#mit campus

[snowanchor22]

[manichewitz]

some photos i took from emerson college’s encampment for palestine. most of these were taken only a few hours before the boston PD attacked hundreds of protestors and brutally arrested 108 students, most of whom were poc, jewish, and/or queer.

anyone who spent any amount of time in the encampment will tell you just how much it brought us all together—there was always food, music, arts and crafts, and hundreds of messages of support written in chalk.

after the BPD was done brutalising us for peacefully protesting, they power washed down the walls of the encampment—all of these messages are gone. theyre trying to erase what happened, but they’ll never truly be able to. everyone saw, and everyone will remember.

[dragoneyes618]

"Last week, the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania were called to testify before Congress about the alarming rise of anti-Semitism on their campuses, and their tepid responses to it, in the wake of October 7.

By now, you have probably heard about the trio’s horrendous overall performance, punctuated by their smug inability to respond to the simple question of whether calling for the genocide of Jews violates their schools’ codes of conduct. Since that time, the president of UPenn has stepped down, and support for the other two is wavering.

In case you are wondering, their answer should have been an unequivocal “yes, it violates our polices.” The right to free speech is fundamental, but it does have limits: The First Amendment is not a pass to threaten, harass, intimidate or otherwise violate the rights of others.

For the record, even those pundits who (incorrectly) defended the university presidents’ testimony as being legally correct, if morally tone deaf, had to admit that it did represent a glaring double standard. Each of these universities has in recent years protected other minority groups from even “micro-aggressions” by effectively and ruthlessly shutting down speech that their leaders find offensive.

Struggling to answer whether calls for genocide against Jews constitutes bullying, after you have already officially labeled “fatphobia” as “violence” and “using the wrong pronoun” as a form of “abuse,” is pathetic, and to see these schools pretending that they are genuinely concerned about free speech all of a sudden is nothing short of laughable. In the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s 2024 College Free Speech Rankings, for example, out of 248 US campuses, Penn and Harvard were ranked 247th and 248th, respectively. If you are only concerned about shutting down speech when that speech targets Jews, well, there is a word for that.

How Free Is Free Speech?

The First Amendment does not protect trespassing, vandalism, harassment, assault, or the destruction of property. Nor does it protect speech that is not meant to inform or persuade, but to disrupt lawful endeavors —activities like going to the kosher dining hall or studying in a library. The First Amendment does not protect someone who is making true threats, nor does it protect intimidation — “a type of true threat, where a speaker directs a threat to a person or group of persons with the intent of placing the victim in fear of bodily harm or death.”

Just a few months ago, in Counterman v. Colorado (2023), the United States Supreme Court clarified that this does not necessarily mean that the person speaking actually intended to threaten the victim. Rather, the Court imposed a recklessness standard — i.e., the First Amendment does not protect a person who consciously disregards a substantial risk that his communications would be viewed as threatening violence. To be clear, calling for the genocide of Jews, as the pro-Hamas student groups on campus have consistently been doing, does create a hostile environment for Jewish people on campus, violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and is not protected by the First Amendment.

It was obvious that all three university presidents were reading off scripts written by their respective attorneys (several of whom were sitting behind them and nodding throughout the hearing). The question then becomes: What now? What is the critical error that their lawyers (and the general counsels at other universities where Jewish students are being targeted) have made in failing to stand up for Jewish people, and how should they immediately correct it?

The answer is simple, and it is exactly what students, parents, donors, and the government alike should all be demanding from these institutions: They should continue to respect the First Amendment, but they should apply the appropriate standard for speech on a campus.

From a legal perspective, it is easy to see where the university legal counsels’ confusion specifically arose. Those horrible answers were written under the assumption that the only limits a university can put on student speech are the limits contemplated in the foundational Supreme Court First Amendment case of Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969).

In that case, regarding speech at a KKK rally, the Court held that a state could only punish speech that “is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.” Brandenburg is famously a very high standard, and that is precisely where the universities are hiding: Despite the hundreds of anecdotal incidents from the last two months, and notwithstanding all of the well-known studies confirming that inflammatory discriminatory anti-Semitic rhetoric leads directly to anti-Semitic violence, officials are telling students and parents and now Congress that their hands are tied because, in most cases, there has not been direct enough incitement.

Campus Standards Are Different

Now, the truth is that even under the Brandenburg standard, schools can still impose reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions. As the Court in Grayned v. City of Rockford (1972) explained: “The crucial question is whether the manner of expression is basically incompatible with the normal activity of a particular place at a particular time.”

So even under that paradigm, any activities that disrupt the educational enterprise and functioning of a school may be restricted. Common sense dictates that rallies celebrating calls for anti-Semitic genocide disrupt the educational enterprise and functioning of a school because they leave some students genuinely fearful for their lives.

