RUTHFULLY YOURS

While Jewish students are terrorized on campus, Hillel CEO Eric Fingerhut took on another mission.

“The Hillel family will watch out for our Muslim brothers and sisters on campus,” the failed Democratic pol declared. And he added, “As we hope they will watch out for us.”

There is as much hope of campus hate groups like the Muslim Students’ Association, which has a long history of terrorizing Jews on campus, doing that as there was for Fingerhut in his 2004 Ohio Senate bid which he lost with one of the worst showings by a Democratic Senate candidate in the state. But after taking Ohio Democrats down with him, Fingerhut moved on to tanking Hillel.

In his address to the Hillel International General Assembly, Fingerhut seemed to think the big campus crisis was for Muslims, not Jews. “We will stand by our brothers of the Muslim faith,” he bloviated.

But Fingerhut was only trying to outdo the ADL’s Jonathan Greenblatt who had won approval from no less a Jewish civil rights figure than J.K. Rowling for declaring at what was supposed to be an event to tackle anti-Semitism, “The day they create a registry for Muslims is the day that I register as a Muslim.”

Fighting actual anti-Semitism isn’t cool. Just ask anyone trying to bring attention to Keith Ellison’s long history of anti-Semitism and association with anti-Semitic groups as he crawls on to head the DNC. Defending Muslims against an imaginary threat however is as hip and trendy as a Williamsburg bar.

There up on stage was Eboo Patel, as one of Hillel’s partners, who had bragged of encouraging Hillel to talk to the MSA. Patel had appeared at Islamic Society of North America events, which was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in funding Hamas, and celebrated the election of Ingrid Mattson to head the Islamist group by declaring, “I’m proud to have her elected as my president.” Mattson had denounced Israeli “brutality” and defended Sami Al-Arian, the head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

It only got worse from there.

Hillel had silenced pro-Israel columnist Caroline Glick, yet it provided a platform for anti-Israel activist Jill Jacobs and widely promoted her anti-Israel pressure group, T’ruah, featuring it on its social media feed. Jacobs has campaigned against efforts to fight BDS and attacked Jewish charities helping Jews in ’67 Israel.

Jill Jacobs had even signed a letter calling for “constructive engagement” with a Hamas government even after Hamas had broadcast the threat, “My message to the loathed Jews: There is no god but Allah, we will chase you everywhere. We are a nation that drinks blood. We know that there is no better blood than the blood of Jews.”

Anyone with a clear mind who has taught or studied at a university or whose children are currently enrolled in its troubled precincts knows that the academy has fallen on evil days. Preoccupied with “diversity,” “inclusiveness,” affirmative action, and equality of outcome regardless of input, universities have coddled students into a state of planular emotionalism — “you are loved” and “all your emotions are real,” goes the mantra at Virginia Tech — and rendered them incapable of grappling with anything that resembles an unfamiliar idea or an unanticipated event. Considering in addition the number of useless and cost-ineffective courses in the Humanities and Social Sciences (e.g., Gender Studies, Peace Studies, Fat Studies, Black Studies, Aboriginal Studies, Queer Studies, etc.), as well as the dilution of even the more respectable subjects in order to make them accessible to the unqualified, the future of the university looks increasingly bleak — a “strange Twilight Zone,” as Daniel Greenfield writes, where “none of the sane rules apply.”

In an exceptionally civil discourse on the need for civility in academia, Ashley Thorne, executive director of the National Association of Scholars, argues that the two animating principles of higher education are: (1) building student character in the interests of self-examination and growth, and (2) freedom to pursue truth in whatever direction it may lead. The university, however, has betrayed both its founding ideals. Thorne writes in the wake of Donald Trump’s election victory, which has teachers and administrators reeling with disbelief and students collapsing in paroxysms of despair, fear, anxiety, deep uncertainty, emotional trauma and cataclysmic grief, and in desperate need of “relaxing stations,” cry-ins, calming music, teddy bears, and coloring books. Students racked by electoral stress routinely wish to be exempted from taking their finals. A note saying “Suck it up,” posted by an intrepid student at Wisconsin’s Edgewood College, was deemed a hate crime by college authorities. It’s hard to escape the conclusion that an academy administered by a clade of invertebrates and thick with Pajama Boys and Julias does not elicit confidence in its future. Put one Hamas five-year-old in their midst and they’re goners.

