We have terms in our family for our now "adult" children and quite fitting here as well. Sometimes they are "elderly teenagers" or sometimes "starter adults" depending on the stupidity of the behaviour or statement! :-)
Dan, the issue isn't the students, fully agree that they say stupid things and college is precisely the space to do that. Or it used to be. And that's the issue. Under the guise of hate speech and safe spaces, universities regulate speech on campus, and many "stupid things" that students say lead to discinplinary action. Students have been expelled from college for saying racial slurs, but saying that Hamas was creative is OK without even a clear dissent from the university?
The issue that's really being voiced at-large is that campuses have become bastions of hard-left thinking, mostly unchecked, and anti-Israel and anti-Semitic views are increasingly finding a home on that part of the spectrum. The hypocrisy between how other issues are treated and the slaughter of Jews IS the issue.
Of course college students say stupid things, but the bigger problem is that university “leaders” often have been scared to lead and to teach. The initial reactions in this case of several university leaders have essentially argued for the moral equivalence of the two sides. Students are used to university administrators who either run for cover when there is a risk of controversy or wed themselves to extreme positions. That’s not educational.
See Harvard Crimson for bad first comment by Harvard’s president and the better second comment. President of American University, where I teach, sent a very mealy-mouthed email to university community.
Neither of those suggested there was a "moral equivalence," unless you think "it's always wrong to target civilians" is a moral equivalence. You're just beating on straw men.
Anyway, the job of the university president isn't to "teach."
Without external pressure it seems that universities would issue no statements about student organizations celebrating a massacre of Jews by Palestinian death squads. They took their time to respond in the few places that did.
Absolutely, buddy. It took more than 48 hours in a few universities alone to say anything. And it took a thousand Israeli civilians to be massacred to get any response. Typically no amount of Jews dying get a mention.
See Stanford Daily too. It wasn’t until Wednesday that university leaders took a clear position condemning Hamas. Just because you don’t state there’s a moral equivalence, a failure to condemn an exceptionally heinous act by one party puts the parties on the same plane.
Stanford president and provost didn’t clearly condemn Hamas actions until Wednesday. See the Stanford Daily. Also Harvard Crimson on their president’s 2 statements. (Second one was better.)
Sorry Prof. Drezner, I won’t. My kid goes to college and has to hide being Jewish or get verbally and even physically assaulted by pro Palestinian students. If you need examples, there’s the Jewish on Campus account on...X. We don’t go there any more, I know.
My main issue is the indoctrination academia generates through antisemitic professors and graduate students. There is no workplace in the world where anyone gets to be as racist and antisemitic as some academics allow themselves to be, under the guise of Free Speech. And the indoctrination plants its slow poisonous seeds, seen in the rise in antisemitism everywhere. So I’ll keep taking what the gleeful ghouls of the pro Palestinian student bodies do, seriously.
You seem to make no distinction between anti-semitism and legitimate criticism of Israeli policies. The former is reprehensible, while the latter must be permitted in the public discourse.
I absolutely am making that distinction. I have no problem with criticism. I have a problem with violence. I have a problem with pro-genocide statements.
I think what has people so upset over these anti semitic comments is its the final stray and the public is sick of these higher ed universities churning out wokeness. This indoctrination has been swept into corporate life which is something we kept telling ourselves was never going to happen.
I spent 18 years working in higher ed and can personally attest to the political correctness trumps all, no matter reality or common sense.
While I broadly agree that college students are nitwits, there are several reasons to think that it is wholly proper to publicize exceptionally execrable statements like these. For example, the words and ideas expressed in these statements are obviously drawn from ideas promoted by faculty who are experts in "decolonization" and "oppression". Here we have these professors' ideas put into practice -- are they nuanced and analytically powerful? Or do they turn out to be just excuses for racism and bloody intolerance? Praxis brings theory into focus!
Since Tufts Students for Justice in Palestine thinks that Tufts existed on "occupied" land, and uses that to characterize all Europeans as "colonizers" (e.g., Facebook post June 21, 2023), how much of their pro-Hamas views derive from your school's pushing similar or identical ideas, such as the land acknowledgement put in place by the "Decolonizing International Relations Conference Team at The Fletcher School" (https://sites.tufts.edu/decolonizeir/land-acknowledgment/)?
So maybe publicizing these nitwits' statements is valuable because they show that that the academy (and specifically the Fletcher School) has been *institutionally* promoting some very harmful ideas, right?
As an aside, if the Fletcher School really has proof that the "Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe ... has inhabited present day Massachusetts and Eastern Rhode Island for more than 12,000 years", that tribe is probably the most successful socio-political entity in history and should be the primary focus of studies for political science profs everywhere. Or did the Fletcher School just endorse that claim because it sounded cool, and it's easier for the profs who know better to give in and let the nitwits run the place?
As the parent of kids heading off to college next year I would like them to have the ability to make stupid mistakes and correct them, though I would be horrified if they did anything like what some of these kids have. But there is a big difference between teenage underclassmen and adults, most of who already have work experience, enrolled at professional grad schools like law or MBA, or in a PhD program
It's not like this type of stupidity stops in college, though. That's where people get indoctrinated, and they take it into their jobs as academics, or writers, or journalists.