But that argument is also unnecessary, because Brandenburg is absolutely the wrong standard for schools to be using, and university presidents and lawyers need to correct that mistake as soon as possible.

In Tinker v. Des Moines (1969), the Supreme Court explained that the Constitution does allow for schools to shut down speech that will “materially and substantially interfere” with the “requirements of appropriate discipline” in the operation of the school” or that “invad[es] the rights of others.” That is the standard that these schools must now vigilantly enforce.

Of course, private colleges and universities, like Harvard, Penn, and MIT, can restrict certain speech, conduct, and demonstrations, in most cases, without triggering any constitutional issues. But even a public university is not a public street, and the rules for what speech must be allowed on each are very different.

The Supreme Court in Healy v. James (1972) cited Tinker to hold that university officials do not have to tolerate student activities that breach reasonable campus rules; interrupt the educational process; or interfere with other students’ rights to receive an education. (This is especially true when the student speech is happening in school-sponsored forums, or is reasonably perceived as somehow bearing the school’s imprimatur.)

The Court has also repeatedly held (in Bethel v. Fraser [1986] and Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier [1988]) that schools have even greater latitude to limit student expression if they can establish a “legitimate pedagogical concern.” Ensuring that all students — including Jewish students — have a safe and harassment-free environment in which to learn should be an overwhelmingly legitimate pedagogical concern.

Under the Tinker line of cases, schools do not even have to wait for a breach to actually occur; administrators can act if they can “reasonably forecast” that the expression in question would disrupt school discipline or operation, or violate the rights of other students. In Melton v. Young, for example, the Court ruled that schools could prohibit the wearing of a Confederate flag jacket because it was reasonable to assume that it would be disruptive in an environment of heightened racial tension.

Waving a Hamas flag and cheering on slaughter, as bodies are still being identified and hostages are still being held, announcing solidarity with the “resistance” and that “armed struggle” — i.e., murder —“is “legitimate,” and yes, calling for the genocide of Jews, are all behaviors that are no less likely to cause a disruption than a jacket.

Tinkering with Free Speech

Under Tinker, it is more than reasonable to forecast that there will be substantial disruptions that would violate the right of Jewish students to a non-hostile educational environment if groups are allowed to host events that glorify and celebrate the murder of Jews.

Schools can and must act now to prevent that from continuing to happen, using both common sense and the relevant case law to draw the appropriate line. The limits on the First Amendment are there to help the government with its primary responsibility —to protect all of its citizens from harm —and authorities must be constantly vigilant to enforce the law correctly.

Regardless, the answer to “what now?” then, is this: Everyone calling for change should articulate what that change is, and institutions fixing their policies should clearly explain how they will “tinker” with their free speech formulas so that the next time their leaders are asked if calling for a Jewish genocide is problematic, the answer can just be “yes.”

-Goldfeder, M. (2023g, December 13). Poison Ivies - Mishpacha Magazine. Mishpacha Magazine - The premier Magazine for the Jewish World. https://mishpacha.com/poison-ivies/

[hack-saw2004]

LESS THAN AN HOUR AGO: our comrades at mit have launched a website for their scientists against genocide encampment!

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Dion J. Pierre

Jewish and Israeli students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have warned in a new letter to university president Sally Kornbluth that radical anti-Zionism and intimidation of Jewish students on campus has become intolerable and reminiscent of Nazi Germany on the eve of the Holocaust.

The letter, shared on X/Twitter by MIT professor Retsef Levi, recounted an incident from Thursday in which students from the MIT Coalition Against Apartheid (CAA), a campus anti-Israel group, “physically prevented” them from attending class by forming a “blockade” of bodies in Lobby 7, a space inside the main entrance of the university. Non-students were invited to attend CAA’s demonstration, and together the entire group spent hours chanting “Intifada” — a term used to describe violent Palestinian uprisings against Israel — and declaring solidarity with Hamas.

“Instead of dispersing the mob or de-escalating the situation by rerouting all students from Lobby 7, Jewish students specifically were warned not to enter MIT’s front entrance due to a risk to their physical safety,” wrote the MIT Israel Alliance. “The onus to protect Jewish students should not be on the students themselves.”

Even after being threatened with suspension should they not disperse, the letter continued, CAA remained in Lobby 7, inviting more non-student protesters, which caused the university to issue through its emergency notification system a directive to “avoid” the area. The students added that a high-level official of MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning vowed, in defiance of official orders, to protect any CAA students who continued the demonstration.

The MIT Israel Alliance said that by the end of the day, Jewish students were told to enter the university through its back entrance and avoid the campus’ Hillel building.

