FRIDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2023
...and a loud, dumb song sung red: We start with an important question:
What the heck is actually happening on those elite college campuses?
For reasons which ought to be blindingly obvious, we regard that as a very important question. We refer to MIT, Harvard and Penn, the three "elite" universities whose presidents testified before a typically unproductive House committee last week.
As we noted yesterday, Rep. Elise Stefanik emerged as the star of the show, or perhaps as the star of the show trial. More on her rude and inept performance will be offered before.
For now, we prefer to return to that very important question. We do so because we learned so little about that topic in the course of last week's trial by fire.
What's actually happening on those campuses? Yesterday morning, the New York Times published a news report which gave a tiny hint of what a search for an answer might conceivably start to look like.
We seized upon those tiny glimmers. In print editions, the headline on the news report said this:
So Far, No Major Fallout For President of M.I.T.
According to Jenna Russell's report, the board at MIT "swiftly issued a statement of unequivocal support for its president, Sally Kornbluth" in the aftermath of last week's hearing.
Personally, we're glad the board did that. That said, we were much more interested in what Russell began to report about student life on the MIT campus.
What's it been like for MIT's Jewish students in the wake of the October 7 attacks? Is the campus crawling with antisemitism—with antisemitism which may tend to proceed from the top down, as Stefanik doggedly seemed to suggest?
What's actually happening on that campus? In the following passage, Russell reported the tiniest bit of a possible glance at a hint:
RUSSELL (12/14/23): Talia Khan, a graduate student and president of the M.I.T. Israel Alliance, said the group was created in response to surging antisemitic rhetoric on campus following the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas on Israel, as well as the administration’s failure to discipline protesters who violated campus rules, or to protect Jewish students who felt threatened.
Ms. Khan described feeling “overwhelming disappointment” as she listened to Dr. Kornbluth’s testimony before Congress and then saw the school’s governing board offer unwavering support.
“They don’t want to believe what’s happening on campus is really happening,” she said. “I know the president, and I think she has a heart, but I didn’t see that in her testimony.”
According to Russell's paraphrase, Talia Khan, a good, decent person, had described "surging antisemitic rhetoric" on the MIT campus. Khan spoke well of Dr. Kornbluth's intentions, but she said that Kornbluth "doesn’t want to believe [that this] is really happening."
Talia Khan is a good, decent person. She's also a graduate student at a very challenging academic institution.
That said, what constitutes "antisemitic rhetoric" in Khan's opinion? In what does that alleged antisemitic rhetoric actually consist?
If Khan had cited specific example, Russell didn't include them. Earlier, though, she had quoted a letter sent by a group of Jewish alumni—and she'd quoted a letter which had been composed by the student group which Khan heads:
RUSSELL: A letter from “a growing group” of Jewish alumni and their allies, sent on Monday to the university’s administration and its governing board, the M.I.T. Corporation, expressed alarm at Dr. Kornbluth’s “disastrous” testimony...
“We are alarmed to observe M.I.T. earning a national reputation for antisemitism on President Kornbluth’s watch, rather than for academic excellence,” said the letter, signed by hundreds of alumni.
It called for “concrete actions” to “right this flailing ship,” including discipline for students who violate university rules—for example, by protesting “in areas that M.I.T. has explicitly said were off limits for protests.” The letter also called for the creation of a task force to ensure the safety of Jewish students.
A second letter, sent to the university’s leaders by student members of the M.I.T. Israel Alliance, also demanded action, including public acknowledgment of an “existential antisemitism problem on campus” and the removal of board members “who support tacitly, or otherwise, the calls for genocide of Jews.”
Are Jewish students actually safe on the MIT campus? For reasons which are blindingly obvious, that's a very important question.
The alumni group suggested that such students aren't safe. In that second letter, Khan's group referred to an “existential antisemitism problem" on the MIT campus—and the group even said that there are board members who support "calls for genocide of Jews.”
On their face, those are remarkable charges. They're the kinds of charges which emerged from Stefanik's unintelligent, scattershot questioning at last Tuesday's hearing.
At any rate, how about it? Do some board members at MIT actually support "calls for genocide?" Is the MIT campus wracked by "surging antisemitic rhetoric?"
Russell didn't include the kinds of specific allegations which would let us know what these observers are actually talking about. And then, she quoted another Jewish student at MIT.
She was one of at least "a few" Jewish students, and she was saying this:
RUSSELL: A few Jewish students at M.I.T. said this week that they believed worries about their safety had been overblown.
“I’ve always felt safe here,” said Gabriella Martini, a graduate student who is Jewish and helps lead M.I.T. Jews for Ceasefire, a campus group that argues that its advocacy for “a free Palestine” and criticism of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza are not antisemitic. “The idea that anything that’s happened here should lead to the resignation of the president, who’s essentially being bullied out by members of Congress who I think have a political agenda in what they’re doing, would set a terrible precedent,” Ms. Martini said.
Gabriella Martini helps lead a different student group. She said that she's always felt safe on the MIT campus. She seemed to have offered a different assessment concerning alleged antisemitic rhetoric.
What's happening on the MIT campus? At this site, we have no real idea! Part of the reason for our ignorance would have to be this:
We've watched the entire congressional hearing from last week, including the utterly worthless reams of "questions" from the widely-praised Rep. Stefanik.
