Seth Masket: Hardly the first evidence of this but Columbia has gone completely ‘round the bend. They put three deans on suspension because some creep from the Free Beacon looked over their shoulders and saw them writing snarky texts?!? You do not take orders from these people!

Hardly the first evidence of this but Columbia has gone completely ‘round the bend. They put three deans on suspension because some creep from the Free Beacon looked over their shoulders and saw them writing snarky texts?!? You do not take orders from these people!

Imperfect analogy, but: If the Klan wrote to complain about a Black professor under my supervision, is there a chance the complaint is true? Sure. Am I going to act on it? Not on your life.

So Columbia is violently converting itself into a less prestigious satellite campus of PragerU then. I hope students and parents adjust plans accordingly.

Rude

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"I'm trying to keep an open mind and learn about this point of view" is quite literally the mindset that we ask of our students in the classroom. How is that even remotely problematic?

Yes but in fairness every time I’ve texted that phrase it’s been snarky

Yeah the words are the right words but every time I've said them the real meaning has been "this is tremendously and obviously stupid and wrong in every way, but for professional or politeness reasons I must endure it" lol

I guess I am generally more aggressive/careless because there’s no way I’m adding that latter part rather than being blunt in a private text message if my goal is complaining.

And the vomit emojis(?)

wasn’t that in a different text?

It's time that we reformed higher ed starting with a mass purge of administration and a redistribution of funds towards academic staff. Except for business departments, they can go get fucked.

They should earn their money. Start a lemonade stand to fund the department.

They get plenty of money from corporations and right wing thinktanks

Snarky text is my love language.

Academic honesty and diversity of thought.

I have been sideeyeing Columbia since the 90s when I discovered they were pumping out the dumbest fucking graduates I had ever encountered.

I honestly think you guys have this exactly wrong. Mocking or dismissing antisemitism on their campus isn't benign and it isn't okay imo. The article I'm linking to is from, yes, the NY Post . But that doesn't make the reporting in it untrue. nypost.com/2024/06/21/u...

Three Columbia deans placed on leave over disparaging text exchange...nypost.com Three deans at Columbia University have been put on leave after sending hostile text messages, including a vomiting face emoji, during a panel discussion about antisemitism at a recent alumni event.

And even if a conservative rag is the one who got hold of the messages, these people still sent the messages, which is on them.

This is literally the definition of outside agitators. These are people spying on deans, recording their private communications, and then bullying the schools into firing them. You give into them and it only gets worse.

Yeah I can see that argument, but it doesn't erase the problematic nature, to say the least, of the messages themselves.

Those texts are milder than about 95% of the texts on my phone.

I highly doubt the texts on your phone are referencing experiences of antisemitism though.

Some are!

I'm sorry, you think "difficult to listen to but I'm trying to keep an open mind to appreciate this point of view" (or whatever the anodyne was) is unacceptable? what *are* they allowed to text? keep in mind that even the free beac acknowledges they don't know what the context was

Anti-Zionism isn't anti-semitism, no matter how much Zionists try to play the victim card here, it isn't working anymore.

Rude

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You realize that many of those very same evangelical Christians are also Zionists, right? Just as many Jews are against the apartheid state of Israel.

Rude

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I don't see those messages as mocking or dismissing antisemitism. They seem to question the motivations of some panelists, and some of the assertions made. The comment about the rabbi was in reference to an op-ed where he absurdly claimed that protestors believe that "dead Jews don’t matter".

I didn't read the rabbi's comments, but if he said that, I don't really disagree, tbh

It was this op-ed, which attributes the most extreme positions to the entire protest movement in an effort to discredit it. He's also the rabbi who advised Jewish students to go home because the school and police supposedly couldn't guarantee their safety. So sounding the alarm, or being alarmist?

Sounding the alarmwww.columbiaspectator.com <i>Editor’s Note: This op-ed deals with topics of violence and antisemitism.</i>

I don't think it was being alarmist at all, at that time, to be concerned for Jewish students' safety. not at all.

Concern for safety is one thing, but adding to unfounded one-sided hysteria is another. Where is the opposition to anti-Arab and Islamophobic sentiment? Why focus on the fears of some students and not others? And why take away from the main issue, which is the actual slaughter of innocent people?

They weren't mocking antisemitism. They were mocking the idea that being opposed to genocide is antisemitic. Which is still irrelevant, since Columbia shouldn't be taking marching orders from the Free Beacon.

Having read this guy's responses I don't think there's a point in you trying to make this distinction.

Probably not, but some things ought to be said, even if they otherwise do no good.

I encourage you to read Rabbi Hain's op-ed that they found so revolting:

Sounding the alarmwww.columbiaspectator.com <i>Editor’s Note: This op-ed deals with topics of violence and antisemitism.</i>

I plan to

Especially because they were in charge of student safety and things like that! Obviously no Zionist student would feel safe there.

No Jewish student would feel safe there unless they joined the mob, assuming they were allowed to. And no student being interrogated as to their Jewish nature or sympathies would feel safe. And no student would BE safe as long as mob rule was permitted.

I still can't get over what happened on that New York subway. (Anyone who doesn't know what I am talking about can look it up.)

I don't think we are supposed to get over such monstrous evil. I think we must declare implacable war against it.

Dude with a Hezbollah t-shirt and a keffiyeh wrapped around his head for “health reasons.” 👀 He’s just a slumming trustafarian who is a full grown adult who lives at home with his parents. 🤣

Christopher Husary: Tough-Talking Terror Supporter Who Lives at Home With Mommy & Daddywww.israellycool.com Over a week ago, a Jewish commuter on his way back from the Nova exhibit was harassed by a masked terror supporter on a NYC subway train.

there is no universe where those texts are remotely the way you described them. Calling out bad faith behavior is something we should encourage, not punish.

That's not what they were mocking. Bowing to the Israel lobby on speech crackdowns is not "combating antisemitism" and why are they getting into the business of opinion control in the first place?

"Thr Free Beacon and the NY Post are all over this but it doesn't mean-" Yes it does

I've heard many variations on "xo-and-so sucks, so I feel entitled to dismiss out of hand everything they say" and it seldom comes from people who are defending a strong position. Far more often, it's an attempt to slap a veneer of respectability on mere tribalism.