“On the 9th of November, on the 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht, which marked the beginning of the Holocaust, Jews at MIT were told to enter campus from back entrances and not to stay in Hillel for fear of their physical safety,” the group concluded. “We are seeing history repeating itself and Jews on MIT’s campus are afraid.”

When asked for comment, an MIT spokesperson told The Algemeiner that the school is closed in observance of Veterans Day, but MIT President Sally Kornbluth addressed the incident late Thursday after the MIT Israel Alliance issued its letter. Her statement did not mention antisemitism.

“I am deliberately not specifying the viewpoints, as the issue at hand is not the substance of the views but where and how they were expressed,” Kornbluth said, noting that Jewish and pro-Israel counter-protesters were also present in Lobby 7 and that all students were recently reminded of guidelines forbidding holding protests in the building. “Today’s protest — which became disruptive, loud, and sustained through the morning hours — was organized and conducted in defiance of those MIT guidelines and polices. Some students from both the protest and counterprotest may have violated other MIT policies, as well.”

Kornbluth added that protesters who remained after being told to leave will receive a non-academic suspension.

[commonsensecommentary]

I’m reposting this in response to the appalling defense of antisemitism and genocide mounted by the morally-bankrupt Presidents of Harvard, UPenn, and MIT in front of Congress this week. They should all resign or be fired.

[archtroop]

AMERICA YOU HAVE A PROBLEM.

[sohandsouza]

♾️ - 🏛️ @MITPics - #InfiniteCorridor #MIT #campus #CambridgeMA #Boston (at Infinite Corridor) https://www.instagram.com/p/CpykZrksA9k/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[sinclairspeaking]

Pretty pictures from my college campus! <3

[dostoyevsky-official]

i hope that the discussion about student protests does not get reduced to "privileged rich kids faffing around at an ivy league school." setting aside that tenuous claim, over the last week, protests have erupted over the entire country. a few days ago, riot police beat, pepper-sprayed, and arrested NYU faculty shielding students; protests started at the university of southern california when the admin cancelled the valedictorian's speech; encampments appeared at the university of southern carolina, UT dallas, the university of maryland, the university of new mexico, IUPUI, virginia tech, the university of virginia, the university of illinois, the university of north carolina — chapel hill, the university of pittsburgh, uc berkeley, the university of michigan — ann arbor, MIT, emerson, tufts, the university of rochester, rice, swarthmore, the new school, vanderbilt university, with students arrested; students protested or walked out at miami university, northwestern, temple, the 5 claremont colleges: pomona, pitzer, scripps, harvey mudd, and claremont mckenna, stanford, washington university in st louis, students were arrested at ohio state, students were confronted by riot police at cal poly humboldt, after which they occupied campus, students were arrested at the university of minnesota — twin cities, after which faculty walked out; and yes, there are protests at the other ivies, most notably yale, with students facing mass arests after encampments, but there is also an encampment at brown, protests appeared at cornell, princeton faculty issued a statement of solidarity while students are preparing an encampment, and harvard banned the undergraduate palestine solidarity committee. there are thousands of students who are protesting for palestine across the entire country, facing harassment, arrest, and suspension in return

[snowanchor22]

[xingwenyu]

Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT - A Campus Tour

[dragoneyes618]

In a pivotal Congressional hearing last week that examined rampant anti-Semitism in some of the nation’s Ivy League universities, the presidents of Harvard, MIT and University of Pennsylvania shocked the world when they refused to affirm that calls for genocide of Jews in their respective institutions violate their schools’ code of conduct.

It was a profound moment of reckoning not only for the leaders of these elite institutions but for a society that looks to them as beacons of leadership. The hearing tore aside the veil masking spiraling anti-Semitic bigotry within these universities and the complicity of its leaders in allowing it to fester.

At the House Committee on Education hearing, Republicans showed footage of fierce anti-Israel protests at their schools, many of which included virulent hate speech toward Jews and calls for genocide.

Yet the Ivy League presidents being questioned appeared to inhabit their own bubble, disconnected from the alarming footage. They seemed to expect their defense of obscene Jew-hatred as protected “free speech” would win approval, if not in the halls of Congress then with grass-roots Americans.

Instead, “support for the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and M.I.T. eroded quickly,” wrote the New York Times, “after they seemed to evade what seemed like a rather simple question: Would they discipline students calling for the genocide of Jews?”

Their responses “drew incredulous responses,” the Times article said, as a chorus of influential voices condemned the presidents’ failure to unequivocally denounce calls for the murder of Jews and to outlaw such conduct.

‘One Down, Two to Go’

As calls mounted for the resignation of the school presidents, including from alumni, members of Congress and billionaire donors who announced they were withdrawing their gifts, president Liz Magill of UPenn walked back her congressional testimony saying she hadn’t been “properly focusing.” The next day she announced that she was stepping down.

