Why Penn’s sudden defense of free speech feels disingenuous
For years, conservatives have called on institutions of higher learning to recommit themselves to open inquiry and tolerance for politically unpopular speech. What's changed?
The latest from the University of Pennsylvania’s campus is that faculty members are now demanding a “New Constitution” that they say will help the elite university protect “intellectual diversity and openness of thought.”
Well, it’s about time.
How heartening this news is for those of us on the right who have been calling on institutions of higher learning to recommit themselves to open inquiry and tolerance for politically unpopular speech.
This newfound fervor comes in the wake of the rabid antisemitism at Penn that led to the resignation of university president Liz Magill after her testimony before Congress.
Yet, one can’t also help but spare a thought for Penn law professor Amy Wax.
It was just last year when the then-dean of Penn’s Carey Law School, Ted Ruger, launched an investigation into Wax after she made numerous controversial remarks, not the least of which involved questioning the academic credentials of Black law students.
Far from protecting Wax, 2,500 Penn students and alumni demanded her removal. Rather than champion her academic freedom, Ruger declared that Wax “has caused profound harm to our students and faculty, and her escalating pattern of behavior raises risks of increased harm and escalating damage going forward.”
One does wonder how Wax is reacting to the realization that had she just issued a call for genocide — with context, of course — rather than raising questions about academic credentials, she, too, could have had Penn’s president defend her before Congress and earned praise from the media for bravely exercising her right to free speech.
How helpful this new commitment to diversity of thought would have been when conservative students were being silenced and ostracized on campus for decades.
This newfound zealotry for academic freedom and free speech by elite universities and their mainstream media apologists could be considered satire if it weren’t so disingenuous — and dangerous.
For sure, prior to Oct. 7, there were some at Penn and in the media who have been consistent in their calls for a diversity of viewpoints and the protection of those pushing unpopular ideas.
But would many of these same people now hand-wringing over free speech be just as committed if the exchange between U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik and Magill were about the LGBTQ community or students of color?
Would they write in defense of academic freedom if former President Donald Trump was invited to join the Penn faculty as a guest lecturer? Will they demand an apology for Wax and fund an open discourse chair in her name?
These new calls for openness and tolerance smack of insincerity, and this sudden emphasis on “free speech” feels like a convenient cover for attacking Jews. It’s as the Peruvian general and dictator Óscar R. Benavides said as he declared his political opposition illegal and persecuted its leaders: “For my friends, everything. For my enemies, the law.”
And in modern America, “the law” is often being meted out with prejudice by the so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and their czars that have infiltrated not just higher education, but American society at large.
As many donors are now pointing out as they pull their money from elite institutions, DEI administrators are ignoring the repeated targeting, harassment, and discrimination faced by Jewish students.
In this climate, it’s hard to believe there will be a newfound respect for the First Amendment.
In this climate, it’s hard to believe there will be a newfound respect for the First Amendment. Not only are colleges not committed to these ideals, the students they admit often don’t hold dear the values of civil society.
“What I used to hear in the 1990s from skinheads and Ku Klux Klan members ... I now hear from college kids,” writes Matson Browning, a former undercover cop who infiltrated hate groups.
It took the largest slaughter of Jewish civilians since the Holocaust to expose the moral rot at our elite educational institutions. Magill’s resignation — after paying lip service to the ideals of free speech — is not going to bring about a renaissance for civil liberties on American campuses, especially if DEI is the predominant power structure in higher education.
Until DEI is dismantled and people with a demonstrated history of commitment to liberalism and open discourse are put in their place, the ugly intolerance we now see masquerading as inclusivity on our nation’s campuses will reign supreme.