A Remarkable Outbreak of Antisemitism at NYU Law School

NYU Law's chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine circulated a statement that, besides casually endorsing the murder of Israeli civilians, argued that "framing is everything and the Zionist grip on the media is omnipresent" and also referenced the "Islamophobic, Zionist-funded US and Western media."

Let's be clear--criticism of Israel, no matter how harsh, isn't necessarily antisemitic. And there are marginal cases where harsh criticism of Israel is skirting the borderlines of antisemitism, sufficient at least to give the critic plausible deniability.

This is not one of those cases. First, the objectionable language noted above is not criticism of Israel, it's criticism of the "Zionist" media in the US and the West.

Second, the clearest, most obvious form of antisemitism that tries to obscure itself behind antizionism is when one can substitute the word "Zionist" for the word "Jew," and one is left with an obvious, longstanding antisemitic trope.

The SJP statement falls exactly into that category. Anyone who knows anything about the modern history of antisemitism knows that Jewish control of the media is about as clear as antisemitic trope as there is. "Controlling the media" is even listed as one of the most prominent "antisemitic canards" in Wikipedia's entry on that topic.

If you are unfamiliar with this trope and doubt my account of it, maybe David Duke's statements can help educate you. For example: "There is a problem in America with a very strong, powerful tribal group that dominates our media…" And "Wow, I think this whole Trump University case, really, if we exploit it, can really expose the entire Jewish manipulation of the American media." Sometimes Duke, like NYU Law's SJP, somewhat more subtly refers to "Zionist control" of the media.

Finding an SJP chapter mimicking classic Nazi-style antisemitism is, unfortunately, not a surprise, as this is the sort of thing SJP has become known for. What's remarkable instead is the reaction of other student organizations.

You might think that students at NYU Law, once a haven for Jews excluded from the likes of Harvard by anti-Jewish quotas, and whose students are oh-so-sensitive to any real or perceived slight to any minority group, might have risen as one to denounce SJP's antisemitic rhetoric. You would be wrong; very wrong.

Aaron Sibarium reports in the Washington Free Beacon:

Over the next 24 hours, 11 student groups wrote to the law school's all-student listserv to express their support for the statement: the Black Allied Law Students Association, the Middle Eastern Law Students Association, the Muslim Law Students Association, the South Asian Law Students Association, the Disability Allied Law Students Association, the National Lawyers Guild, the Women of Color Collective, the Coalition on Law & Representation, the NYU Review of Law and Social Change, and Ending the Prison Industrial Complex.

When Jewish students protested the pile-on, they encountered a torrent of vitriol. "Quiet, you baby," replied Michael Stamos, a first-year student at the law school. Helen Campbell, a third-year student, ridiculed the suggestion that Students for Justice in Palestine should condemn attacks on Israeli civilians. After all, she wrote, "you don't condemn an earthquake or a lethal outbreak of flu."

Every student who signed on to SJP's statement is responsible for at least negligently endorsing  antisemitism, under the "known or should have known" standard. Those who should have known, but either did not read the SJP statement carefully or somehow missed the antisemitic implications of the Jews/Zionists-own-and-control the media shtick, should publicly withdraw their endorsement.

And if I were an employer interviewing NYU students, I might very well ask any student who belongs to any of the organizations that signed on to SJP's antisemitism why they stayed in that organization.

UPDATE: Michael Orey, spokesperson for NYU Law, sent this to me on behalf of the law school:

NYU and NYU Law vehemently reject and condemn anti-Semitism; it has no place in our community. Several complaints have been filed in connection with recent dialogue among law students on a listserv. They are being investigated in accordance with the Law School's policies and procedures for such matters. Any complaint of anti-Semitism submitted by a student will be investigated and, where appropriate, subject to discipline in accordance with the University's Non-Discrimination and Anti-Harassment Policy and Complaint Procedures for Students, as is the case for student complaints of discrimination or harassment on any other ground prohibited by that policy.

Also, Dean Trevor Morrison sent the following email to NYU Law students on Tuesday.

Dear Students,

The Law School is aware of the debate that has been taking place on our student listserv over issues relating to Israel and Palestine. Statements made by individual students and student groups in that forum (and other settings) are their own; they do not speak for the Law School. NYU Law is committed to free discourse, debate, and dissent, even though the vigorous exchange of ideas may include statements that some find challenging, offensive, or painful.

Of course, NYU Law condemns as immoral the intentional killing of civilians. That includes but is not limited to the recent attacks in Israel. Tragically, there is too much such violence around the world for the Law School ever to respond to all of it. At the same time, NYU Law does not take institutional positions on broader issues of public concern like the Israel-Palestine conflict in general. As students and others voice their own views on such issues, it is important to bear in mind that everyone in the NYU community is required to abide by NYU's Non-Discrimination and Anti-Harassment Policy. Students who believe they have been subject to violations of this policy are encouraged to report it to NYU's Bias Response Line or the Law School's Office of Student Affairs. The Law School has received such reports in recent days and will be investigating them as required by our policies. Therefore, we do not expect to offer any further public commentary on the matter.

