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Comment by enriquec | Hacker News Reader

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The problem really isn’t that students at her institution support genocide. The problem is that when she asked if chanting in support of the murder of Jews was against school policy, she equivocated. She would not have equivocated if the students had been chanting that Blacks should be killed, instead of Jews.

Exactly. What they said was so offensive, not because she spoke in favor of free speech. It was because after being outspoken and sanctioning students for years in regards to hate speech towards other groups, when it comes to murdering Jews, they are suddenly eliciting the importance of freedom of speech.

When you promote hate speech as free speech against one group, while punishing hate speech against all the others, it leaves many outside observers with the opinion that you tacitly approve of hate speech against that group and I believe creates a hostile environment in the entity you lead towards members of that group.

Can you tell me the dates of the protests where you heard students chanting "Jews should be killed"?

The post said:

“when she asked if chanting in support of the murder of Jews was against school policy”

She said it depended on the context - do you think she would have said “it depended on the context” if ask the same question about gays or blacks?

That's asking a hypothetical about a hypothetical. The OP made a claim about chants on campus that I didn't hear.

Here’s a really in 2017 in which white nationalists didn’t chant “non-whites should be killed”.

All they chanted was “you will not replace us”.

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-40911744

In Harvard’s case, nobody chanted “kill all Jews”. All they chanted was “from the river to the sea”.

According to the transcript of the Congressional hearing https://rollcall.com/2023/12/13/transcript-what-harvard-mit-...

ELISE STEFANIK: It’s a yes or no question. Let me ask you this. You are president of Harvard, so I assume you’re familiar with the term intifada, correct?

CLAUDINE GAY: I’ve heard that term, yes.

ELISE 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?

CLAUDINE GAY: That type of hateful speech is personally abhorrent to me.

ELISE 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?

CLAUDINE GAY: I’ve heard that thoughtless, reckless and hateful language on our campus, yes.

ELISE 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?

CLAUDINE GAY: I will say again that type of hateful speech is personally abhorrent to me.

Given that the Second Intifada saw over 800 Israeli civilians murdered in terrorist attacks, it is not unreasonable to interpret "globalize the intifada" as call for murdering Israelis and/or Jews outside of Israel. And if the President of Harvard admits it happened, we don't really need to know the exact dates in order to know that it did happen.

In other words, no.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intifada

Also, if you don't sit on someone's neck, you don't have to worry about being shaken off. If you don't benefit from or justify oppression, you have nothing to fear from the uprising against it.

It's when you want to eat the cake and still have it when things get "complex", like posting walls of text that amount to "no, I don't" in context.

> In other words, no.

> like posting walls of text that amount to "no, I don't" in context.

Claudine Gay never said "no" in that part of her testimony. She described "there is only one solution intifada revolution" and "globalize the intifada" as "thoughtless, reckless and hateful language" and "hateful speech" which is "personally abhorrent to me", but didn't give a clearcut answer to the question of whether it is "indeed a call for violent armed resistance against the state of Israel, including violence against civilians and the genocide of Jews".

ELISE 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?

CLAUDINE GAY: I will say again that type of hateful speech is personally abhorrent to me.

If she thinks it’s so hateful, why are you trying to excuse it?

Excuse what? I have no idea what you're even asking here.

This is perfectly correct.

The transcript continues:

[…]

CLAUDINE GAY: I will say again that type of hateful speech is personally abhorrent to me.

ELISE STEFANIK: Do you believe that type of hateful speech is contrary to Harvard’s code of conduct or is it allowed at Harvard?

CLAUDINE GAY: It is at odds with the values of Harvard. But our values also —

ELISE STEFANIK: Can you not say here that it is against the code of conduct at Harvard?

CLAUDINE GAY: We embrace a commitment to free expression, even of views that are objectionable, offensive, hateful. It’s when that speech crosses into conduct that violates our policies against bullying, harassment —

ELISE STEFANIK: Does that speech not cross that barrier? Does that speech not call for the genocide of Jews and the elimination of Israel?