“One down, two to go,” commented Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-NY, who has led demands for accountability on the part of the three university administrators for their lack of “moral clarity and leadership.”

“This is only the very beginning of addressing the pervasive rot of antisemitism that has destroyed the most ‘prestigious’ higher education institutions in America,” said Stefanik. “This forced resignation of the president of UPenn is the bare minimum of what is required. These universities can anticipate a comprehensive Congressional investigation of all facets of their institutions’ perpetration of antisemitism. This includes administrative, faculty, funding, and overall leadership and governance.”

“Harvard and MIT, do the right thing. The world is watching,” she added.

Following the hearing, Rep. Stefanik announced that the House Education and Workforce Committee is “launching an official congressional investigation with the full force of subpoena power” into the three universities, among others.”

In addition, Stefanik led 73 members of Congress, from both the Republican and Democratic parties, in drafting a scathing letter to the boards of the three universities under investigation.

“I am proud to lead a bipartisan letter with Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-FL, and 72 of our colleagues to the members of the Governing Boards of Harvard, MIT, and Penn demanding that their presidents be removed after this week’s Education and Workforce Committee hearing,” Stefanik wrote.

“Testimony provided by presidents of your institutions showed a complete absence of moral clarity, and illuminated the double standards and dehumanization of the Jewish communities that your university presidents enabled,” the letter to the governing boards said.

“The leadership of top universities plays a pivotal role in shaping the moral compass of our future leaders,” the letter went on. “It is critically important that such leadership reflects a clear commitment to combating antisemitism, along with all forms of hate speech and bigotry.”

“Given this moment of crisis,” the letter said, “we demand that your boards immediately remove each of these presidents from their positions and that you provide an actionable plan to ensure that Jewish and Israeli students, teachers and faculty are safe on your campuses.”

Talk But No Action  

The hearing, “Holding Campus Leaders Accountable and Confronting Antisemitism,” began as both Republican and Democratic members of the House grilled the three female presidents, demanding to know how each has addressed the spike in antisemitism since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.

“Today, each of you will have a chance to answer, to atone for the many specific instances of vitriolic, hate-filled antisemitism on your respective campuses that have denied students the safe learning environment,” Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), chairwoman for the House Education Committee, told them in her opening statement.

Far from acknowledging that anti-Semitism had surged out of control under their watch, each president staunchly defended her record, proudly pointing to various measures she had taken to increase campus security and open investigations into anti-Semitic episodes.

Noticeably absent from these self-congratulatory remarks was any mention of actual penalties or disciplinary procedures meted out to students or faculty proven to have engaged in egregious anti-Semitic harassment. When questioned about what disciplinary measures are being employed, the presidents refused to answer.

Representative Elise Stefanik, R.-NY, zoned in on this glaring disconnect by repeatedly asking the presidents if calling for the genocide of Jews violated the code of conduct at their schools, and would they discipline a student engaged in this conduct?

Moral Imperatives Vanish When It’s About Anti-Semitism

All three danced around the question, throwing out legalistic catchphrases to avoid a direct answer. When finally cornered, the presidents insisted that everything depends on “context.” In other words, calls for violence against Jews are not inherently wrong or against school policy.

The following segment of the dialogue captures this shocking stance that sparked an intense backlash.

Rep Stefanik: President Magill, at Penn, does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Penn’s rules or code of conduct? Yes or no?”

UPenn President Liz Magill: If the speech turns into conduct, it can be harassment, yes.

Rep. Stefanik: I am asking whether specifically calling for the genocide of Jews, does that constitute bullying or harassment?”

Magill: If the speech becomes conduct, it can be harassment, yes.”

Stefanik: “Conduct” meaning committing the act of genocide?

Magill: It is a context-dependent question, congresswoman.”

Stefanik responded with shock.

“That’s your testimony today? Calling for the genocide of Jews is dependent on the context? It’s not bullying or harassment? This is the easiest question to answer yes for,” Stefanik said. She then threw the question at Harvard president Claudine Gay.

Stefanik:  And Dr. Gay, at Harvard, does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s rules of bullying and harassment? Yes or no?”

Gay: “It can be, depending on the context.”

Stefanik: Genocide that is targeted at Jewish students, Jewish individuals? I will ask you one more time. Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s rules of bullying and harassment? Yes or no?”

Gay: “Again, it depends on the context.”

“It does not depend on the context,” Stefanik shot back. “The answer is yes, and this is why you should resign. These are unacceptable answers across the board.”

Intense Backlash Against College Presidents

Stefanik, the fourth-ranking House Republican, was not the only one outraged by the moral obtuseness on display in the presidents’ responses. Their refusal to condemn calls for the murder of Jews drew fire from alumni, university donors, elected officials and influential commentators from across the political spectrum.

