As our own Amy Curtis reported Friday, Jewish and Israeli MIT students were physically prevented from attending class by a hostile group of pro-Hamas and anti-Israel MIT students that call themselves the CAA. Bill Ackman posted video of a pro-Hamas activist interrupting a math class at MIT:
This is a math class this morning at @MIT. This is the state of learning and ‘free speech’ at our top universities. It would not be happening without a failure leadership at MIT.
— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) November 10, 2023
Imagine being a student who borrowed $250k to attend MIT or a professor who is trying to do… pic.twitter.com/w8C6Y6i3SU
"Imagine being a student who borrowed $250k to attend MIT or a professor who is trying to do research in this environment."
"Reporter and documentary filmmaker" Leighton Woodhouse wasn't impressed by the video and says this type of campus activism has been going on for decades.
Oh no a class was interrupted by a protest group for a whole minute and ten seconds.
— Leighton 明 Woodhouse (@lwoodhouse) November 10, 2023
This kind of campus activism has been going on for generations. It's as normal a part of college life as beer pong. If this were a pro-choice protest nobody would blink. This hedge fund… https://t.co/1e1oSIIgdk
"This hedge fund billionaire just wants bans on speech he disagrees with, it's really not any more complicated than that."
Oh, so having Jewish students "shelter in place" while pro-Hamas mobs take over the campus is "as normal a part of college as beer pong." Forget everything you've seen about pro-Hamas protests at colleges across the country this past month.
"This has been going on for generations, a normal part of college life"
— PoIiMath (@politicalmath) November 11, 2023
Ok, Leighton. Which classes did you have interrupted by protestors?
I did an undergrad and a grad degree and this never happened to me, not once https://t.co/MobkelIUQ3
Woodhouse is keeping busy replying to every critic in his replies.
Interrupting a math class to chant 'Free free Palestine', if you're not actually Palestinian, conveys nothing more than 'If you're a Jewish student here, we hate you'.
— Geoffrey Miller (@primalpoly) November 10, 2023
Not cool.
This never happened to me in college. Protests were on the quad or in the student union. I like how you’re like, “this happens at college totally normal all the time” and your evidence is BERKELEY of all places
— Jana (@anajay) November 10, 2023
It happened to Woodhouse regularly while he was a student at Berkeley.
Okay but this speech literally is banned already—you're not allowed to do a protest during a class.
— Daniel (@dmm12345) November 10, 2023
And I was in college for 7 years without facing having any of my classes interrupted for a protest, for whatever that's worth.
I suspect the "free free Palestine" is not a STEM major. Nobody should should be able to interrupt a class to push their political agenda.
— Pavulous (@pavulous) November 10, 2023
I went to UCSB during the height of the Afghan war and this never once happened. Wrap this up with the other things that occurred at MIT this week, and clear to see it was a targeted campaign
— Andrea Howe (@andreavhowe) November 11, 2023
The heckler's veto is, by definition, the antithesis of free speech.
— David Pivtorak (@piv4law) November 11, 2023
If it’s so normal, post more videos. 🙂 ⏰
— Casey (@C4SEY85) November 11, 2023
Never saw in class activism like this at my very liberal university.
— Kristen Mag (@kristenmag) November 11, 2023
Right, but you can get hauled before a DEI tribunal for saying women can't have penises.
— Coddled affluent professional (@feelsdesperate) November 10, 2023
The issue is the asymmetry, it's anarcho tyranny and much worse than this is permitted.
If the argument is that this sort of thing can’t be addressed because it’s become traditional, then that is by extension an admission that college as it exists cannot be reformed from what it has become.
— The End Times (@TheAgeofShoddy) November 10, 2023
So. That leaves us with a different palette of options for the future.
I’ve never experienced any classroom protests at any of the universities I’ve taught at. Nor would I allow it - even if I support the cause. It’s disruptive and inappropriate. Take it outside on the quad. We’re supposed to be training kids to become working professionals.
— VFox (@drvictoriafox) November 10, 2023
How long can the protest last? All class? Every day? What are the laws for length of protest. At what point do we say the classroom is for learning and work needs to get done. Is minute and a half the cutoff?
— Παναγιώτη (@GamblinGreek) November 10, 2023
Your priors are showing, sir.
— xavi (@xzapata99) November 10, 2023
Doesn’t matter if it was only a single second. Not a single one of them had any right to steal even a moment from anyone else there.
— Plain Ol’ Bedlam (@BK3_eng) November 10, 2023
No pro-life student group or any other student group championing a non-leftist cause would be allowed to interrupt a class, with apparent permission, and then start chanting slogans. If a student did this with an All Lives Matter chant, they would be disciplined and hounded.
— Abolish Whiteness (@AbolishWhitenes) November 10, 2023
I could easily see a pro-Israel group doing this with zero pushback from anyone. And if it did I'd feel the exact same way.
— Leighton 明 Woodhouse (@lwoodhouse) November 10, 2023
Sure.
Then find the video of this thing that you can “easily see”
— Victory Gin (@DrinkVictory) November 11, 2023
In this case "see" means "imagine."
— Leighton 明 Woodhouse (@lwoodhouse) November 11, 2023
Hope that helps.
So you made it up
— Larry Bernard (@karasoth) November 11, 2023
Weird how we don’t have to imagine the corollary
— EmailJobEnjoyer (@emailjobenjoyer) November 11, 2023
So you just made up a situation that would prove you’re consistent. Because you can’t point to a single actual example of the opposite happening
— James Lippens (@ShamebyJames) November 11, 2023
Jesus christ man, have just an ounce of integrity
— Austin Nisbett (@oz84063020) November 11, 2023
All we've seen over the past five weeks are Jewish students being barricaded in a library, being attacked for setting up a table with "Kidnapped" posters, and be called whores by professors and told to go back to Poland. We don't have to imagine any of that, as it's all on video. And it's not normal.
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