5/9/24: Glenn Greenwald Vs Ilya Shapiro On Campus Crackdowns - CounterPoints Debate

Ryan and Emily host a debate on free speech at college campus protests between Glenn Greenwald and Ilya Shapiro.

Glenn Greenwald: https://twitter.com/ggreenwald

Ilya Shapiro: https://twitter.com/ishapiro

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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the absolute world to have your support.

Speaker 4 (00:20):
But enough with that, let's get to the show.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
You are now liable to being accused of a felony
for the expression of your political views that somehow align
with the interests of a terrorist group, like hey, we
should leave the Middle East, or saying we should leave
Ukraine and that somehow is deemed pro Russian speech.

Speaker 4 (00:36):
I can't think of a graver assault on.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
The rate of pre speed than criminal and criminalizing political
activism of that sort.

Speaker 5 (00:43):
That's nonsense, And you're being disingenuous and leveling those kinds
of accusations. There's a difference between giving a speech saying
Israel is being illegitimate, they're engaged in genocide, this is
all wrong, this is bad, we shouldn't support them, and
chanting from the river to the sea Israel should be gone,
kill all the use any jew you see today, punch
them in the face.

Speaker 4 (01:02):
No playing those groups were doing that.

Speaker 6 (01:07):
Welcome to Counterpoints. We're glad to be here on a Friday,
a Thursday night. If you're a premium subscriber breaking Points
dot com, if you want to subscribe to the premium
version of the show, you get the whole thing in
your inbox Thursday nights.

Speaker 7 (01:18):
The rest of you. Happy Friday, Ryan.

Speaker 6 (01:20):
We always enjoy being here on a Friday, especially for
the subject matter that we're going to tackle today.

Speaker 8 (01:25):
Yes, indeed, and we're going to be joined by two
people debating, And first of all, we can talk about
the format first, Like you and I are moderators, but
we have opinions too, Yes, and I saw that the
audience was a little bit upset that we also were
injecting some of our own opinions. You're just gonna have
to deal with that, you mean you, yeah, yes, me.
We're moderators, but we have an opinion. So it's okay,

(01:45):
it's okay. And these are grown ups. They're going to
be able to handle it. So let's introduce these grown ups.
We have Glenn Greenwald, who is a Pulitzer prize winning journalist.
That's right, and also the host of System Update and Glenn,
where else can people fine and subscribe to your stuff?

Speaker 1 (02:04):
Yeah, we do a lot of written original journalism on Locals,
which is the sort of substack of the Roman platform,
so people can find us there as well.

Speaker 8 (02:12):
All right, right, and then Ilia Shapiros current title was
Senior Fellow and Director of Constitutional Studies at the Manhattan Institute.
Ilia and Glenn, thanks so much for joining us.

Speaker 4 (02:23):
Yeah, great to be with you guys.

Speaker 5 (02:24):
And just to be clear, at the outset of this debate,
I'm taking the pro speech pro law position, So I
don't know what that makes plain, Well.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
That's the Yeah, I'm the pro censorship, anti law, pro
crime position.

Speaker 9 (02:37):
Right.

Speaker 3 (02:37):
See, we're going to.

Speaker 6 (02:38):
Assess all of this out, yeah, exactly, because these are
some genuinely interesting questions. And to begin, we have a
video of some protests that happen at MIT recently where
students are overrunning a fence that was erected to keep
them out of an encampment. Let's roll this type again.

(03:30):
So if you were just listening to that, you were
listening to students just get rid of a fence basically
was keeping them out of an encampment at MIT. Yeah,
I saw this video because you I think you retweeted
it and the caption on the retweet was quote expel
and arrest.

Speaker 7 (03:43):
And I think this is a.

Speaker 6 (03:44):
Good place to start, actually, because it's sort of getting
into the question of how universities can tackle the question
of free speech when it comes to these protests. And
MIT was obviously in the hot seat with this right
after October seventh, when the president of MIT, Sally Kornboth,
was in that infamous can rational hearing. So Eliot, let's
start with you expel and arrest the students who tore

(04:04):
down that fence, their flesh out that point for us.

Speaker 5 (04:07):
Sure, I'm basically with Ben Sas, the president of the
Newarky of Florida, the deer Meyer, the president of Vanderbilt,
who've been putting out op eds and stating that they
are broadly protective of speech as am.

Speaker 9 (04:22):
I fully agree with that.

