There are consequences for supporting terrorism, even if students think it’s just a campus activity
Harvard students are facing real-world consequences for signing a statement holding Israel unilaterally responsible for the war that began on October 7. This is the right outcome.
Note: You may have noticed that no post went out last week. The explanation for this is unfortunately pretty simple. I set aside one day every week to write this newsletter, with some buffer if needed. On the day when I am regularly scheduled to write this newsletter, I was made aware of a horrifically Antisemitic petition being circulated by students at Toronto Metropolitan University’s Law School. Additionally, I was delayed on my route home by an anti-Israel protest taking place in my city. As a result, I was required to turn my attention to other and more pressing issues and was not able to write this newsletter.
On October 7, the day that Hamas terrorists paraglided into a music festival in the south of Israel and opened fire, several student groups at Harvard signed into a statement holding Israel unilaterally responsible for the war. Statements like this one floated around campuses in May 2021 as well, and are in line with much of the discourse on Israel that takes place on campus, which frequently places blame on Israeli Jews for acts of terror committed against them by Hamas. What is different about this time is not only the timing of the statement, which was made days before Israel began moving military forces south to launch a counterattack, but also that for the first time, there have been real consequences for students who have signed on to such a statement.
The New York Times reported that days after the the letter was posted online that students who had signed on to the statement were being doxxed online and around their campus. The law firm Davis Polk & Wardell rescinded job offers that had been made to students at both Harvard and Columbia who had signed on to statements blaming Israel for the war, citing that the statement showed a lack of alignment with the firm’s values. Soon after this, student groups began dropping their support for the statement, presumably as a result of their new found awareness in the consequences of their actions off campus.
When you are on a university campus, it feels like living in a bubble. It is easy to lose sight of how important or not important what is happening on campus actually is, and whether the politics and social dynamics will be replicated once you leave and enter the world. It is also easy to lose sight of the way that on campus behaviour will impact one’s life moving forward.
The students who signed on to the letter at Harvard likely gave little or no thought to how it would be perceived beyond their campus. That they suffered consequences off campus, when they had suffered no consequences on, likely came as a shock.
It is essential to differentiate between the consequences students suffered for signing on to a statement and cancel culture.
In recent years there have been countless instances of individuals losing opportunities or suffering negative consequences for statements made online. There have been times when this is presumably justified, such as the statements Kanye West made last year saying to go “death con 3” on Jews, which resulted in him losing many brand deals, including his long time relationship with Adidas. And there have been times when it arguably has not been, such as when Lianne Wadi, daughter of Majdi Wadi, owner of the Holy Land brand, lost her job in 2020 over Tweets making anti-Zionist, anti-Black, and anti-LGBTQ+ statements from nearly a decade earlier, when she was in high school, and where she had clearly grown up and away from those beliefs, including being actively involved in community work and apologizing profusely for having made the statements as a teenager.
The recency of the statement and its context matters.
This is not a situation where students are having perspectives and stances from many years in the past held against them. Everyone, but particularly young people struggling with finding their identity and forming their beliefs about the world, has the right to grow and change, and should be given the opportunity to demonstrate that they have done so. Here, employers are dealing with a statement that students signed on to mere months before coming to work with them. The recency of the situation is understandably and justifiably problematic for an employer who needs to consider the reputation of their firm and how bringing in individuals who espouse these beliefs could impact the dynamics between their other employees.
The context of the statement is additionally different from that under which these statements arose in May 2021 and earlier. To be clear: anti-Zionism is unequivocally Antisemitism. As put simply by Iranian, Jewish community leader Matthew Noureil, “The only reason people opposed Zionism when of Israel was re-established was because it dared to be a Jewish sovereign state, which disrupted the supremacist concept of pan-Arabism and turned the idea of dhimmitude upside down. Anti-Zionism upholds Antisemitic ideology.” The statement of Harvard students, and similar statements by students at major American universities including Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania were not in response to a situation where there was a dispute that resulted in the IDF or an Israeli governmental agency having an altercation with Palestinians.
At a high level, what happened on October 7 is disturbingly simple to follow: Hamas terrorists crossed the border between Gaza and Israel. They stormed a music festival and several towns along the border. They murdered innocent people, took hostages, and set houses on fire with families inside them. They shot family pets or let the burn alive with little regard. And then a long list of student organizations at Harvard signed a statement saying that it was Israel’s fault that this happened. They justified horrifying acts of terrorism committed against men, women, and children. That’s it.
It is absolutely a failing on the part of universities to do nothing in response to this behaviour on the part of their students. This is not about free speech. This is about universities failing to teach students where the line is between sharing your opinion and supporting terrorism. This is about universities failing to teach their students that the things you say do not cease to exist when you step off campus, and that when you make the choice to support the barbaric actions of terrorist organizations like Hamas, those are choices that will follow you.
It is because of this failure on the part of universities to take any steps to address the behaviour of their students, that University senators, donors, and prospective employers have had no option but to step and enforce consequences. This is entirely justified. No one is required to support students who are supporting terror. They are not required to hire them as employees or continue to fund the faculties educating them.
Well said Sadie.
Perfectly stated.