Sizzling Hot Academic Freedom Takes

An Iowa State Senator, Mark Chelgren (R), recently made waves after introducing a bill demanding parity between Democrats and Republicans on Iowa state university faculties. Lots of laughs ensued about conservatives demanding a quota replace meritocratic hiring. But Chelgren insisted that there was a serious need for the bill, citing his "personal experience":

"I'm pretty confident that any student that goes to any university anywhere in the United States of America has experienced intimidation for their conservative political views," he said. "I have personal experience with it. And I have heard from dozens of individuals who say they were too intimidated to say they supported Donald Trump or express a conservative viewpoint."

Sounds rough! What horrible bastion of hippie-leftism did Mark Chelgren attend where he was subjected to this terrible intimidation?

State Sen. Mark Chelgren's alleged alma mater is actually a company that operated a Sizzler steak house franchise in southern California and he doesn't have a "degree," Ed Failor, a spokesman for the Iowa State Republicans, told NBC News.

"This was a management course he took when he worked for Sizzler, kind of like Hamburger University at McDonald's," Failor said. "He got a certificate."

Asked if Chelgren has a college degree, Failor said, "That's not accurate."

To be fair, I bet campus politics at Sizzler U are cutthroat. And there were other hints that Chelgren's college experience may have been ... atypical.

Asked what difference it would make if, for example, a math professor were a Democrat or Republican, Chelgren responded: "If I knew a logics professor was a liberal, I would questions whether I should take that class."

 Got to watch out for those liberal Math professors teaching the logics.

The Danger of Trump's "False Flag" Claim

I have a new column in Ha'aretz talking about the dangerous antisemitism latent in President Trump's insinuation that at least some of the antisemitic attacks that have raked Jewish Community Centers are plants designed to make him and his allies look bad. These claims are not just a Trump special -- we've seen them start to percolate amongst other mainstream Republicans too, like Mike Huckabee and Anthony Scaramucci.

The column also examines why many Jews and Jewish organizations have been loathe to call out this form of antisemitism. Part of it may be due to Trump's putative "pro-Israel" stance giving a "get-out-of-antisemitism-free" card. But part of it seems to be a strange (and inconsistent) insistence that antisemitism is about more than malign hearts or unadorned hostility towards each and every Jew. As I write:

The assumption seems to be that unless Trump is anti-Semitic in every case – an actual reincarnation of Hitler or Himmler – he can’t be anti-Semitic in any case. This is a silly fallacy. The fact of the matter is that anti-Semitism rarely comes unadorned as the pure, open, unvarnished, abject hatred of each and every Jew in any and all contexts. It always has its caveats, its “good Jews” – whether they be the anti-Zionists willing to denounce Israel, the Zionists willing to leave “our” country and move to Israel, the Orthodox who don’t threaten good conservative social values or the Reform who embody secular enlightenment ones.

Anti-Semitism is not primarily about malign hearts or exclusive friend groups – it’s a set of conditions that impede the full and equal participation of Jews in political and social circles. When Donald suggests that when Jews cry “anti-Semitism” it’s really a plot to discredit him and his, it doesn’t matter what his motives are – the effect is to render Jews a little more suspicious, a little more alien, a little less trustworthy, and a little less worthy of our solidarity and support. And in this way, the most ancient and dangerous anti-Semitic canards are slowly but surely resurrected in the American psyche.

Incidentally, my eyeball appraisal of the Twitter response is about 80% positive, 15% "MAGA!", and 5% "well in 1954 there was this thing called the Lavon Affair between Israel and Egypt and that's totally germane to who's responsible for attacks on JCCs in America 63 years later."

There is No Position on Israel That Provides a "Get-Out-Of-Antisemitism-Free" Card

People in Donald Trump's orbit -- advisors, hangers-on, enthusiastic supporters, and so on -- keep on being implicated in antisemitism  Steve Bannon is the obvious case. But see also counter-terrorism advisor Sebastian Gorka, or former Arkansas Governor and one-time front runner for Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee (the guy who ended up getting the slot over Huckabee is no slouch either).

When these issues come up, conservative pundits seem to have a catch-all response. Can you guess what it is?

Here's ZOA (quoting Joel Pollak) on Bannon:

Mr. Bannon is 'an American patriot who defends Israel & has deep empathy for the Jewish people.' .... Would Trump’s extraordinary pro-Israel advisors such as Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Pence, Mike Huckabee, Sheldon Adelson, and Orthodox Jews Jared Kushner, David Friedman, and Jason Greenblatt ever allow an anti-Semite/Israel-hater to work with them?

Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) on Gorka:

I can attest that Dr. Gorka is the staunchest friend of Israel and the Jewish people.

Mike Huckabee on, well, himself:

[A] tiny bit of fact-checking [would] discover[] what most people in the Israel and American Jewish community know quite well, that Israel and the Jewish people have no stronger advocate than Mike Huckabee. ... Israel and Jewish people need to make friends, not insult the ones they have.

