Why?
I suppose I don’t get out enough, @OhiBro , but I had not previously entertained the notion that 50 percent of the nation’s youth would support a terrorist organization. Not Palestinians as a people, but Hamas as an organization capable of carrying out the acts of Oct 7th. How could that be? It was an indicator of rot in the educational world. I had not thought things were so bad.
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I did think things were that bad…having had kids in college since 2014 with my last one still in school. It’s terrible that such barbarism had to be the catalyst that finally put it on public display.
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I have done some reading on the Harris poll being quoted and which has been used for many viral posts. There is a lot of controversy around the polling and the methodology used. A big red flag is the person behind the poll, Mark Penn,who has made his living as a political operative. The whole “framing” of the college campus debate requires a careful analysis of what is being presented as fact.
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@Canuckdad , I for one would be happy and relieved if the results of this poll turned out to be inaccurate. Can you summarize or link to your information regarding flaws in its methodology?
I don’t think it’s sufficient to point out that the CEO of the underlying corporate owner of Harris Polls has a fondness for that candidate whose name we dare not speak. How does that matter? The Harris organization has a long history and a reputation to lose if it was fudging its methods to produce a result its CEO was thought to favor.
It’s also worth pointing out that this poll was a joint effort of Harris and Harvard’s Center for American Political Studies. One would assume the latter entity wouldn’t have been a party to political shenanigans, least of all to ones that favor the said candidate.
Could it be that those who don’t like these results are searching for reasons not to believe them? As I said, I was shocked myself. Could things with our college-age youth be that bad? Of course, it’s only a poll and not holy writ. Run another one, please. If it is to be significant the questions put need to be just as blunt and unwaffling as they were here: “Are Jews oppressors, or is this false ideology?” and “Do you support Israel or Hamas?”
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It is also possible respondents confused Hamas with Palestine, and Jews with Israel.
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That would be an almost equally disappointing comment on the state of American higher education, but it could be so.
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Indeed I think it is highly likely, given the level of confusion in my town.
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Why should otherwise intelligent college students be any more nuanced than the IDF when it comes to distinguishing Hamas from Palestinian civilians?
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"I sent a series of emails to President Kornbluth long before this hearing, begging her to speak out in support of Jewish students. “They want to hear that the institute is with them,” I wrote. “They are suffering, as I am sure you know.” She was always prompt in responding, and she told me about her attempts to meet with Jewish students by attending dinner at our campus Hillel. I appreciated her for that.
I don’t believe she is the problem. I think the problem at MIT—and across American academia—runs much deeper than the figureheads.
Students at MIT and other elite colleges have been radicalized by faculty members who have encouraged and even led the student body to become social justice warriors, supporting their highly progressive political beliefs. America’s brightest minds are being manipulated by a force they don’t even understand to adopt a narrow view of the world. That this is happening at a place where they’re meant to be exploring a wealth of ideas and have their thinking challenged shocks me."
If things got this bad at MIT, with its overriding STEM focus, I shudder to think how they are on campuses that hold “social justice” as their overriding institutional priority. Some justice.
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@roycroftmom and @circuitrider , the results of the poll are not entirely explicable as a blurring in young minds of the category of “Jews” with the category of “Israel”, and “Palestinians” with “Hamas.” The poll numbers are nothing like this for older age groups. Today’s youth are learning something from their studies - or failing to learn something - much different from their predecessors. The giveaway that it is something about “oppression” as a concept is, as noted above, that even a third of the 50 percent of youth who support Israel over Hamas nevertheless considered that “the Jews as a class are oppressors.” These explicit words - “the Jews as a class” - can hardly be misunderstood. They denote a people, not a nation.
As an explanation of such results I am torn between two possibilities - either that young people have been fatally indoctrinated by the ideology of today’s academies or that they have simply lost the capacity to construe the English language. The latter is the more benign explanation, but it is depressing enough. Probably both are to blame.
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So a teacher thinks students lack “basic critical thinking skills” because they have views that don’t tie into his worldview.
So he takes issues with encouraging the student body to become social justice warriors, supporting their highly progressive political beliefs. Really? He has problems with that on a university campus! And we are supposed to encourage “regressive” political beliefs.
University students are much more attuned to things than people are giving them credit for. They are the first generation that has open access to different world views.
End of the day, they lose a professor who basically wants to only teach to those who share his world view. That is how it reads.
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In other news:
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The double standard will no longer be tolerated. Clamp down on free speech or End DEI. Can’t have both.
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President Gay’s problems may be over, but Harvard’s problems are only just starting:
"COMMITTEE ON
EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
2176 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING
WASHINGTON, DC 20515-6100
January 9, 2024
Ms. Penny Pritzker
Senior Fellow
Harvard Corporation
Massachusetts Hall
Cambridge, MA 02138
Dr. Alan Garber
Interim President
Harvard University
Massachusetts Hall
Cambridge, MA 02138
Dear Ms. Pritzker and Dr. Garber:
As you are aware, the Committee on Education and the Workforce (the Committee) is investigating Harvard University’s response to antisemitism and its failure to protect Jewish students. We have grave concerns regarding the inadequacy of Harvard’s response to the antisemitism on its campus.
In testimony before the Committee on December 5, 2023, Harvard’s then-President, Dr. Claudine Gay, made numerous statements that further called into question the university’s willingness to seriously address antisemitism. When asked whether calling for the genocide of Jews would violate Harvard’s code of conduct, Dr. Gay replied that “it depends on the context.” When questioned if she could look a Jewish student’s family in the eyes and “tell them their son or daughter would be safe and feel safe and welcome on your campus,” Dr. Gay repeatedly refused to answer the question directly.
Following Dr. Gay’s testimony, the Fellows of the Harvard Corporation issued a statement
reaffirming that “we unanimously stand in support of President Gay.” While Dr. Gay has since resigned, Harvard’s institutional failures regarding antisemitism extend well beyond one leader.
There is evidence antisemitism has been pervasive at Harvard since well before the October 7, 2023, terrorist attack. A November 2022 report by the AMCHA Initiative, a nonprofit that documents antisemitism on college campuses, found Harvard had the highest rate of threats based on Jewish identity of the 109 campuses they surveyed. A March 2023 thesis titled “The Death of Discourse: Antisemitism at Harvard College” by Harvard student Sabrina Goldfischer found 62.5 percent of the Harvard students she interviewed had experienced antisemitism at Harvard or knew people who have, and 68.75 percent of them had censored themselves in academic or social settings because of their Judaism or ties to Israel.
…
Harvard has cited its supposed commitment to free speech – in former President Gay’s words, “even of views that are objectionable, outrageous and offensive” – as limiting it from taking action against antisemitism on its campus. However, Harvard has demonstrated a clear double standard in how it has tolerated antisemitic harassment and intimidation, but acted to suppress and penalize expression it deemed problematic.
…
Harvard’s dismal record on free speech exposes the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of its leadership’s rationalizations for its inaction towards antisemitism on campus.
To assist the Committee in understanding the antisemitism at Harvard and the university’s response, please produce the following items no later than 5:00 PM EST on January 23, 2024:"
But the confusion/conflation is not general; it is very much limited to the college-age group. Only 9 percent of Americans over age 65 say that “Jews as a class are Oppressors.” Why do the young uniquely believe this so overwhelmingly?
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