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US politics, Israel/Palestine conflict
Seems like I'm not the only one frustrated by the response to college presidents' responses about at the recent "Holding Campus Leaders Accountable and Confronting Antisemitism" congressional hearing.
Ken White (The Popehat Report) has written about this, and the title alone may be enough: "Stop Demanding Dumb Answers to Hard Questions" https://popehat.substack.com/p/stop-demanding-dumb-answers-to-hard
In the American political context, "Hate speech is free speech," has a specific meaning, and I think grasping this is critical for any discussion about how we handle objectionable speech, not just in the current context of the war in the Middle East but also in, for example, the context of social media.
US politics, Israel/Palestine conflict
Some other perspectives on this hearing:
"In the midst of complaints that the presidents failed to adequately condemn antisemitism, scant attention has been paid to their opening remarks." - "University Presidents Were Right to Condemn Hate Speech and Defend Free Speech" by Stephen Rohde in First Amendment News https://www.thefire.org/news/blogs/ronald-kl-collins-first-amendment-news/special-post-stephen-rohde-university-presidents
"I’m surprised by the people who think the university presidents were somehow tricked or couldn’t have answered differently. They weren’t and they could have." - "I know university presidents can respond better to odious speech — because I saw it happen at my school" by Ari Kohen for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency https://www.jta.org/2023/12/12/ideas/i-know-university-presidents-can-respond-better-to-odious-speech-because-i-saw-it-happen-at-my-school
#FreeSpeech #FirstAmendment #antisemitism