We rightly expect the leaders of great American institutions to be unequivocal in their opposition to hatred and violence, including anti-Semitism, anti-Muslim sentiment, and genocide. Yet the furor caused by the recent Congressional testimony of the presidents of Harvard, Penn and MIT – who did not state their positions clearly enough – is nevertheless out of proportion. And it smacks of the sort of rush to condemnatory judgment typical of a political culture that cannot tolerate nuance.
For the record, the testimony of the three college presidents (Claudine Gay of Harvard and Elizabeth Magill of Penn, who have since resigned, and Sally Kornbluth of MIT) was legally correct: with speech, context matters. None of them stands accused of being anti-Semitic, anti- Muslim, or in favor of genocide. None of them failed to condemn the October 7th by Hamas attack on Israel.
Moreover, our free-speech tradition does not just allow us to tolerate speech that we do not like: it demands that we do so.
Democracy itself requires that we balance two conflicting things when it comes to speech: that we err on the side of tolerance rather than censorship in most situations; and that we disallow or punish speech that either foments violence or (like yelling “fire” in a crowded theater) threatens public safety.
And we can’t always be certain when those conditions are met. But the fact that speech may be hateful or disgusting is not sufficient.
On the eve of World War II, a Nazi was allowed to speak at my Quaker college outside of Philadelphia. He was not warmly welcomed. But upholding the principle of free speech there didn’t add to the human cost of the war that followed, or diminish the college.
Presidents Gay et al were exactly right: we need context to decide whether hateful speech is also dangerous speech. If all hateful speech were dangerous and not simply repellent, Donald Trump would have to be permanently censored.
And for all the obviousness of the October 7th atrocity, the current situation in Israel-Palestine is fraught with ambiguities. Among other things: 1) Hamas doesn’t legitimately speak for the citizens of Gaza; 2) both Israel and Hamas have committed war crimes; 3) no outcome will be stable or peaceful that doesn’t guarantee the security of both Israelis and Palestinians. Killing more than 27,000 civilians (and counting), of whom some 70 percent are women and children, is not a recipe for long-term stability in the region any more than the killing, abduction, and rape of innocent Israelis. It’s an atrocity in itself. Or if you prefer, a counter-atrocity.
Who fails to see these complexities? Among others, most of the student protestors on our campuses; most members of Congress; and a goodly number of media pundits, all of whom have unequivocally taken sides in a conflict with no easy resolution and plenty of blame to go around, beginning – but not ending – with the savagery of Oct. 7th .
These great simplifiers are not just muddling our discourse with the zealotry of unjustified moral certainty. They are an obstacle to peace.