For what it's worth, I think it's a mistake to make the controversy a matter of discrimination or harassment policy. Rather, the essence of the problem is that some NYU  law students (1) dehumanize Israelis to the point where they think murdering them for no reason other than that they exist is ok; and (2) either don't understand why stating that "Zionists" control the media is antisemitic, or do understand and think that spreading racism is okay so long as it's for the greater good of Palestinian nationalism. This is a problem regardless of whether the students in question violated NYU policy, and it may also be a problem to find that political opinion, no matter how noxious, violates NYU policy.

My suspicion is that if there had been a similar outbreak of any other sort of racism at NYU, the law school administration would have thought that it had a duty not (simply?) to investigate or punish, but to educate. Some education is clearly warranted.

Comments

[Jimmy the Dane]

Now do "equity" "diversity" and "inclusion" and what they think of white people.

[Queen Amalthea]

You're going to hurt your back carrying that grudge around all the time, everywhere...

[DaivdBehar]

Queenie. I felt triggered by these diverses. They need to apologize, take diversity training classes, and be cancelled. The list of the members of these organizations need to be published.

[DaivdBehar]

The discussion in this post is silly. Everyone over 12 knows what anti-zionist means. It means, kill the Jews. Any Jew agreeing with that is a collaborator. A list should be compiled of all anti-Semites, and of all their Jew running dogs. Then, use the list.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Yet we are supposed to believe that all the toxic racist rhetoric spewing out of the mouths of SJW and the institutions they control would have absolutely no hateful impact on anyone or result in anything like some racist guy shooting up a New York subway....

But, of course, we are supposed to believe the exact opposite. If someone makes a modest joke at the expense of a woman or minority that is perpetuating violence of the utmost proportions....

[DaivdBehar]

The list of the supporters is the list of America hating traitors.

[Ed Grinberg]

You've got something there. There's a remarkable correlation between those who hate America and those who hate Israel / Jews. Books have been written on this phenomenon:

• United in Hate
• Unholy Alliance

[DaivdBehar]

NYU Law needsto expel them all, or it needs to get defunded and shut down.

[AmosArch]

Take any given argument or conspiracy thats classified as antisemitic and simply replace the word 'Jew' with 'white'. Tada. You now have an indistinguishable representation of SJW arguments.

[Purple Martin]

Hmmm...the I'm a target just like Jews, because I'm White!complaint...isn't as good a look as you seem to think it is.

[XD]

wtf is a "good look" lol - try coming up with an argument next time kiddo

[Queen Amalthea]

What would be some legitimate examples of anti-Zionist statements that would not be anti-Semitic? I mean, I agree that empirically it's just a fact that anti-Semites often use the term 'Zionist' in a way that has to be seen interchangeable with 'Jew.' However, not all Jews are Zionists, so there must be some way to criticize the latter without smearing the former.

One way maybe would be for the speaker to acknowledge the 'tricky' area they are entering. Acknowledge that anti-Zionism is often used as code (even barely that) for anti-Semitism and denounce such uses and then make some attempt at distinguishing. These groups are clumsy to say the least on this.

The other issue is that on the one hand people know that 1. Jews are overrepresented in 'elite' positions in 'media,' 2. many Jews are 'Zionists' and 3. much US media can reasonably be thought to tilt towards Israel in their conflicts in the Middle East. What these students fail to grasp is 1. Jews are overrepresented in lots of fields, but so are other groups, 2. more importantly Jews, as noted, are not even close to monolithically 'Zionists' and 3. likely the main reason much US media may 'tilt' towards Israel has nothing to do with 1 or 2 (evangelical support, the Western orientation of Israel, etc., can explain much more of this).

All in all I think I agree with DB here, this kind of talk is at the *least* sloppy to a degree that it falls into service to anti-Semitism and worst is just plain anti-Semitism.

[David Bernstein]

This is correct so far as it goes, but it misses the essence of the problem with associating "lots of Jews in the media" with "Jewish control of the media." The latter suggests that Jews when they act in any capacity are always acting as Jews, in the interest of Jews, which is part and parcel of the longstanding antisemitic notion that Jews are a powerful group plotting world domination on behalf of "the Jews." It's also part and parcel of a generally conspiratorial outlook on the world, in which whenever many people disagree with you, it can't be because of legitimate arguments on the other side they find persuasive, but because someone must be pulling the strings. This sort of conspriatorial mindset overlaps very strongly with people who are antisemitic, and it's exactly the trap that even people as sophisticated as Mearsheimer and Walt fell into in their book on the "Israel Lobby." They start by simply asserting that ((1) everyone knows that supporting Israel is neither moral nor in America's self-interest, and (2) thus America's support must be the result of "the lobby." The obvious point they neglect is that many people reasonably disagree with their initial two assertions. Similarly, SJP's missive asserts that it's obvious that Israel is an evil white Ashkenazi conspiracy against brown Palestinians, and thus it must be the Zionists controlling the media who stop this truth from winning out. Infact, the assertion itself is absurd (among other things, the average Jewish Israeli is about as dark-complexioned as the average Palestinian), but instead of recognizing that their point is at least debatable, they instead resort to conspiracy, and when it comes to Israel, the most available conspiracy is always going to be recycled antisemitic canards.