Speaker 5 (04:23):
But when you analyze the situation, you have to understand
that not everything is speech. That is, if you're taking
actions that break the rules, break the law, whether it's vandalism, assault,
or anything else, you don't get a pass if you're
doing it for an expressive purpose, whether that's political, artistic,
or otherwise. Then there's some speech that's simply not protected

(04:45):
death threats or incitement of violence. Pretty high bar according
to Supreme Court jurisprudence. And then there are time, place,
and manner regulations. And this is central to this debate.
So in the campus context, you can't block access to
educational facilities, you can't disrupt classes or organized student meetings

(05:06):
that have been duly reserved and things like that. You
can't harass and intimidate. There are rules about these sorts
of things. In the off campus context, the equivalent is,
even though we care about political speech, I can't go
to your neighborhood in the middle of the night and
with a bullhorn tell you exactly what I think about
Donald Trump and Joe Biden. That's disturbing the peace. So
here there are clear rules. You get to speak and

(05:28):
protest as long as you're not disrupting the event, disrupting classes,
otherwise preventing the university from achieving its educational mission. And
so these are clear law breakers. Rule breakers and actions
have consequences.

Speaker 8 (05:43):
Glenn, I don't think anybody believes that there should be
no laws, but what's your response to the claim that
these particular protesters ought to be expelled or arrested, or
in general, that the protesters need to be thoroughly cracked
down on because they broke some laws.

Speaker 1 (05:59):
I think the only way to determine the authenticity of
somebody's beliefs about free speech, defensive free speech, their interpretation
of free speech, The only way is whether they apply
standards consistently to the views that they most hate and
the views that they most like. Now, Ilia is a
fanatical supporter of Israel and the protesters, who's the crackdown

(06:22):
on whom he's defending or expressing a view and defending
a cause that he vehemently dislikes. What I think is
so important to point out is there's a historical context here.
It's not as though the crackdown on student groups began
only with these encampments. Immediately after October seventh, we began
seeing all sorts of attempts to stifle political speech, the
most extreme of which was when Ron DeSantis ordered pro

(06:45):
Palestinian groups to be shut down on all University of
Florida campuses, a move that the only real non partisan
free speech organization in the country fire dot org said
was not only a grave assault on the First Amendment
for the speed rights of pro Palestinian students, but was
such an obvious and glaring violation the First Amendment that

(07:06):
they wrote a letter to university administrators or urging them
to ignore the order by Governor Desantos. There have been
a lot of those kinds of attacks well before these
encampments arose, and of course before October seventh, one of
the most common forms of censorship on political campuses and
elsewhere were attempts to silent Jewish students. There have been

(07:27):
all pro Palestinian students. Rather, there have been professors who
have been fired for criticizing Israel. There have been student
groups whose application to exist have been denied because they're
pro Palestinian. Fire dot org has been defending these people
for a long time. So a lot of conservatives waive
the free speech banner when it comes to targeting conservative speech,

(07:50):
and I do too, I defend that speech, and yet
suddenly abandon those standards as soon as it comes to
the cause that they most love or the speech they
most hate, which is criticism of Israel. The other thing
I want to point out is, of course it's the
case that if you engage in violence, you should be arrested.

Speaker 4 (08:06):
The problem is a lot of the violence, I.

Speaker 1 (08:08):
Would even say most recently has come from pro Palestinian
counter pro israel counter protesters.

Speaker 4 (08:14):
They showed up at a camp.

Speaker 1 (08:15):
At ACLU at the UCLA and began violently hurling objects
and using tear gas and injured a bunch of pro
Palestinian protesters at the camp. There's a study that was
just released by a group that follows public crises and
safety crises that said that ninety nine percent of the
protests that have been taking place on campus have been peaceful,

(08:36):
and the one percent that wasn't was things like the
UCLA one. And you know, there are a lot of
protests that use civil disobedience. One of the protest movements
that conservatives most revere and most champion in Herald and
defended was the Trucker's protest in Canada, which was designed
to protest the Trudeau government's mandates for COVID vaccines as

(08:57):
a way to keep your job. And yet they use
civil disobedience state blow streets. They prevented ours from passing
all the time in Toronto, and yet the crackdown on
this protest was deemed tyrannical by conservatives because in that
case they agreed with the cause. So I think the
context here is important. Of course, of protesters attack Jewish students,
which has not been happening, I mean using violence, And

(09:18):
even if the ones who are blocking ingress and egress,
which I do am not comfortable with to say Okay,
you cannot do that, I'm fine with that as well.
But there has been an overall, very potent movement to
suppress and censor criticism of Israel or propalaestined speech for
a long time, and a great part of what's happening
now is a byproduct of that vision.

Speaker 6 (09:38):
So, Ilia, you've been an outspoken critic of a lot
of the crackdowns on speech on campuses towards the right
in recent years that Gunn was alluding to there, Why
are you not.

Speaker 7 (09:47):
A hypocrite in this case?

Speaker 6 (09:49):
Basically, how do you respond to the allegation that you're
a hypocrite for wanting a crackdown in these cases with
the Propalestine student protesters.