It's not even just conservatives. In a post that would be execrable if it wasn't so bizarre, Michael Tracey of the far-left "Young Turks" movement defends the Trump movement from antisemitism charges because, survey says:

[T[he current president continues to express more-or-less unflinching support for the Jewish state. ... [T]here’s scant reason to believe Trump has thought deeply enough about the subject that he should be considered anything less than what he publicly and repeatedly claims he is: stridently pro-Israel, and stridently pro-Jew.

Incidentally, it's notable that in none of the above examples was the claim of antisemitism directly tied to Israel. Bannon's antisemitism stems from his alleged distaste for Jews at his child's school and his association with the alt-right. Gorka has ties to Hungarian antisemitic organizations. Huckabee liked to compare Obamacare to the Holocaust and has engaged in "false flag" conspiracy mongering suggesting that Jews fake attacks against themselves to drum up anti-Trump sentiment.

Yet time and again, we see "pro-Israel" bona fides (usually of a very particular, rah-rah Likud sort) used to flatly reject any further inquiry into antisemitic behavior, conduct, or associations. It's a quintessential example of what philosopher Rachel McKinnon calls "allies behaving badly" -- using one's (often self-proclaimed) status as an "ally" to dismiss any inquiry into bad behavior directed at the allied group.

This response has become such an ubiquitous catch-all to dismiss the genuine problem of antisemitism on the right that I wish someone like the ADL would call it out explicitly. Their genuine efforts at targeting antisemitism will get nowhere if "support for Israel" is convertible into a "get-out-of-antisemitism-free" card. This is the reason why many Jewish groups' campaigns against mainstream right-wing antisemitism feel so limp and listless -- if they end as soon as the conservative delivers the rote reassurance that "I am a strong supporter of Israel", of course they won't go anywhere or change anything.

The truth is there is no position on Israel -- pro- or anti-, favorable or critical -- that immunizes one from antisemitism. It is entirely possible to find antisemitism among supporters of Israel just as it is to find it amongst Israel's opponents (who, for their part, also have a habit of pointing to other allegedly philo-semitic elements of their politics as a technique for dismissing any inquiry into whether their Israel politics are antisemitically-inflected. That we are, or should be, capable of understanding why the move is shady in that case should give us similar reason for pause in this one). To think otherwise requires subscribing to an unreasonably narrow view of how antisemitism manifests that assumes it must ever and always take the form of blind and unmediated Jew-hatred. We would be better served in recognizing that antisemitism is rarely unadorned; it is not just occasionally but frequently partial and contingent, attacking particular Jewish institutions and practices while professing great love and respect for others.

None of this is to say that support for Israel isn't important. It is a part of the story, and Jewish groups are well-entitled to insist that it be part of the story. But it is only a part of the story, and it cannot substitute for a holistic politics opposing antisemitism in all its manifestations. Again, it is incumbent on our community's antisemitism watchdogs -- the ADL and others -- to put their feet down and say unambiguously: "There is no -- NO -- position on Israel that immunizes one from antisemitism."

Waving "pro-Israel" as a talisman to ward of charges of antisemitism is wrong -- wrong in that it doesn't falsify the antisemitism claim, and wrong in that it bespeaks disrespect towards the Jews making the claim. But people think they can get away with it because, well, for too long mainstream Jewish groups have accepted the pro-Israel credit in lieu of actual payment of antisemitic debts. Hopefully, even those groups are beginning to see just how little that credit is worth; how ineffectual our complaints about antisemitism are when they can and are brushed aside so cheaply.

It needs to end. And it won't end until Jewish groups demand that it end.

Two Good Posts on Antisemitism

Sitting on my browser for awhile have been a pair of posts by Max Sparber, a Minnesota-based Jewish journalist who is (or was) a regular commenter on Metafilter. He wrote two posts, On Allyship and then On Allyship: Shutting Down Debate regarding how discourses surrounding antisemitism are routinely and systematically shut down in that community. I really worked hard to find bits to excerpt, and I just couldn't. They both need to be read in full.

And to be clear, these are not posts that are limited to folks who are part of or even familiar with Metafilter. I'm not myself a participant on Metafilter (I have read a few threads when someone has linked to my work), but Max's comments have general applicability -- they reflect patterns of discourse which are ubiquitous and tremendously damaging. The thread which prompted Sparber's post, "On Jews and their comments", may provide helpful background, but I don't really think it's necessary.

Solidarity: Not Just For Goyim (Today)

Last month, I wrote a post entitled "Solidarity is for Goyim". It was an essay -- more of a series of observations -- that as a Jew I scarcely even expect to receive "solidarity" in the face of antisemitic attacks. It was the product of recent events and longstanding personal experience.

I don't retract that post. But in the wake of the latest instance of antisemitic vandalism -- this time targeting a Jewish cemetery in St. Louis -- I did observe some of the solidaristic reactions that I hadn't before. Here's the Sikh Coalition. Here's a Muslim-led effort to raise funds for restoring the site. I've seen others.

I'm not saying my prior post was wrong. I'm not even saying a corner has been turned. And I'm not sure what made this event different from the others.

I'm simply saying I'm seeing something I hadn't seen before. And I'm grateful for it.

It Was Never About Free Speech

Milo's been dropped from Simon & Schuster, as well as CPAC, after clips came out showing him defending pedophilia.

