JOSH HAMMER: Defund the vile, brainwashing universities! America can’t ignore woke, Jew-hating academia any longer. Take YOUR tuition dollars elsewhere… and do it now
Josh Hammer is host of “The Josh Hammer Show” and a research fellow at the Edmund Burke Foundation
To paraphrase the infamous words of President Barack Obama’s former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, “The chickens of American academia have come home to roost.”
The past week and a half, following the genocidal jihadist slaughter of more Jews than at any time since Hitler, has underscored just how bad things have become on college campuses.
On Monday, a video emerged of a Cornell University history professor giving an impassioned speech in which he described the Hamas massacre – which left more than 1,400 dead and thousands injured – as “exciting” and “nerving.”
Days earlier, a lecturer at Columbia University called the Islamist pogrom an “awesome, stunning victory.”
As bad as the professorship has been, the students have, predictably, been even worse.
At Harvard, more than thirty student groups signed a letter that placed full blame for the mass murder of Jews at Israel’s own feet.
Hundreds of UCLA students marching across campus called for Jewish genocide in Israel “from the river to the sea.”
The president of the Student Bar Association at New York University School of Law declared that “Israel bears full responsibility” for Hamas’s unspeakable barbarism.
And across the country, Students for Justice in Palestine cheered the massacre; In a poignant example, the University of Virginia chapter hailed the brutality as a “step toward a free Palestine.”
On Monday, a video (above) emerged of a Cornell University history professor delivering an impassioned speech in which he described the Hamas massacre – which left more than 1,400 dead and thousands injured – as “exciting” and “nerving.”
At Harvard, more than thirty student groups signed a letter that placed full blame for the mass murder of Jews at Israel’s own feet. (Above) Israel critics meet at Harvard University on October 14, 2023
Harvard, Cornell, Columbia – these are some of the most prestigious institutions in the country. Yet hatred of Jews, the world’s oldest and apparently most politically correct form of bigotry, now permeates their faculty lounges and campus spaces.
The Hamas paraglider has replaced Che Guevara or Angela Davis as the new symbol of fashionable radicalism.
This is extremely dangerous.
America’s future leaders are being brainwashed into embracing the filthiest filth, and the adults nominally in charge stand by and condone it – while pocketing tuition and alumni donations.
Quite a racket, if you can get into it.
University presidents and administrators, with rare exceptions, have failed to condemn this unfathomable immorality and wanton bloodlust.
Their lame excuse for not doing so? ‘Freedom of opinion.’
How pathetic.
Try stepping foot on campus and saying there are two, and only two, genders. Or perhaps try to argue that the unborn child in the womb deserves moral and legal dignity.
These campus cowards don’t actually believe in ‘free speech’; they believe in ‘free speech for me, but not for you.’
Would university administrators appeal to the same sanctimonious moral high ground if the Ku Klux Klan organized campus rallies calling for racial warfare against blacks?
No chance.
They would immediately condemn the Klan, kick them off campus and try to get the organizers deported and/or arrested – as they should be.
Yet universities have now made it clear where they stand.
Claiming biological and empirical reality is at best a “microaggression” and at worst a “transphobia.” But casually calling for the genocide of the Jews? That’s just ‘free speech’.
How did this happen?
Look no further than the intellectual shepherds of the “critical race theory” movement.
The Hamas paraglider has replaced Che Guevara or Angela Davis as the new symbol of fashionable left-wing radicalism. (Above) Palestinian supporters march near Columbia University on October 12, 2023
Radical leftists, like Ta-Nehisi Coates, the provocateur who just published an open letter this weekend in which – surprise! – Blamed Israel for Hamas’s atrocities, preaching that victimhood absolves victims of blame.
And just as Obama’s ex-pastor notoriously spouted “God Damn America” and said the U.S. government was to blame for inviting the September 11 attacks, one shudders to think how today’s students and professors would react to a future attack on American territory.
It turns out that decades of glib ivory tower talk about “liberation,” “colonists” and “oppressed” people have real-world consequences—and they’re horrific.
Higher education is now a stage IV cancer affecting the entire body politic.
How far it has fallen from its ostensible purpose: the pursuit of the truth and the formation of patriotic, well-rounded young men and women of sound republican habits of mind.
These institutions have betrayed their supposed mission.
They have shown themselves to be little more than a subversive fifth column, dedicated to destroying Western civilization – for which the Jews and the Jewish state serve as the proverbial canaries in the coal mine.
Fortunately, amid all the cowardice and moral idiocy, market forces have begun to retreat.
Radical leftists, like Ta-Nehisi Coates, the provocateur who just published an open letter this weekend in which – surprise! – Blamed Israel for Hamas’s atrocities, preaching that victimhood absolves victims of blame
At the University of Pennsylvania, former Utah governor and major financier Jon Huntsman Jr. has announced that he will no longer donate.
At the University of Pennsylvania, former Utah governor and major financier Jon Huntsman Jr. has announced that he will no longer donate.
Prominent Harvard alumni, such as hedge fund magnates Ken Griffin and Bill Ackman, have announced that they will never hire students who signed the shameful pro-Hamas letter.
At least one federal judge has already announced that he will refuse to hire a future law clerk who supports pro-Hamas sentiment.
‘Never again’, as it now appears.
We all have to fight back.
The corruption, decay and decadence of American academia are now far too dire to simply ignore.
Ordinary people should follow the example of these bigger entrepreneurs and philanthropists.
Do not trust your future or that of your children to these fanatics.
Take your tuition elsewhere – now.