[Queen Amalthea]

I think I directly fronted the fact that assuming Jews act monotonically is silly ("2. more importantly Jews, as noted, are not even close to monolithically 'Zionists' ").

I disagree about Walt and Mearshimer, I read their book and I don't think your criticisms apply. I think they took important and frequent steps to distinguish their criticism of pro-Israeli bias from anti-Semitic tropes. These students, not so much.

[David Bernstein]

W & M were much more careful than these students. And they did take pains to try to dissassociate themselves from antisemitism. But they didn't succeed, especially when they took an anodyne biblical quote by Elliott Abrams and made it seem like it was evidence that he was disloyal to America. But I agree, the book was not overtly, or intentionally, antisemitism. Rather, the point is the conspiratorial outlook, also reflected in their view of the Iraq War. They thought the war was so obviously not in America's interest that someone must have manipulated the US into the war, and they settle on "the Israel lobby." Their protestations of this not being about Jews (this one had plausible deniability) was undermined by their later statements, as when Mearsheimer helpfully provided us with a list of "righteous" (i.e., anti-Israel) Jews. https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/05/mearsheimers-list/39807/

[Queen Amalthea]

"But I agree, the book was not overtly, or intentionally, antisemitism. Rather, the point is the conspiratorial outlook"

Now I think you're interested in conspiracy theories...

There's a real 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' thing going on. These students use a common anti-Semitic trope. W & M don't, and even take steps to distinguish, but hey, they're in the same basket...

So, back to what I began with, can you supply us with some examples of criticism of *Zionism* that are not *anti-Semitic,* because the two are certainly not the same thing?

[David Bernstein]

Once you go down the rabbit hole of "everyone who disagrees with me about Israel must not just be honestly mistaken, but must be subject to the manipulation of some outside force" it's going to be awfully hard not to wind up in the rabbit hole of antisemitism, given that the most important manifestation of ideological antisemitism in modern times is the notion that Jews are an outside force constantly manipulating the public, and Israel and many of its most prominent supporters are predominately Jewish.

[Queen Amalthea]

I don't think W&M argue "everyone who disagrees with me about Israel must not just be honestly mistaken, but must be subject to the manipulation of some outside force," I'd suggest folks read the book and then conclude, but, hey, that's not important to me.

[David Bernstein]

They start their book, iirc (it's been a while) explaining why supporting Israel is neither moral nor in America's interest, and then, having "established" those "facts," proceed as if they are an indisputable given.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Yikes! An argument constructed on a reasonable (but not the only reasonable) foundation. Those disgusting bastards!

[AtR]

I was finally enjoying an intelligent, productive, and meaningful discussion between QA and DB, and you had to ruin it Rev.

[DaivdBehar]

Artie. You are an anti-Semite. I pray nothing happens, that you stay safe.

[Krayt]

Every post of yours in this thread I have to keep double-checking if it's Kuckland.

[Ed Grinberg]

Artie. You are an anti-Semite.

He also hates Americans who (politically, culturally) aren't like him.

[XD]

Yes, generally that is what people do with facts they take themselves to have established by sufficient argument. You are flailing, David.

[Brett Bellmore]

There's a difference between, "I've concluded that my position is right, and thus can proceed on that basis.", and "I've concluded that my position is right, and thus can proceed on the basis that you agree that my position is right, and conclude you oppose me because you have the opposite aims from me."

It's the difference between "You're wrong to think the Covid vaccine is safe." and "You're advocating the Covid vaccine in order to poison people."

Now, that's not to say that a person who thinks the Covid vaccine is dangerous could not rationally conclude that publicly advocating it as safe was motivated by a desire to poison people. But to rationally conclude this, they would have to produce, not evidence the vaccine was dangerous, but rather, evidence that those advocating it believe it to be dangerous.

Similarly, you could decide that, on adequate evidence, supporting Israel is bad for America. This does not entitle you to conclude that Americans who support Israel are traitors. You'd have to separately establish that they agree with you that such support is bad for America.

[David Nieporent]

Brett, if only you applied this distinction when you were considering whether to adopt a conspiracy theory that relied on the assumption that other people were acting in bad faith!

[Brett Bellmore]

David, I happen to not think that producing evidence that somebody actually DOES believe something different from what they publicly say is not always in insurmountable obstacle. Often it's remarkably easy to demonstrate; People who claim to believe the oceans are rising rapidly, and at any time this might accelerate drastically, buying sea-side mansions. People who tell you that CO2 is an existential threat to the planet, engaging in frequent air travel and opposing nuclear power. The list goes on and on, there are many topics where you can actually establish that words and deeds conflict.