The reason this sort of stupid (and remarkably unpleasant) stuff gets publicity is because certain people (Republicans, Fox News, etc) want to prove: 1. Harvard is full of communistic terrorist sympathizers, 2. Education turns you into a Muslim loving communist, and 3. Ignorance is virtue.
I am late to this party, but the thesis is not entirely correct. Were college students in the 1960s-70s "stupid" or saying "stupid things" when they opposed the war in Vietnam? I was one of them and I like to think EVERYTHING I may have said about this country's politicians and their promulgation of the war in Vietnam was smart, and no apologies for that.
By the same token, in that period Israel was under repeated terrorist attacks, starting with the 1967 war and then the Yom Kippur war just a few years later, both of which started out as defensive wars and ending up as Israeli victories over seemingly overwhelming opposing forces. That is how Israel got the Palestinian territory it now occupies, both in Gaza and the West Bank. Israel was the David against the Goliath of the numerous Arab countries trying to overwhelm it at the time. College students then were more likely to favor Israel for that reason. Israel did not previously have that territory, but like any country victorious in war, it occupied the territory it fought, bled and died over. It is what happened in the years since that has affected public opinion about Israel.
Perhaps the problem is also that the current generation of college students were raised in an entirely different era where the real history of what went before has been glossed over or ignored due to current sensibilities. College students today are saying such "stupid" things because they don't know any better, and don't have the historical perspective that would inform them better, because education has not provided it and recent years of constant social media has helped create such a toxic anti-Israel environment, even among so-called educated college students.
That said, today's college students need a serious education into historical events that underlay today's geo-political crises. Without that, the whims of mass media will form their opinions, often wrongly, and to the detriment of making things right in the world.
I love this column- college really is the last place to be a stupid "kid".
Adulting is hard.
We have terms in our family for our now "adult" children and quite fitting here as well. Sometimes they are "elderly teenagers" or sometimes "starter adults" depending on the stupidity of the behaviour or statement! :-)
Yes, I was both! It's a wonder I lived through my 20s, honestly.
Old Yiddish saying: “Smart in books stupid in life.”
And still true today!
Dan, the issue isn't the students, fully agree that they say stupid things and college is precisely the space to do that. Or it used to be. And that's the issue. Under the guise of hate speech and safe spaces, universities regulate speech on campus, and many "stupid things" that students say lead to discinplinary action. Students have been expelled from college for saying racial slurs, but saying that Hamas was creative is OK without even a clear dissent from the university?
The issue that's really being voiced at-large is that campuses have become bastions of hard-left thinking, mostly unchecked, and anti-Israel and anti-Semitic views are increasingly finding a home on that part of the spectrum. The hypocrisy between how other issues are treated and the slaughter of Jews IS the issue.
> Students have been expelled from college for saying racial slurs
This seems unlikely to be true.
Of course college students say stupid things, but the bigger problem is that university “leaders” often have been scared to lead and to teach. The initial reactions in this case of several university leaders have essentially argued for the moral equivalence of the two sides. Students are used to university administrators who either run for cover when there is a risk of controversy or wed themselves to extreme positions. That’s not educational.
Do you have a source for any of that?
See Harvard Crimson for bad first comment by Harvard’s president and the better second comment. President of American University, where I teach, sent a very mealy-mouthed email to university community.
Neither of those suggested there was a "moral equivalence," unless you think "it's always wrong to target civilians" is a moral equivalence. You're just beating on straw men.
Anyway, the job of the university president isn't to "teach."
Without external pressure it seems that universities would issue no statements about student organizations celebrating a massacre of Jews by Palestinian death squads. They took their time to respond in the few places that did.
Did you read the article you're nominally commenting on?
No, they obviously didn’t.
Absolutely, buddy. It took more than 48 hours in a few universities alone to say anything. And it took a thousand Israeli civilians to be massacred to get any response. Typically no amount of Jews dying get a mention.
See Stanford Daily too. It wasn’t until Wednesday that university leaders took a clear position condemning Hamas. Just because you don’t state there’s a moral equivalence, a failure to condemn an exceptionally heinous act by one party puts the parties on the same plane.
> It wasn’t until Wednesday that university leaders took a clear position condemning Hamas.
Why is this important to you? They’re not politicians. Why do they need to make any statement at all?
Have you see condemnation from university leaders? Do you have a source for that?
Stanford president and provost didn’t clearly condemn Hamas actions until Wednesday. See the Stanford Daily. Also Harvard Crimson on their president’s 2 statements. (Second one was better.)
Sorry Prof. Drezner, I won’t. My kid goes to college and has to hide being Jewish or get verbally and even physically assaulted by pro Palestinian students. If you need examples, there’s the Jewish on Campus account on...X. We don’t go there any more, I know.
My main issue is the indoctrination academia generates through antisemitic professors and graduate students. There is no workplace in the world where anyone gets to be as racist and antisemitic as some academics allow themselves to be, under the guise of Free Speech. And the indoctrination plants its slow poisonous seeds, seen in the rise in antisemitism everywhere. So I’ll keep taking what the gleeful ghouls of the pro Palestinian student bodies do, seriously.
