Nico and FIRE President & CEO Greg Lukianoff appeared on an X Space to discuss the fallout from the recent congressional hearing on anti-Semitism involving Harvard President Claudine Gay, MIT President Sally Kornbluth, and former Penn President Liz Magill, who resigned last week following backlash over her testimony.
Timestamps
0:00- Introduction
1:53 - History of FIRE
5:40 - MIT/Harvard/Penn presidents’ testimony
11:35 - How speech codes are abused and conflict over the definition of genocide
14:05 - Penn “water buffalo” incident
16:20 - Will universities take the wrong lesson from these hearings?
21:25 - Double standards on campus
23:41 - Standards for hostile environment harassment, Title VI
26:43 - Is there a university that is currently handling the situation well?
31:19 - Institutional neutrality
38:29 - Guidance for donors
41:51 - The mission of the university
47:35 - College admissions and political litmus tests
51:20 - Faculty viewpoint diversity
57:17 - The path forward
Show notes
The Canceling of the American Mind
FIRE’s College Free Speech Rankings
Richard Berthold (“anyone who can blow up the pentagon has my vote”)
Student arrested for true threats at Cornell
Skokie case (neo Nazi protest in Illinois)
The Eternally Radical Idea (Greg’s Substack)