My point is that you can't just assume, on the basis that you've concluded that you're right, that other people agree that you're right. And are fighting you because they want bad outcomes.

You have to demonstrate it, not assume it. But often you can demonstrate it.

[NOVA Lawyer]

Brett,

You managed a very coherent argument in favor of engaging people on the merits and not assuming they are in bad faith just because, despite your great arguments, they remain unconvinced.

Then you demonstrate almost precisely the position you are arguing against:

People who claim to believe the oceans are rising rapidly, and at any time this might accelerate drastically, buying sea-side mansions.

Buying a seaside mansion doesn't mean that those people don't think the oceans are rising or that the rise won't accelerate such that it has devastating effect on large numbers of people. The non-bad faith (though not necessarily laudable) reasons could be one or some combination of the following:
1. The mansion is in a place that, even with worst case scenarios, won't be affected in their lifetime, if ever.
2. They really enjoy living by the ocean.
3. They have plenty of money to waste on a mansion regardless of investment value.
4. They believe the world also sees the threat and will respond.
5. They have insurance that will cover any losses.
6. They believe the U.S. Government will provide disaster relief that reimburses or ameliorates their losses in the event rising oceans affect their property.

And this one:

People who tell you that CO2 is an existential threat to the planet, engaging in frequent air travel and opposing nuclear power. The list goes on and on, there are many topics where you can actually establish that words and deeds conflict.

Things they might think that, alone or in combination, explain their behavior other than they don't believe CO2 is an existential threat to the planet (and any or all of these reasons may be stupid or self-serving, but don't stop them being examples of something other than bad faith):
1. Nuclear power is a threat to the planet.
2. There are sufficient alternative sources of energy that both CO2 emitting and nuclear-generated power are unnecessary.
3. Their air travel is important, because their work involves convincing large numbers of people and/or governments to act which is more important than one person's plane trips (i.e., it has a net positive utility in the fight against CO2)
4. Their air travel doesn't actually result in more jet flights. They're just one person taking seats on jets that aren't full.
5. They know it contributes to the problem, but they aren't willing to give up the convenience.
6. They know it contributes to the problem, but it's how they make their living and they don't like their other options and/or don't think they can make as much doing something else.

And in both cases, their are almost limitless other options besides they don't believe what they are saying. The person complaining about CO2 emissions and flying on a plane is the closest you've come to establishing outright hypocrisy.

But hypocrites could honestly believe, say, slavery is wrong and yet advocate that you free the people you have enslaved (or maybe free the people they enslave in their own wills), but continue to enslave people during their lifetime. Does it say something bad about the person? Absolutely. Does it say that they actually think it is morally acceptable to enslave other people? Not really.

Yes, you would be justified in being more suspicious of their expressed beliefs, but it is far from established that a person with economic or status motives to do something wrong doesn't, nonetheless, believe that thing is wrong even if they do that thing anyway.

But Brett's gonna Brett.

[NOVA Lawyer]

*there are, obviously, not "their are"

[Leo Marvin]

So, back to what I began with, can you supply us with some examples of criticism of *Zionism* that are not *anti-Semitic,* because the two are certainly not the same thing?

There's plenty for which Israel can be validly criticized. Top of my list would be its settlement policy and the movement it spawned, each of which is an impediment to any possible peace deal with the Palestinians (though IMO 70 years of eliminationist Palestinian leadership has been the bigger impediment). But also corruption, civil rights problems, heavy-handed religious laws, etc.

Criticizing Zionists and Zionism per se, on the other hand, is more problematic, unless the critic can show, and they rarely can, that they're also worked up about other ethnic/religious states, other states formed in whole or part by immigrants, and other states whose formation created a lot of refugees. (See, e.g., India/Pakistan, each of which lost and absorbed more refugees than the then populations of Israel and Palestine combined.)

[Seamus]

Criticizing Zionists and Zionism per se, on the other hand, is more problematic, unless the critic can show, and they rarely can, that they're also worked up about other ethnic/religious states, other states formed in whole or part by immigrants, and other states whose formation created a lot of refugees.

If, at the time apartheid ended, it had been proposed to partition South Africa into a white/Afrikaaner state and a black/African one, or if it had been proposed at the time of Algerian independence that it be partitioned into an Arab state and a pied-noir state, I think that a lot of the people who are now anti-Zionists would also be opposed to the Afrikaaner and the pied-noir states. A fair number of them *are* opposed to the partition of Ireland, where the immigrants for whose sake the land was partitioned had (like the Afrikaaners in South Africa) been there since the 1600s (and they'd be just as opposed if Northern Ireland had been carved out as an were established as an independent state as they are with having it carved out as a remaining part of the UK).

[Leo Marvin]

That's a fair response to my "formed in whole or part by immigrants." I articulated it atrociously. Regardless, Israel's founders differ from Afrikaaners (and your other examples) in many crucial ways. Among others:

Afrikaaners didn't originate in South Africa, from which most of their ancestors were driven out.

