F.U.

In the immortal words of Al Pacino as Don Corleone in Godfather 3, Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.

That’s kinda how I felt this past week.  

Writing about antisemitism in America has been very depressing for me.  I really wanted to tackle a different subject this week, and there are plenty of them.  For example, I could write about George Santos’ expulsion from Congress, his new gig on Cameo and his $400 personal messages.

But after I watched the presidents of three of the nation’s most prestigious universities testify on Capitol Hill about antisemitism on their campuses, I got pulled back in.  I got pulled back in to write about the outburst of American antisemitism that is more frightening than any mafia don. 

Harvard University President Claudine Gay, University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill and Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth, testified before a House committee this past Tuesday.  The president of Columbia University didn’t bother showing up.  She claimed she had a scheduling conflict.

Jewish students on their campuses are under siege, attacked over their support for Israel, or for just being Jewish.  It really doesn’t matter to the haters.

Chants that call for the death of Jews and the destruction of Israel have become commonplace.  I don’t think I need to repeat them here.

So the university presidents were put on the hot seat for five hours.  Congress wanted to know what they’re doing about it.

When her turn came, New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, herself a Harvard grad, asked each of the presidents a simple question.  Would students who called for the genocide of Jews be in violation of their universities’ codes of conduct?  Pretty simple, no?  A softball question.  A lay up.  Stefanik even gave them a couple of chances to say the right thing.  But it ended up being a huge antisemitic swing and a miss for the university bosses. 

If you haven’t already watched it, you must. 

I’m not a big Elise Stefanik fan.  She’s a true Trumper.  But she thankfully shined the light on the denigration of American higher education, with that one simple, easy to answer question.

What those university presidents said is Jewish students must wait to be killed before they will take action to defend them.

President Gay said Harvard gives a wide berth to free expression, even of views that are objectionable.  

But I wonder, if students marched through Harvard Yard shouting something bigoted and dangerous like, From sea to sea, eliminate Blacks so white America can be free, would that be contextualized by Harvard’s president, or would it be loudly and forcefully condemned, as it should be?  Would we have to wait, heaven forbid, for African Americans to be slaughtered before those students are expelled?  I certainly hope not.

Erstwhile big Harvard donor turned big Harvard critic Bill Ackman, rightly pointed out that if a CEO of one of his companies gave evasive answers like they did, they’d be toast within the hour.  

Laurence Tribe, a noted liberal Harvard professor emeritus, said President Gay’s hesitant, formulaic, and bizarrely evasive answers were deeply troubling to me and many of my colleagues, students, and friends.

These so-called intellectuals have their heads way, way up their “ivy” tower asses.  It would be comical if it were not so diabolical.  

After their shockingly scripted, smug and spineless performances before Congress, there were calls for them to resign.  On Saturday, Magill got axed.  Okay, she resigned.  Whatever.  The statement from Penn said her position as [president] was no longer tenable.  That’s apparently not the case for the other two pantheons of moral murkiness.  M.I.T. stood behind Kornbluth and Harvard’s Gay probably saved her posterior for now, saying she messed up and was sorry.

Apology not accepted.  

Even after being heavily coached by lawyers on what to say in front of the committee, they should have had the moral clarity, not to mention the brains, to simply say that calling for the genocide of Jews is wrong and won’t be tolerated on their campuses.  But they didn’t, and that, for me, is the bottom line.

Replace them?  Sure.  But it’s not only them.  The students and professors that have stocked America’s colleges through the diversity, equity and inclusion mafia, have changed the campus climate from a place where ideas are debated and respected, to a place of hate and intolerance.

Not surprisingly, they are all feeding at the same ideological trough as the most progressive members of Congress, from whom they take their cues.

Representative Pramila Jayapal, the House Progressive Caucus Chairwoman, when asked by CNN’s Dana Bash why so many progressive women have been silent on the atrocities of 10/7, turned the conversation back to Israel’s actions in Gaza.  Jayapal said, I think it’s horrific and I think rape, sexual assault is horrific.  I think that it happens in war situations.  Terrorist organizations like Hamas obviously are using these tools.  However, I think we have to be balanced about bringing outrages against Palestinians.  

What she’s saying is, when Jews are attacked, raped, slaughtered, we need context.  Hey, that’s exactly what Gay, Magill and Kornbluth said!  Go figure!

Those three self-righteous, mealy-mouthed university bosses are part of a sordid continuum of leaders that have parsed words, hidden behind legalisms and made excuses for Jew haters.  The Jewish people have a long history of expulsions, degradations and persecutions that began with hateful words and ended with genocide.  

UPenn’s Liz Magill got canned, but there are too many culprits today in American higher education that have made Jewish students feel threatened and unsafe.  Jew haters have been given free rein on America’s campuses, right from the very top.  That became abundantly clear in Congress on Tuesday.

To all of them, I say you deserve a huge F.  

F, as in you’ve failed your Jewish students. F, as in you’ve finally been unmasked.  F, as in F-you! 

How’s that for context?