8mo ago

Trump likely to use antisemitism claims to launch crackdown on US universities

www.theguardian.com

Summary

US universities are bracing for funding cuts and investigations as President-elect Trump and his allies target them in their anti-“woke” campaign, using the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which conflates criticism of Israel with antisemitism, to justify crackdowns on pro-Palestine activism.

Measures include threatening federal funding, revoking accreditation, and pressuring institutions to suppress protests.

Critics warn these efforts will chill free speech, stifle academic inquiry, and escalate censorship.

Civil liberties groups and educators vow to resist these attacks on higher education and political expression.

24 comments

remember kids, a protest without the threat of escalation is no protest at all.
- Exactly, the phrase "violence is never the answer" breaks down pretty quickly when your adversary is not only okay with using violence, but opens with it.
  Passive action against violent people facilitates oppression.
  
  Violence is sometimes the answer.
They come after your neighbors then the come after you. Yesterday and today it is "anti genocide" tomorrow "anti Republican"
Democrat standing by while universities beat up students normalized Republican similar behavior and laws.
Both parties are working for a class you are not a part of it.
- You had me in the first part.
- The propaganda against universities started as early as the 1950s when the whole 'communists have overtaken academia' narrative got started. You know on how they always say 'in the past 20 or 30 years the leftists have overtaken X' is a common talking point they have? It isn't new, and neither is the timeframe. It is always within the past 20 or 30 years, always. In the early 2000s when I first got online and discovered right-wing content they were saying that, meaning the beatniks and hippies of the 1960s grew up and took over academic positions in the 70s and 80s. Now it is the 90s and 2000s that they are saying it. In the 1970s it culminated with the Kent State massacre that, at the time, was actually seen as a necessary measure that needed to be taken (this is even though most of the people killed weren't even protestors or had a history of protesting. They were bystanders who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time).
  In the 1950s they said that universities were predominantly communist since the 1920s and they needed to be purged. This is despite the fact that the early 1920s had the First Red Scare in US history that was arguably worse than the Second Red Scare of the 1950s that we are more familiar with. You know how bad the first Red Scare was? There were police officers (yes police!) who argued for some socialist values and the response from the city was to fire entire police departments in one fell swoop and replace them with entirely new people who never interacted with the fired group. I need to mention that these are the people who insist that society would collapse and people would tear each other apart like animals without police... but if they're showing any socialism? Yeah fuck em'!
  You need to remember just how static republican arguments are. They aren't new or original. They've been repeating the same shit for more than 100 years. I've seen anti-socialist bashing of Scandanvian countries predating WW1 (even before the modern Scandanvian welfare state even existed). The wording and tone were identical. Even anti-trans and drag queen arguments existed at least since the 1970s, before transgender people were known to the public. I learned this by reading the horrific Turner Diaries novel that was written at the time, where they mentioned drag queens and gay people in the exact same hateful terminology that is mentioned now.
- Good satire
Curious how they'll be using antisemitism as a justification to attack Jews.
The only antisemitism here that's happening is the State attacking anti-zionist Jews
- They've been doing it for decades, and the media is always complicit. It's like Chomsky wrote "Manufacturing Consent" specifically with Zionism in mind.
  
  I only saw the movie. Did he specifically reference Zionism?
- Its both
  
  What do you mean 'soon it will be'? It has been like that for Palestinians. And despite the complicity and even AID by Egypt and Jordan the way how Israelis talk about those countries is as if it is still 1948 and Gamal Abdel Nassir is saying he will push the Israelis into the sea.
Measures include threatening federal funding, revoking accreditation, and pressuring institutions to suppress protests.
I thought someone literally recorded a clip of UofM's Santa Ono claiming all the above for as far back as the protests started, which is why most universities already cracked down in their student body.
- Right?! I was about to say, this has already been happening now.
  The one good thing about the Trump presidency will hopefully be a bunch of people waking up to bad things that are happening only because Trump is doing it instead of Biden.
But I thought he thought antisemites were very fine people!
- he only likes nazis, not the centrists
It's like the George Carlin skit. They need people who are just educated enough to run the machinery of society but also just dumb enough to not question anything.
This appears to be a global push. Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, all of them are suddenly want to ban criticism of Israel from their universities.
Hey, just like they've already been doing!
Good thing we have those critics telling us that. Imagine if they didn't! Holy cow what a world that would be, you might end up with a fascist government!
- You obviously didn't read this and are also racist
🍿😗

24 comments