Those non-existent Afrikaaner exiles didn't form a diaspora in the countries to which they were unwillingly scattered, where for centuries they were brutally oppressed, culminating in a genocide that exterminated half their global population.

The survivors of that (again hypothetical) Afrikaaner genocide didn't then return to their homeland, purchasing land from its then-current owners, and joining the remnant of their ethnic/religious tribe which had survived and lived there continuously since the original purge.

As I said above, Israel deserves considerable responsibility for the plight of Palestinians, though less than that of the Palestinians' own leaders, or that of their Arab neighbors. But any supposed moral equivalence between Israel's founders and apartheid Afrikaaners is absurd.

[bernard11]

Exactly, Leo.

[Queen Amalthea]

BTW-I think W&M are wrong in a lot of what they say (they're currently defending Russia from what I understand).

[David Nieporent]

Yep. They're firmly in the "It's all the U.S.'s fault because Russia had concerns about NATO" camp.

[Seamus]

This is how Mearsheimer characterizes those he calls "righteous Jews":

"Righteous Jews have a powerful attachment to core liberal values. They believe that individual rights matter greatly and that they are universal, which means they apply equally to Jews and Palestinians. They could never support an apartheid Israel. They also understand that the Palestinians paid an enormous price to make it possible to create Israel in 1948. Moreover, they recognize the pain and suffering that Israel has inflicted on the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories since 1967. Finally, most righteous Jews believe that the Palestinians deserve a viable state of their own, just as the Jews deserve their own state. In essence, they believe that self-determination applies to Palestinians as well as Jews, and that the two-state solution is the best way to achieve that end. Some righteous Jews, however, favor a democratic bi-national state over the two-state solution."

So I guess that opposing an "apartheid Israel" and favoring "a democratic bi-national state" or a "two-state solution," while believing that "the Jews deserve their own state," makes you "anti-Israel."

[David Bernstein]

Almost all the actual examples of “righteous Jews” he provides are against the existence of Israel, and some, like Philip Weiss, openly traffic in antisemitism. And of course when he says they can never support an “apartheid Israel” he means “Israel as it currently exists.”

[Squirrelloid]

I think the way to criticize Zionism without being anti-Semitic is to keep your criticism directed at the idea of Zionism, not the *people* who advocate it.

[Don Nico]

" it's obvious that Israel is an evil white Ashkenazi conspiracy against brown Palestinians"

and all the while I had been thinking that Israel is an Askenazi conspiracy against Sephardim

[David Bernstein]

That's actually part of the prevailing leftist anti-Zionist theory, that the Mizrahim were living happily as dhimmis with their benevolent Muslim neighbors when evil white Ashkenazis manipulated them into moving to Israel so they can serve as a proletariate and cannon fodder for the Ashkenazi-supremacist state. Crazy on a variety of levels, but that's what they at least purport to believe.

[Illocust]

Does using the word Zionist make your argument clearer or less clear to lay people? Could you be using another word or two other words that would make clear what you are actually criticizing.

From a lay perspective, Zionist means Jew. Almost every argument I've ever seen criticizing Zionist, has just meant Jews in general. The few that didn't, just meant the "bad" Jews that live in Israel. If you're not just trying to criticize people of jewish heritage, you might try describing what you are actually criticizing, because the word you want to use, is not doing the work you want it to.

[Queen Amalthea]

Lots of Jews are not Zionists, including some living in Israel.

[Leo Marvin]

How are you defining Zionist?

[David Nieporent]

Anti-Zionist Jews are vocal, and get lots of publicity. But they are very small in number. The overwhelming majority of Jews are Zionist. That doesn’t mean they support any particular policy of the state of Israel, of course.

[Stephen Lathrop]

From a lay perspective, Zionist means Jew.

Not from my lay perspective. But then I grew up as a non-Jew in an overwhelmingly Jewish neighborhood.

Illocust, seems like your own lay perspective must not have included much familiarity with American Jews.

Or are you suggesting that if folks who don't know are more numerous than the others, then the massed ignorance of the former defines some kind of default meaning worthy of respect?

[Brett Bellmore]

Heck, I don't think I knowingly met a Jew until I was in my late 20's, but I'd never have confused Zionism with being a Jew, even as a child. I'd at least read about Zionism, and none of the history texts said it was the same as being a Jew.

[Aunt Teefah]

"From a lay perspective, Zionist means Jew."

In some places, maybe, but in America, the vast majority of (and the most vociferous) Zionists are evangelical Protestants.

[bernard11]

This is a good point.

[Queen Amalthea]

"And if I were an employer interviewing NYU students, I might very well ask any student who belongs to any of the organizations that signed on to SJP's antisemitism why they stayed in that organization."

Cancel culture?

[David Bernstein]

Well, the answer, "yes I really do believe there is a Zionist conspiracy that funds and controls the media" would seem to be disqualifying on several grounds...

[Queen Amalthea]

Ah, so people should be 'canceled' for their speech, we just need to make sure it's the right speech. Got it. Fair enough you've been consistent on that, despite publishing a book called 'You Can't Say That'.