On a deeper level, the presidents’ response threw light on a corrosive atmosphere prevalent in leading universities today where time-honored moral and ethical principles have been eviscerated by woke and left-wing ideology.

Those immersed in this sea of indoctrination appear out of sync with the rest of the world. This might explain the bizarre disconnect in the exchanges between the Ivy League presidents and the members of congress at the hearing.

“It’s unbelievable that this needs to be said: Calls for genocide are monstrous and antithetical to everything we represent as a country,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates said. “Any statements that advocate for the systematic murder of Jews are dangerous and revolting — and we should all stand firmly against them, on the side of human dignity and the most basic values that unite us as Americans.”

“After this week’s pathetic and morally bankrupt testimony by university presidents when answering my questions, the Education and Workforce Committee is launching an official congressional investigation with the full force of subpoena power into Penn, MIT, Harvard, and others,” Rep. Elise Stefanik said in a statement.

“We will use our full congressional authority to hold these schools accountable for their failure on the global stage.”

Republican presidential candidate and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley posted the video of the interactions at the hearing online, saying such remarks by the college presidents “will end or we’ll pull their tax-exempt status.”

“Calling for genocide of Jews is no different than calling for genocide of any other ethnic, racial, or religious group. The equivocation from these college presidents is disgusting,” Haley said.

Private equity billionaire Marc Rowan wrote a message to UPenn trustees saying he heard from hundreds of alumni, parents and leaders who were shocked by the hearing. “The University is suffering tremendous reputational damage,” Rowan wrote in the message, obtained by CNN. “How much damage to our reputation are we willing to accept?”

‘The Three Behaved Like Hostile Witnesses’

Hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman called for the presidents of Harvard, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania to “resign in disgrace,” citing disgust with their testimony.

“Throughout the hearing, the three behaved like hostile witnesses,” Ackman wrote in an online post, “exhibiting a profound disdain for the Congress with their smiles and smirks, and their outright refusal to answer basic questions with a yes or no answer.”

Ackman, a Harvard graduate who has been a vocal critic of how universities have addressed antisemitism, posted a clip from the exchange at the hearing where the university leaders were asked about calls for the genocide of Jews.

“They must all resign in disgrace. If a CEO of one of our companies gave a similar answer, he or she would be toast within the hour,” Ackman said. “The answers they gave reflect the profound moral bankruptcy of Presidents Gay, Magill and Kornbluth.”

“Why has anti-Semitism exploded on campus and around the world? Because of leaders like Presidents Gay, Magill and Kornbluth who believe genocide depends on the context,” Ackman said.

The criticism of the university leaders was so strong that president Gay of Harvard and Magill of UPenn felt compelled to issue new statements attempting to “clarify” the testimony. These revamped assertions contradicted their earlier statements that threats of anti-Semitic violence did not automatically qualify as harassment.

In a brazen about face, Magill now termed calls for genocide “vile,” and vowed to hold perpetrators to account.

Gay made similar contrite retractions, saying she was “sad” that her words “had caused pain,” and affecting distress that critics were confusing her support for “the right to free expression with the idea that Harvard would condone calls for violence against Jewish students.”

Bomb Threats; Hillel and Chabad Houses Vandalized

Despite the illusions the Ivy League presidents tried to project of their administrations managing the anti-Semitic outbreaks on their campus, many Jewish students say they feel threatened daily, not just by fellow students but by faculty and staff as well, the Free Beacon reported.

“As a student, despite what my university says, I do not feel safe,” said University of Pennsylvania senior Eyal Yakoby. “Let me be clear: I do not feel safe.”

Yakoby described several incidents on campus since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks. They included “a bomb threat against Hillel; a swastika spray-painted on the Hillel building; the Chabad house vandalized; a professor posting an armed wing of Hamas’s logo on Facebook, a Jewish student accosted with hostility; and ‘Jews are Nazis’ etched adjacent to Penn’s Jewish fraternity house.”

He also referenced a Dec. 3 protest that saw participants vandalize school property with graffiti calling for an “intifada,” and chant in Arabic, “From water to water, Palestine will be Arab.”

Harvard Law School student Jonathan Frieden described the fear gripping many Jewish students. “I talk to my Jewish friends on campus every day,” he said. “They tell me how afraid they are to go to class. They share hate messages they are receiving from other students on social media, including comparing Jews to Nazis. And they ask each other for safety advice because of the lack of effective communication from the university.”

Frieden described an incident where pro-Palestinian protesters swarmed a law school building he was inside while they chanted slogans including “from the river to the sea” and “globalize the intifada.” He witnessed Jewish students take off their yarmulkes and one student hide underneath a desk, he said.