This is long overdue, but it also is brutal to all the defenses given for inviting Milo onto these forums (and others -- looking at you Bill Maher) in the first place. Not because all the awful things Milo had said before made it predictable that he'd also have said this particular awful thing. Rather, the issue is that the decision to now say "too far" gives lie to standard apologia the right has been giving for trotting Milo out -- that of "free speech."

It was striking that virtually none of Milo's inviters would actually come out and endorse the content of his screeds. When asked why he was being brought to Berkeley or the public press or wherever, the answer was always "freedom of speech!" "Don't silence him!" "Hear his perspective!" Now let's be clear: "free speech" is quite relevant once Milo has been invited to give a talk or a speech. Specifically, it takes certain remedies off the table -- government can't ban the speech, private actors can't violently disrupt it, and so on. There are other remedies that "free speech" very much doesn't take off the table -- nonviolent protest, for instance, much less vitriolic criticism. Free speech represents important values, and I strive to defend them even when the subject is an awful little troll like Milo.

But while "free speech" can tell us something about how to respond to an invited speaker, it can't tell us anything about who to invite. That decision has to be made on the basis of a different set of values -- values that roughly translate to "this person has a perspective worth hearing."

And herein lies the problem. The decision to now disinvite Milo demonstrates that conservatives (and Simon & Schuster) are entirely able to make adjudications regarding the sorts of statements and advocacies which they think are worthwhile and "in-bounds" in public discourse. For instance, we now know that pedophilia is out. But we also now know that all the other things Milo had said -- the horrific racism, the blatant misogyny, the unapologetic harassment, the vicious transphobia, the nasty assault on immigrants -- all of that was in.

Milo wasn't invited to speak because of some unadorned desire to vindicate "free speech". He was invited because the people who invited him thought those perspectives, specifically, were worthwhile. Pedophilia no, racism yes. Pedophilia no, misogyny yes. They looked at the former and said "too far", which means they also looked at the latter and said "fine."

That's an evaluative appraisal that has nothing to do with freedom of speech. It speaks to the inviters' other values. And we are entirely justified in drawing conclusions about the character and the moral worth of the people who hold such values. It does not speak well.

Thinking About the Structure of Antisemitism

A Lebanese-Canadian writer, Mila Ghorayeb, has written a wonderful post on the interaction of leftist politics and antisemitism. It is a tremendous example -- albeit (by design) a first step -- of how to take seriously antisemitism as an important feature in thinking about Israel and the Israeli/Arab and Israeli/Palestinian conflict while still maintaining a significant critical perspective on Israeli governmental policy. It is particularly timely given McGill is currently being roiled by at least two germane antisemitism controversies -- a student officer who tweeted "punch a Zionist" (and has resisted calls to resign) and a policy by the McGill student paper to no longer publish columns with a "Zionist" perspective (one wonders whether Mila's piece would qualify).

One way I would parse Mila's excellent meditation -- and this is something I've sought to develop in pieces like Criticizing Israel without it Seeming Anti-Semitic is Hard (and That's a Good Thing) and Anti-Semitism as Structural and the Iran Deal Debate -- is that we need to break out of the binary mode of thinking which treats "is this [criticism of Israel] antisemitic?" as the sole operative question. Certainly, that's sometimes a relevant question, and one that we should ponder seriously. But it is a subset of a larger point, which is that antisemitism is part of the set of social conditions which significantly and materially effect Jewish life and institutional practices. Hence, if you're talking about a Jewish institution or practice (e.g., Israel or Zionism), then one of the things you should be thinking about is antisemitism because antisemitism is part of the overall set of social circumstances which create the environment and atmosphere in which those institutions/practices exist. And so I wrote:

Anti-Semitism is an extremely important facet of any discussion regarding Israel. Any discussion of Israel is a discussion, in part, about what Jews are at liberty to do, how the political institutions that govern them can justly be structured, the sort of self-determination they are entitled to, and the epistemic status of Jewish versus non-Jewish perceptions of Jewish behavior and moral claims, among other things. In all of these discussions, matters of anti-Semitism should affect our analysis considerably. These are not the only things that matter, of course, but they do matter, and if one talks about Israel without having these considerations foregrounded in your mind, you're talking about Israel poorly.

Note that this paragraph does not say that "all criticism of Israel is antisemitic." What it says is simultaneously much narrower and much broader: it says "antisemitism is substantially relevant to all discourse about Israel." Not the only thing that is relevant, but an important relevancy, such that if we excise it from the conversation or table it save in cases where it is indisputable (when is it ever?), what will result is a considerably stilted and malformed conversation. This was the point of the analogy I drew to discourse about affirmative action:

Consider as a parallel discussions about affirmative action, which also suffer from the oft-heard claim that "one should be able to oppose affirmative action without being 'racist.'" Now, I'm a strong supporter of affirmative action. Nonetheless, I recognize that there are important debates to be had about the propriety and legitimacy of affirmative action programs, and critical positions can be held by persons who have perfectly egalitarian views towards racial minorities. It is important to have these debates, and we should have these debates. But it would something else entirely to say that we could even have an intelligible, let alone productive, discussion about affirmative action without the issue of racism entering into the picture at all. Yet as with anti-Semitism, people seem to feel they have an entitlement to talk about affirmative action without having their particular position's compatibility with racial equality called into question. The "debate" they want to have about affirmative action -- one where one is not permitted to consider the impact and continuing salience of racism or assess the validity of particular positions against the metric of racial justice -- is no debate at all; it would be incomprehensible gibberish. Keeping "racism" at the forefront of affirmative action debates ensures that an important element of the conversation which people very much would rather ignore stays at the center of the analysis. That's a very good thing.