[Don Nico]

QA,
You profoundly misunderstand and trivialize "cancel culture" which is premised on removing any recognition and ideally historical record from those who have violated SWJ sensibilities at any time in their entire lives.
Disqualifying persons with blatantly discriminatory views from considering them further from a job, is one's moral prerogative as an employer

[Queen Amalthea]

" we just need to make sure it's the right speech. "

Thanks for verifying!

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

"Disqualifying persons with blatantly discriminatory views from considering them further from a job, is one's moral prerogative as an employer"

So . . . gay-bashers (superstition-based or not) should be unemployable in modern America?

Seems harsh.

[Trollificus]

Be more specific. Who, exactly, is bashing gays?

Those misbegotten souls who passed that Florida law where there's a week in the stocks for teachers who mention same sex attraction? Or do you have some example more closely related to reality in mind?

[David Welker]

I agree with you. There is a bit of double standards going on (though I am not saying with that with respect to David Bernstein in particular).

People should not be canceled for their speech.

If we don’t like what someone thinks, our go to option ought to be to persuade them otherwise.

People have a right to think what they want on any topic and we SHOULD respect that it is their right to decide on their own beliefs and we shouldn’t seek to punish people for their beliefs.

My view also commits me to accepting those who advocate for cancel culture. Just as I think one can decide on other beliefs, it is up to each individual to decide whether they believe in cancel culture. I am not going to try to cancel the cancelers. But I will not participate on their crusades.

[Ed Grinberg]

...despite publishing a book called 'You Can't Say That'.

The full title is "You Can't Say That: The Growing Threat to Civil Liberties from Antidiscrimination Laws."
Prof. Bernstein's suggestion that private employers not hire antisemites is in no way inconsistent with his opposition to government censorship.

[David Bernstein]

Almost no one who tries to "gotcha" me with You Can't Say That! has read anything but the title.

[zztop8970]

You fundamentally misunderstand (or more likely, understand but deliberately obfuscate) what 'cancel culture' is , and why it is problematic.
Let's illustrate with an example: Kyrie Irving can believe, and say, that the Earth is flat or that dinosaurs did not exist. He should not be censored from social media for saying that, nor disqualified from playing for the Nets for that. If he was, that would be objectionable 'cancel culture', that cancels people for not having 'the right speech.' Conversely, if he was applying for a job as an elementary school science teacher, then believing the Earth is flat or that dinosaurs did not exist would reasonably disqualify him.

i'll leave it as an exercise for you to figure out which of these categories the prospective NYU law students applying for a job fall into.

[Queen Amalthea]

I mean, should people who say the things Amy Wax says be 'disqualified on several grounds' from their positions? If yes, have you posted on that (could upset your 'base') and if no, what's the difference? Her comments are really not reasonably seen to be as bad?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

" Well, the answer, "yes I really do believe there is a Zionist conspiracy that funds and controls the media" would seem to be disqualifying on several grounds... "

That's an interesting sentiment to express at a white, male blog that published a vile racial slur -- sometimes "mentioning," sometimes "using," sometimes with plausible deniability, sometimes gratuitously -- during at least 15 distinct discussions during 2021 (continuing a pattern that is off to a predictable start this year).

[TwelveInchPianist]

Intent doesn't matter, Arthur. You use the word when you type it into the search field to collect your "stats". You once again prove that Dems are the real racists.

[Queen Amalthea]

He's a goof but you may be missing the point about the word, it's the continued 'putting it out there' that's considered bad, a google search wouldn't do that.

[TwelveInchPianist]

No, you're missing the point. If it were 'putting it out there' that's considered bad, it would be just as bad for black people to 'put it out there', but OK for white people to say it in private.

But according to your side's rules,

"If you are white, and you use, mention, say, articulate, or moan out the n-word, you take your professional and social life into your own hands. Maybe that seems unfair to you, but if you want to be “safe” I suggest you ERASE that word from your lexicon. FIND A DIFFERENT WORD."

And that includes typing it.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Whining, vanquished, bigoted, grievance-consumed right-wingers are among my favorite culture war casualties.

And the target audience of this white, male, right-wing blog.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Lol. Whatever, you racial slur using motherfucker.

[Queen Amalthea]

You're likely misunderstanding what you wrote, but either way it's not 'my side' you're talking about. Try again.

But, yeah, who says it could be important (context, what does it mean?). Even putting it out there. Think about the difference between someone at a hibachi bar who says to a stranger 'get out of here, you queer' and someone in a gay bar who tells a good friend 'get out of here, you queer.' Same thing?

[TwelveInchPianist]

"You're likely misunderstanding what you wrote, but either way it's not 'my side' you're talking about. Try again."

I suppose not, given that you also like to use racial slurs (Uncle Thomas), even more than Arthur.

And of course context is important. But folks like Mystal are arguing that it isn't.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

" You use the word when you type it into the search field to collect your "stats". "

That is not true, you lying, bigoted, worthless, replacement-ready clinger.

