The NPR Politics Podcast - Free Speech & College Campuses

Episode Date: December 14, 2023

The Israel-Hamas war has sparked demonstrations on college campuses, igniting the age old debate about the fine line between antisemitism and free speech.This episode: senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith, national correspondent Tovia Smith, and senior political editor & correspondent Domenico Montanaro.This episode was edited by Erica Morrison. It was produced by Jeongyoon Han and Casey Morell. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Unlock access to this and other bonus content by supporting The NPR Politics Podcast+. Sign up via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hello, this is Cortland Elliott driving to my fitting so that I can be Santa Claus once again at the Pacific Mall this winter. I enjoy listening to the NPR Politics podcast as a meditative exercise to try to keep my blood pressure down. This podcast was recorded at Thursday, December 14th at 1.21pm. Yes, I know you're waiting for it. Ho, ho, ho to all the good boys and girls at the NPR politics podcast. And now here's the show. His voice is keeping my blood pressure down. Yeah, but I can't imagine our podcast helps keep anyone's blood pressure down. Oh, you know, because we distill for you what you need to know so you're not abused by it all day. Oh, that's fair. Yeah. Hey there. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm

Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And NPR's Tovia Smith is with us from Boston. Hi, Tovia. Ho, ho, ho again. Today's topic is quite a bit less cheery. We're looking at the debate over free speech on college campuses, in particular, the collision between anti- between Israel and Hamas. And university presidents who testified before Congress over their handling of the protests have come in for intense criticism, with one, Liz McGill, the president of the University of Pennsylvania, being forced out as a result. Tovia, let us start there. The fallout is continuing. So catch us up on the latest. Yeah, just last night, the House passed a bipartisan resolution denouncing all these university presidents' testimony, how they're handling or not handling anti-Semitism on campus.

And the resolution condemns these presidents from Harvard, from MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania for being evasive and dismissive when they were asked whether calls for genocide against Jews would violate campus rules. And their answer was basically, it depends. So this resolution passed pretty easily, though some denounced it as a political stunt. They say they're on board with denouncing anti-Semitism 100%, but not down with trying to take down all these presidents, as many have called for. Let's back up and talk about these protests. What is actually being said on college campuses? Well, we've seen a lot that has been fierce, clashes on many campuses, and not just these three elite schools that were called out, but across the nation.

And we're seeing really a broad range, everything from chants of from the river to the sea, other potentially inflammatory language, to flat out explicit threats, even death threats. There have been physical and violent clashes, people have been harassed, chased, trapped in a room, physically hurt. So it's been pretty intense, pretty ugly. Can we just explain what from the river to the sea means and why that might be considered anti-Semitic? Yeah, the thing about these kinds of chants is that they mean different things to different people. This is kind of in the eye of the beholder, if you will. So that makes it really tricky. And we should just stipulate here that the vast majority of chanting and signs and slogans on campuses don't actually say, wherefore genocide, or let's kill all the Jews. The slogans that we're seeing most often are

less explicit and open to interpretation, like from the river to the sea. To some students, that means wiping out the state of Israel and the Jewish people who are there. And so they say, yeah, that's a call for genocide. And on the other side, I talked to a pro-Palestinian student at Harvard the other day who said only an insane person would mean it that way, that it's just about liberation of the Palestinian people from Israeli rule. And I'll just add, there's also a see none of the above answer here, meaning that there are students who are chanting these things and waving these signs who literally have no idea what they actually mean or which river or which sea we're talking about. So pro tip, it's the Jordan River in the Mediterranean Sea.

You know, I think it's fair to say that these colleges have really not figured out well in the Trump era politically how to handle a lot of these hot button issues. We saw a lot of problems with the universities being able to sort of deal with free speech, quote unquote, and what should be allowed while Trump was president. And now clearly during the Israel-Hamas war, you know, when the pendulum sort of swung in a different direction, still struggling to create consistent rules. I mean, there isn't an exception to the First Amendment for speech that people don't like or even hate speech as vile as it can be. That's why the KKK is allowed to march in the streets with hoods on. But there are campus codes of conduct, Tovia, and I'm wondering how this all fits in. Is a college campus like the rest of the country or not? Actually not. So their codes of conduct vary. Let me start by saying they are generally principles about protests not interrupting

classes or campus activities. And it's kind of when speech targets or threatens an individual that crosses the line. But even in cases of general speech, if it's severe or pervasive, it could amount to harassment that crosses the line. And then again, we get back to this being in the eye of the beholder. But as you say, college campuses are a unique environment. They have this delicate balance between freedom of expression and open dialogue, which are critical to the educational process, but they also have to ensure that would make students feel harassed or uncomfortable. And the Biden administration has been reminding schools of this, both before the attack on Israel when anti-Semitism was already rising at alarming rates and afterwards when it sparked even more. So there are already several investigations of schools underway by the Biden administration

and also by Congress. You know, a lot of these are private universities and can set out their own rules that are separate from just the free speech that you might find on a regular public street, like you're talking about. You know, you can almost see this as like a town square where you expect not to get carjacked, right? I mean, the rules are supposed to be what they are so that you maintain some degree of safety and comedy. So the point of this all being education. Well, let's now get to what the university presidents said or did not say in that hearing that produced such an incredible uproar. So what was it that they said that got them into trouble? Right. The bite that the congresswoman Elise Stefanik said got more than a billion views online. A billion? That's what she said. I haven't counted. Of course, Elise Stefanik

is this Republican congresswoman from upstate New York, big Trump backer, also graduated from Harvard. She said, basically, this is the moment that she said it was supposed to be an easy question. Ms. McGill, at Penn, does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Penn's rules or code of conduct? Yes or no? If the speech turns into conduct, it can be harassment. Yes.