Note here, too, that the main question isn't and shouldn't be "is this criticism of affirmative action racist or not?" It is entirely coherent -- and I'd argue necessary -- to say both that a particular criticism might not be racist in of itself but that to be legitimate it nonetheless must grapple seriously with the fact of racism. A criticism of affirmative action that refuses to even address racism would just be nonsense (yet how often do we see attempts to do just that?). Likewise, it is conceptually possible for one to issue a criticism -- even a cutting criticism -- of affirmative action that is attentive to and responsive towards the reality of racism, and which accepts that racism is an essential part of the social milieu which sets the parameters of the debate (and, to a large extent, explains why we have it).

So too with Israel. Some criticisms of Israel are antisemitic and some aren't, and we figure out which is which by careful analysis to separate the wheat from the chaff. But even a non-antisemitic criticism of Israel might still be ill-formed to the extent that it fails to adequately account for and grapple with antisemitism as a relevant feature of the social world which should condition our views on Jewish institutions and practices. A good critic pays attention to such germane elements of conversation, and it is reasonable to demand that critics be good at their jobs (and, by extension, when critics are unreasonably resistant to incorporating this particular dimension into their analysis we might fairly wonder whether that refusal is fairly characterized as a form of antisemitism).

You've Got a Friend in Me

Michael Flynn, of late the National Security Advisor to President Trump, has resigned. Many are cheering, but Flynn still has some backers outraged that Trump cut Flynn loose so quickly -- including the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

To be sure, it's the chair of the Russian Foreign Affairs Committee. But it's still nice to see that Flynn still has some friends in high places.

David Friedman Will Be Confirmed Because Republicans Don't Care About Israel

Republicans understand that Israel resides in a dangerous part of the world. Its security -- its very survival -- depends on the daily navigation of increasingly choppy diplomatic waters in one of the world's most volatile powderkegs. Republicans get that. They take these things seriously.

And that's why a Republican Senate will likely confirm a Republican President's nomination of David Friedman as Ambassador to Israel.

It was sadly predictable that the GOP wouldn't care about Friedman comparing liberal Jews unfavorably with Nazi collaborators. It was a little less predictable, but still sad, that many mainstream Jewish organizations have decided to let that slide as well. But one might have though that, with all the talk about the dangers Israel faces and the difficulties it must confront in the diplomatic arena, that the putatively pro-Israel folks might insist that America's diplomatic representative to the Jewish state not be a rank amateur. The only thing thinner than David Friedman's skin is his qualification to serve as an Ambassador. A guy who casually calls other Jews "worse than Kapos" and the ADL "morons" doesn't exactly scream "diplomatic temperament."

It's one thing to blow smoke when you're an irrelevant bankruptcy attorney in New York. As Ambassador these things have consequences. If Israel sits in as precarious a position as we're often told it is, and one cares about preserving its stability and security in the face of regional and international pressure, the idea of having someone like David Friedman sit in our embassy in Tel Aviv Jerusalem Tel Aviv should be flatly terrifying.

If one cares. If one doesn't, and Israel is just a nice talking point to rile up parts of your base, then by all means confirm away.

In any event, right now Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair Bob Corker (R-TN) is refraining from endorsing Friedman until after his committee's hearings, and ranking member Bob Menendez (D-NJ) is refraining from opposing Friedman until the same. I wrote to my Senators urging them to vote against Friedman, but I doubt we'll see any significant Republican defections.

Preach It

Regarding the DNC race, I'll just let Erik Loomis speak for me:

I am through with the discussion over the next DNC Chair. While the Democratic Party should be getting ready to win a hopefully wave election in the House in 2018, different factions of the party are relitigating the primary. SO you have this endless back and forth between Keith Ellison and Tom Perez, both excellent candidates and great progressives, which is really just an excuse for angry partisans to hate on each other. This is beyond worthless. We deserve to not control government if we can’t have enough party discipline to just elect someone to what is an overrated position that did not cost Bernie the primary but which should have someone competent in it for once.

Here’s the thing: If you think Hillary Clinton is a horrible person who is the enemy of the Democratic Party, you are the problem. If you think Bernie Sanders is a horrible person who is the enemy of the Democratic Party, you are also the problem. Quit being part of the problem and get to work doing something useful.

It's not that you can't have valid reasons for preferring Ellison over Perez or vice versa. I've voted in many Democratic primaries where my decision was based on relatively minor and idiosyncratic differences between two strong progressive candidates, either one of whom would make for a fine Representative/Senator/President if elected. This is more or less that scenario.

