An “egregious threat to bedrock principles of academic freedom.”
Now, what do you think evoked that charge? The kidnapping and gagging of a professor? No, that wasn’t it. An administrator’s cancellation of the professor’s class? No, sorry. A warning that he’d be fired unless he taught a certain point of view? Three strikes, you’re out.
It was a university president’s admission, in a private email, that he didn’t agree with a professor who characterized Israel as an illegitimate colonial enterprise and as a plausible candidate for the charge of genocide.
Really.
In the latest evidence of the brain rot that has infected many institutions of higher learning, Cornell University’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors has accused the college’s interim president, Michael I. Kotlikoff, of fomenting the aforementioned “egregious threat” by daring to take issue, in a private communication, with a professor’s in fact egregious judgment of Israel.
Not by attempting in any way to prevent the guy’s espousing his animus, merely by… disagreeing with it.
The story began on November 6, when Professor Menachem Z. Rosensaft, a lecturer in law at Ivy League schools Columbia and Cornell, wrote an email to Mr. Kotlikoff to share his feeling that a planned course at the former school was anti-Semitic and could cause violence against Israeli and Jewish students. The course, titled “Gaza, Indigeneity, Resistance,” is slated to be taught in the spring by “Indigenous Studies” Professor Eric Cheyfitz.
The course description informs readers that Professor Cheyfitz will be exploring “settler colonialism in Palestine/Israel, with a particular emphasis on the International Court of Justice finding ‘plausible’ the South African assertion of ‘genocide’ in Gaza.”
Considering that Cornell has seen threats of violence against Jewish students, anti-Israel graffiti and a professor commenting that he felt “exhilarated” by the October 7 attacks, Mr. Rosensaft’s concerns were well within the realm of reason, and so he shared them with Mr. Kotlikoff.
The latter responded by acknowledging that he “personally find[s] the course description to represent a radical, factually inaccurate, and biased view of the formation of the state of Israel and the ongoing conflict,” but defending Mr. Cheyfitz’s right to teach what he pleased, no matter how odious.
He assured Mr. Rosensaft that, while he could not infringe on academic freedom and prevent the course from being taught, he would be working with faculty to help ensure that “students interested in the history of the Middle East and Zionism will find more substantive and objective offerings.”
Separately, a reporter from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency contacted Mr. Rosensaft to get his opinion about the course offering. The professor offered his opinion and mentioned his email exchange with Mr. Kotlikoff. Then, asked to provide it, he honored the request. On November 11, the news service posted an article that included excerpts of the email exchange.
Good manners dictate that private emails shouldn’t be shared with others (especially reporters). Still, there was nothing in Mr. Kotlikoff’s communication that in any way impinged on Mr. Cheyfitz’s free speech right or academic independence.
But that didn’t prevent Risa Lieberwitz, the president of the university’s American Association of University Professors chapter, from throwing a hissy fit. In addition to the “egregious threat to academic freedom” line, which was hers, she characterized Mr. Kotlikoff’s sharing his personal opinion in a private communication as “rais[ing] the specter of administrative interference in faculty control over curricular decisions and course instruction.”
The Middle East Studies Association, an international group for academics that endorsed a boycott of Israel in 2022 and has accused it of “genocidal violence,” also jumped on the bum-steered bandwagon, denouncing Mr. Kotlikoff for infringing on academic freedom.
(Apparently unconsidered by the critics was the question of whether they would tolerate, much less defend, a course defending slavery—or making the case, say, that the Jewish people alone are the true indigenous and rightful owners of all the land between the river and the sea.)
Although Mr. Kotlikoff penned not a word about preventing Mr. Cheyfitz from promoting his objectionable views, Ms. Lieberwitz, seemingly oblivious to that fact, told Inside Higher Ed that the university president’s “weighing in about whether a faculty member’s course should be offered” could have a “chilling effect.”
There’s definitely something chilling happening here. But it’s people like Ms. Lieberwitz who are generating the shivers.
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