This website has expended considerable bandwidth documenting the anti-Semitism on college campuses, the University of Pennsylvania in particular, and we have noted that, following the firing resignation of Penn’s President, Liz Magill, over her idiotic testimony in Congress, The Philadelphia Inquirer has been engaged in a half-hidden support of Dr Magill’s “context dependent” testimony, calling it a defense of free speech.

The newspaper’s Editorial Board had not opined on the subject until Thursday morning, but, as I had guessed, they came out along the same lines:

Despite Magill’s departure, Penn must stay the course on free speech issues | Editorial

It is essential that the university does not allow the recent chaotic series of events to further compromise its commitment to open expression and academic inquiry.

by The Editorial Board | Thursday, December 14, 2023 | 5:30 AM EST

University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill’s tenure came to a premature end last Saturday, and her tumultuous exit after just 18 months on the job will endure as a symbol of the broader chaotic national conversation about freedom of expression and antisemitism on college campuses.

Magill’s difficulties began in September when a festival devoted to Palestinian literature was held on Penn’s campus over the objections of the Anti-Defamation League, prominent university donors, and others who condemned the inclusion of speakers who had expressed antisemitic views.

While Magill allowed the festival to proceed, she also denounced some of the speakers and issued a statement pledging to review the process by which groups can reserve space and host events on campus. Things might have ended there.

But on Oct. 7, Hamas terrorists launched a vicious raid into Israel, killing more than 1,200 people and taking an estimated 240 hostages back to Gaza. The already intense debate over the festival erupted on Penn’s campus.

What a shame that Hamas didn’t consider President Magill’s tight position on this!

Several paragraphs down, following some documentation of incidents on both sides, I came to this gem:

The tipping point for Magill, however, was her testimony before the House Committee on Education last week, where she gave a muddled answer to a question on student discipline. The moment led the White House, Gov. Josh Shapiro, and other civic leaders to openly criticize her response.

“(M)uddled answer”? “(M)uddled answer”? President Magill, a very distinguished attorney, former Supreme Court clerk, law professor, and Dean of the University of Virginia School of Law, couldn’t bring herself to unequivocally state that calls for genocide aimed at Jews was a violation of the University’s rules or code of conduct, but said that such was somehow dependent upon the context in which it was said. Primary editorial writer Daniel Pearson is fully aware of what Dr Magill said, and the “context” in which it was said, and the best he could do was mealy-mouth it? There is no way on God’s green earth that he would have called it merely a “muddled answer” if the question was about calling for the killing of blacks or Hispanics or homosexuals.

Mr Pearson is no wild-eyed leftist; even to an evil reich-wing conservative like me, he shows some sense of moderation and common sense.

Instead of listening to donors and outside voices, Penn should pay heed to some of the students and institutional leaders who have already offered sound advice.

As the editorial board of Penn’s student-run newspaper, the Daily Pennsylvanian, wrote earlier this week, the ongoing debate has made campus “feel less like a community and more like a political battleground.” Given the evidence-free statements, entrenched positions, and general ignorance that American politics have become known for, that can hardly be conducive to learning.

Instead, as the students wrote, “The path forward for Penn must be paved with more, not less, speech.”

At times, that will include speech that makes some uncomfortable, across a number of intractable political divides. The inevitable questions surrounding any speech code are limitless, something Magill learned the hard way. Bok, writing in an op-ed this week, also emphasized the importance of academic freedom and avoiding being pushed around by angry donors.

We have an almost perfect freedom of speech in the United States, and the faculty, students, administrators, and professors can say anything that they want. But freedom of speech also means that other people have the freedom to listen, or not listen, to what other people say, and if they do listen, and do not like what they hear, or read, they have the right to react as they choose to it. As much as Scott Bok, and Professor Jonathan Zimmerman before him don’t like it, the university’s donors heard some of the anti-Semitic speech, and didn’t like it. Those donors, the vast majority of whom are Penn alumni and love their alma mater, are not somehow obligated to donate to the school. Perhaps the Editorial Board haven’t considered it, but about the only way “angry donors” can push around the University is to close their checkbooks.

That some of them have done.

By making a clear commitment to free speech, Penn’s administration can avoid weighing in on every campus controversy, and can instead focus on keeping students, staff, and faculty safe from genuine incidents of harassment and vandalism, which are already punishable offenses.

The alternative is to capitulate to those who would eviscerate higher education for their own benefit.

Let’s tell the truth here: while Penn’s students have the right to say whatever they wish, there are certain things that, if they said them, would get them expelled, such as the theoreticals listed above, calling for the deaths of blacks or homosexuals. There is no way that Penn would tolerate even a quiet, academic debate as to whether blacks were inferior to whites, and we shouldn’t pretend otherwise.

Well, investigative journalist Sara Carter visited the University City campus, and:

spoke with students who expressed mixed views on the issue, with some equating calls for genocide as mere opinions.

“[M]any of them equated calls for genocide as just someone else’s opinion,” Carter said.

“Just because they’re very scrutinized on a national level, I think right now and whatever they say, there’s probably going to be a lot of commentary about it,” a student said.

“So I think it was hard for them to answer, even though I don’t think it should have been.”

“I expect people to not be violent… My personal stance on genocide is against it, but I’m not going to force anybody of my political views,” another student stated.

He’s not going to force his views on genocide on anybody else?

Can we tell the truth here? Neither the student in question, or anyone else on campus, would ever say that about questions on the rights of racial or sexual minorities. And the University itself “strongly advis(ed)” the actually female members of the school’s women’s swim team not to speak out to the press about Will Thomas and tried to instill fear in the women that if they did, their employment prospects would be diminished. To the University, the question of whether ‘Lia’ Thomas was really a woman was settled, and there was to be no debate. The Inquirer also took that position, censoring reader comments that claimed Mr Thomas was male. More, the Inquirer fired allowed Stan Wischnowski to resign as senior vice-president and executive editor of the newspaper, following a newsroom protest after the headline “Buildings Matter, Too” was used in an article on the loss of historic architecture in the riots over the death of fentanyl-and-methamphetamine-addled convicted felon George Floyd in Minneapolis while being arrested. The Inky has absolutely no qualms about people being held accountable for what they’ve said.

Would the newspaper seriously entertain a debate as to whether or not Mr Floyd’s death was actually murder, or just something he brought on himself and deserved? To the Inky, that’s certainly a settled question, and any debate over it would be racist.

The question of simply killing the Jews was asked, and answered, in Germany four decades ago, and the world responded to the wrong answer up with which the Nazis came; the men who made the Shoah possible were caught, tried, convicted, and several were hanged. Even today, Germany is seeking out and arresting men who served in the extermination camps, and putting people nearly 100 years old on trial, and sentencing them to prison if convicted.

What Dr Magill couldn’t say was absolutely repugnant is absolutely repugnant, and if people want to exercise their freedom of speech to say otherwise, they can. But they had better be prepared to face the consequences of what they say.