All four students also castigated their administrations, alleging that they failed to do anything meaningful to tackle the anti-Semitic climate on campus.

New Trend: Jewish High School Grads Abandon Ivy League Plans

An article in National Review, a conservative magazine, discusses a new trend among Jewish high school graduates in the wake of the anti-Semitism crisis on college campuses: a growing disenchantment with the Ivy League image.

Fueled by the specter of pervasive anti-Semitism and hostility in these schools, bright Jewish students are rethinking their Ivy League aspirations and turning to smaller, less prestigious colleges.

To take a few examples from one Ivy League school, since October 7, “Columbia has become a byword in American Jewish circles for rampant antisemitism,” the article noted. “In the past two months, an Israeli student was assaulted on campus, and people have screamed profanities at religious Jewish students.”

In another example, reports in an online paper noted that an Israeli student at Columbia, introducing himself on the first day of class, was targeted with an anti-Israel slur by a professor who asked him, “So you must know a lot about settler colonialism. How do you feel about that?”

Another academic reportedly observed to a Jewish student, “It’s such a shame that your people survived just in order to perpetuate genocide.”

Columbia’s apathy in the face of corrosive anti-Semitism has driven donors away, prompting the administration to do serious damage control to prove their concern for Jewish students’ safety, the National Review article noted. In early November, the school suspended Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a rabid pro-Palestinian group, for “threatening rhetoric and intimidation.”

Columbia graduate Anna Feldman told NR that even before October 7, she always felt she was walking around on “eggshells whenever the topic was Jewish people or Israel. I always felt like I couldn’t say what I had to say about Israel or the Middle East in general.”

She noted that the much publicized episodes of anti-Semitism at Columbia after Oct. 7 were nothing new to her. They were part of the university’s everyday landscape, driven by left-wing philosophies that target Israel—and Jews by association—as a source of evil.

Feldman said she refrained from writing essays touching on the Middle East out of fear of being branded a pro-Israel bigot or “pro-colonialism.” Conversations she’s had with Jewish students stuck in classes with professors justifying the Hamas massacres, are deeply unnerving.

“Thank G-d I’m no longer on campus,” Feldman reflected to the interviewer. “I don’t think I’d be able to sit in the same room with someone who wants me dead.”

*

American Colleges Unmasked

Columbia, Harvard University, and the University of Pennsylvania are all under investigation by the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights over complaints that their administrations have not adequately responded to rising antisemitism.

“The furor over antisemitism on campus is a rare and welcome example of accountability at American universities. But it won’t amount to much if the only result is the resignation of a couple of university presidents,” asserted a WSJ op-ed.

“The great benefit of last week’s performance by three elite-school presidents before Congress is that it tore the mask off the intellectual and political corruption of much of the American academy,” the article said.

“The world was appalled by the equivocation of the academic leaders when asked if advocating genocide against Jews violated their codes of conduct. But the episode merely revealed the value system that has become endemic at too many prestigious schools.”

*****

‘Deafening Silence’ Evokes Silent Complicity in Nazi Era

Last week’s explosive congressional hearing occurred just after an equally electrifying press conference, where House Republicans hosted Jewish students from many of the universities that have seen an alarming rise in antisemitism, The Hill reported.

“In 2023 at NYU, I hear calls to ‘gas the Jews,’ and I am told that ‘Hitler was right,’” Bella Ingber, a junior at NYU, told those in attendance.

“Since Oct. 7,” Ingber said, “the anti-Semitism I’ve experienced on campus is reminiscent of the Jew-hatred I’ve heard about from my grandparents, Holocaust survivors who experienced first-hand the deafening silence of their neighbors in Poland and Germany when the Nazis first rose to power.”

“70 percent of MIT Jewish students polled, feel forced to hide their identities and perspectives,” MIT graduate student Talia Kahn told the lawmakers. “This is not just harassment. This is our lives on the line,” added Kahn, who is also president of the MIT Israel Alliance.

She said she felt “immersed in an extremely toxic anti-Semitic atmosphere,” at MIT. “I was forced to leave my study group for my doctoral exams halfway through the semester because my group members told me that the people at the Nova music festival deserved to die because they were partying on stolen land.”

In an interview with Free Beacon, Talia Kahn shared that the school’s interfaith chaplain publicly threatened Jewish students; that DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) staff claimed Israel has no right to exist; and that faculty told students that if they are scared, they should “just go back to Israel.”

[eretzyisrael]

by Dion J. Pierre

The presidents of Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have been called to testify before the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce on Dec. 5 about rising antisemitism on college campuses in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel.

