Megan McArdle decries cancel culture after backlash against Harvard’s Hamas letter

Twitchy was all over the horribly anti-Semitic statement issued by 36 anti-Israeli Harvard student groups in the wake of the Hamas terror attack on Israel.

The pushback didn't end there, however. People wanted names, because they wanted to hold accountable the students who signed this abhorrent statement, and that included businesses asking for names:

I have been asked by a number of CEOs if @harvard would release a list of the members of each of the Harvard organizations that have issued the letter assigning sole responsibility for Hamas’ heinous acts to Israel, so as to insure that none of us inadvertently hire any of their… https://t.co/7kzGOAGwp9
— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) October 10, 2023

No business would hire anyone who was openly a Nazi; why should they hire someone who supports equally anti-Semitic sentiments?

Washington Post reporter Megan McArdle had to jump in and complain about 'cancel culture' at the mere suggestion of holding these students accountable for blaming Israel for Hamas' acts of terrorism.

These statements were reprehensible, but cancel culture was bad when they did it and it's still bad now. https://t.co/Ebv1ZxfeMe
— Megan McArdle (@asymmetricinfo) October 10, 2023

'Was bad', as if the Left isn't still engaged in cancel culture.

And yes, cancel culture is bad. We've said that for a long time, but the Left didn't listen and kept mowing people down over baseless accusations, years-old tweets or Facebook posts, or even the most innocuous statements.

The were warned. But if these are the rules they want, then we're going to apply them to the Left as well.

If you can't draw a distinction between supporting the Republican candidate, using the wrong pronoun, or vociferously endorsing a group that would happily murder coworkers, clients, or colleagues, then organizational leadership may not be for you.
— J (@ARaised_Eyebrow) October 10, 2023

It is not cancel culture for a company to fire someone for doing something objectively horrific that directly affects them.

Digging up decade-old posts to get someone fired for something unrelated or getting someone fired over an out of context video. That’s cancel culture. https://t.co/iyETnGyojL
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) October 11, 2023

Exactly.

Actually I'm fine with a company not hiring someone who endorses mass murder of Jews on their resume. https://t.co/WRzzFUTksB
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) October 11, 2023

So are most people, because it's the right thing to do.

Don't feel like this is a hard one. Not really struggling with this one here.
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) October 11, 2023

It's not hard. Blaming Jews for their deaths at the hands of Hamas terrorists is abhorrent. It's pretty cut and dry that the position of the Harvard student groups is wrong.

"Look you're clearly qualified and I'm not personally a fan of your pro modern day Holocaust endorsement but I think we can work around that."
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) October 11, 2023

But, as others pointed out, the tune would be very different if this was a statement that, say, endorsed female-only spaces and female-only sports, or criticized the pronoun game the Left likes to play.

tbh, these firings by corporations and fancy law firms are PR bulwarks against their clientele. every one of these hires has a social media trail a mile long, every corp does a full background check. they knew who they were getting, but now that it’s public, they’re embarrassed https://t.co/4cZwaXZx6a
— Emily Zanotti 🦝 (@emzanotti) October 11, 2023

This is also true.

So, if someone says ' My goal is to kill you and your entire family'... Is it cancel culture to make people know you said that?

I don't know. I think we are being silly to blur the lines here. https://t.co/IkphnLiV5Q
— Pradheep J. Shanker (@Neoavatara) October 11, 2023

The Left argues words are literal violence, until they're not. It's beyond silly to blur lines here. It's egregious and hypocritical.

I’m trying to envision how the workplace functions when you hire people who want your Jewish employees dead https://t.co/uHrSkoTnNp
— Son of Dr. Spengler (unintentional self-parody) (@spengjr) October 11, 2023

Not well at all.

Definitely don’t cancel these people. Just think of the entertainment value when they undergo corporate sexual harassment training

“But none of this applies to Zionists, right? I mean, the Zionist whores are colonists and deserve what’s coming to them” https://t.co/uHrSkoTnNp
— Son of Dr. Spengler (unintentional self-parody) (@spengjr) October 11, 2023

Imagine the look on the HR rep's face.

This reflects a misunderstanding of "cancel culture" that I think I thought wasn't possible. https://t.co/mZy0TYcD9W
— Blame Big Government (@BlameBigGovt) October 11, 2023

Oh, but it's possible. And this isn't the first time someone on the Left has whined about their rules coming back to bite them on the butt.

“It’s bad to not hire people who openly support the extermination of Jews” is quite the take, but we should consider it par for the course in today’s corporate media. https://t.co/l1qbIp0424
— Mark 🥓🥓🐊 (@PitmasterMark69) October 11, 2023

It is par for the course. And that's a problem.

I think voicing support for a known terrorist organization right after they raped women, beheaded children, and killed thousands is a fireable offense. And we shouldn't compare it to cancellation for wrongthink in the context of American politics. https://t.co/7mSIgyuLKi pic.twitter.com/OmNInhbSOo
— EJ (@Ejmiller25) October 10, 2023

No, we shouldn't. The two aren't even in the same universe.

oh no! won’t someone think of those celebrating the death and calling for the extermination of their perceived enemies https://t.co/Nz8L2Km5Vo
— 𝓁𝒶𝓊𝓇𝑒𝓃 (@FletchMatlock) October 11, 2023

Perfection.

Cancel culture is as bad when they fired a truck driver for resting his thumb against his forefinger and good when people loudly celebrating mass murder don’t get high paying big law and hedge fund jobs

This isn’t difficult and if you can’t wrap your mind around it 🤷 https://t.co/OQV68eEBYh
— Emergency Exit Reince Niebuhr (@ReinceNiebuhr) October 11, 2023

It's not difficult. Remember, the Left likes to point out 'you can't yell 'fire' in a crowded theater' as a defense for their attack on free speech, which is usually saying something politically incorrect or upsetting to them. But when Harvard students support the mass murder of Jews, we're supposed to let it slide? Nah. We're not.

I kind of see the point, but open support for violence/terrorism is in a separate category from ideology. I'd favor firing anyone who supports violence to achieve ends I agree with. https://t.co/tDJGjx26wa
— Holden (@Holden114) October 10, 2023

This is the way. It's not that hard.

There is a vast, gaping wide, intergalactic sized even, gap between punishing a person for saying they don't believe you can change genders... And not hiring a @Harvard grad who celebrates a terrorist attack that murders hundreds, rapes women, and beheads babies. https://t.co/CgwprOs2os
— Magnus (@JacksonTDawes) October 11, 2023

Nailed it.

I always encourage my students to identify limiting principles for their positions. For instance, I’m against cancel culture unless someone is celebrating the beheading of babies. See how easy that is? https://t.co/xcybkGxsmD
— Chad Ragsdale (@caragsdale) October 11, 2023

There's always a line, and the Harvard students crossed it. Blaming Jews for the atrocities inflicted on them by Hamas is that line. And now they get to reap what they sow.

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