DOLORES UMBRAGE GOES AFTER HARVARD
Before I begin, a few comments:
1. What happened in Israel on October 7, 2023, is beyond savage. The unprovoked attack, rape, mutilation and murder of innocent civilians was beyond inhuman. Taking over 200 civilians as hostages compounded the savagery of that day.Those who planned and participated in this attack cannot be punished severely enough;
2. The October 7 slaughter was the single worst day of killing Jews since the holocaust. To be clear to the deniers, the holocaust did happen;
3. Using civilians as shields to prevent being attacked is a war crime. Disregarding the shield and the indiscriminate killing of civilians merely to attack an enemy is also a war crime;
4. As history shows, especially in the Middle East, the razing of an already fragile infrastructure, the dislocation of civilian populations, and the loss of family members only begets a new future iteration of the terrorist organization which was “destroyed.”
For the past 76 years, the toxic relations between Israel and its Middle East neighbors have created a festering sore which periodically gets lanced, threatening not only those in the region but also the delicate world order.
Without resorting to whataboutism, both sides have a lot to answer for. The attack by Hamas was savage. The ignoring of Hamas’s plan, known to Israel’s vaunted intelligence organization for a year, was inexcusable. When the dust finally settles there will be numerous questions to be answered and, perhaps, a reckoning to be had.
I went through this litany because I want to be clear about where I stand on this crucial issue. None of the above has anything to do with what follows, in spite of efforts by some to conflate all aspects of the Middle East conflict to be placed into a political box, and to evaluate what’s spoken or written through a prism to determine “which side you’re on.”
It’s here where I channel my inner Arlo Guthrie and say, “but that’s not what I want to [write] about.” I want to talk about the December 5th ambush of three university presidents.
Since the fight between Israel and Hamas began, most people in our country have supported Israel. However, there is also a vocal minority supporting the Gazans specifically and Palestinians as a whole. Note that I said Gazans, not Hamas. This is in recognition that currently 20,000 Gazan civilians have been killed in the fighting, 8000 of the killed are children.
There can be no doubt that there are those who see Israel as oppressors of Palestinian rights. Clearly this view predates the Hamas attack on Israel.
Lines have been drawn, voices raised, organized acts of support and protests for one or the other side have occurred, and occasionally violence flares. People in this country have been injured and a few have died.
The attack by Hamas on Israel is the latest of a long line of conflicts that have occurred over three-quarters of a century. The Middle East is the locus of a series of interlocked and layered components consisting of indigenous history stretching over millennia, geopolitics, race, colonial history, collective worldwide guilt regarding the holocaust, religion, economics, and more.
The issues are so complex that even Jared couldn’t solve them.
Much of the reaction to the October 7th attack has taken place on our college and university campuses. For over fifty years, campuses have seen fiery protests, meetings, speeches, marches, and teach-ins on a variety of political and social issues. Since October 7th, this has been true of Israel’s supporters and those opposed to Israeli actions. This has resulted with some students being fearful of the rhetoric and, occasionally, actions of the other groups of students.
In specific, some Jewish students have been accosted and assaulted by other students chanting “from the river to the sea,” a slogan used by the Palestinian Liberation Organization in the 1960s. It’s seen as anti-Semitic as it calls for the forceable elimination of Israel.
To some it’s considered hate speech, to others it’s considered an assertion of a historical political goal. Either way, it’s inflammatory. But is it protected speech on our college campuses?
To find out, let’s go to the Congress. On December 5th, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce conducted a hearing on actions taken on college campuses to combat antisemitism. To that end, the Committee “invited” the presidents of Harvard, UPenn, and MIT to testify.
The Chair of this Committee is Virginia Foxx from North Carolina. In case you don’t remember, Foxx screeched at a reporter who asked a question when Mike Johnson became Speaker Johnson. Screeched with hate in her eyes and venom dripping from her lips. Evidently, Chair Foxx is not a huge supporter of First Amendment press freedoms.
But she was not the one who distinguished herself at this hearing. No, that was left to the House’s own Dolores Umbrage, Elise Stefanik from the state of New York. Stefanik is a graduate of Harvard, something that no doubt embarrasses her at the weekly MAGA meetings.
Stefanik channeling her inner Umbrage had no intention of determining the extent of or reaction to antisemitism on college campuses. Her job was to ask pointed “yes or no” closed questions hoping to punish one or more of the witnesses by tripping them up. Acting as the High Inquisitor forcing Harry Potter to use a magic quill that would write on the back of his hand, she asked the three witnesses as follows:
To UPenn president Liz McGill: “Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Penn’s rules or code of conduct? Yes or no?” Declining to answer Stefanik’s question in the proscribed manner, McGill answered that it depended whether speech turned into conduct. According to the Associated Press, “Magill responded that if speech were ‘directed and severe, pervasive, it is harassment,’ and that whether a student would be punished is ‘a context-dependent decision.’”
The next day, McGill had to issue a university approved statement that looked like a hostage video stating that a call for the genocide of Jewish people would be viewed as harassment or intimidation and would be dealt with accordingly.
McGill was criticized for giving a “lawyer’s” answer. Maybe that’s because she is an accomplished attorney who was once the president of Stanford Law School. Of course she gave a lawyer’s answer! And under First Amendment jurisprudence, context is a factor to be considered in any determination of whether specific speech could be restricted.
While I thought that McGill’s answer was thoughtful and measured, Stefanik was not amused.
Harvard president Claudine Gay: like a shark in the water sensing blood, Stefanik asked the same questions and received the same answers – any evaluation and response would depend on context. “Antisemitic rhetoric, when it crosses into conduct, that amounts to bullying, harassment, intimidation. That is actionable conduct, and we do take action.”