“Over the past several weeks, we’ve seen countless examples of antisemitic demonstrations on college campuses. Meanwhile, college administrators have largely stood by, allowing horrific rhetoric to fester and grow,” the committee’s chair, US Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), said in a statement.

“College and university presidents have a responsibility to foster and uphold a safe learning environment for their students and staff,” the congresswoman continued. “Now is not a time for indecision or milquetoast statements. By holding this hearing, we are shining a spotlight on these campus leaders and demanding they take the appropriate action to stand strong against antisemitism.”

The announcement of the hearing came days after a new poll, released last week by Hillel International, found that 37 percent of Jewish college students have felt the need to hide their Jewish identity on campus since the Hamas atrocities, in which some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were murdered and 240 others taken as hostages into Gaza. The survey also found that 35 percent of respondents said there have been acts of hate or violence against Jews on campus. A majority of those surveyed said they were unsatisfied with their university’s response to those incidents.

Kenneth Marcus — founder and chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, who recently appeared before the committee himself to discuss campus antisemitism — told The Algemeiner on Wednesday that the hearing stands to give the college presidents a “dose of reality.”

“My sense is that a lot of college leaders are working within echo chambers,” said Marcus, whose organization filed a lawsuit this week against the University of California, Berkeley alleging the school failed to respond to “unchecked” antisemitism. “They’re surrounded by ‘yes men,’ and they can lose touch with reality. The fact is that their handling of antisemitism on their campuses has been extraordinarily deficient. Considering the quality of their respective institutions, they should be embarrassed.”

[call-me-strega]