Speaker 5 (09:58):
Well, Glenn and I are in full agreement that Fire
is one of the greatest organizations in America I'm a
big fan the Foundation of Individual Rights and expression. I
spoke at their big national gala last year, and you know,
I agree with them ninety nine percent of the time.
I don't think I agree with myself one hundred percent
of the time. But fire does fantastic work, and I

(10:22):
defend speech and expression. But the rubber hits the road
of what happens when you're indeed violating the rules. And
Glen is getting at that when he's talking about starts
talking about civil disobedience. If indeed the anti Israel pro
Hamas protesters are engaged in civil disobedience, then what is that?
That's the willingness to suffer consequences, to go to jail,

(10:44):
to be expelled or disciplined, to highlight to showcase the
injustice or illegitimacy of the law or policy that they're protesting.
Think about Mahama Gandhi or Martin Luther King, the prototypical
examples of civil disobedience. It's not yelling and intimidating and

(11:04):
harassing and vandalizing. All of these sorts of aggressive actions
but I think are counterproductive even for their causes. And
this has nothing to do with whether you're a pro
Israel or anti Israel, Yeah, UCLA.

Speaker 9 (11:17):
I don't know what exactly went down.

Speaker 5 (11:19):
But to the extent that the pro Israel side was
engaged in violence, that's not good and that's not protected
speech either. So you know, I try to be principled
as much as the next guy. And we can debate
the DeSantis order about students for Justice in Palestine, which
is separate issue about organizational structure and material support for terrorism,
was the Supreme Court has held is not protected by

(11:40):
the First Amendment. But in terms of individual speech versus
violating the rules, I try to be very consistent. And
you know, those on the left who on October sixth
would have wanted to discipline those who use the wrong
pronouns or otherwise engage in microaggressions, you know, if they're hypocritical,
you know, there's no.

Speaker 9 (11:58):
Crime against that. The Americans have the right to do so.

Speaker 5 (12:01):
But again, we have to be clear about what we're
dealing with these protests, these encampments.

Speaker 9 (12:06):
If you're violating neutral rules, that's a different.

Speaker 5 (12:09):
Situation than engaging in free speech. And again, those university officials,
whatever they're underlying personal politics or viewpoints that have done
well in these situations have made clear that these are
the rules. We protect free speech, and we enforce our
rules against disruption or violence or blocking access or otherwise

(12:32):
preventing the educational institution from going about its duties.

Speaker 1 (12:36):
Can I just ask ilio question quickly if you guys
don't mind so, I mean, certainly what you said described
to civil disobedience is true. Yet we have a long
tradition of distinguishing between brave acts of wild breaking that
involve violence against people, and say, students taking over a
student building for a couple of days non violently, which
though technically is a violation of campus rules, we do

(13:00):
as the sort of crime that narrates a thousand police
officers being sent in. But if you don't recognize that
kind of distinction, and I am interested in hearing your
views of all the other censorship examples I mentioned against
Propelstinian protests.

Speaker 4 (13:14):
But let me ask you your views.

Speaker 1 (13:16):
On the Canadian protest, which again became a huge cause
celeb among conservatives, among people on the right who accused
the Trudeau government of being tyrannical, of being repressive and
authoritarian because they ended with force those protests. But those
Trucker protests which I was defending, were actually engaged in
illegal behavior. They were blocking the ability of motorists to

(13:37):
drive to work or drive back home. That was the
whole point of the trucker's protest was they occupied roads
and didn't let anyone pass. Did you support the Trudeau
government's crackdown on them on the grounds that while technically
they're violating the law by blocking traffic and therefore they
should go to prison.

Speaker 5 (13:52):
Now, even though I'm Canadian, I sort of go both
ways on the forty nine parallel.

Speaker 9 (13:56):
I'm the dualist citizen.

Speaker 5 (13:57):
I'm not fully up to speed on Canadian laws in
that circumstance. My understanding is Trudeau was criticized not for
enforcing simple rules against blocking public highways, but for invoking
an emergency act and just taking ultra varias beyond power

(14:19):
actions by the executive, by the Prime minister, whether violating federalism,
whether violating separation of powers or otherwise, and that was
where the legal concern happened. But certainly to the extent
that the truckers were, you know, blocking people's route to
work during rush hour, what have you, then those neutral
rules should should have been enforced against them, and even

(14:41):
though I did agree.

Speaker 9 (14:42):
With the justice of their overall cause.

Speaker 5 (14:44):
But the Trudeau thing was not about regular cops in action.
It was about the Prime minister cracking down, freezing bank
accounts against banking law, using emergency laws improperly, that sort
of thing.

Speaker 8 (14:56):
Elly, I feel like you might be caught in a
little bit of a contradiction here at I want to
see if I'm right about that you can, if you
can sort it out. It seems like you're saying that
the severity of the crackdown is what matters. That you
would have supported some type of civil finds or some
type of and civil in the word of like just
just gentle crackdown by police, police arrest, police arrests, police

(15:21):
arrests of the truckers because they did violate a neutral law.
But it was when he took it to the next
level and made it this emergency response that you condemn it.

Speaker 3 (15:30):
How does that square with, say, the.