I am asking, specifically calling for the genocide of Jews, does that constitute bullying or harassment? If it is directed and severe or pervasive, it is harassment. So the answer is yes. It is a context-dependent decision, Congresswoman. The reaction was fierce. Donors threatened to pull many, many, many millions of dollars. Lawmakers demanded the president's resign. And what was really stunning was the strange bedfellows of it all. You had Elise Stefanik, a total Trump loyalist, a progressive Democrat, Elizabeth Warren, Elon Musk, and the White House all kind of on the same page. And Harvard Law professor Larry Tribe

kind of summed it up by saying, I am no fan of Stefanik's, but on this one, I'm with her. And that was the case for a lot of people. This is an issue that has really sort of scrambled a lot of normal political lines, that's for sure. Yeah. So, Tovia, watching cable, one might think that this is completely overwhelming college campuses, fully consuming daily life. Is that the case? Is this the overriding issue that students care about right now? Well, they may care a lot more than they're willing to say. I've spent a lot of time out in the cold in the last few days trying to get students to be willing to talk on mic on the record.

They're afraid. They say they are intimidated and they're being silenced. We've seen them get doxxed, meaning their contact information has been splashed all over social media and billboard trucks driving around town. So the students end up losing jobs or other opportunities because of it. So most pro-Palestinian students I've encountered would only speak anonymously. As one put it, my mom told me not to say anything. One of those students told me he was opposed to firing Harvard's president, Claudine Gay, not because he was happy with her, but because the calls for her firing were all about how she was handling anti-Semitism and not about how she was

dealing with Islamophobia or anti-Arab or anti-Palestinian hate or harassment. I would say that the university has done little to nothing to protect vulnerable students who don't have access to the sorts of resources of legacy, of wealth, of institutional powers and connections. And those students tend to be those who are Arab, who are Muslim, who are students of color. And if the concern were general student safety, then I would be more sympathetic to calls for her to resign or for some sort of change. So at the same time that Palestinian students like that think the school's not doing enough for them, Jewish and Israeli students say they're feeling intimidated and feel harassed by protests, implicit or explicit expressions of sympathy or solidarity with Hamas or even celebrations over what happened on October 7th.

And some students say they have been afraid to leave their dorms and go to class and they feel harassed by what they interpret as calls for genocide. And that's really kind of the crux of it. You know, if I say something to you that you take offense to, how is that ultimately going to be judged? Is it judged based on what I meant by it or by how you took it and how it made you feel? And I can't tell you how much I'm hearing about a kind of double standard here. I spoke to one Harvard student. His name is Shabas Kestenbaum, who's one of many calling out this double standard around that. So if I were to call my black friends the N-word, but I really meant it as a positive affirmation, would that be acceptable?

Absolutely not. Whether it's transphobia, whether it's sexism, whether it's racism, there have always been consistent policies that Harvard has enforced. But all of a sudden, when it comes to anti-Semitism, we wish we could do something about it, but we're so committed to the First Amendment. And this whole First Amendment defense is especially rich, people like the students say, since Harvard has been rated dead last of all universities in terms of free speech. So it's hard to swallow, he says, that they're now kind of claiming purity on the issue. And this is all really stoking the issue that's been around long before October 7th. Conservatives have been railing against what they see as schools' woke lefty ideology that isn't really about free speech.

It's only about protecting favored speech and this idea of universities caving to the woke left. So in other words, schools are all too happy to indulge students' sensitivities when the ones claiming to be offended are on the left, but not when it's the left who's accused of causing the offense. Look, there are clearly threats against Jewish students. There are threats against students who support Israel. There are threats against Palestinian students and students

who are pro-Palestinian. And it seems very difficult for either side to sort of admit that there are these threats against the other and maybe just not call for violence at all. Yeah. All right. Well, we're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back. really cannot exist without your contributions. For anyone listening who isn't a supporter yet, right now is a great time to change that, for you to get invested in creating a more informed public. That is our whole mission at NPR, and that's why we're here. If you like perks, NPR Politics Plus offers sponsor-free episodes and extra bonus episodes of the show,

including our trivia game that we play with a listener. And if you want to make a tax-deductible donation to your favorite station or stations in the NPR network, that's great too. What really matters is that you are part of the community that makes this work possible. Journalists across the NPR network need resources to do their best work, and those resources cost money. Microphones, laptops, safety gear, software, whatever amount you can pitch in makes a real difference. So please give today at donate.npr.org slash politics or explore NPR Plus at plus.npr.org. And thank you. And we're back. And, Domenico, we saw the House pass a resolution condemning anti-Semitism on college campuses Wednesday night, usually the kind of thing that would get bipartisan support. But a number of Democrats either voted against it or voted present, basically abstaining from voting. So why the division on this?