You seem to make no distinction between anti-semitism and legitimate criticism of Israeli policies. The former is reprehensible, while the latter must be permitted in the public discourse.
https://substack.com/@charlotteclymer/note/c-41849782
I absolutely am making that distinction. I have no problem with criticism. I have a problem with violence. I have a problem with pro-genocide statements.
https://www.persuasion.community/p/yascha-the-deep-roots-of-the-lefts
I think what has people so upset over these anti semitic comments is its the final stray and the public is sick of these higher ed universities churning out wokeness. This indoctrination has been swept into corporate life which is something we kept telling ourselves was never going to happen.
I spent 18 years working in higher ed and can personally attest to the political correctness trumps all, no matter reality or common sense.
Thank you for confirming the ironclad rule: anyone who uses "wokeness" unironically has nothing to say. This is bot-level hand-waving.
While I broadly agree that college students are nitwits, there are several reasons to think that it is wholly proper to publicize exceptionally execrable statements like these. For example, the words and ideas expressed in these statements are obviously drawn from ideas promoted by faculty who are experts in "decolonization" and "oppression". Here we have these professors' ideas put into practice -- are they nuanced and analytically powerful? Or do they turn out to be just excuses for racism and bloody intolerance? Praxis brings theory into focus!
Since Tufts Students for Justice in Palestine thinks that Tufts existed on "occupied" land, and uses that to characterize all Europeans as "colonizers" (e.g., Facebook post June 21, 2023), how much of their pro-Hamas views derive from your school's pushing similar or identical ideas, such as the land acknowledgement put in place by the "Decolonizing International Relations Conference Team at The Fletcher School" (https://sites.tufts.edu/decolonizeir/land-acknowledgment/)?
So maybe publicizing these nitwits' statements is valuable because they show that that the academy (and specifically the Fletcher School) has been *institutionally* promoting some very harmful ideas, right?
As an aside, if the Fletcher School really has proof that the "Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe ... has inhabited present day Massachusetts and Eastern Rhode Island for more than 12,000 years", that tribe is probably the most successful socio-political entity in history and should be the primary focus of studies for political science profs everywhere. Or did the Fletcher School just endorse that claim because it sounded cool, and it's easier for the profs who know better to give in and let the nitwits run the place?
As the parent of kids heading off to college next year I would like them to have the ability to make stupid mistakes and correct them, though I would be horrified if they did anything like what some of these kids have. But there is a big difference between teenage underclassmen and adults, most of who already have work experience, enrolled at professional grad schools like law or MBA, or in a PhD program
Antisemitism is not acceptable on any level, even for so called “stupid college students” or university professors.
Funny that you get kicked out to say that women exist or for “misgendering” someone, yet get a pass when promoting the genocide of Jewish people.
> Funny that you get kicked out to say that women exist or for “misgendering” someone
Except that you don’t get expelled for that.
Come again? https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/01/oxford-students-expelled-misgendering-peers-transgender/
It's not like this type of stupidity stops in college, though. That's where people get indoctrinated, and they take it into their jobs as academics, or writers, or journalists.
https://www.jamesbloodworth.com/p/as-long-as-they-hate-us-they-must
The reason this sort of stupid (and remarkably unpleasant) stuff gets publicity is because certain people (Republicans, Fox News, etc) want to prove: 1. Harvard is full of communistic terrorist sympathizers, 2. Education turns you into a Muslim loving communist, and 3. Ignorance is virtue.
Words have consequences. It's a lesson best learned early.
Yay, cancel culture
The silliness of student politics is taken for granted in Australia. It’s like kindergarten for aspiring politicians.
I am late to this party, but the thesis is not entirely correct. Were college students in the 1960s-70s "stupid" or saying "stupid things" when they opposed the war in Vietnam? I was one of them and I like to think EVERYTHING I may have said about this country's politicians and their promulgation of the war in Vietnam was smart, and no apologies for that.
By the same token, in that period Israel was under repeated terrorist attacks, starting with the 1967 war and then the Yom Kippur war just a few years later, both of which started out as defensive wars and ending up as Israeli victories over seemingly overwhelming opposing forces. That is how Israel got the Palestinian territory it now occupies, both in Gaza and the West Bank. Israel was the David against the Goliath of the numerous Arab countries trying to overwhelm it at the time. College students then were more likely to favor Israel for that reason. Israel did not previously have that territory, but like any country victorious in war, it occupied the territory it fought, bled and died over. It is what happened in the years since that has affected public opinion about Israel.
Perhaps the problem is also that the current generation of college students were raised in an entirely different era where the real history of what went before has been glossed over or ignored due to current sensibilities. College students today are saying such "stupid" things because they don't know any better, and don't have the historical perspective that would inform them better, because education has not provided it and recent years of constant social media has helped create such a toxic anti-Israel environment, even among so-called educated college students.
That said, today's college students need a serious education into historical events that underlay today's geo-political crises. Without that, the whims of mass media will form their opinions, often wrongly, and to the detriment of making things right in the world.
They’re not stupid. They’re right.
2nd !