Speaker 8 (15:34):
NYPD sending in this like medieval siege weaponry and like
a thousand guys to like storm their way into the library,
and compare that to say, the bastion of libertarian and
libertarian intellectualism in this country, the University of Chicago, which
put out a statement saying, look, there's an encampment on
our campus right now. Many of the people there hold

(15:55):
odious views that we find noxious. They are technically in
violation of our campus rules and regulations. However, because of
our interest in free expression here at the University of Chicago,
as long as there's no danger to public safety, we're
going to allow this encampment to continue in the furtherance

(16:17):
of free expression. So why was University of Chicago wrong there?
And am I right that you're that you're okay with
a gentle crackdown on the truckers but a brutal crackdown
on the Columbia protesters?

Speaker 3 (16:30):
And why why the distinction there?

Speaker 9 (16:32):
No, that that's putting a lot of words in my mouth,
a lot of adjectives. I try not to use adjectives.

Speaker 5 (16:38):
It's it's uh weak writing, really, But these are apples
and oranges that the trucker situation and what's going on
on campus.

Speaker 9 (16:49):
You know, different.

Speaker 5 (16:50):
Countries, different laws in play, different issues. The look, there's
a difference between a.

Speaker 9 (16:56):
Capital crime and the death penalty, and you know.

Speaker 5 (16:59):
A misdemeaner jay walking, and there are gradations in between Obviously,
different crimes deserve different punishments, or in the campus context,
certain things, you know, get you get you a reprimand
from a dean or simply a cautionary you know, conversation,
and certain things give you expelled, and everything in between.
So you have to evaluate what the exact violation is

(17:21):
and respond appropriately with due process, not just a kangaroo
court and all of that. University of Chicago, which is
my law school alma mater and sort of the gold
standard for both free speech, institutional neutrality viewpoint non discrimination
in hiring.

Speaker 9 (17:38):
That the Chicago trifecta does great things.

Speaker 5 (17:42):
It let the encamping continue for a few days and
then ultimately cleared it out as well.

Speaker 9 (17:46):
I think that happened yesterday or the day before.

Speaker 5 (17:49):
So you know a lot of alumni were calling for
Chicago to enforce their actual rules and enforce their actual
initial statement that they made sooner, but they let kind
of a conversation.

Speaker 9 (17:59):
Continue for for a few days. Whatever we can. We
can Monday morning, quarterback all day.

Speaker 5 (18:05):
But it's not about the gentleness of you know, what
kind of equipment the police use when they come in,
or how many of them are there. That's an evaluation
of police tactics and proportional force and methods and things
like that. But when you occupy buildings and vandalize and
break windows and do all sorts of things that do
disrupt the educational mission, that terrorize the workers, the working

(18:26):
class workers that are there, as we've seen reported by
the Free Press with respect to Columbia's takeover of Hamilton Hall,
that's a problem.

Speaker 9 (18:34):
Certain things are criminal violations.

Speaker 5 (18:36):
Certain things are mere violations of the university Code of Responsibilities,
which could get you expelled or suspended or some other
kind of punishment, again commensurate with the type of crime.
But this is not about gentle crackdowns versus brutal crackdowns.
It's about dealing with, you know, responding to situations as
they arise.

Speaker 9 (18:55):
And there's no right to you know.

Speaker 5 (18:58):
Unquote mostly peaceful protest or what have your, mostly peaceful
occupation of buildings and disruptions.

Speaker 9 (19:04):
Of educational missions. Colombia has now canceled their graduation ceremonies.

Speaker 5 (19:10):
They moved all of their classes online. That's not right
for all of the students who are not engaged in
all of this activism. I think Chicago's doing better Princeton,
my undergraduate alma mater, is doing better and enforcing rules
against sleeping and camping and things like that, while allowing
the protesters to actually protest in a non disruptive way.

(19:31):
So again, Ben Sass, at University of Florida, you don't
have these massive things. So there are different responses that
we're seeing in real time, differentiating what real leadership is
while protecting the freedom of speech.

Speaker 6 (19:45):
So let me kick that to Glenn, actually, because there's
something interesting in Glenn. You mentioned this earlier, and I
don't want to gloss over it that when there are violations,
it's reasonable in certain cases, and that's where I want
to kind of drill down into specifics for the university
to respond by enforcing its rules. So while we're talking
about our alma maters, my alma manter George Washington University,

(20:05):
there were some there was a leader I actually don't
know if there were a student or not chanting guillotine.
There were some students in the audience chanting guillotine in
reference to different university officials that were being put on
a sort of mock trial in the middle of the encampment.
There obviously at Columbia we saw some obvious vandalism, breaking
into the building, et cetera. So, Glenn, what is your

(20:26):
sort of where's the line for you as to what's
protected speech, what's protected civil disobedient not protected civil disobediance,
but what sort of tolerable civil disobedience? How do you
kind of categorize different things we've seen at these encampments.

