Smilingly

It certainly is.

I pushed the button to watch it. I could hardly believe what I saw. The two presidents balked at saying that calling for genocide of Jews is harassment. Not is a crime, not is against the law, not is murderous, not is violent, just is harassment. I don’t normally find myself on Team Stefanik, but I don’t normally expect presidents of high-status universities to smile blandly at calls for genociding the Jews, either.

Politico reports:

Top university presidents defended their responses to antisemitism on their campuses in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war before Congress on Tuesday as they faced a grilling from lawmakers.

Claudine Gay, the president of Harvard, acknowledged an “alarming” rise in antisemitism at the university amid the tensions that have roiled campuses across the country since the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas and Israel’s military response in Gaza.

Gay testified alongside the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania and MIT at a House education committee hearing amid bipartisan concerns that many top higher education leaders haven’t done enough to stop hate on their campuses.

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), the chair of the panel, told the presidents that “institutional antisemitism and hate are among the poisoned fruits of your institutions’ cultures.” Foxx and a slew of other Republicans sought to tie rising campus antisemitism to their longstanding complaints that higher education is too progressive and intolerant to conservative views.

Wait wait wait. Since when is antisemitism “progressive”? Since when is opposition to antisemitism “conservative”?

Gay and Harvard were the focus for many Republicans on the panel, including Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y), who has called for her resignation.

In several testy exchanges, Stefanik, a Harvard alum, pressed Gay over whether Harvard would punish students or applicants who advocate for the murder of Jews.

Stefanik later pressed all three university leaders on whether calling for the genocide of Jews violated their campus codes of conduct. Each university president responded that it would depend on the context of the antisemitic statement, such as whether it was targeted at an individual or amounted to harassment.

Wait, god damn it. Stop. Think about what you’re saying. Calling for genocide of the Jews isn’t merely “antisemitic.” Calling for genocide isn’t merely anti. Calling for genocide is a whole other level and should not be handwaved as mere “hate speech” and the like.

Get a god damn grip.

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