Q&A: Freedom of Speech in Academia
Freedom of Speech in Academia
Question
Trump claims that as part of his plan to change education in the United States, he will expel foreign students who take part in pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
Do you not think that this is a bit of a contradiction for Trump and his partners (Musk and various other weirdos), who kept claiming that the left denies freedom of speech, and that if the Democrats were elected there would no longer be free speech in America? I also heard that Musk said he wants to imprison people who burn the American flag.
Answer
Actually, the liberals invented the concept of a defensive democracy. Trump is only making use of it here (not necessarily justly or wisely, but I am speaking only at the principled level).
In my opinion, there is definitely logic in beginning to go into the academic world and put things in order there, since they use public money to promote agendas that have nothing whatsoever to do with academia. That is true in America and also in Israel. Academia shelters under academic freedom and promotes political agendas. It wants to play on the political field but not bear the costs that this requires. That is unreasonable. A difficult question is how to do this without creating the opposite problem, in which the government and politics control academia. But those who demand balance are certainly right.
Now one can discuss where the boundaries lie, and of course there is a difference between private individuals and institutions and people who are funded by the state. One can argue that someone who wants to burn a flag, or call for putting the State of Israel on trial in The Hague (see Ofer Cassif the idiot), has that right as a private individual. But an institution, and a funded person, should not be permitted to do so.
Discussion on Answer
I think no student should be expelled for shouting anything, as long as he is not rioting or harming others. As an institution, it is a different matter. A public institution that boycotts a state should be shut down. A faculty organization, even in a private institution, that strikes for political purposes should be dealt with accordingly (because it constrains the steps of those who do not agree with it—like the strikes here in Israel against the reform and in favor of the hostages, and here these were public institutions).
And in general, academia, like the media, enjoys various privileges, and therefore even when we are talking about a private institution, one must understand that privileges of freedom and so on are conditional on reasonable conduct.
Aren’t the universities in the United States private in general? As far as I know, most of their money comes from insane tuition fees and generous donations, less from the state (which in any case, under Republican rule, does not exactly enjoy giving money to something that has value).
Did you see me say otherwise? I didn’t understand your message.
Correction: Republicans believe that the state should spend money *only* on the minimum necessary things that have value, and leave the rest to the will of the private citizen, unlike Democrats, who believe in plundering the citizen’s money in order to advance ideologies of “repairing the world,” whose only value, in most cases, is negative.
(If a person identifies with haters of Israel and Judaism, that says a great deal. It is not for nothing that the starling went to the raven.)
So you agree that throwing out students who shout “Free Palestine” is on the border of dictatorship?