Tea at Trianon: Right Deed, Wrong Reason

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, December 12, 2023

Right Deed, Wrong Reason

From City Journal:

Liz Magill was forced to resign Saturday as president of the University of Pennsylvania—by all indications because, at a congressional hearing, she could not bring herself to declare that calls for the genocide of Jews are punishable speech. She would more justly have lost her job for being a bald-faced hypocrite when it comes to campus free expression. The future of higher education depends on which of these motives governs such decisions in the future.

Magill was part of a triumvirate of college presidents who testified before a House committee last week. Magill, Harvard president Claudine Gay, and MIT president Sally Kornbluth had been called to discuss the anti-Israel hatred embroiling their universities since the October 7 terror attacks on Israel. To call their performance robotic would insult robots. When asked a repeated question after their first evasion did not satisfy the questioner, these intellectual role models repeated their first evasion verbatim, maybe adding a cryptic non sequitur.

Congressman Jim Banks (R., Indiana) grilled Magill, for example, about a conference on Palestinian culture that the University of Pennsylvania had hosted two weeks before the Hamas terror attacks. Critics had demanded that Penn cancel the conference, due to the presence of alleged anti-Semites among its speakers. Penn allowed the gathering to continue, however, citing academic freedom.

Banks focused on invitee Roger Waters, founder of the rock group Pink Floyd and a vocal proponent of the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (BDS) movement: “Why in the world would you host someone like that on your college campus to speak?” he asked.

Magill: “I appreciate the opportunity to discuss this. Antisemitism has no place at Penn.”

Banks: “Why did you invite Roger Waters? What did you think you would get out of him?”

Magill: “Antisemitism has no place at Penn, and our free speech policies are guided by the United States Constitution.”

It was on the question of condoning the “genocide of Jews” that the presidents were not only robotic but breathtakingly duplicitous.

Congressman Elise Stefanik (R., New York) parlayed this line of interrogation into national fame. Stefanik to Harvard president Claudine Gay: “Can you not say here that [calling for the genocide of Jews] is against the code of conduct at Harvard?”

Gay: “We embrace a commitment to free expression, even of views that are objectionable, offensive, hateful. It’s when that speech crosses into conduct that violates our policies against bullying, harassment.”

Stefanik: “Is that speech according to the code of conduct or not?”

Gay: “We embrace a commitment to free expression and give a wide berth to free expression, even of views that are objectionable.”

The other two presidents took the same substantive position: whether speech constitutes actionable conduct depends on the context, including whether it is targeted at specific individuals.

Stefanik to Magill: “I am asking, specifically calling for the genocide of Jews, does that constitute bullying or harassment,”

Magill: “If it is directed and severe or pervasive, it is harassment.”

Stefanik: “So, the answer is yes.”

Magill: “It is a context-dependent decision, Congresswoman.”

Stefanik’s questioning was relentless, but was it fair? As MIT president Kornbluth noted plaintively, she was unaware of anyone at MIT calling for the genocide of Jews. Stefanik was extrapolating from the ubiquitous student chants of “intifada” to explicit calls for Jewish genocide, but the former expression is more ambiguous, especially in the mouths of ignorant American students.

Nevertheless, Stefanik’s interrogations went viral. “American college presidents tongue tied regarding the genocide of Jews!” was the common takeaway, even among liberal defenders of academia, such as Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe. (Read more.)