Speaker 1 (20:41):
Yeah, I think it absolutely depends on the impact. Obviously,
if you have people using violence, and there have been
so many hate crimes hoaxes about trying to create this
narrative that American Jews are this new endangered and victimized group.
They can't even walk outside without being violently attacked. The
one example that's spread all over the media, and that
was promoted by Barry Weiss's Free Press, ended up being

(21:03):
a complete hoax. This Jewish Shudent who has been a
long time pro iSER activist, who claimed that she was
stabbed in the eye with a Palestinian flag. And then
when you watch the video, she was standing near the protesters,
they were just marching by her waving flags. One of
the flags just brushed up against her. She went on
TV there was nothing wrong with her eyes, she said,
the only symptoms she had was a little bit of
a headache. And yet Mike Johnson goes to the Holocaust

(21:25):
Museum yesterday and claims that Jewish students plural are now
having attacks on them violently by being stabbed in the
eye with Palestinian flags. It's like a Jesse Smollett level
of hate crimes hoax, but written large to justify these
aggressive crackdowns. We just had, you know, two weeks ago

(21:46):
the House of Representatives that passed a law that wildly
expanded the definition of anti Semitism for anti discrimination law,
and it includes a wide range of views that obviously
are constitutionally protected, such as saying that you think Israeli
crimes and war are similar to what the Nazis did,
to suggest that certain people Evangelicals or American Jews who

(22:08):
are inculcated from birth with worshiping Israel and being devoted
to it, have a greater allegiance to Israel if it's
in conflict with the United States, to even criticizing Israel
in a way that is supposedly a double standard, meaning
you criticize Israel more harshly than you do. These are
now rendered illegal under anti discrimination laws. That's a full
frontal assault on basic free speech rights in addition to

(22:31):
all the other examples that I cited, And I think
the most important thing here when we're talking about standards is,
you know, I think human beings need to be humble.

Speaker 4 (22:39):
We are not consistency machines.

Speaker 1 (22:42):
Of course, we're going to be more inclined to support
crackdowns on in censorship of the views that we most hate.
And again, Ilio, who is a free speech champion in
a lot of contacts, is somebody who is a fanatical
devotee to Israel. He really believes that Israel has to
be protacted and defended. And I think he should be
more humble about asking himself whether or not he's applying

(23:03):
standards inconsistently. Because the people who's silencing he's supporting happened
to be people whose views he most hates. I don't
think there's another cause that offends him more than this one,
namely criticizing Israel or calling for the end of Zionism.
And just to point out one example that I mean,
I know referenced earlier, a study, not social media anecdotes,

(23:23):
but a study that said ninety nine percent of campus
encampments and protests have been entirely nonviolent. One of the
examples of violence bet behind the UCLA one was a
video that surfaced yesterday where a former IDF soldier and
a professor at the University of Arizona physically menaced Muslim

(23:44):
woman by being using a posture of wanting to fight,
getting an inch away from them, having that body posture
like you're ready to hit them. The Muslim women were
covering their faces. It was very difficult to watch. That
was one of the gravest acts of actual physical intimidation
and force that I've seen of these incidents. Ilia went
on to Twitter and said the following quote. A postdoctoral
researcher at Arizona State lost his temper after being provoked

(24:09):
at a pro Israel rally over the weekend, so blaming
these Muslim women who were physically threatened and menaced, he
said it wasn't a good look, but hardly a capital offense,
with some similarities to my poorly phrased tweet, and then
it went on to defend the idea that.

Speaker 4 (24:24):
This professor, Jonathan.

Speaker 1 (24:25):
Utelman, who was really the one who used physical menacing,
should not even lose his job now if the situation
were reversed and these were muslimmen physically menacing Jewish women
in this way, I strongly believe that Ilia and many
other people would be calling that a terrorist act and
demanding their imprisonment and deportation. And so I think it is.

(24:47):
I don't think it's a matter of corruption. I just
think there are a lot of people who are indoctrinated
from birth and bombarded with propaganda.

Speaker 4 (24:54):
I noticed because I was one of them. I grew
up in American.

Speaker 1 (24:56):
Jewish culture, who are taught to defend have loyalty to
an affection for Israel above almost any other cause. And
the idea that someone's going to be so certain that
the reason they generally support free speech and yet in
this case aren't bothered by that congressional law aren't bothered
by the census is shutting down of pro Palestinian groups

(25:17):
on the really noxious theory that now material support of
terrorism doesn't mean raising funds for terrorist groups or are
arming them, but it just means speech speech that supposedly
advances their anti Israel, causing great violation of the First Amendment.
The reason why there's this obvious shifting of standards, even
of sentiments. Is because the people on the right largely

(25:39):
revere Israel and have as one of their central causes
defending Israel from criticism, and that's why they're so offended
by this protest movement.

Speaker 8 (25:46):
Yeah, Elia, take that question and just to give some
like data to what or an anecdote to what Glenn
is talking about here you tweeted recently, universities are now
well aware of s JP's material support for terrorism added
to the lawsuits strengthening Title six claims and adding others.