But the people who are insistent on turning this race into a Total War for the Soul of the Democratic Party are delusional and, more importantly, damaging. Again, preferences are fine. Being primed to scream betrayal if the eventual selection is only 98.5% similar to your ideal choice is not

Happy Birthday To Me!

It's my (actual me, not the blog's) birthday today! Board games and deep dish pizza is the plan for the evening, and I consider that a very good birthday plan.

I was going to write a post about Trump's latest blunder into one solid Israel position (a surprisingly strong critique of settlements) and out of another (the ridiculous decision announcement by Nikki Haley that we'd block former Palestinian PM Salam Fayyad -- possibly the Palestinian leader that is most amenable to Israel and America's final vision for peace in the region -- from an appointment as head of the UN mission to Libya). But one of my presents to me is to be able to ignore such churn for at least a day, and besides Kevin Drum basically gets there anyway.

Hold My Beer

Kevin Drum reads Andrew Stuttaford on Brexit, and the horrors the UK is subjected itself to in the process of trying to negotiate it. Drum concludes:

If there were any real advantage to this, it might be worth it. But just to keep Polish immigrants out? This might be one of the dumbest things any country has ever voluntarily subjected itself to. 

And keep in mind, Drum's writing as an American. So he knows a thing or two about countries voluntarily subjecting themselves to dumb things.

9th Circuit Declines to Stay Injunction of Trump's Refugee Ban

You can read the per curiam opinion here (the panel included two Democratic appointees and one Republican appointee). It is worth stressing that this is still a very preliminary stage of the litigation. But the 9th Circuit's analysis doesn't bode well for how the ban will fare "on the merits" -- particularly in how it treats the question of a potential religiously discriminatory motivation.

And I have to say, kudos to the judges (and clerks) on the panel for putting out such a thorough and well-reasoned opinion on a very significant time crunch.

The Berkeley Kids are Alright

Last term, I taught Introduction to American Politics at the University of California, Berkeley. As you can imagine, teaching "Introduction to American Politics" at the University of California, Berkeley during the Fall of 2016 was an interesting experience. Sometimes instructors eagerly grasp at the rare "teachable moment" that falls into our laps; last fall was one long (long) "teachable moment" when it came to American politics.

This term, I'm teaching "Just Political Participation." And of course, what do we get in our first month of term but a scheduled speech by Milo and ensuing protests -- a fantastic illustration of many of the course themes in a class about "Just Political Participation". The academic spirits have blessed or cursed me to be a current events commentator. So this week, I decided to devote class to discussion of Milo's (canceled) talk, and the respective choices of the Berkeley administration, the Berkeley College Republicans, and the protesters (both violent and non-violent).

Berkeley students, of course, have a bit of a reputation on the national stage -- basically, they are presumed to embody whatever the day's shibboleth for radical leftism is. In the 1960s, it was radical free speech, yesterday, it was safe spaces and trigger warnings, today, it unwillingness to engage with alternative views and an outright endorsement of beating up anyone to the right of Bernie Sanders.

This was not my experience. Whenever current events have been discussed, my students have consistently shown a curiosity about the world around them and a willingness to engage with arguments and positions different from their own, and this week was no different. The students leaned left (as college-attending millennials tend to do), but the predominant position in both my classes was opposition to violent protests coupled with utter contempt for Milo and the politics he represented. Some persons took outlier positions on either of these matters, and their views were given respectful consideration. Nobody's views could be predetermined by their personal "identity" background -- there were students of color who had planned to attend Milo's talk because they were curious to hear what he had to say and there were white students emphatically attacking it as hate speech. On that score, alone, what we saw was a testament to the importance and value of diversity in the Berkeley community.

The conversation was wide-ranging and intellectual. People talked about the tactical benefits and drawbacks of protesting (this post is germane), as well as the dignitary issues when persons targeted by Milo's particularly odious brand of bullying are forced to tailor their responses so that Milo doesn't reap benefits (this post is germane). There were differing views on whether the violent aspects of the protests were exaggerated by the media or genuinely reflective of what was going on; persons with these differences engaged respectfully with one another. Persons concerned about violence conducted by the protesters thoughtfully engaged with those who wondered why other forms of violence (such as that by police suppressing protest, or by Milo's own supporters backing him up, or by his listeners harassing targeted minorities in his wake) got less attention. Nuanced positions that often don't get articulated (such as the view that the UC-Berkeley administration had no business shutting down Milo's talk, but that Berkeley students were nonetheless obligated to get out onto the street and make their own views known) received airing and were debated. We got to talk about comparative rules on hate speech, the benefits and virtues of the American rule, the value and the limits of the "marketplace of ideas" metaphor, and many other things besides. And I got perhaps the most amount of nodding when I urged them to resist simplistic solutions that "make a hard question easy." They wanted complexity, nuance, consideration, and thought.

All and all, I came away very impressed. Perhaps I shouldn't have been so surprised, though. The University of California, Berkeley, is one of the world's great public universities. I tell all of my students, at the start of each term, that the fact that they are at Berkeley means they are among the very brightest and most thoughtful persons of their generation, and that I consequently expect all of them to contribute the rare and valuable perspective they possess to class discussions. This week, my students rose to the occasion in fantastic fashion. Kudos to them. The Berkeley kids are, it turns out, all right.