CLAUDINE GAY: When —

ELISE STEFANIK: You testify that you understand that it’s the definition of intifada. Is that speech according to the code of conduct or not?

CLAUDINE GAY: We embrace a commitment to free expression and give a wide berth to free expression even of views that are objectionable —

ELISE STEFANIK: You and I both know that’s not the case. You were aware that Harvard ranked dead last when it came to free speech. Are you not aware of that report?

CLAUDINE GAY: As I observed earlier, I reject that characterization.

ELISE STEFANIK: It’s — the data shows it’s true. And isn’t it true that Harvard previously rescinded multiple offers of admissions for applicants and accepted freshmen for sharing offensive memes, racist statements, sometimes as young as 16 years old? Did Harvard not rescind those offers of admission?

CLAUDINE GAY: That long predates my time as president, so I can’t —

ELISE STEFANIK: But you understand that Harvard made that decision to rescind those offers of admission.

CLAUDINE GAY: I have no reason to contradict the facts as you present them.

ELISE STEFANIK: Correct, because it’s a fact. You’re also aware that a Winthrop House faculty dean was let go over he — over who he chose to legally represent, correct? That was while you were dean.

CLAUDINE GAY: That is an incorrect characterization of what transpired.

ELISE STEFANIK: What’s the characterization?

CLAUDINE GAY: I’m not going to get into details about a personnel matter.

ELISE STEFANIK: Well, let me ask you this, will admissions offers be rescinded or any disciplinary action be taken against students or applicants who say from the river to the sea or intifada advocating for the murder of Jews?

CLAUDINE GAY: As I’ve said that type of hateful reckless offensive speech is personally abhorrent to me.

ELISE STEFANIK: [inaudible] today that no action will be taken — what action will be taken?

CLAUDINE GAY: When speech crosses into conduct that violates our policies, including policies against bullying, harassment or intimidation, we take action. And we have robust disciplinary processes that allow us to hold individuals accountable.

ELISE STEFANIK: What action has been taken against students who are harassing and calling for the genocide of Jews on Harvard’s campus?

CLAUDINE GAY: I can assure you we have robust —

ELISE STEFANIK: What actions have been taken? I’m not asking —

CLAUDINE GAY: What actions underway?

ELISE STEFANIK: I’m asking what actions have been taken against those students.

CLAUDINE GAY: Given students’ rights to privacy and our obligations under FERPA, I will not say more about any specific cases other than to reiterate that processes are ongoing.

[…]

And _that_ is why she should not lead a university, Harvard or otherwise. All she had to do was say, without commenting on any specific cases, that chanting “there is only one solution intifada revolution.” or “globalize the intifada.” would be regarded as “bullying, harassment or intimidation” and students found to have participated in those acts would be punished according to the rules they were required to agree to when they decided to attend Harvard. To retreat to bureaucratic platitudes about FERPA instead shows that the Harvard administration is itself is antisemitic (aka racist). They simply don’t think that what these students did was wrong. They also don’t believe that the rules should be applied to everyone equally.

> They also don’t believe that the rules should be applied to everyone equally.

Exactly. It's unbelievable to me that this is apparently hard for these university presidents to understand. Set the standard and keep it - whether it's punish all the 'abhorrent' things students say, or none of them.

As a Jew, I can't imagine continuing to donate to an institution that was so clearly run by people tolerant of anti-semitism. Hopefully Harvard's endowment sees significant punishment, since the university itself appears to agree with Gay's stance.

Some people consider "from the river to the sea" to be a call to genocide of Jews. Because, of course, they ignore the simple fact that majority of Jews don't even live in Israel [1]. And to call for a Palestinian state from the river to the sea doesn't say that Jews people cannot live inside it. And ironically the likud party which dominated the Israeli government the last couple of decades have almost the same sentence in its first point on its charter [2] and no one calls this a call to kill all Palestinians (Although some say it in public [3][4]).