So, once more letting her alter ego Umbrage to come out to play, Stefanik followed up with “So the answer is yes. That calling for the genocide of Jews violates Harvard’s Code of Conduct. Correct?” Gay repeated her “context” response to which Umbrage responded, “It does not depend on the context. The answer is yes, and this is why you should resign.”
For those old enough or have read enough, if Joe McCarthy’s voice from long ago asking “Are you still a member of the Communist Party? Yes or No” is ringing in your ear, you have the sense of what happened at this committee hearing.
MIT president Sally Kornbluth: the same colloquy as Stefanik had with McGill and Gay. But unlike McGill and Gay, Sally Kornbluth is Jewish. So Stefanik, still allowing Umbrage to play, and who little doubt knew this, asked whether Kornbluth heard chants calling for intifada at MIT. Kornbluth responded “I’ve heard chants which can be antisemitic, depending on the context when calling for the elimination of the Jewish people,” which would be viewed as harassment if these calls were “pervasive and severe.”
Although not amused, Elise knew that damage had been done to three of the country’s most respected universities and their presidents. Over the past few years, these and similar institutions have been mischaracterized as bastions of extreme liberalism, teaching and promoting Critical Race Theory (CRT) and implementing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies. These anti-intellectuals, promoting and defending ignorance, MAGA loving republicans know they can score cheap points with their base.
Elise Stefanik could give a rip about the war in Gaza, antisemitism on college campuses, or the presidents’ collective responses. Her mission was to loudly and publicly own the libs.
Stefanik received a BA in government from Harvard. But knowing which way the Republican political winds were blowing, she revealed her true MAGA views and wormed herself into the third leadership position in the current House of Representatives. She put on full display how vile and venal she had become.
Acts have consequences. Days after her clarification statement, reportedly under pressures coming from Penn donors, Liz McGill resigned her presidency. Stefanik’s office issued a statement that reads in part:
“One down. Two to go.
This is only the very beginning of addressing the pervasive rot of antisemitism that has destroyed the most “prestigious” higher education institutions in America.
This forced resignation of the President of Penn is the bare minimum of what is required.”
Finally, Stefanik/Umbrage was amused, giddy even.
The MIT Corporation (the school’s governing body) issued a statement in full support of Sally Kornbluth.
Harvard University president Gay was not so fortunate. Almost from the time her words were spoken, the right-wing-nut attack machine went into high gear. Spearheaded by a right-wing thug, Christopher Rufo (Is he the Snape of this story?), attacks on Gay’s merits to be president of Harvard commenced.
After enduring the indignity of combing through her Ph.d dissertation (at Harvard by the way) for errors and omitted citations and claiming to have clear and convincing evidence of her plagiarism, Claudine Gay, the first person of color to be named president of Harvard, resigned on January 2. She was in her position for only six months.
Bear in mind what passes for right-wing logic: Harvard is a liberal university; Gay is a black woman so obviously there will be a promotion of CRT studies; and as a black woman she only got the position because of DEI policies. Therefore, Claudine Gay’s undeserved position was meritless in the extreme and thus she had to be removed.
And make no mistake, this was not about antisemitism on America’s college and university campuses. This was about white nationalists advancing a “culture war” at the expense of decent and honorable people. We’ve heard from Stefanik, so let’s hear from Rufo in an interview with Politico right after Gay’s resignation. When asked whether he deserved credit for Gay’s resignation, Rufo said:
“I’ve learned that it never hurts to take the credit because sometimes people don’t give it to you. But this really was a team effort that involved three primary points of leverage. First was the narrative leverage, and this was done primarily by me, Christopher Brunet and Aaron Sibarium. Second was the financial leverage, which was led by Bill Ackman and other Harvard donors. And finally, there was the political leverage which was really led by Congresswoman Elise Stefanik’smasterful performance with Claudine Gay at her hearings.”
When asked if he had a broader objective beyond hounding Claudine Gay from her position, Rufo responded: “Myprimary objective is to eliminate the DEI bureaucracy in every institution in America and to restore truth rather than racialist ideology as the guiding principle of America.” [Lest I be accused of plagiarism, Italics are mine]
One thing regarding Claudine Gay’s dissertation that has gone un/under reported is that Gay’s dissertation was accepted by Harvard University. She received her Ph.D from Harvard. If the instances of plagiarism were so egregious, then why did Gay’s advisor or the dissertation committee as a whole not catch these instances of plagiarism?
Simple, because there was no plagiarism. Perhaps stupid errors in citation, but no plagiarism.
Look, none of this was about the war in Gaza or protests/antisemitism/anti-Muslim/ or anti anything else. This first, last and always was about white nationalists baselessly attacking diversity, equity and inclusion in the United States of America. You know, the principles upon which America was founded and grew, and the policies that allow the child (Rufo) of an Italian born father and a mother with Scotch/Irish ancestry to be accepted and enjoy success in this country.
So, what’s the difference between Rufo and Gay? Rufo is a white male whose success was self-evidently earned. Gay is a black woman whose any success is suspect, meritless and undeserved.
The ongoing stain on the American psyche is that success by “the other” (e.g. persons of color, immigrants from Latinx countries, etc.) is never deserved and therefore can only be met with derision and revulsion.
This is what the December 5 hearing and subsequent actions were all about. The attack on Claudine Gay is White Nationalism in action. We’re not long past the burning crosses and white knight riders intimidating the populace. We’re certainly not past the Charlottesville chants of “they will not replace us.”
This is the state of play at the beginning of 2024. And Lord Voldemort sits in his Mar A Lago estate rallying his minions.
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