Not Anti-Semitic, Just Anti-Rothschild

The latest UK Labour antisemitism controversy comes from Essex Councilor John Clarke, who has some interesting thoughts about the Jews Rothschilds.

The councillor, who is also chair of governors of local Essex primary school White Notley, and the local Parish Council, promoted the tweet, which is headlined “Israel owns the senate, Congress and the Executive” of America… but who owns Israel?”.

The text of the post reads: “The Rothschild Family.. has been creating almost all of the world's money at interest for a couple of hundred years”.

It adds that they “have used usury (money lending) alongside modern Israel as a imperial instrument to take over the world and all of it’s [sic] resources, including you and I… and if you have a problem with that, you’re and anti-Semite.”

Antisemitic? Clarke "assures" you that it isn't!

Challenged by users about the post, Clarke, who is the current chair of Whitham branch of Labour, and was the constituency’s prospective parliamentary candidate, repeatedly denied being anti-Semitic.

After sending the tweet, he was challenged, and replied by saying: “It would appear I am being called Antisemitic… I can assure you I am NOT”.

Probed further he said: “I agree original account probably Antisemitic. I am anti-Rothschild not Antisemitic. End of.”

He added: “Antisemite smear in constant overuse as those who use it expand their power base”, and that he objects to “Rothschild & co. against their greed, monopolistic exploitations & unchecked power.”

You know, it's strange but until today I had no real idea who the Rothschilds were historically or what they were up to today. I actually took the time to wikipedia them, and it looks like nowadays they're pretty ordinary set of quiet rich folks (if you're Clarke, sub "quiet" with "shadowy"), who just happen (for reasons entirely unconnected to antisemitism, naturally) to lie at the center of a host of outlandish conspiracy theories positing their world domination.

In any event, I learned something new. And speaking of new, here's a new permutation on the classic Livingstone Formulation:

[Clarke] concluded by saying he would block those who “accuse me of Antisemitism merely to close down legitimate criticism of Israel &/or Rothschild family. End of.

In any event, I'm sure Labour will treat this issue with all the seriousness of purpose and progressivism that it has characterized its handling of all the other antisemitism complaints that have wracked its membership.

Heads Trump Wins Tails Immigrants Lose

Donald Trump is not happy that courts have enjoined parts of his refugee ban.

Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system. People pouring in. Bad!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 5, 2017

To be sure, I don't think it is wrong for a President to express dissatisfaction with a judicial ruling. I don't even think it is wrong for a President to claim that a judicial decision will lead to bad outcomes (I do think it is wrong to impugn the basic legitimacy of the legal system, as Trump has repeatedly done from assailing the "Mexican" judge in the Trump University case to referring to the "so-called" judge who enjoined the refugee ban).

But it is worth unpacking exactly the argument Trump is setting up here. Now that his executive order has been enjoined and refugees and visa holders can enter the United States as they could before, President Trump wants us to hold the judge who issued the injunction (and the entire "court system") responsible if something bad happens. Based on past behavior, we can be pretty confident he would do this regardless of whether his EO would have kept out the perpetrator or not. The fact of a terrorist attack, in a world where Trump's EO isn't in effect, would demand that we impose such an EO.

Imagine, however, that the EO had remained in force unmolested, and we still experienced a terrorist attack. Would the lesson Trump would have us draw is "clearly, my EO wasn't effective in blocking terrorists and should be rescinded"? Of course not. In that circumstance, Trump would say "see -- this attack demonstrates why the ban on refugees and visits from these Muslim countries is essential!" (Undoubtedly, the exact phrasing would be far less comprehensible).

In other words: If the EO is not in effect and we experience a terrorist attack, that would prove we need the EO. If the EO is in effect and we experience a terrorist attack, that would ... still prove we need the EO.

(And, we might add, if the EO is in effect and we don't experience a terrorist attack, that would prove the EO is working and needs to be maintained).

The point is, there's virtually no set of facts wherein, under Trump's logic, we shouldn't be banning Muslims. The game is rigged, it's up to us not to play it.

Mandatory Swastika Recommendations

A student in Massachusetts constructed a swastika in the hall. Two teachers talked about it (one by broaching the topic of antisemitism in class, the other in private conversations with teachers and another student); a third rescinded her letter of recommendation for the student (contacting colleges to explain why).

All three teachers have now been disciplined by the school. The first two teachers received disciplinary letters, the third has been suspended from teaching.

This is outrageous. I can -- barely -- wrap my head around some discipline for the two "talkers" on student privacy grounds if (a) they mentioned the swastika-creating student by name and (b) it was not generally known that he was the perpetrator. I still would be very, very dubious, but I can see a superficially not-entirely-frivolous rationale there.

But the suspension of the teacher who rescinded her letter of recommendation is far more troubling. While we don't often talk about "academic freedom" in the context of secondary school, it does exist and this is a great example of it. A teacher's decision to recommend a student for college or a job is an exercise of their personal judgment as academics and directly puts their reputation on the line. There can be no obligation to "go to bat" for a student if the teacher has lost confidence in the qualities that triggered her recommendation in the first place. It is beyond unreasonable to mandate that a teacher continue to back a student who is either pro-Nazi himself or so negligent with respect to the sentiments of others that he just doesn't care about the hurt and offense he causes.

