I have always believed in the freedom of speech, that people should be absolutely free to say whatever they wished. But I also believe that the speaker is not somehow immune from the consequences of his speech. The Supreme Court noted that freedom of speech doesn’t extend to yelling, “Fire!” in a crowded theater, or “fighting words,” but both of those incidences are concerns about the consequences of what someone says, causing a stampede in which people are injured, or getting your jaw jacked because you angered someone enough to hit you in the mouth. From USA Today:

Posting ‘Zionists must die’ is awful. But it shouldn’t get student kicked out of college.

Cornell should balance protecting students and campus staff with protecting free speech.

by Ingrid Jacques | Thursday, February 1, 2024 | 4:04 AM EST | Updated: 2:04 PM EST

Maria Lima Valdez’s year has gotten off to a rocky start.

Cornell University undergrad and former Biden White House intern allegedly posted “ZIONISTS MUST DIE!” on Instagram. And now she’s facing potential punishment from her university.

Should she?

Apparently, Lima Valdez was reacting to news that the son of an Al Jazeera journalist had died in an Israeli airstrike.

The post attempted to couch her exclamation by claiming it wasn’t antisemitic since Zionists and Jews “are not the same.” It’s still an awful, hateful thing to say.

Yet it’s 100% protected free speech, no matter how vile it sounds.

There’s more at the original, and if you are blocked by a USA Today paywall, it can be accessed for free here.

It doesn’t take much to see where Ingrid Jacques’ position fails; just replace “Zionists” with Jews, something the author attempted to say makes a difference in her fifth paragraph, or, to go into a further extreme, replace “Zionists” with “blacks.”

This is something that even Miss Jacques recognized, several paragraphs down:

In the case of anti-Jewish sentiment, it seems college administrators only started caring about these actions on their campuses when they garnered widespread attention. It’s hard to imagine such a lackluster response if the offended students were Black or LGBTQ+.

So, the author does recognize that there can be, and should be, consequences to speech. She just doesn’t think such should happen to this particular bit of speech!

Regardless, that doesn’t mean colleges should overcorrect now by cracking down on more speech, which seems to be their knee-jerk response. That’s what happened after Liz Magill, former president of Penn, offered a pathetic response when asked during a congressional hearing whether calling for the genocide of Jews would violate Penn’s policies.

Following immediate backlash, Magill tried to do damage control but only made things worse. In a video statement, she signaled she wanted the university to backtrack from its stated commitment to free speech. Magill resigned shortly thereafter.

As we have previously reported, what got President Magill fired to resign was that deep pockets donors to the University of Pennsylvania, not all of them Jewish, have closed their checkbooks.

Miss Jacques’ point, that speech is protected, and that includes online speech, is correct, and one I absolutely support. But the response to Dr Magill’s idiotic statements and lousy performance, the decision of several major donors to say, nope, we’re done with you, is within their personal freedom as well: they are not somehow obligated to send big checks, but have done so, in the past, out of their love for their alma mater, and personal generosity. As the President of the University of Pennsylvania, a large part of Dr Magill’s job was to bring in private donations.

Maria Lima Valdez? It’s not her job to bring in donors, but what she said, and how Cornell reacts to it, will have an impact on potential donors. Some Cornell donors have already reacted negatively to the school’s policies, and have called on President Martha E. Pollack to resign.

Miss Jacques, and apparently Miss Lima Valdez as well, have tried to distinguish between “Zionists” and “Jews.” Those two terms are not identical in meaning, but let’s tell the truth here: a whole lot of people do conflate the two. I noted that the reaction would have certainly been different had Miss Lima Valdez written, “Blacks must die,” but what if she had posted “Black criminals must die”? That would be significantly different, but you can bet your last euro that it wouldn’t be seen as all that different!

While Miss Jacques takes the position that schools should do as little as possible when it comes to students’ speech, she also noted:

On the flipside, however, they need to be ready to act when students (or faculty) violate school policies. When protected speech crosses over into harassment, intimidation or some other violation, it must be dealt with swiftly and consistently.

That’s what happened last fall, when police arrested a Cornell student on charges he posted true threats online about his desire to harm – even kill – Jewish students.

What Lima Valdez is accused of didn’t rise to that standard, even though the post was a stupid thing to say.

Is she sure about that? Are there any Cornell students who hail from Israel? How many would hold that that makes them, by definition, Zionists? There are certainly Jewish students on campus; how many of them would feel threatened by Miss Lima Valdez’s statement? Haaretz already reported, “Some American Jews Are Taking Off Their Kippahs and Stars of David Amid a Wave of Antisemitic Incidents: American Jews fear they could be targeted due to an association with Israel. For some American Jews, that fear is manifesting in decisions to tamp down their public displays of Jewishness,” in an article from May of 2021, 2½ years before Hamas’ terrorist attack on October 7, 2023. Jewish students at Penn have expressed serious concern about anti-Semitism on campus, including some no longer wearing kippahs or Stars of David in public. It would seem as though Jewish students on our college campuses aren’t seeing a whole lot of distinction being taken between being Jewish and being Zionist.

In saying that Miss Lima Valdez post “didn’t rise to that standard,” Miss Jacques fails to realize that what does or does not rise to that standard will be decided upon by the University’s administration, and valid arguments could be raised on both sides, but Jewish students are not seeing a whole lot of difference.

Miss Lima Valdez had a perfect right to say what she did, but other people have the same right to react and respond to what she said.