Dc x DP Prompt #8: Best Friend’s Brother

Preface: this prompt can be used with different characters but I’m writing it as Dead on Main bc that’s my favorite. Also the colleges I mention are real colleges from the DCU

~~~

Danny Fenton was 18 when he moved to Gotham for college.

It was the only place with a half decent engineering program that would take a kid with his record; drop in grades, unexplained absences, missing class, a disciplinary record, etc. Plus there was a decent saturation of both magic and ectoplasm in Gotham’s air. After he got accepted he decided to tell his parents he was Phantom. They reacted surprisingly well all things considered. They were horrified to learn they’d been hunting their son but it quickly turned into acceptance to listen to what he had to tell them. Now they turned their obsession from hunting ghosts to learning more about ghost more humanely. He also managed to get his former rouges to agree to call off any major shenanigans in favor of less destructive outlets. (He got Ember a TikTok and a YouTube channel, he set up a drag racing circuit in the realms for Johnny and Kitty, let Technus enter the internet as long as he stayed within Amity’s grid or help Ember manage her stuff, allowed Desiree grant wishes for Make a Wish Foundation kids so long as she didn’t horribly twist them, etc.)

Now with the town not at constant risk of danger and his parents agreeing to really handle any rouge ghosts, Danny could leave Amity with a clear conscience. His friends were also growing up and heading to their own colleges. Tucker was heading to Ivy University in New England, which rivaled MIT in terms technological prestige, and Sam decided on Vandermeer University in Pittsburg, which had a reputation for being a very liberal, anti-authority campus. Although their trio would be spread out, Danny found comfort in the fact that they’d all moved from the Midwest to the Northeast.

With promises to stay in touch a visit. Danny got set up in GCU’s dorms, ready to move into the next chapter of his life.

~

Danny Fenton was 20 when Tim Drake (age 19 but nearing 20) officially became one of his best friends.

They had been introduced to each other by their mutual friend Sebastian Ives for a new Warlocks and Warriors campaign. Their friendship extended beyond WnW when they ended up on the same Applied Physics and Mechanics class. It was cemented when they got pair up for a project in class and had to spend lots of time around each other.

Danny didn’t mind that Tim tended to be a bit flaky and Tim didn’t mind that Danny was possibly not 100% human. They didn’t ask each other too many questions about that stuff. They knew the other had something odd about him and that was fine with them. It was nice to have a causal friend they could be normal with, without being questioned about their more peculiar behaviors.

They officially became best friends when the built a Rube Goldberg machine with a working trebuchet within an hour of the three they had to complete it for their Applied Phys-Mech final. Danny introduced Tim to Sam, Tucker and Jazz. Tim introduced him to Steph, Tam, and Cass. They texted and hung out fairly often. They truly did consider each other one their best friends.

~

Danny Fenton is 22 when he meets Tim’s family.

Tim’s 21st birthday is coming up and he has plans with his family the day of and is going out with his friends, including a couple from out of town, that night. They want to take him out for his first drink and it’s fortunate timing since it’s the weekend so nobody has to worry about classes. Everyone who was going was already informed that Tim would be spending most of the day with his family before Steph and Cass would bring to the club everyone was meeting up at. Which is why it’s purely a coincidence when he runs into them at BatBurger during the lunch rush.

Danny had just picked up the part-time job to earn a little extra cash to pay for his hobbies. Tim new about it but didn’t know the exact location he worked. That’s why they were both presently surprised when they heard each others voices in the drive through. When they pulled up to window Danny saw his friend leaning over a tired looking black-haired man, trying to stick his head out of the drivers window to give Danny a maniacal grin.

He quickly introduced the other passengers of the car as his dad, Bruce, and three of his brothers Dick, Jason, and Duke. He mentioned he had a fourth brother, Damian, who was still at home. Danny couldn’t really see everyone all that well on account of they were inside a car but he happily greeted them as well. They laughed and Danny wished Tim a happy birthday saying he’d see him at his celebration later tonight before handing them their food. He could the rowdy boys ribbing their brother as the car drove away and Danny resumed his work.

That incident seemed to have opened a gate because now Tim felt more comfortable inviting him over when his brothers were still around the house. He occasionally talked about his family more and Danny returned the favor letting snippets of his own family spill a little more. Occasionally, he’d see Tim’s family outside of his interactions with Tim.

He’d run into Damian, and sometimes Bruce or Dick was with him, at the museum or in the park while the younger had been walking his dog and stopped to say hi a couple of times. He chatted with Dick a couple of times when they were both in line to get coffee at a cafe. He saw Duke on a college tour once and waved at him.

The family member he probably saw the most other that Tim (and by extension Cass) was actually Jason. He’d ended up ditching BatBurger to get some more practical experience at an apprenticeship at the auto shop Jason went to to get his motorcycle serviced. The two of them got along pretty well and would often make conversation when Jason was waiting on his bike to be ready or to get his bill.

At first is was small talk about little things like how he and Tim were doing in class or how their days were going but they soon grew to have genuine interests in each other. Jason let Danny talk about space and mechanics and even gave his own thoughts sometimes, once helping Danny realize he was over complicating the circuit board of the device he was building. In return Danny let Jason ramble to him about literature, even taking the initiative to read a book Jason mentioned so he could talk to him about it better. Their conversation tended to be on the briefer side but were always enjoyable to both parties.

Danny actually liked being around Jason a lot but didn’t really bring that fact up a lot around Tim as it didn’t seem necessary. Tim was pretty glad that Danny got along with his family but he preferred to keep them in separate places in his mind. Danny knew and respected that, only really mentioning that he’d seen them recently and that they’d told him to say hi on their behalf (or die in Damian’s case occasionally).

~

Tim Drake was 22 when he came to a horrific realization.

Well, perhaps horrific was a bit of an exaggeration. Tim wasn’t necessarily horrified by the revelation. In all honesty he didn’t know how to feel. He felt an odd mixture of protectiveness, possessiveness, confusion, and optimism(?).

You see, Tim and Danny had been hanging out in the campus center, studying and goofing off when he got a text from Jason saying he was coming to pick him up for family dinner at the manor since he was closest and Dick was busy picking up Duke and Damian from their after school clubs.

“What’s up?” Danny asked him curiously.

Tim set his phone on the table and started putting his stuff away. “My brother is coming to pick me up for family dinner so I gotta head out soon.”

“Ah well I should probably get going too. Tell Dick I said hi.”

“Actually, it’s Jason. Dick is picking up Duke and Damian,” he said shoving his textbook into his bag.

“Oh? That’s nice of him. Hey do you wanna just head out together?” Danny asked, fidgeting with his hoodie strings.

Tim noticed a slight strain in Danny’s voice at the mention of Jason but didn’t comment. He just nodded his head sure and walked outside with Danny. They got out to the street when Tim realized he’d left his phone in the library. He faced palmed and asked Danny if he could hold his stuff so it wouldn’t slow him down as he ran back to the campus center to get his phone. Danny agreed to and hold his stuff and wait for Jason while Tim went back.

After getting his phone Tim started heading back to where he left Danny when he saw that Jason had arrived that Jason had arrived and was talking to Danny. He was about to call out to them when he noticed several things in quick succession. Danny was fidgeting with his hoodie, something he tended to do when nervous. The tips of Danny’s ears were a light shade of pink (it isn’t cold out yet?). Danny looked deeply absorbed in his conversation with Jason in a way that reminded Tim of how he talked about space. And Jason seemed just as absorbed in the conversation as well.

The gears in Tim’s head went into overdrive and he realized ‘Ah- Danny has a crush on Jason’. His eyes widened as his head whipped around to examine Jason again. He saw a look of genuine fondness in his eyes. Thus Tim was confronted with the aforementioned horrific realization and complicated feelings. Tim didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or both.

‘My dumbass best friend has a crush on my brother. And worse(?), my idiot brother returns those feelings.’