By and large, the story here seems to be that the school district wanted to sweep this incident under the rug and several teachers declined to assist it in doing so. And when the perpetrating student's mother called and complained, the district swung into action to ensure that his not-right to have a favorable recommendation wasn't jeopardized just because he threw up some Nazi symbolism. It's grotesque. The Boston Globe describes the case as "difficult terrain", but it wasn't all that "difficult" until neo-Nazism managed to squirm back into the mainstream.

The teachers here are unionized, and I hope they grieve the hell out of this one.

UPDATE: Yep, the union is interceding on behalf of all three teachers.

Berkeley's Partially Pregnant Protests

There's an old saying that a woman cannot be "partially pregnant". Either she is, or she isn't. I'm not sure it's impossible to have a "partially peaceful protest", but at the very least it is obvious that a few well-positioned agitators can, if they choose, subvert the peaceful desires of the majority and make a nonviolent protest violent.

When Milo's speech was announced at Berkeley, I took the boring position of agreeing with Chancellor Dirks' statement more-or-less down the line: It is true that, upon invitation by a legitimate college organization Milo had the right to speak and Berkeley had no authority to block him. It is also true that the decision by the Berkeley College Republicans to invite him speaks volumes about their character as an organization, and they can rightfully be condemned for their choice.

As many of you know, Milo's speech was eventually canceled as the protest turned violent -- apparently at the instigation of a small group of "black bloc" anarchists who were filmed attacking police, property, and bystanders. It is unclear at this point how many of this cadre are themselves Berkeley students -- they may be, but it is also the case that the East Bay has a significant "homegrown"  anarchist set which is well aware that it can get a lot more attention for its antics if it performs them on our campus. "Unclear" means "unclear": it may be that most of the violent actors were Berkeley students, it may be that virtually none of them were. But there is little controversy that most of the people protesting were not violent nor were they interested in utilizing violence. It is also very clear that the violence was not only against property; while I don't think that in of itself should matter, I have seen some smarmy posts that have ignored the interpersonal elements of the "black bloc" attacks.

It shouldn't surprise you that I am deeply opposed to the violent silencing that went on here. Yet I think it is worth unpacking exactly who was silenced here. Milo was, certainly, and that was wrong -- even though he's a repulsive little troll who never should have been invited in the first place. But it's also the case that the majority of protesters had a message they wish to express that was also violently erased. Violent protests and non-violent protests express different messages; here, the few who imposed the former subverted the speech of the latter. To act as if the former and the latter were simply one indistinct entity -- the "protest" -- is to give a violent minority an authority and authenticity they do not deserve. And to speak as if the only "victim" of the violence last night was Milo or those who wanted to hear him speak is to facilitate the very deliberate erasure that the "black bloc" -- and the right-wing media, for that matter -- wishes to impose upon the majority.

The fact of the matter is that there were three speeches scheduled at Berkeley last night. One was by a racist, misogynist, hateful right-wing troll. One was by a group of bandana-clad rabble-rousers who wanted to (in the words of their banner) "become ungovernable" through violent suppression. And one was by a community resolved to peacefully tell the first speaker that his views were not welcome at Berkeley.

The last one was the one with majority support. But the middle one was the only one we ended up hearing.

Conservatives, Ranked By Infuriatingness

Someone on Twitter wrote the other day that journalists are missing a big story regarding just how furious the Democratic base is right now at Republicans and conservatives. We often talk about the angry protesting left as being the Jill Stein remnant or obscure hippie cranks (hence how they're often dismissed by saying "oh, if only you had voted!"); but the fact is that this anger is real and palpable amongst the run-of-the-mill, institutionally-oriented Democratic voter.

That includes me. There are a lot of types of conservatives. and I'm furious with just about all of them right now, because just about all of them are -- in their own special way -- abdicating basic duties to their country with scarcely a nod to the putative principles they endorse. That said, there are gradients. So, for your cathartic pleasure, here is how I rank the different types of conservatives -- from most to least infuriating.

(1) Racist Republicans. We can debate until we're blue in the face just what proportion of Republicans are racist, or whether any person who backs Donald Trump can claim to be "anti-racist" with a straight face. But no matter how that discussion shakes out, there are clearly conservatives right now who are unquestionable bigots (and incidentally, those conservatives who are aghast that anyone would call them a bigot for voting Donald Trump would have a lot more credibility if they acknowledged this obvious fact). Steve Bannon, Steve King, and Ann Coulter, to name a few, are more or less open White Supremacists, and as such are existential threats to the American creed of equality under the law. Donald Trump was someone everyone put in this category right up until he became the Republican standard-bearer ("Much of the conservative movement has spent the last two years slowly transitioning from "it's an outrageous slander to say that a racist cartoon character like Donald Trump represents the conservative movement" to "it's an outrageous slander to say that the American conservative movement is 'racist' or 'cartoonish' just because it adopted Donald Trump as its representative.").

