(MSN) The Harvard Crimson has refused to publish a letter I wrote critical of President Claudine Gay’s testimony in Congress.
The paper published an article Dec. 12 by law Professor Charles Fried providing a legalistic defense of her claim that those who call for genocide against Jews cannot be disciplined without considering “the context.”
Here’s my response:
The problem with Charles Fried’s defense of President Gay’s “context matters” statement is he fails to acknowledge that for Gay context apparently matters only for genocidal threats against Jews.
Context does not matter for microaggressions against blacks, gays and other minorities protected by the diversity, equity, inclusion bureaucracy that she has long championed.
Under the DEI regime, admissions have been withdrawn, lectures canceled and students admonished — at Harvard, Penn, MIT and other universities — for their speech without regard to the context in which they were said.
Fried fails to see the broader context of the double standard employed by so many universities — including Harvard — against Jews and other minorities that are excluded by DEI.
Yes, context matters, and in this broader context Gay was wrong to brag to Congress about Harvard’s commitment to free expression without also telling it that Harvard’s selective application of free-speech standards earned it a last-place rating for free speech by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
It is in that context that Gay’s new and selective double standard for protecting the free speech of Jew-haters should be evaluated.
It is to be hoped that Gay’s new contextual standard will in the future be universally applied to all speech at Harvard and the DEI bureaucracy will henceforth be denied the power to censor and cancel expression that is directed against protected minorities.
Despite my forward-looking and positive conclusion, the editorial board wrote that it is “not interested in publishing it.”
I think this is the first time in my 65 years of writing letters to the editor that one has been turned down.
And this one is from a professor who has been on the Harvard faculty for 60 years and has published numerous articles and letters in the Crimson.
It’s a telling irony the paper that reassured its readers “Free speech is the guiding principle of this Editorial Board” refuses to publish a letter calling for less censorship and viewpoint discrimination on campus.