Other than that, though, great comment! Just what the Volokh Conspirators are looking for!

[Purple Martin]

It comparable to the old Russian trope, now experiencing a revival: They're wrong. I know they're wrong. They know they're wrong. I know they know they're wrong. They know I know they know they're wrong. I know they know I know they know they're wrong. (Shrug.)

Now that I think about it, might be closer to the (coincidently appropriate) dynamic that Jean-Paul Sartre describes in Anti-Semite and Jew:
“They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves.”

(Shrug.)

[Stephen Lathrop]

Purple Martin, thanks for remembering that. It has long struck me as maybe the best available response to habitual bigotry.

[The Encogitationer]

"Hamana!-hamana!-hamana!"--Ralph Cramden.

[Queen Amalthea]

"Over the next 24 hours, 11 student groups wrote to the law school's all-student listserv to express their support for the statement:"

OK, so the WFB's reporting is presumtively suspect. There's about a hundred student groups at NYU Law, these 11 are likely not representative, and neither are the few comments they highlight (note the 'torrent' cited is backed up by two students comments)...

https://www.law.nyu.edu/studentgroups

[Shabbetai Ẓevi]

all this anti-semitism word salad, does anyone like them? who supports Israel other than jews?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

" who supports Israel other than jews? "

Evangelicals (for whom Jews are to play an important role in a fantasy . . . until that role has been fulfilled, at which point "their friends" the Jews are to be promptly cast toward eternal damnation and hellfire -- which makes it handy that it's all just silly superstition consumed by gullible children of all ages).

Conservatives (who like the point that support for Israel's immoral right-wing belligerence has become a left-right divider is current American politics).

Authoritarians (who are drawn to a "strong man" like Netanyahu, and to Israel's authoritarian, brutish conduct with respect to settlements and the Palestinians).

Probably some other disaffected losers, too (for the reasons that make them such fringe-occupying misfits).

[bernard11]

Well done, David.

I agree completely. Criticizing Israel's policies need not be antisemitic - I'm a 99+% Ashkenazi Jew - I'm not an anti-semite.

But framing it in antisemitic tropes does indeed make it antisemitism.

[Krayt]

Some day a Palistinian state may be created, and millions around the world will rejoice in the birth...of another middle-eastern kleptocracy.

[The Encogitationer]

You forgot Secularist Libertarians who may not even be of Jewish heritage (me) who know which side their bread is buttered on and who don't fancy either one-party dictatorships or Islamic Theocracies and who know that Israel has a free and critical media to deal with it's own Theocrats and would-be dictators.

By the way, you forgot to flourish your cape and say: "Carry on, Clingers!"

[Ed Grinberg]

who supports Israel other than jews?

Well, Winston Churchill did, for one:
https://www.haaretz.com/churchill-bust-unveiled-in-jerusalem-1.5196101
But I suppose if you have a problem with Israel, you probably also have a problem with Churchill. Obama sure did:
https://www.independentsentinel.com/obama-sent-the-bust-of-winston-churchill-back-to-the-british-lied-about-it/

[Aunt Teefah]

Nothing says “we’re definitely not an apartheid colonial state” like an endorsement from Winston Churchill!

[Longtobefree]

Funny thing, all the actions of Russia now described as war crimes exactly describe the actions of the Arab states that attacked Israel the day it was created by the UN resolution.

[Queen Amalthea]

Might there be some more context there?

[Armchair Lawyer]

Sure, here's the context.

"If the Jewish state becomes a fact, and this is realized by the Arab peoples, they will drive the Jews who live in their midst into the sea"
-Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, was quoted by the New York Times in 1948

"I asked them (Arab League members) how Palestine was lost. It had been lost for two basic reasons: one, because we deluded ourselves by underestimating the power of our opponent and by thinking that the Jews were not powerful. The highest official in the League said that with 300 soldiers or North African Volunteers we could throw the Jews into the sea. The war started and His Excellency then said that with 3,000 North African Volunteers we could throw them into the sea."
" Dr. Fadhil Jamali, Iraqi Representative to the United Nations, speaking to the Arab League, February 6, 1955:

Mmm. Genocide. That's your context.

[Queen Amalthea]

This is expectantly pathetic from you. Should I quote some Irgun leaders to 'prove' genocide on the Israeli side?

Don't be a complete tool.

[AtR]

Who would you say is a reasonable person to quote on the Palestinian side?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

An important point that appears to elude Prof. Bernstein is that support from people like Armchair Lawyer is an important reason Israel seems destined to lose America's (military, political, economic) support.

Perhaps Putin will save it from its own foolishness.

[XD]

Ethnic cleansing like the Zionist settlers did to hundreds of thousands of inhabitants of the Mandate isn't "genocide"?

[XD]

And that happened before and during Israel's "Independence War" (independence from what? letting Palestinians keep their homes?)

[The Encogitationer]

"Surprise, fear, ruthless efficiency, and an almost fanatical devotion to Haj Amin Al-Husseini!..."

