What went unsaid at the congressional hearings on antisemitism on college campuses

Why don’t they like us?

As a recent Gallup survey confirmed, the American university is losing its popularity — and its authority — among the American public. It used to be a revered institution. We taught farmers’ sons. We split the atom. We schooled the GIs. And we brought millions of women and people of color into classrooms that were formerly reserved for white men.

If you want to understand what has changed, just watch the video from Tuesday’s congressional hearings about antisemitism on campus. Three presidents of prominent universities said the right things about fighting bigotry and protecting free speech.

The real problem was what they didn’t say: that we have too often forsaken our principles, around speech and much else. Put simply, we are not telling the truth. And until we do, nobody will trust us.

Most reports on the hearing focused on Rep. Elise Stefanik (R., N.Y.), who grilled the presidents about whether they’d ban speech that called for the genocide of Jews. The presidents responded cautiously and appropriately: It depends on the context.

Is “From the river to the sea, Palestine must be free” a call for genocide? To some people, yes. But if it doesn’t threaten direct and immediate intimidation or harassment to a member of our community, we cannot — and should not — prohibit it.

All of this was pure political theater, of course, cooked up by Republican lawmakers to demonstrate that the universities are soft on antisemitism. But the truth is that they’re soft on free speech, and they won’t admit it.

The most revealing moment came when Rep. Jim Banks (R., Ind.) asked Penn president Elizabeth Magill why the university allowed accused antisemites to meet at a conference about Palestinian literature, but canceled a speech by a former Trump administration official, and why it was also moving to punish law professor Amy Wax for her supposedly racist statements.

“Ms. Magill, the fact is that Penn regulates speech that it doesn’t like,” Banks told her. “Everyone gets this.”

Here was an opportunity for Magill to come clean, by acknowledging that Penn — where I teach — has indeed censored some kinds of speech.

Although it allowed the controversial literature conference to proceed, for example, it recently tried to stop a student group from showing a film criticizing Israel. Officials cited possible threats to “safety,” which is what censors always say when they want to stamp something out.

But no, we have to pretend that we have always protected speech. Never mind the report by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which ranked Penn next-to-last in its annual ranking of universities and free speech. (The only school rated worse than Penn was Harvard.)

And instead of sticking to her guns after the congressional hearing, Magill backed down. In a statement that evening, amid calls for her resignation, she apologized for her testimony and conceded that any demand for genocide would constitute harassment or intimidation. Again, we talk a good game about free speech. But when the going gets tough, we abandon it.

Likewise, Harvard president Claudine Gay dissembled when GOP legislators pressed her about the lack of political diversity at her university. Citing a survey by the Harvard campus newspaper, the lawmakers noted that just 1% of the faculty identifies as conservative.

Gay replied that she didn’t know if the survey was accurate, and that the university doesn’t keep records on the political leanings of its professors. But there’s a wealth of research demonstrating that university faculty are mostly liberal. You might think that skew is a problem, or you might not. But questioning its existence is dishonest. Period.

We talk a good game about free speech. But when the going gets tough, we abandon it.

And when asked by Rep. Virginia Foxx (R., N.C.) whether the rise in antisemitism was the fault of the faculty, Gay said that Harvard prepares professors carefully for the give-and-take of the classroom. “We devote significant resources to training our faculty in that pedagogical skill and prioritizing that in our recruiting and hiring,” Gay declared.

I haven’t seen Harvard’s budget, of course, but I’d wager good money that it doesn’t spend a king’s ransom on preparing faculty to teach. Over time, most universities haven’t. Nor do they put a big emphasis on teaching when they recruit and hire faculty. Research is the name of the game; it brings money and status. Everyone gets this. We just can’t say it.

Why not tell the truth? A little honesty goes a long way, and it might arrest some of the popular skepticism about higher education right now.

We don’t protect free speech, at least not consistently, we’re overwhelmingly liberal in our politics, and we value research over teaching. No serious person denies these trends. The public would take us more seriously if we admitted them.