For the June issue of @thenation.com, I wrote about the Harper’s letter 5 years later, and how under a quarter of its signatories have spoken out about Mahmoud Khalil and other campus activists imprisoned for speech.
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There were some principled people who signed it. That was part of the whole point—swooping up people with principles in a project led by, and mostly for, far less principled people
Can't bring myself to listen to the podcast, but here's some Bari Weiss text giving background on Khalil's arrest, which is just smears and with no full-throated defense of his free speech rights.
Like, if Bari were committed to open dialogue she'd invite a Columbia University Apartheid Divest leader and have them explain themselves, but she's a propagandist, not a free speech advocate.
The point was never about free speech. The point was that the people who signed the letter were mostly conservatives who were mad that people online dared to criticize them.
Putting aside a few well known hypocrites, I looked at the list and I have to disagree, although there are 150 signatories and no one could vouch for all of them.
The Wikipedia article is pretty good.
You basically nailed it with this line: “From the start, the speech being defended was advocating the violent, top-down defense of existing social hierarchies—which in 2025 is not the least bit abstract.”
nobody in america, outside of freaks on here, is going to vote different because one grad student at columbia got thrown in a hole forever without a trial by trump.
NOT ONE !!
When woke is dead there will still be huge numbers of people who are modest socially and sexually, who abhor violence and absolutely do not want to be famous, as there always have been. Bit players in any history. The thing is woke doesn't want to be in history.
The article notes that signatories Jeet Heer, Katha Pollitt and Zephyr Teachout have spoken out for Mahmoud Khalil and others. Pardon me if I skip Pollitt's medal ceremony. She still can't mention free speech without taking a swipe at a trans person.
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The Wikipedia article is pretty good.
NOT ONE !!
“He hadn’t ought to have did it!”
Just you wait. She's a free speech hero