In our view, the performance of the college presidents was strikingly poor that day. In our view, the performance by Stefanik was dumb and dumber and also quite rude, and was substantially worse.
In our view, very few committee members engaged in instructive questioning. Each member received five minutes of fame, and little real insight emerged.
That said, we think we've heard at least two songs sung blue as we've reviewed that hearing. We'll name those instructive songs below. First, though, we want to do this:
We want to give you one more taste of the kind of "questioning" Stefanik authored last Tuesday. This takes us back to the tiny snippet of questioning we recorded in yesterday's report.
Ninety-five minutes into the hearing, Chairwoman Virginia Foxx finally granted Rep. Stefanik her first five minutes of fame. Below, you see what immediately ensued.
In our view, Harvard president Claudine Gay performed quite poorly in her responses to some of these initial questions. That said, Stefanik's performance was rude and insulting and even dumber. than Gay's
We think Stefanik was worse:
FOXX (12/5/23): Miss Stefanik, you're recognized for five minutes.
STEFANIK: Dr. Gay, a Harvard student calling for the mass murder of African-Americans is not protected free speech at Harvard, correct?
GAY: Our commitment to—
STEFANIK: It's a yes or no question! Is that corrected [sic]? Is that OK for students to call for the mass murder of African Americans at Harvard? Is that protected free speech?
GAY: Our commitment to free—
STEFANIK: It's a yes or no question!
[Pause]
Let me ask you this.
You are president of Harvard, so I assume you're familiar with the term "intifada," correct?
GAY: I've heard that term, yes.
STEFANIK: And you understand that the use of the term "intifada" in the context of the Israeli-Arab conflict is indeed a call for violent armed resistance against the state of Israel, including violence against civilians and the genocide of Jews. Are you aware of that?
GAY: That type of hateful speech is personally abhorrent to me.
STEFANIK: And there have been multiple marches at Harvard with students chanting, quote, "There is only one solution, intifada revolution," and quote "Globalize the intifada." Is that correct?
GAY: I've heard that thoughtless, reckless and hateful language on our campus, yes.
STEFANIK: So based upon your testimony, you understand that this call for intifada is to commit genocide against the Jewish people in Israel and globally, correct?
GAY: I will say again, that type of hateful speech is personally abhorrent to me.
Stefanik started with a pair of instant interruptions, then proceeded to a condescending question about Gay's familiarity with a very familiar term. So it went as this "odious demagogue" (Rep. Torres) conducted her "questioning" through the rest of this long day's journey into babble.
We direct your attention to what followed those opening interruptions. In the exchanges we have highlighted, Stefanik kept asking Gay if she regards a call for "intifada" to be a call "to commit genocide against the Jewish people in Israel and globally."
Is that what (some) Harvard or MIT students mean when they call for intifada? Stefanik kept asking that possibly overwrought question—and, as you can see from the highlighted exchanges, Gay kept responding with classic non-answer answers.
Because Gay had kept refusing to answer, Stefanik had been enabled. She now asserted that Gay had accepted that interpretation of that particular term.
Once again, Gay failed to take her own side in this evolving fight. You'll have to go to the C-Span videotape to see this interaction.
People, how about it? When a group of chanting college students call for an intifada, are they calling for "genocide against the Jewish people globally?" Is that what those students mean?
Whatever you think of some such chant, that strikes us as quite a leap. ("We'd like to see some pro-Palestinian students asked to explain what they mean!)
Stefanik was making a rather large leap. But the college presidents sat mutely by as Stefanik established this shaky premise, and the conduct of this hearing continued downhill from there.
The college presidents have been widely assailed for their performance at this hearing. In our view, their performance was shockingly poor. In fairness, it's hard to testify at congressional hearings, but in the face of Stefanik's blunderbuss, their skill levels were virtually non-existent this day.
Their performance was stunningly poor. In our view, Stefanik was louder and dumber and worse. But as we noted yesterday, many Democrats emerged from the hearing saying such things as this:
KARNI (12/9/23): Representative Ritchie Torres, Democrat of New York, was among the Democrats conceding that Ms. Stefanik was right, but he said it did not change his view of her.
“Even a broken clock is right twice a day,” he said. “She continues to be an odious demagogue.”
Note to Rep. Torres, a good decent person:
"Broken clocks" may be right twice a day, but "odious demagogues" typically aren't. In our view, Stefanik's loud and rude and dumbbell questioning produced volumes of heat and almost no light. It didn't help when a bunch of blue tribunes told the Times that she'd been "right."
Note to blue elites, whose skill levels are often remarkably poor:
When two people or parties get into a fight, neither side had to be "right." There is no need to pick a winner. It may be that both parties are wrong.
At this site, we thought we heard two songs sung blue as we reviewed that hearing:
We were stunned by the lack of skill put on display by those college presidents. We were saddened by the number of blue tribe elites, from Professor Tribe on down, who weren't able to make this simple statement:
What transpired was the typical congressional hearing. Sadly, three college presidents performed quite poorly. One dumbbell member of the House was rude, condescending and worse.
Alas! We thought we heard two songs sung blue—and a loud, dumb song sung red.
Meanwhile, what's actually happening at those schools? Will some news org try to find out?