(26:09):
You commonly do refer to these protesters as giving material
support to terrorism, which means that you're kind of taking
it beyond like, Okay, somebody's smashed a window and is
blocking ingress and egress, so therefore they've broken these laws
and they need to be arrested. To everyone who holds
these views is materially supporting terrorism and is somehow backchannel

(26:31):
financed by terrorism, and therefore needs to be entirely cracked
down on.

Speaker 3 (26:35):
So how do you square that with your We have
to we have to.

Speaker 9 (26:41):
Be careful in our use of language.

Speaker 5 (26:43):
I mean, Glen Glenn is throwing lots of stuff on
the wall, and I'm not here to debate Israel policy
or Zionism or anything like that.

Speaker 9 (26:53):
And again there's a difference between but can.

Speaker 1 (26:57):
You acknowledge that it's a passionate cause of yours at least?

Speaker 5 (27:00):
Course is as is anti communism, as is the First Amendment,
as is a proper interpretation of the Interstate Commerce Clause,
and the importance and goodness of the US Constitution and
originalist interpretations of it. I'm, you know, a public intellectual
quote unquote who advocates for lots of things, and I'm
passionate about lots of things. But this is not about

(27:23):
the merits of Israel's cause or the demerits of those
who oppose it.

Speaker 9 (27:28):
You know, I've.

Speaker 5 (27:30):
Spoken out a lot about DEI, which, of course, you know,
I think should be ended rather than mended, because it
foments so much of this illiberalism, including the anti Semitism
that we've seen grow up on campus. But going back
to the questions here, this is not about uh uh uh,
you know, crackdown on on on on the but not

(27:52):
on me or what have you. If there were massive
encampments and demonstrations that were blocking access and violating pos
educational opportunities, in violation of Title six from the pro
Israeli side or some other side that I support, I
would be against that as well.

Speaker 9 (28:07):
I criticized you mentioned.

Speaker 5 (28:09):
That the Arizona State Professor Utelman, that was a bad judgment.
You know, again, he should be reprimanded, he should be criticized.
I don't think he should lose a job over that's
a question of gradation. Again, what's a capital offense versus
jaywalking and all the rest of it. You know, students
shouldn't be taken out and shot for engaging in these
this kind of behavior. This is all gaslighting that conflates

(28:30):
everything together. But to put it to put the conversation
back to Title six. So there's a difference between individual rights,
whether students, faculty, or non campus community members, and organizational
recognition and taxpayer support on public universities. Students for Justice
and PALIS and the National Organization has been functioning as

(28:53):
the pr agency for Hamas and other terrorist organizations as
recognized by the State Department. They are organizing supporting in
terms of finance, but otherwise organizational support of these protests,
of these encampments of the tactics. There are playbooks that
they put out on October eighth, you know, before Israel

(29:17):
went into Gaza to take advantage of the opportunity to
attack Israel, because of course they're not pro Palestinian as
much as they are anti Israeli. The goal is to
abolish Israel at all costs, even if that hurts all
the Gozzins, as we're seeing happen now. And so the
question about material support of terror isn't about the individual
student rights and to crack down or punish, or criminalize

(29:39):
or deport those with improper views. It's to disestablish the
organizations that are part of this greater superstructure, which again,
as the Supreme Court has said, is not protected by
the First Amendment. Material support of terrorism includes acting as
MOS's pr agency, and so throwing SJP chapters off campus

(29:59):
is a different question than the rights of students.

Speaker 4 (30:02):
Well, can I just interject, I'm sorry really quickly.

Speaker 1 (30:07):
One of the student groups that has been closed on
many campuses is Jewish Voices for Peace, which is a
group of Jewish students, a large group who are opposed
to what they regard as Israeli abuse of human rights
of Palestinians, that the nile of statehood. They view the
Israeli attack on Gaza as being war crimes. Do you
view Jewish Voices for Peace as not just being a

(30:29):
pr agency for Hamas but also now engaged in material
support for terrorism? And can material support for terrorism a
felony that I believe is a capital offense or at
least provides for fifty years in jail time and like
very harsh prison conditions. That's something that can be committed
solely through expressing your views. You don't have to fundraise
for terrorists, you don't have to provide arms to them.

Speaker 4 (30:48):
You just speak in a.

Speaker 1 (30:50):
Way you say like, oh, I believe that you I
should leave Afghanistan. And now suddenly you're guilty of aiding
and embedding the Taliban because you want the asked to
leave Afghanistan.

Speaker 4 (31:01):
You could be convicted of.

Speaker 1 (31:03):
A felony for aiding and material aiding in a betting
or prouding materials sport to a designated terrorist gropes. Don't
you don't you think that's a pretty grave threat to
free speech. If you can commit felony simply by expressing
your political views about geopolitical conflicts.

Speaker 5 (31:17):
Nobody, nobody should be punished for their speech.