Well, I mean, everything just seems to be like one side or the other, not wanting to get caught in a trap that, you know, is set up for them by conservatives in this case, where Democrats don't want to have that used against them, but they're going to have it used against them either way. So, you know, sometimes when politicians put their fingers in the wind and try to figure out like what the right position is, they should probably just go with what they actually think to be the truth and, you know, read the legislation and defend what their vote is. But that's not what's happening in this case because of just how sensitive this issue is. And both of you nodded to this before, but I want to dig in a little deeper on the larger context of the raging battle over campus speech. This gets well beyond the current moments focused on anti-Semitism, but to what has been a real flashpoint over the past maybe decade even about who can speak on campus and and whose speech is acceptable on college campuses.

Obviously, there have been many student groups, Republican student groups trying to invite extremely provocative speakers. And in some cases, they've been shut down or protested or this is just this has been an issue. 2012 presidential election that you would hear quite a bit from people like Rick Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator who would talk about this sort of anti-elitism that had been kind of cropping up. But this really became a huge focus during the Trump presidency because, frankly, of so many of the controversial things that he would have to say that really drummed up a lot of hate speech and people feeling like that they were emboldened to say things that were offensive. And then when they were tried to be policed on campus, you would have conservatives who were outraged by the things that campuses would do to stop that hate speech from being

talked about on campus. But really, you know, look, these presidents fumbled this situation unquestionably, right? But clearly, there's also been a selective outrage on the right that's been happening when it comes to what can or shouldn't should or shouldn't be said on campus. And I thought it was really interesting. I saw an op ed just yesterday from Jamie Raskin, a congressman from Maryland, who had five yes or no answer questions for Elise Stefanik. And they had to do with, you can guess it, Trump and the support that he's had from people who are alt-right

members. Yeah, it was clear that this hearing was about more than just anti-Semitism. Even in the opening statement, you could hear Committee Chair Virginia Fox, she spoke about the grave danger inherent in assenting to the race-based ideology of the radical left. And she mentioned anti-racism, anti-colonialism, critical race theory, etc., DEI, etc., etc. And I think this idea now, the curious thing is that it is getting more traction from not the usual suspects on this kind of line of thinking. I spoke with Rabbi David Wolpe, who recently quit his seat on Harvard's new anti-Semitism task force that President Gay set up in October. He quit because he said he was frustrated about the resistance he encountered.

He called this a much deeper-rooted problem. This is an institutional culture that has been brewing for a very long time and has now come to a boil. And that's an ideology that everything can be explained by oppressor-oppressed, by power relations. And if you are Jewish, you are therefore white and oppressor, which is not only factually incorrect, but also betrays Jewish history. So the question is whether all this will strike a chord with progressives who never really bought the idea of the woke ideology being a problem in the case of race or gender politics, but are now buying into the idea in this context of Israel and Gaza. I mean, clearly on the campaign trail, we see a very similar sort of parallel with, you know, what this idea is of whose opinion is really valued most.

I mean, this idea of oppressed versus oppressor and the types of subgroups you see within the country and who is most valued by each political party. This feels like something that's sort of spilled over into this conversation about college campuses. This is also how you get to the, it's at least part of the explanation for the very dramatic age divide in how people in this country are reacting to the war in Gaza, where, you know, younger Americans who see what's happening in Israel and Gaza through a racial justice lens and older Americans, you know, who know people who were affected by the Holocaust and know Israel's history in a different way versus younger voters

who do often think about oppressed and oppressor and these power dynamics. Or the history of anti-Semitism just writ large throughout history. But, you know, I mean, clearly what we've seen in the polls is that Biden, President Biden, has a problem when it comes to younger voters and non-white voters who are far more likely to say that they don't want to see a strong support for Israel and that they'd like to see a ceasefire happening in the Israel-Hamas war. Tovia, where does this all go from here? Well, as I said, investigations are underway. And this is fraught enough that no one will be

shocked if there are more missteps or more calls for resignations. And I'll just throw in here that at the same time, there are these calls to tighten speech on campus, there are these free speech purists who are actually disappointed to see Harvard say that it's now reconsidering its rules around free speech. They think Harvard had it right in the first place. The least restrictive, the better, they say. And while there may have been an issue with the president's testimony in terms of tone or emphasis, as these groups see it, it was not a problem with its policies. But I think bottom line is that this whole ordeal has exposed, and many universities even concede themselves, that there's a lot more that they should and could do to lead by example. They're in the business of teaching,

and this is a teachable moment. And there is a way to protect intellectual freedom and at the same time foster a culture of mutually respectful dialogue. And there is a way to disagree without language that everybody knows is going to cause people to feel threatened or intimidated. And that can be taught and modeled by these esteemed universities and while we're at it, by Congress, too. Now you're asking for a lot. Forgive me. Tobias Smith, thank you so much for your reporting. Thank you.

And we'll be back tomorrow with the Weekly Roundup. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.