It is highly unlikely a lawsuit will improve the campus climate, and it does nothing to address the underlying cause, but I suppose that really isn’t the purpose of the suit at all.
What is the underlying cause?
That could only be discussed in the politics forum, I am afraid.
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But if Harvard Jews consistently define antisemitism as something outside the traditional construct of “race” (as flawed as that term may be), does Harvard even have a specific portion of the speech code that covers it? Or is it just a matter of any speech designed to make a specific group of people feel endangered?
Hopefully “other disfavored behavior” includes hate-speech or threatening actions directed at a specific religious group or ethnicity. That would protect Jewish, Palestinian, Muslim, etc. students if applied equitably. The contention is that it is not.
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The commingling of “anti-semitism” with expressions condemning the actions of a nationalist government is a huge issue with how this has been framed. it does a huge disservice to those are targeted solely because they are Jewish.
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That is what the suit is all about (I think). We’ll see if a judge kicks it on summary judgement, or if they go to Discovery.
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The problem with constructing a menu of protected groups is that it can never be complete and will include a plethora of always ramifying categories, the relative positionality of which will engender debate worthy of the medieval scholastics over how the categories relate to each other - or, more likely, over a hierarchy constructed on the basis of relative degrees of oppression. Or, if the menu is dispensed with but the policing of speech remains, you end up with no measurable standard beyond whether anyone of any group declares that they have been made to feel uncomfortable by someone else’s speech. Meanwhile the mission of education, of robust discussion and maturation, is given second billing.
No, @circuitrider , that piece you posted some while ago from the Syracuse Prof had it just right. Speech is not the problem. Universities are the place for speech, speech on contested matters, speech that threatens all one’s assumptions, speech that isn’t comfortable and doesn’t encourage retreat into “safe spaces.” The problems, which may or may not have to do with any of these protected categories, are the perennial human ones - the threat of violence, harassment, the impeding of others from the enjoyment of their own freedoms. These are the infractions that are properly disciplined at a university. Picking and choosing as among categories of favored and disfavored speech is a mug’s game and a threat to civilization.
I’m not the one suing, so it will be up to the plaintiffs to convince a judge that they have reasonable cause to sue.
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Seems like you have something to say or a desire to provoke a response.
Agreed so why would you raise it here where any response is prohibited?
Not looking to flag you but a discussion I would love to have if it had been on topic, as you seem to imply some surreptitious forces are behind the lawsuit. Veiled conspiracy theories don’t seem to have a place in this discussion but deserve to be challenged.
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A) A lawsuit is not going to change the “perceptions” of the students on campus
B) How is trying to punish an institution financially result in institutional change given any legal action will take years?
C) the only parties benefiting will be lawyers
Would be interesting to note who is financing the lawyers for the plaintiffs?
Slow mode has been activated as posts are being flagged. If you think your post will be flagged and possibly removed, think twice before posting. Thanks for your cooperation.
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Besides likely being Jewish who do you think it might be?
Both sides are highly lawyered up and the case will continue for many years. Besides monetary relief, the plaintiffs seek removal/ discipline against a wide range of deans, professors, other administrators, and students, changes to hiring and promotion procedures, implementation of required training, etc. The case is brought by one student at Harvard Divinity and a group at Harvard Law. No undergrads are named plaintiffs currently.
ETA the suit also demands Harvard return donations from certain foreign governments or foreign persons.
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But hate speech is not limited to being Jewish. More recently, Asian students lived with hate speech on college campus as have many many groups over time. So a class action lawsuit should cover all hate speech targeting every group. As I have said before, a slippery slope when you try to imply one group is more victimized than others. It is turtles all the way down from there.
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Agreed you had said this before. I was asking about your most recent post…
Sorry if I missed it but who are you suspicious (or curious) is financing the lawsuit?
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So, Palestinian students should be able to say whatever they want about Israel so long as everyone else is allowed to tune it out, if they so choose? It would seem, however, that for a significant number of Jewish people, to be “anti-Israel” is the same as threatening violence to Jews. How would the University of Chicago handle that question?
You make me an offer I can’t refuse @circuitrider - a chance to pull together two disparate but I think complementary threads in the discussion we are having.
Jewish people, like all others, will have different views as to where to draw the line on free speech, but you’re undoubtedly right that many will want to draw it at advocating the genocide of the Jews. Some will say that this is speech so uniquely egregious that simply uttering it constitutes harassment and a threat of violence. They believe that it should be suppressed and the speaker disciplined no matter what the circumstances. That is not my view. Hate speech qua speech (i.e. minus specific acts of harassment of individuals, threats of violence, blockage of facilities, shouting down of alternative views, and the like actions) ought not to be suppressed but rather deplored and contested, and its speakers ignored or castigated. That’s the American tradition. Speech isn’t free of consequences, but these should be left to persons, not institutions.
However, Harvard and most other schools have speech codes and a record of policing speech qua speech, even, as Pinker says, “minor peccadillos.” It is reasonable to accuse the Presidents of having a double standard when they make an exception for speech as egregious as this. Why are they making that exception? They didn’t suddenly become free speech absolutists.
Neither the Jews as a people nor the State of Israel as a nation fit into the category of minorities deserving protection as required by the ideological analysis in which the Presidents and their respective institutions are so deep-died. That’s the real reason they answered as they did. Hate speech doesn’t matter so much when it is directed against a disfavored, because not oppressed, group. I wish they had said as much rather than invoked the principle of free speech. That reason, though a phony one in their mouths, has caused many who deplore the current campus demonstrations to see speech itself as the problem. As for me, I can deplore two things at once - the suppression of speech, on the one hand, and the ideology that has caused these campuses to tolerate acts that go well beyond speech, on the other.
As for UChicago policy, anyone interested should take a look at the Chicago thread for a full ventilation. You and others pressed me pretty hard. Chicago’s position is based on its famous principles of free speech and institutional neutrality and its conduct is pretty close to that described by the Syracuse prof you cited earlier - no restrictions on speech unless and until it is accompanied by violence, threats, interference with the rights of others. There certainly have been demonstrations on the campus, and in at least one instance - the blockage of access to a building - the campus police were called in to remove and arrest demonstrators. Charges were subsequently dropped. No doubt there is much sympathy for the pro-Palestinian cause and much robust debate in the student body. So there should be.
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There are enough strawmen in that reply to constitute a fire hazard. Despite it all, I think it was a good summary of the Harvard and University of Chicago positions. The bottom line is that Jews would have little reason to feel safer at Chicago than at Harvard.
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Why?
Jews have little reason to feel safe anywhere, any time.
“In every generation, they rise up to destroy us.” ~The Passover Haggadah
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