Speaker 9 (31:20):
And that's not what the relevant statutes are doing.

Speaker 5 (31:23):
You're conflating different usage of the term materials support for
terror in the law.

Speaker 1 (31:28):
What these groups do beyond speech to be guilty of
materials and materialism.

Speaker 5 (31:33):
Again, you're gaslighting this is this is there's a difference
between the rights of the associational rights of organizations and
the rights and freedoms of individuals and what they can
be prosecuted for. The question of whether s j P
should be thrown can legitimately be thrown off campus is
a different one than whether any individual student or organizers

(31:56):
should or can.

Speaker 9 (31:56):
Be prosecuted because.

Speaker 5 (32:00):
Taxpayer funding of organizations, which includes student recognition, access to funds,
access to being able to reserve spaces, all the rights
and privileges and benefits of a student group, is different
than what should be done about an individual student who's
speaking in.

Speaker 9 (32:15):
Some particular way. I am fundamentally against.

Speaker 5 (32:19):
Disciplining, investigating students, faculty members, and others who engage in
speech unless that rises to the level of a death
threat or a excitement of violence, which is a very
high bar under Supreme portraits.

Speaker 9 (32:34):
So speech that's actually not protected by the First Amendment, we.

Speaker 6 (32:36):
Had just a fine point on that question. So if
a student is at an SJP event or hands out
an SJP flyer, your take is that is not prosecutable
material support for terrorism where it shouldn't be under the law.

Speaker 5 (32:51):
I'm not a criminal lawyer, but I don't think I
can't imagine a prosecution for handing out pamphlets unless that
pamphlet in some way, you know, incites violence or reaches
that kind of standard. But from what I've seen, I
don't think there's anyone who can be prosecuted for their
speech in.

Speaker 9 (33:08):
That kind of scenario.

Speaker 5 (33:09):
Again, the debate over s JP and the funding sources
and networks and organizations is about whether they can exist
as a corporate body on campus. And Glenn asked about
Jewish Voices for Peace. That's a fact question, as lawyers
would call it. This is why Attorney General of Virginia,
Jason Millaris, among others, are investigating the various contacts between

(33:31):
these organizations.

Speaker 1 (33:32):
And that doesn't bother you that Jewish Voice for Our
Peace are being criminally investigated. This is righting attorney generals
who love Israel. Does it bother you?

Speaker 5 (33:43):
Jewish Voices piece seems to me like the Holy Roman Empire,
and that it's neither Holy, nor Roman nor an empire.

Speaker 9 (33:49):
JBP is neither Jewish nor voices nor for.

Speaker 4 (33:51):
People cares what you think of their opinions.

Speaker 1 (33:53):
They have every right to engage in the American student
I'm not.

Speaker 9 (33:59):
Saying they should be prosecuted for their speech. I'm saying
if investigations reveal that they're part of a terrorist financing
network and organizational structure, then they should be thrown off
campus as a corporate body. This is not about the
rights of students or.

Speaker 5 (34:13):
What they're saying, or whether they should be prosecuted for that,
and stop conflating those kinds of issues.

Speaker 1 (34:18):
But first of all, they have been thrown off many campuses,
and the argument is the same theory that Rondasantis use.
If you accuse student student groups that are in favor
of the propolic ganting cause of being guilty for material
support of terrorism, which is what you have to claim
in order to justify banning them from campus. Otherwise it's

(34:38):
such an obvious violation of the First Amendment free speech
if you don't have another pretext. And that's why fire
dot org took such great offense to what DeSantis did
in other colleges as well. If you claim they're guilty
of material support for terrorism as it grounds for banning
them from campus. Obviously you're accusing them of felonies. That's
what material support. You're not allowed to give material support terrorism.

(35:01):
But now if you now expand material support for terrorism.
Ron DeSantis didn't claim these groups are raising money, you're
providing arms. He simply said their speech is what gives
support for these terrorist groups. So if you are now
liable to being accused of a felony for the expression
of your political views that somehow align with the interests
of a terrorist group, like hey, we should leave the

(35:22):
Middle East, or saying we should leave Ukraine and that
somehow is deemed pro Russian speech. I can't think of
a graver assault on the rite of free speech than
criminalizing and criminalizing political activism of that sort.

Speaker 5 (35:34):
That's nonsense, and you're being disingenuous and leveling those kinds
of accusations. There's a difference between the recognition of certain
kinds of organizations and whether they can exist on campus.
Say a chapter of the KKK or other. You know,
a chapter of Hamas Quahamas. We're the we're the Hamas
student group, and we promote terrorism. Right, So there are
rules of analysis and structures for defining what kinds of organizations,

(35:57):
particularly in public taxpayer funded institution, can or cannot exist
on campus.

Speaker 9 (36:02):
Which is a separate question that if any.

