I hit a milestone birthday last week, so I took a couple of days off from the blog to celebrate with family and friends. My favorite quote: “It’s weird being the same age as old people.”
Israel is gearing up for a ground invasion of Gaza, probably today. There’s a lot of mixed emotions being expressed on social media, ranging from “the Palestinians deserve it” to “what about the innocent women and children?”
It’s raised some heated conversations in this country as pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel demonstrations have shown. It has also resulted in many elite college groups, particularly at Harvard, releasing statements of support for the Palestinians and Hamas and blaming Israel for the violence.
That led Bill Ackman, a Harvard grad and founder of Pershing Square Capital Management, who has a net worth of $3.5 billion, to issue a call for Harvard to release the list of students in the groups so that CEOs won’t inadvertently hire any of them.
As the New York Post reported:
The pro-Hamas Harvard groups that signed the letter are African American Resistance Organization, Bengali Association of Students at Harvard College, Harvard Act on a Dream, Harvard Arab Medical and Dental Student Association, Harvard Chan Muslim Student Association, Harvard Chan Students for Health Equity and Justice in Palestine, Harvard College Pakistan Student Association, Harvard Divinity School Muslim Association, Harvard Middle Eastern and North African Law Student Association, Harvard Graduate School of Education Islamic Society, Harvard Graduate Students for Palestine, Harvard Islamic Society, Harvard Law School Justice for Palestine, Harvard Divinity School Students for Justice in Palestine, Harvard Jews for Liberation, Harvard Kennedy School Bangladesh Caucus, Harvard Kennedy School Muslim Caucus, Harvard Kennedy School Muslim Women’s Caucus, Harvard Kennedy School Palestine Caucus, Harvard Muslim Law School Association, Harvard Pakistan Forum, Harvard Prison Divest Coalition, Harvard South Asian Law Students Association, Harvard South Asians for Forward-Thinking Advocacy and Research, Harvard TPS Coalition, Harvard Undergraduate Arab Women’s Collective, Harvard Undergraduate Ghungroo, Harvard Undergraduate Muslim Women’s Medical Alliance, Harvard Undergraduate Nepali Students Association, Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee, Middle East and North African Graduate School of Design Student Society, Neighbor Program Cambridge, Sikhs and Companions of Harvard Undergraduates, and Society of Arab Students.
“We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence,” the letter states, adding: “The apartheid regime is the only one to blame. Israeli violence has structured every aspect of Palestinian existence for 75 years.”
The letter has since been updated to remove the list of groups that signed it “for student safety.” [All emphasis mine.]
What a very DIVERSE set of student groups reflected at Harvard. Notice how they’ve separated into their own little tribes based on their ethnic, gender or religious affiliations (or some combination of each).
This all led to Vivek Ramaswamy, candidate for president in these United States, making an unwise statement on X the other day.
The Harvard student groups who co-signed the anti-Israel letter are simple fools. But it’s not productive for companies to blacklist kids for being members of student groups that make dumb political statements on campus. Colleges are spaces for students to experiment with ideas & sometimes kids join clubs that endorse boneheadedly wrong ideas. I’ve been as vocal as anyone in criticizing left-wing cancel culture (see my first book “Woke, Inc.”), but it’s bad no matter who practices it. It wasn’t great when people wearing Trump hats were fired from work. It wasn’t great when college graduates couldn’t get hired unless they signed oppressive “DEI” pledges. And it’s not great now if companies refuse to hire kids who were part of student groups that once adopted the wrong view on Israel. This isn’t a legal point, it’s a cultural point. I say this as someone who vehemently disagrees with those Harvard student groups.
Those calling for blacklisting students right now are responding from a place of understandable hurt, but I’m confident that in the fullness of time, they will agree with me on the wisdom of avoiding these cancel-culture tactics.
I take issue with his first sentence that the student groups who co-signed the letter “are simple fools.” A “group” is an anonymized organization, not a person, and therefore cannot be a “simple fool.” Groups are made up of students led by one or more students and only such a student can be a simple fool. Calling a “group” foolish is really calling its leaders and / or its members foolish.
Secondly, what is this idea of being unproductive about? It’s “not productive” for a company to blacklist students? Why not? If I were a CEO, I’d wouldn’t want to hire someone who blames the cold-blooded murder, rape and decapitation of innocent civilians by barbaric terrorists on the victims.
If your ideology won’t let you distinguish between good and evil when it’s that obvious, maybe you have a problem distinguishing between right and wrong at any level. Or perhaps you have a different idea of what “right” and “wrong” are.
And finally, to criticize blacklisting as “wrong” in all cases is to reduce all perceived offences to the same level. Is he really going to argue that refusing to hire someone because they have the “wrong” political opinion (MAGA) is the same as refusing to hire someone who unequivocally and publicly supports the brutal killing of defenseless men, women, children and the elderly?
Are you saying that blacklisting is inappropriate in this case? We shouldn’t do it? Not ever? Not even if it’s Kathy Griffin holding up the severed head of Donald J. Trump?
What is wrong with you?
Former Fox News personalilty Megyn Kelly wasn’t having it either.
This, to me, is a perfect example of how convictions about what is right and what is wrong have been weakened in our contemporary culture. Ramaswamy says he’s making “a cultural point.” Well, at some point the “culture” needs to take a stand on good and evil. And when they do, it might look like blacklisting the overtly hostile instead of trying to “persuade” them that they’re wrong.
The “kids” (as Ramaswamy calls them) may have to learn a harsh lesson — that such extreme ideology has no place in a civilized society.
Like Kathy Griffin.
I’ve soured on Vivek. Nice guy with a lot of energy and some good thinking on some things, but he’s not my candidate, and his thoughts on this matter didn’t help.
Good morning Dave. I totally agree with you on Vivek, as I was interested in him at the beginning of the debates, being fresh and exciting instead of the tired old “Mike Pence” types. But, not being a Niki Haley fan either, I think she’s on to something and it’s the “rookie” mistakes that he’s making along the way and this “mistake” is probably the end to his run. I watched a clip of a Pro Palestine rally in New York I believe and this “lady” was screaming, that the Israel’s are Zionist Pigs etc. There is so much hate on that “side of the aisle” that it will be interesting to see how our lefty media portrays Israel in the coming days. Someone said, if the Palestinians put down their weapons, there would be peace, if the Israelis put down their weapons, there would be genocide.
Jim, your last sentence is Truth with a capital “T”.