Safety First!

So much cowardice, so little time to pour scorn on it all.

The latest incident in the Flight of the Yellowbellies is brought to you courtesy of the University of Southern California, whose Latin motto, “Palmam qui meruit ferat,” translates loosely as, “let whoever earns the palm bear it.” I don’t know what kind of plant you get for cravenness, but I would definitely award one to USC Provost Andrew Guzman, who has just announced the cancellation of the planned graduation address by valedictorian Asna Tabassum in the name of “campus security and safety.”

This sweet-faced young lady has called for “the abolishment of the state of israel” [double sic] as “the only way towards justice,” as various Jewish and pro-Israel groups pointed out to the university after it announced its choice of Tabassum to deliver the valedictory speech. And that is obviously the reason why the university denied her the opportunity to deliver what she claims would have been “a message of hope.” I have little doubt that it would have been: Keep the faith, classmates: soon we will celebrate as our heroes in Hamas and Iran outdo Hitler and slaughter more than seven million Jews in their homeland!

Guzman said, correctly, that there is no free speech right to deliver a valedictory address. But by pretending that the issue was “safety,” he left the university open to predictable cries that it was caving in to anti-Muslim hatred. Universities invoke that excuse more and more often to deny Jews and other supporters of Israel the opportunity to speak on campus, and also to deny antisemites that same opportunity. To the extent that administrators sincerely want to avoid trouble from opponents of the proposed speakers, critics are correct to charge that universities are giving in to “the heckler’s veto.”

But the failure of American academia is even more fundamental this, because the “security” justification for cancelling speakers is a cop-out. Guzman and his ilk are dodging their moral duty to state that universities greatly value free speech on a broad variety of issues, but they also have a duty to set limits on it, such as barring calls to wipe out entire nations and peoples, even when they are predicated on the deliberate lie that the targeted peoples are guilty of trying to destroy other peoples. (That last bit of perversity is not nearly as novel as many seem to think — Hitler and his cohorts insisted that it was the Jews who were trying to kill all the Germans.)

Universities are supposed to be places for education, which means they have a responsibility to guide young minds, and a broader responsibility to society as a whole to serve as moral exemplars. These are responsibilities that Harvard abdicated back in 1934, when it threw a party for alumnus and Hitler chum Ernst “Putzi” Hanfstaengl. The temple of learning on the Charles has continued running away from these responsibilities since October 7, as it has turned a blind eye on students and faculty who want Israel destroyed and Jews on campus ostracized and terrorized. For USC to do the right thing in shutting down a call for genocide, but to chicken out in stating forthrightly that it is doing so, is another such failure.