Wealthy Jewish financiers and national politicians have attacked university presidents for not restricting supposedly antisemitic speech on campus. Yet, previously, the attackers have condemned college leaders for restrictions on campus free speech.
Bill Ackman wants Harvard’s Claudine Gay fired. Marc Rowan has succeeded in ousting UPenn President Elizabeth Magill. U.S. Representative Elise Stefanik has gloated “one down [Magill], two [Gay and MIT President Kornbluth] to go.”
In an ironic example, Ackman’s extreme actions - demanding Gay’s ouster and doxing and trying to blacklist pro-Palestinian students - have served to resurrect a key element of free speech and academic freedom at Harvard, namely that the institution should not cave to the demands of outsiders, no matter how wealthy or powerful.
Yet, the overriding irony of Ackman’s actions is that they constitute the same effort to restrict on-campus speech that many alumni have criticized in recent years. Doxing and blacklisting are surely efforts to punish and silence speech.