Honestly, the best argument for keeping this group out of the #1 slot is that "angry" might not accurately capture my sentiments. I'm "angry" at people I harbor any expectation of good behavior from. I can't even spare anger towards these people. They're nothing but an enemy that must be crushed.

(2) The Conservative "Intelligentsia". One of the more depressing facts of motivated cognition is that it is more effective in persons who are smarter and/or factually informed. They more intellectually adroit you are, the easier it is to tie yourself into pretzels to justify the unjustifiable and to equate the non-equivalent. The conservative brain trust has and continues to expend their significant intellectual firepower on ever-more convoluted apologias for the movement they're a part of and the politics that they practiced. They know better, they're generally not in office so they face no electoral pressure or backlash -- they're just that devoted to selling out. There is a special promotion (call them slot #1.5) for the subset that spends 1% of their column blandly asserting that "this isn't to say I support Trump," then demands credit for it even though literally nothing else they do attempts to block or undermine his support in any significant way. Also, anybody who responds to the latest Trump outrage by wailing "but OBAMA!!!!!!" on social media is automatically an honorary member of this group. "Honorary" because most of those people could in no way be deemed part of any "intelligentsia" -- so we'll give them slot #2.5.

(3) MINOs. Moderates in name only. A commenter on Lawyers, Guns and Money described a moderate Republican Senator as one who "talks about voting against Republicans before voting with Republicans." Amen to that. Susan Collins has made her whole career on that sleight of hand -- supporting every GOP filibuster and obstruction and policy objective while occasionally being kind of angsty about it. Nobody this side of Paul Ryan has a reputation so far removed from her actual concrete voting record, and it's disgusting. She's voting nay on DeVos, though (even as she voted in her favor in committee). If Susan Collins thinks not approving a plagiarist as Secretary of Education makes up for years upon years of being a down-the-line GOP vote, she's got another thing coming.

(4) "I Can't Believe the Leopards Ate My Face!" "I voted for you, Mr. Trump -- how could you do the horrible thing that was exactly what you said you'd do if I voted for you?" Oh really? Turns out, taking Trump literally was taking him seriously. I'll still fight to get your healthcare back, let your family back into the country, preserve your control over your own body -- whatever hobbyhorse suddenly made you realize that "I just want to a send a message to Washington" isn't the best way of choosing the leader of the free world -- but if anyone deserves to experience the full brunt of right-wing pain it's this group.

(5) The Fallen Angels. At various points throughout the last election cycle (primary and general), various conservatives went out of their way to boldly declare that they would not allow Donald Trump to subvert the basic fabric of our democratic and constitutional structure, that they would provide oversight, that they would ask tough questions, that they would ensure that checks and balances would be a reality and not a dead letter. Some of them -- back when Trump's defeat seemed inevitable -- even indicated they might not vote for them. Virtually all of them have come crawling back into his corner, and have more or less backed him to a hilt ever since. Some check. This group would rank higher if I ever had more than a fleeting belief they'd actually follow through.

(6) The Elder Statesmen. Some of the greybeards in the Senate are very concerned with tradition. With comity. With rules. With bipartisan respect. They are gravely worried at the potential flouting of norms which kept government from being simply a partisan aff-- wait, some of those rules might interfere with the right-wing agenda? Poof -- away they go (what's the over/under on the survival of a Supreme Court filibuster if Democrats try it on Gorsuch? A week?)! Now, where were we? Oh, right: "Blocking an unquestionably qualified judicial nominee simply because one does not think the current President should fill the seat would violate a Senate tradition that has been the rule for 0 consecutive years!"

(7) The Rank-and-File. Foot soldiers, mostly. Still contemptible, but at least they were consistent. Well, except with respect to ethics in government. And federalism. And limited government. And the filibuster. And belief in objective facts about reality.

(8) The Honest Resistance. I can count this group maybe on one hand, but there are people who are genuinely appalled for genuinely conservative reasons at the direction Donald Trump is taking the country. What is essential about being a member of this group is that it takes responsibility for the direction of its own party. It's not the Democrats fault, it's not Obama's fault, it's not the fault of mean protesters or silly left-wing course syllabi. If Republicans are going off the rails, that's a Republican problem that demands that Republicans take ownership over fixing it. In the short term, that's going to mean taking some serious lumps and doing things that make it harder to win elections and get even legitimate conservative policies passed. I wish them the best of luck, but I'm highly dubious of their success.

(N/R) The ones who are now Democrats. See #8. Unless you're willing to own your party, GTFO of it.

Canadian Trade School Announces, Retracts Ban on Israeli Students

The Island School of Building Arts in British Columbia rejected the application of an Israeli student who wished study woodworking at the school.

According to emails obtained by the Jerusalem Post, the school says flatly that it was "not accepting applications from Israel" "due to the conflict and illegal settlement activity." In further correspondence, a school official expressed regret but contended that "This is a question of staying in line with our moral compass, which will always be important to us. We are still inclusive and cannot support that which is not inclusive."

After the story became known, B'nai Brith Canada interceded and the school backed off with apologies. As B'nai Brith observes, it is illegal in BC to discriminate on basis of national origin.

In conclusion, the BDS movement targets institutions, not individuals.