More Speech That University Administrators and the Student Government Are Supposed to “Dealt With Swiftly and Effectively”

Here’s another London School of Economics Students’ Union resolution:

Union believes …
3. Anti-Semitism includes but is not limited to:
* Denying, trivializing and misconstruing the Nazi Holocaust. This includes denying the fact, scope, method, or motivation for the genocide of 6 million Jews at the hands of the National Socialist regime. It also includes the accusation that Jews or the state of Israel have fabricated, cause or over-exaggerated the Holocaust.
* Calling for, aiding or justifying the killing or harming of Jews for the sake of their Jewish religion, ethnicity or identity.
* Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such. This includes accusations of Jewish control of the world, government, media, as well as blaming Jews for imagined and real atrocities.
* Questioning the loyalty of Jews to their nation of citizenship simply on the basis of their Jewish identity. This includes claims that Jews as a collective or a community subvert or mislead the general population, as well as the claim that Jews are more loyal to the state of Israel than their country of citizenship.
* Claiming that Jews do not have the same rights as any other ethnic group. This includes the right to free speech, free practice of religion, free use of native languages (i.e. Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino, etc.) and self-determination.
* Equating Jews or maliciously equating Jewish Foundations of the state of Israel with the Nazi Regime. This includes, but is not limited to equating Zionism with Nazism and claiming that ‘History is repeating itself’ with regards to the Nazi Holocaust and the state of Israel. This also includes using Jewish symbols and religious imagery alongside Nazi symbols and imagery. This does not necessarily include analogies between historical events.
* Using Jewish symbols to antagonize, harass, and intimidate Jewish students.
4. Legitimate criticism of the Israeli government and its actions are not inherently anti-Semitic.

Union resolves …
2. To ensure all anti-Semitic incidents aimed at or perpetrated by LSE students either verbal, physical or online are dealt with swiftly and effectively in conjunction with the school and, if appropriate or requested by the victim, the Metropolitan Police.

Now apparently LSE students are supposed to be “dealt with swiftly and effectively” for analogizing Israeli conduct to the Holocaust, or claiming that Israel shouldn’t exist (since I take it that this would be seen as denying Jews’ “self-determination”), “blaming Jews for imagined and real atrocities,” “using Jewish symbols to antagonize … Jewish students,” or claiming that Jews are generally more loyal to Israel than to their country of citizenship. As it happens, I think that such speech is generally bunk. But the point of Western universities, it seems to me, is to be places where bunk can be debunked — not “dealt with swiftly and effectively” through administrative sanctions (or, “if appropriate or requested by the victim,” by the police), including when it isn’t even said in university programs but “online” “by LSE students.”

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