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

This post reminds me that it's about time for one of the Volokh Conspiracy's right-wing fans to object that my comments can be repetitive.

[XD]

They certainly can. Are you a masochist disappointed that you've yet to receive your allotted beating?

[dwshelf]

I don't buy that Jews control the media, but showing where David Duke said such a thing does not refute the claim.

[The Encogitationer]

The lack of credibility of the source. Once on Donahue, David Duke said he didn't chew Ter-backy, just an occasional stick of Juicy Fruit. I'm surprised that great Wrigley's brand wasn't destroyed forever by that dubious endorsement.

[Roger S]

The student statement maligns Israel in about a dozen ways. It is bizarre to complain that an anti-Israel article is antisemitic. Is that really your best argument?

[David Bernstein]

So if a "student statement" is anti-Israel, but also happens to traffic in the grossest of possible of antisemitic canards, one should simply ignore the antisemitism because that distracts from the anti-Israel arguments?

[twobaylorbears]

Can we just note that Helen Campbell has outed herself as a racist? Palestinians murder Jews because it's just what they do? They don't have any agency? It's just like an earthquake or flu. Nature gonna nature.

I don't disagree with DB's general concerns about the obvious and casual antisemitism shown by people like Helen Campbell, but the "what do you expect from these brown people" arguments are so racist.

[Cal Cetín]

The thing about Jews, and I say this with all due respect, is that they seem too heavily divided to unite on pushing a single line in the media.

Some endorse whatever Israel does, others masochistically and ritualistically denounce Israel (the "as-a-Jews"). Others are in between.

Can you imagine (for example) the secularists getting together with the Orthodox to figure out a single line on *any* "Jewish issue"?

[SRG]

There are, essentially, two forms of anti-Zionism. One is opposition to the general policies of Israel - mostly wrt the Palestinians - which runs the gamut from genuine issues of concern (e.g., interrogation methods, destruction of houses, etc.) through special pleading (e.g., inadequate political representation) to acceptance of outright lies (e.g., as though Israel still occupies Gaza). This form of opposition is only anti-Semitic to the extent that it engages or accepts special pleading and lies.

The second form of anti-Zionism is that Israel shouldn't exist, period. It's anti-Semitic ab initio because it is based on the idea that Jews are not entitled to self-determination. Kurds, sure, Palestinians, definitiely, Rohingya, why not? Jews? Nope. I am sure that many of the advocates of the latter form of anti-Zionism don't think consciously that they're anti-Semites. That is a mitigation, not a defence.

There is a debating trick I have used on these people when the general subject of Israel and the Palestinians comes up. I will say something like, "there's a minority group in the ME who have been persecuted for years, denied citizenship rights, have had property and other assets confiscated without compensation, forced to leave their homes (etc .etc). Isn't it only right and just that they should have their own country?"

Invariably the other side will say , yes, definitely, or words to that effect. And then I respond, "I am of course talking about the Middle East's Jews, who have been treated like that for over a thousand years."

[Cal Cetín]

Wow, they walked right into that?

[RhymesWithRight]

One of the problems with the notion that criticizing the relentless pro-Zionism of American media is anti-Semitic is the fact that those most profoundly reflecting that bias are Christians (usually of an evangelical flavor) rather than Jews. Indeed, American Jews as a group take a much more nuanced and even-handed approach to Israel than do white evangelicals.

[Seamus]

The second form of anti-Zionism is that Israel shouldn't exist, period. It's anti-Semitic ab initio because it is based on the idea that Jews are not entitled to self-determination. Kurds, sure, Palestinians, definitiely, Rohingya, why not?

Well, because, unless Burma consents to the establishment of a Rohingya state, it would violate the territorial integrity of that country. Are you also in favor of letting Indian Parsees come back to their ancestral homeland and carve out a state from Iran, against the wishes of the Iranians? Or Romany to carve out a homeland from India, against the wishes of the Indians? (Speaking of Indians, for all the breast-beating about "stolen land," I don't think a proposal to carve out a chunk of northeastern Georgia or the western Carolinas and give it to the Cherokee so they can form an independent state would get much headway.) In other words, I can think of any number of ethnic groups that we are unwilling to grant self-determination, if by that we mean their own ethno-state.

[SRG]

Your point is well-taken, but there is a difference between being unwilling to grant self-determination owing to pragmatic considerations, and refusing to recognise the right even in principle.

FWIW you will often find that the people who advocate for Palestinian self-determination will indeed support self-determination for all these other groups (and perhaps even disparage the larger nations as colonialists), but will still reject self-determination for Jews. And they will have no problem in arguing that if national barriers are obstacles, they should be removed in some wise, but that doesn't apply to Jews.

[Bill Falcon]

Boy tribalism sucks doesn't it? Especially liberal driven or marxist driven tribalism. Tends to come back at you as well.

What the political issues in the West Bank have to do with law school is beyond me.

Lefties tend to eat their own eventually