Double standard on campus safety

Re “College presidents should not be evasive bureaucrats,” Opinion, Dec. 12

It’s my understanding that speaking one’s mind has long been risky at elite universities. Saying or writing anything that someone finds offensive can land a student or faculty member in hot water.

Yet when the presidents of three top schools testified in Congress about the recent explosion of on-campus antisemitism, they sounded like ACLU lawyers exploring the limits of the 1st Amendment.

Their performance brought to mind a favorite double standard of authoritarians: “For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law.”

At Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose presidents testified in Congress, it’s speech codes and safe spaces for friends. For Jews, meticulous constitutionalism.

MICHAEL SMITH Georgetown, Ky.

If you listen to the entirety of the congressional hearing on campus antisemitism, it’s clear that the university presidents got lured into thinking that the question they were answering was something like, “Should a student be expelled for using a slogan like ‘from the river to the sea?’ ”

The answer, of course, is, “It depends.” But sadly, what they believed were intelligent, thoughtful responses torpedoed their careers.

What liberal-minded people hopefully will take away from this horrible encounter is if you’re going up against a clever demagogue like Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), who questioned the college presidents, bring your A-game or don’t show up.

JOHN BAUMAN Los Angeles

The question to the college presidents was essentially if calling for the killing of Israelis and Jews breaks their policies on harassment and bullying. The answer is yes. This is not the kind of intellectual confrontation that opens students to perspectives that are counter to their own. “From the river to the sea” is a call to rid the region of Israel.

BRUCE HALPERN Torrance