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_population_by_country

[2] https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/original-party-platform...

[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_to_Arabs

[4] https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/29/israel-jerusalem-ma...

>Some people consider "from the river to the sea" to be a call to genocide of Jews. Because, of course, they ignore the simple fact that majority of Jews don't even live in Israel [1].

so it's only genocide when you're trying to wipe them out entirely? if you only wipe out a quarter, for instance, that's not genocide?

I didn't say that. This is just you trying to bend my words. I did say that from river to the sea does not mean that Jews living in Palestine will be wiped out. If you think that this the meaning that's fine. I just hope that you consider it the same when the other side use almost exactly the same slogan (interesting you ignored that)

Apparently that's a call for genocide and calling for a "Sinai Solution" a la the Madagascar Plan is just business as usual.

Do the people chanting that believe that to be a call to genocide or people who don't want them to be able to chant that?

And why do you suppose she did that? Is it perhaps because of the constant attempts to force people to treat "jews the people belonging to a certain race/religion" and "the state of israel" as exactly the same thing? The sheer amount of people who accept these, bad faith, to put it mildly, arguments, is, well, not surprising, but is pretty sad.

So because those Zionist arguments exist, calling for the murder of Jewish people (not metaphorically, the question was a hypothetical) is something where "nuance" matters now?

You acknowledge the arguments as bad faith, then turn around and use them to relativize hate speech. Anyone calling for the murder of Jewish people (per the metaphorical) would never accept those arguments in the first place

I was going to write a long winded reply about the differences between "hate speech" directed at "israelis" vs "jews" and how easy it is to conflate the two, especially with the constant israeli attempts to force people to treat the two as the same thing, but instead let me ask you a question:

Do you honestly think that the president of harvard wishes for, hopes for, or even wants, the mass murder of jewish people all over the world?

And following up on that, do you honestly believe that the students at harvard want all jewish people all over the world to be murdered?

Isn't it more likely that the students in question want the israelis to stop committing acts of violence against palestinians and perhaps don't view the palestinian violence as any worse than what the israelis are doing?

One thing I've noticed over the years is that it seems really easy for people who benefit from the current status quo to condemn violence meant to change the status quo. It's pretty easy to come up with restrictions for people's protests when you're not the one living in an oppressive society.

> And following up on that, do you honestly believe that the students at harvard want all jewish people all over the world to be murdered?

"We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence."

For the people who view Oct 7 as justified, yes

> Isn't it more likely that the students in question want the israelis to stop committing acts of violence against palestinians

They can want both at the same time. October 7th was an act of terror against Jewish civilians. The people who blame the Israeli government 100% (including aforementioned student organizations) don't find fault with the people committing those murders. That implies that they see the murder of Jewish people as justified punishment for the actions of the Israeli government. The choice of words is deliberate

Criticizing the Israeli government and publicly stating that an act of terror is justified are two very different things, of which Harvard students know the difference

Charitably, I think the point was that academics overlook it, like the dirty inside secret that everyone knows to not talk about.

Once she drew the ire of people outside the normal academic circles, things that should have been controversial (like blatant plagiarism) were brought forward.

Further, these people weren't looking specifically in the interest of academic integrity, they were looking for any reason at all to get her fired for not unequivocally saying that calling for genocide is outside the student code of conduct.

As a result, the allegations have, thus far, been treated as unworthy of much attention- it wasn't that they are right, but the accusers have the wrong motivation.

I don't know how much of this phenomenon is a modern issue, but it does seem to be very prevalent in today's society.

I am against the genocide of any peoples.

The anti-zionist attacks, the anti-jewish genocide talk, and the anti-palestinian rubbling of Gaza are all deeply troubling. Consequently, I do not fall into either of the two main camps.

However, she is the president of a premier university and must be held to account for her serial failures to uphold academic ethics.

The Plagiarist must go

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