On Dec. 5, the heads of three Ivy League Universities (UPenn, Harvard, and MIT) were called to testify before Congress, regarding accusations of rampant antisemitism in their respective universities. The three presidents were charged with not doing enough to curtail such hate speech, as they had done in the past with other instances.
By all accounts, the hearing, organized by the Republican-run Committee on Education and the Workforce, was a complete disaster for the presidents. Naively walking into what they thought was a simple line of questioning on their policies, they were not prepared for the onslaught of pointed and leading questions asked by Representative Elise Stefanik (R-NY). When pointedly asked whether calls for the genocide of Jewish people would violate the schools’ code of conduct, they couldn’t give simple “yes” answers, answering with nuance and care. They mistakenly gave the representatives exactly what they wanted, and their responses were instantly lambasted by a number of groups, especially conservatives and Jewish groups.
Calls for the immediate resignation of the three presidents became widespread. Although Harvard and MIT’s presidents, Claudine Gay and Sally Kornbluth, received support from their respective universities, and did not resign, UPenn’s president Liz Magill caved in to the pressure and resigned on December 9th.
It’s obvious that the presidents handled the hearings completely wrong. They answered like considerate academics, not like PR-savvy CEOs. They gave the Republican representatives, particularly Stefanik, exactly what they wanted. Their responses and the subsequent backlash led to a dip in trust of higher education, and rich Jewish donors pulled billions of dollars in endowments away from their universities.
But they didn’t actually say anything wrong. They knew not to give simplistic answers to the very complex questions that the representatives were posing. For their care, they were lambasted by news organizations and pundits across the country, while their jobs and livelihoods were threatened. However, very few people are talking about the actual issue at hand; the right’s most recent attempt to delegitimize institutions of higher education, which they view as “corrupted” by left-wing ideals, in tactics reminiscent of those used by conservatives during McCarthyism.
McCarthyism was a period of political witch hunts which occurred in the 1950s, during the period in American history known as the Red Scare. Joseph McCarthy, a senator from Wisconsin, accused many high ranking and famous people in the government, Hollywood, TV, and even the Army of secretly being communists. Thousands of left-leaning Americans were brought to testify before Congress, accused of being enemies of the state. Oftentimes, they would only be released if they promised to name other suspected communists. Many innocent people lost their jobs or were completely blacklisted from their respective industries. Not a single Soviet spy was actually found.
“McCarthyism was designed to go around the law and dig up dirt and innuendo, or create smear campaigns about people and get them fired,” Dr. Bradford Vivian said, a professor of communication science at Penn State. “And I felt that’s what’s going on with those 3 university presidents [Gay, Magill, and Kornbluth]. Proper political oversight is ok, but the tactic is what Joe McCarthy did, which is without due process, drag people in front of television cameras and make them look bad”.
And that’s why the recent hearings should be so concerning to anyone interested in the future of higher education in this country. The three universities, as well as other Ivy leagues, receive some (though not a majority of) funds from the government, so it is not unfair for politicians in Congress to have some oversight over how the country’s money is spent. But the hearings weren’t about funding, or government oversight over universities. They were an attempt to embarrass and attack the heads of these 3 universities, as well as disintegrate public trust in higher education, a tactic long used by the political right. The hearings are a reaction to the perceived left wing bias of universities in this country, especially Ivy leagues.
Don’t take this from me, however; take it from the Republican-run Committee on Education and the Workforce, who organized the hearings and released a recap on their website. In it, they showed clearly what their main enemy was; not antisemitism, but left wing ideologies. They charge “academia’s radical Left ideologies” with fomenting antisemitism, as well as focusing more on university’s free speech and DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) policies than the actual charges of antisemitism.
In the past, universities in the United States have often curtailed forms of speech they view as hate speech. More often than not, the views that are limited are right leaning, such as when the University of San Diego banned conservative speaker Matt Walsh from speaking at the university. Many universities have rightfully come under criticism, as many claim that universities should be bastions for free speech and thought. So it is not difficult to sympathize with those complaining about the stringent hate speech rules of many universities.
But the answer to overly restrictive speech rules governing one ideological camp is not to enforce similar rules for another group of people. That is exactly what Stefanik and other Republican lawmakers are doing when they attack universities for allowing “anti-semitic speech”. The supposed care for the safety and wellbeing of Jewish people on campuses is disingenuous. It is simply being used as a “gotcha” moment, to censor left wing activists as universities have done to right wing activists in the past. Criticisms of free speech rules on campuses are valid, but it is hypocritical for the same people who complain about censorship on campuses to turn around and publicly shame and lambast university directors for not doing enough to censor activists.
The recent hearings are just the latest example of the right using any avenue possible to delegitimize institutions of higher education, bypassing the rule of law in a way eerily reminiscent of the McCarthy era. As a country, we must take care not to return to the days when someone could be brought before Congress, humiliated, attacked, and possibly fired just for their political affiliations or speech.