The upshot is that practically the entire university culture is sick unto death: the vast majority of professors in lockstep leftism like an army of Star Trek Borgs marching toward an ever-receding progressivist Millennium, next to none with any real-world experience; hiring protocols based on gender credentials (i.e., women) rather than merit; systematic hostility to fair debate and the free exchange of ideas, however asunder the prevailing cultural consensus; Access Service personnel who regard the university as a field hospital or are simply unable to cope with the new and burgeoning category of disability claimants; and the students themselves, some “mismatched” (code for not possessing the academic wherewithal to succeed), others simply incapable of intellectual endeavor or serious application across the curricular spectrum, and, in short, a supine clientele intent on avoiding work, who consider the university as a daycare center when they are not turning it into a Jungle Gym.

It’s slow going, but the campaign to highlight censorship on campus may be getting somewhere. That’s the message of a new report from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (Fire), which tracks the speech bullies in academia.

Fire’s 10th annual report surveyed speech policies at 345 four-year public colleges and 104 private schools. The good news is that the share of colleges with “red-light” speech codes that substantially bar constitutionally protected speech has declined to 39.6%, a nearly 10% drop in the last year and the lowest share since 2008. Over the last nine years the number of institutions that don’t seriously threaten speech has tripled to 27. Several colleges including the University of Wisconsin have adopted policies that affirm (at least in theory) their commitment to free speech.

House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte deserves some credit for this free-speech breakthrough. Last August he sent letters to the presidents of public schools with red-light codes inquiring about their unconstitutional policies. While public universities are bound by the First Amendment, private colleges can legally restrict speech, ironically thanks to their First Amendment right to freedom of association. Nearly twice as many private universities (58.7%) maintain restrictive speech codes as public colleges (33.9%).

As Fire notes, “although acceptance of federal funding does confer some obligations upon private colleges (such as compliance with federal anti-discrimination laws), compliance with the First Amendment is not one of them.” Private schools can therefore discriminate against faculty and students based on their political expression, but not gender or race.

The Obama Administration has used Title IX, which bans sexual discrimination, to threaten schools over their handling of sexual misconduct and assault claims. And its expansive definition of sexual harassment, which encompasses all “unwelcome” conduct of a sexual nature, infringes on speech. Colleges have adopted the Education Department’s “guidance” in responding to sexual harassment claims to avoid sanctions. In June 2015 a tenured Louisiana State University professor was fired for alleged sexual harassment because she used off-color humor. Fire is litigating the case.

Even as some colleges drop speech codes to avoid legal challenges, many have established “bias” reporting systems that solicit complaints about offensive speech. As Fire explains, these systems encourage “students to report on one another—and on faculty members—whenever they subjectively perceive that someone’s speech or expression is biased.”

There is nothing more ferocious than a cornered animal. That description fits the leaders of the two major teachers’ unions – the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). Both lashed out when Donald Trump nominated Betsy DeVos to take on what is perhaps the toughest and most important job in the new Administration – Secretary of the Department of Education. Lily Eskelsen Garcia, president of the NEA, said: “By nominating Betsy DeVos, the Trump administration has demonstrated just how out of touch it is with what works best for students, parents, educators and communities.” Randi Weingarten, president of the AFT, was blunter: “In nominating DeVos, Trump makes it loud and clear that his education policy will focus on privatizing, defunding and destroying public education in America.” The irony is that those two have stood in the way of reform. It is time the status quo is challenged. A good education, next to family, is the most critical element in determining future success and happiness. For too long, unions have focused on teachers and administrators, not students and parents. This has been especially true in those districts most in need of help.

Both unions had a financial stake in the defeat of Mr. Trump. Based on data through October 28, the NEA had contributed $23.3 million to political causes in 2016, with 98% going to Democrats. The AFT had given $10.3 million, with 100% going to Democrats. Both have a stake in maintaining what is not working. Studies suggest that 40% of high school graduates are not prepared for college, and that 20% are not qualified to serve in the armed forces. Something is wrong. Albert Einstein once famously defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Throwing good money at bad schools, with no little or no choice for parents and students and little or no accountability on the part of teachers and administrators has not worked.

Betsy DeVos is the person chosen to breach those walls – walls that thus far have proven invincible. Her selection by Mr. Trump shows that he is serious about reform. She has been trashed by those who see her as a threat, not only the heads of the two unions who have the most to lose, but reporters as well. Valerie Strauss, an education reporter for The Washington Post used incendiary language in an article titled, Trump terrifies public school advocates with education secretary pick. She claimed that Ms. DeVos’s proposals would promote segregation, discriminate against students with severe disabilities and fight public oversight. The implication was that Mrs. DeVos would destroy public education. Reporters for The New York Times, Kate Zernike and Kevin Carey, were equally provocative. Neither reporter mentioned unions, nor did they see any value in competition, choice, or accountability when it comes to education and teachers.