alumni explain why they are withdrawing their financial support. 

Tom Hafer Henry I. Miller November 5, 2021 @ City Journal 

We graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology more than 50 years ago. MIT was academically rigorous, and it taught us our crafts and the essence of problem-solving, enabling us to thrive in our careers. We owe much to our alma mater and have donated to it regularly.

No more.

The current MIT administration has caved repeatedly to the demands of “wokeness,” treating its students unfairly, compromising the quality of its staff, and damaging the institution and academic freedom at large.

We object to MIT’s politically correct measures, including the firing of its Catholic chaplain. In the early days of the George Floyd protests, before the details of Floyd’s death were clear, Father Daniel Moloney sent a letter outlining his thoughts on the event to the university’s Catholic community. It was a sincere examination of conscience from a person whose job it was to examine conscience, yet it prompted his immediate dismissal. MIT’s leadership apparently took umbrage at his statement of these simple facts: that George Floyd “had not lived a virtuous life” (based on his multiple criminal convictions) and that “most people in the country have framed [Floyd’s death] as an act of racism. I don’t think we know that.”

Moloney did not present these statements as justification for Floyd’s death; to the contrary, his letter begins, “George Floyd was killed by a police officer, and shouldn’t have been.” But MIT found the letter intolerable and fired the chaplain. (We are not Catholic, by the way, but believe fairness transcends religion.)

We also deplore MIT’s new mandatory diversity training. In the autumn of 2020, MIT sent an email to new and current students informing them that they would be unable to register for spring classes if they failed to undergo wokeness instruction. In the email, MIT outlined two required trainings: one on “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” and the other entitled “Sexual Assault Prevention Ongoing: Healthy Relationships.” Portions of the training materials are available here. The compulsory videos contain deftly worded but fatuous questions implying that straight white males are at the “intersection” of all oppressive behaviors. Everyone else is an oppressed victim, with extra points for being a member of multiple minority groups. Thus, the concept of “intersectionality” is a kind of conspiracy theory of victimization.

The most vivid illustration of how far the university has sunk is the disgraceful cancellation of University of Chicago professor Dorian Abbot. When MIT invited the distinguished geophysicist to give a public lecture, he seemed a natural choice, “a scientific star who studies climate change and whether planets in distant solar systems might harbor atmospheres conducive to life,” in the words of the New York Times.

But Abbot had committed the mortal sin of arguing, in Newsweek, that the implementation of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives on college campuses “violates the ethical and legal principle of equal treatment” and “treats persons as merely means to an end, giving primacy to a statistic over the individuality of a human being.” He proposed instead “an alternative framework called Merit, Fairness, and Equality (MFE) whereby university applicants are treated as individuals and evaluated through a rigorous and unbiased process based on their merit and qualifications alone.”

Instead of championing Abbot’s presentation on earth’s climate and the identification of planets in other solar systems, MIT pandered to a Twitter mob and canceled the lecture. Princeton’s James Madison Program in Ideals and Institutions invited Abbot to deliver the lecture, which he did (marvelously, we hasten to add) on the day his MIT lecture had been scheduled. The fiasco has, deservedly, received worldwide attention.

Pointing out MIT’s lapses and withdrawing our financial support of the offending institution is insufficient. We would like to suggest a way for MIT to return to our good graces and hope it will consider adopting the following principles of fairness.

First, facts are not racist, and stating facts is not racism. Second, a person’s ethnicity or skin color does not define him or her as a racist, oppressor, or victim. Third, intellectual ability and achievement are the principal requirements for admission as a student or faculty member to any university. Fourth, diversity of opinions is desired and supported. Fifth, a just, democratic society requires equal opportunity, equal justice, and equal responsibility; it does not require equal outcomes. And finally, adherence to the statements above must not be sacrificed for political, social, or public relations considerations.

These truths used to be self-evident; now they are apparently controversial. MIT and other universities must make a choice: Will they redeem themselves by standing for merit and truth, or will they forfeit the support of countless alumni and donors by surrendering to wokeness?

Tom Hafer developed systems for neutralizing rockets and drones. He currently coaches teenage robotics teams. Henry I. Miller, a physician and molecular biologist, was a Research Associate at the NIH and the founding director of the FDA’s Office of Biotechnology. They were undergraduates together at MIT.

Another University Capitulates to the Mob

By Rajan Laad October 7, 2021

Dorian Abbot, an associate professor of geophysics from the University of Chicago, was scheduled deliver the prestigious Carlson Lecture at MIT on climate and the potential for life on other planets  Everything seemed in order until an insane mob began banging at the door.  The mob had discovered a Newsweek piece that Abbot co-wrote back in August where he argued that diversity efforts at universities violated equal treatment. The article proposed that “university applicants be treated as individuals and evaluated through a rigorous and unbiased process based on their merit and qualifications alone.”

