Unfit: Claudine Gay's Free Speech Double Standard -- and Academia's

It was no surprise to me that Harvard was ranked dead last among major universities in supporting free speech. It repeatedly placed concern for the feelings of certain students above concern for freedom of expression. The situation became so bad that a group of faculty banded together to establish the Harvard Council on Academic Freedom, which I joined.

Ms. Gay was not part of that effort to protect free speech. To the contrary, her appointment as president was an important stimulus to creating a group dedicated to the defense of free speech.

Then came the barbarisms of October 7, Israel’s response, the proliferation of antisemitism, Ms. Gay’s disastrous Congressional testimony, and the near-universal criticism of it. Suddenly Gay discovered the First Amendment and freedom of speech.

Indeed, she became its champion, when it involved hate speech against Jews and their nation-state. Even macro-aggressions against Jews — like calls for the genocide of Jews— became a matter of “context.” In the past even the most trivial microaggressions did not require context. The Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion bureaucracy saw to that.

[If we want to defend free speech, we need to clear the space of those authoritarians who use it only as a convenient fig leaf for their own selective oppression. Gay and the other Poison Ivies leaders are unfit to defend speech and to be defended in First Amendment arguments. — Ed]