Unrest on college campuses in the aftermath of the Hamas
attacks on Israel American universities have been thrust into a
national fight over lines between healthy debate and destructive invective
. We've had major donors condemn administrations for tolerating cultures
where students no longer feel safe. The underlying culture
that permitted this to happen is just so strong.
And until there is a moment of self reflection where
we are not dealing with just anti Semitism, we're
dealing with the culture that allowed this to happen.
There really is going to be no progress and to
date there's been no progress. It's really not a
question of free speech. This is a question of
favored speech and disfavored speech and an institutional psychology and
an institutional culture. We've had college presidents called before
Congress and asked to condemn calls for genocide. I
am asking specifically calling for the genocide of Jews.
Does that constitute bullying, harassment? If it is
directed and severe or pervasive, it is harassment.
So the answer is yes, it is a context
dependent decision. Congresswoman, it's a context dependent decision
. That's your testimony today. Calling for the genocide
of Jews is depending upon the context that is not
bullying or harassment. And we've had former college presidents
insist that there's been a basic breakdown in who's responsible
for what's going on in our academic communities. I
think for some years now, they have been substantially
AWOL AWOL as the climate of hypersensitivity has developed AWOL
as the relationship between the university and external communities has
uh broken down, leaving us to yearn for a
world where we can disagree, even strongly disagree without
deterring others from speaking out. I suspect something will
happen, but I don't know that Congress will do
anything. I think the university boards are probably gonna
be more sensitive to these issues. There is gonna
be more security for certain students there for sure.
But I think there'll be more of a move towards
a University of Chicago approach where more people are allowed
to say what they think without feeling that if they
say something that's unpopular, they'll be criticized or harmed 00:02:15.264 --> physically.