Previously Abbot has also posted videos on YouTube denouncing the rioting in Chicago that erupted following the killing of George Floyd. Decades ago, condemning riots and asking for merit-based enrolment at educational institutes was so obvious that there was no need to state it in plain words.

But those days are over........To Read More... 

• MIT Abandons Its Mission. And Me.

MIT Abandons Its Mission. And Me.

Let’s make sure my cancellation is the last. That begins by standing up and saying no to the mob. 

Dorian Abbot, October 5, 2021

I am a professor who just had a prestigious public science lecture at MIT cancelled because of an outrage mob on Twitter. My crime? Arguing for academic evaluations based on academic merit. This is the story of how a cancellation is carried out, why it should worry all of us, and what we can do to stop this dangerous trend.

I have been a professor in the Department of the Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago for the past 10 years. I work on topics ranging from climate change to the possibility of life on extrasolar planets using mathematics, physics, and computer simulation.

I have never considered myself a political person. For example, a few days before an election I go to ISideWith.com and answer the policy questions, then I assign my vote using a weighted draw based on my overlap with the candidates. It’s an efficient algorithm that works perfectly for a nerd like me.

But I started to get alarmed about five years ago as I noticed an increasing number of issues and viewpoints become impossible to discuss on campus. I mostly just wanted to do my science and not have anyone yell at me, and I thought that if I kept my mouth shut the problem would eventually go away. I knew that speaking out would likely bring serious reputational and professional consequences. And for a number of years I just didn’t think it was worth it.

But the street violence of the summer of 2020, some of which I witnessed personally in Chicago, and the justifications and dishonesty that accompanied it, convinced me that I could no longer remain silent in good conscience.

In the fall of 2020 I started advocating openly for academic freedom and merit-based evaluations. I recorded some short YouTube videos in which I argued for the importance of treating each person as an individual worthy of dignity and respect. In an academic context, that means giving everyone a fair and equal opportunity when they apply for a position as well as allowing them to express their opinions openly, even if you disagree with them.

As a result, I was immediately targeted for cancellation , primarily by a group of graduate students in my department. Whistleblowers later revealed that the attack was partially planned and coordinated on the Ford Foundation Fellowship Program listserv by a graduate student in my department. (Please do not attack this person or any of the people who attacked me.)

That group of graduate students organized a letter of denunciation. It claimed that I threatened the “safety and belonging of all underrepresented groups within the department,” and it was presented to my department chair. The letter demanded that my teaching and research be restricted in a way that would cripple my ability to function as a scientist. A strong statement in support of faculty free expression by University of Chicago President Robert Zimmer put an end to that, and that is where things stood until the summer of 2021.

On August 12, a colleague and I wrote an op-ed in Newsweek in which we argued that Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) as it currently is implemented on campus “violates the ethical and legal principle of equal treatment” and “treats persons as merely means to an end, giving primacy to a statistic over the individuality of a human being.” We proposed instead “an alternative framework called Merit, Fairness, and Equality (MFE) whereby university applicants are treated as individuals and evaluated through a rigorous and unbiased process based on their merit and qualifications alone.” We noted that this would mean an end to legacy and athletic admission advantages, which significantly favor white applicants.

Shortly thereafter, my detractors developed a new strategy to try to isolate me and intimidate everyone else into silence: They argued on Twitter that I should not be invited to give science seminars at other universities and coordinated replacement speakers. This is an effective and increasingly common way to ratchet up the cost of dissenting because disseminating new work to colleagues is an important part of the scientific endeavor. 

Sure enough, this strategy was employed when I was chosen to give the Carlson Lecture at MIT — a major honor in my field. It is an annual public talk given to a large audience and my topic was “climate and the potential for life on other planets.” On September 22, a new Twitter mob, composed of a group of MIT students, postdocs, and recent alumni, demanded that I be uninvited It worked. And quickly...........To Read More.....

MIT Study: Vaccine Hesitancy Is 'Highly Informed, Scientifically Literate,' and 'Sophisticated'

By Rick Moran July 17, 2021 

Vaccine hesitancy is a big problem, according to the Biden administration.  Less than half the public is fully vaccinated while about 56 percent have received at least one jab. The goal of fully vaccinating the American public appears to have stalled. This should not surprise us. When the vaccines were first approved for emergency use back in December 2020, 40 percent of Americans expressed skepticism about the vaccine.

Trying to shame the holdouts has failed spectacularly. Insulting and degrading them as "morons" or
"ignorant" has resulted in a vicious pushback and a hardening of positions on getting vaccinated. The administration's plan of sending people door to door to vaccinate them only feeds anti-vaccine skepticism. Trust in authority is at an all-time low, which makes a government-sponsored vaccine program suspect.

Still, most experts agree that some people who should be getting vaccinated aren't doing so. But the root cause isn't ignorance or a belief in conspiracy theories. An MIT study on the problem revealed some surprising results...........To Read More....