Speaker 5 (36:03):
Particular individual is doing something that rises to the level
of incitement of violence and can should be disciplined or punished.
Another way, stop putting voice words in my mouth and
trying to make me out to look like I'm trying
to punish people for speech, which I'm not.

Speaker 9 (36:19):
There is a difference.

Speaker 4 (36:20):
I described described.

Speaker 9 (36:23):
Context, I described.

Speaker 4 (36:26):
Defense.

Speaker 9 (36:27):
You finished.

Speaker 5 (36:27):
There's a difference between uh giving a speech saying Israel
is being illegitimate, They're engaged in genocide, this is all wrong,
this is bad. We shouldn't support them, and going to
a helll or a habbad house or the Center for
Jewish Life on campus and chanting from the river to
the sea Israel should be gone. Kill all the Jews,

(36:48):
any Jew you see today, punch them in the face.
There are differences between these kinds of scenarios.

Speaker 4 (36:53):
No one claim those groups were doing that. No one
claimed defantas, didn't claim those groups were doing that.

Speaker 1 (36:57):
They weren't doing that, And yet you defended Ronda san.

Speaker 5 (37:01):
Let's turn on the facts and as if those groups
do in investigations by whether DeSantis' lawyers or Mires or
anybody else. If again, these are factual investigations, These aren't
sham investigations. If the dots are connected such that the
standard for material support of terror is established, then yes

(37:21):
they should be okay.

Speaker 8 (37:23):
Job, So, Elliott, you're supportive of a criminal investigation into
Jewish Voice for piece based on suspicion raised by their speech,
and so let's turn it around. What if a pro
Palestine attorney general somewhere in the United States said that,
you know what, I've discovered some genocidal language from some
APAC donors. I've also discovered that some donors to a

(37:43):
PAC also give to violent settlers that the United States
has even sanctioned recently. So I'm launching a criminal probe
into a PAC. Would you say, hey, Look, this is
a fact based investigation. This is not an infringement on
ape's right to free expression whatsoever. Let's just see what
the investigation finds.

Speaker 5 (38:01):
Look, Attorney's general needs to meet certain standards to be
able to launch investigations, and I'm not sure if it's
a criminal investigation again, to kick an organization off campus.

Speaker 9 (38:11):
I think that's a civil investigation.

Speaker 5 (38:12):
You're not necessarily charging anyone, but regardless, to launch an investigation,
if you have probable cause to do so, or whatever
the standard is in understate.

Speaker 9 (38:21):
Law, go ahead and do so. I don't think something
like that is going to pass the smell test. It
would seem politically odd.

Speaker 5 (38:27):
But if if an attorney general wants to stick his
neck out and claim something like.

Speaker 8 (38:32):
That, yeah, I mean you're right that it won't happen.
That's not the point. It's clear it would never happen.

Speaker 6 (38:39):
So one thing I wanted to get at here. It
seems like one of the central disagreements is even over definitions,
and that's one of the central disagreements in American politics period.
So Ilia mentioned from the River to the Sea is
a huge point of disagreement, and with the time we
have left. Glenn mentioned earlier the Anty Semitism Awareness Act,
which a bunch of Republicans supported in Congress, some dissented
from it. I'm super curious to get your take on it, Ilia,

(39:01):
But I also want to ask, you know, when we're
talking about what material support for terrorism is, what we're
talking about when we're talking about how to define violent
language or language that goes against student code of conduct towards.

Speaker 7 (39:11):
Bigotry, we have and Ilia.

Speaker 6 (39:13):
You've seen how that's been wielded against conservative students, how
that's been wielded against sort of dissenters from wokeism. So
even just having and Glenn's point about this protecting, you know,
sort of free speech maximalism is so that we have
humility about when those definitions are right, when those definitions
are wrong, and how we kind of come to a
place of.

Speaker 7 (39:31):
Consensus on this.

Speaker 6 (39:32):
So using the definition and the Anti Semitism Awareness Act
a lot of Republicans that I think is like twenty
in the House, not nearly as much as it should
be flagged that and said, listen, this definition is wildly broad.
It's way too broad, such as it would implicate even
potentially Christians the New Testament, I think. Is one thing
that Tucker Carlson argued in this case. So Ilia is

(39:55):
the Anti Semitism Awareness Act is Republican support for the
Anti Semitism Awareness Act hypocritical is the definition of anti
semitism in that bill too.

Speaker 9 (40:03):
Broad, I don't think. So here's why. On the terms.

Speaker 5 (40:10):
Of the Triple A the Anti Semitism Awareness Act. It
does not expand the authority of the Secretary of Education.
It doesn't change the standards of the Department of Education,
the Office Civil Rights to investigate claims of harassment or
other actionable discrimination. And it does not change, diminish and
fringe on the rights protected under any other provisions of law.

Speaker 9 (40:33):
That is, all the Triple A.

Speaker 5 (40:36):
Does is to define anti semitism for purposes of Title
six of the Civil Rights Act, which already has for
a long time prohibited discrimination actions not speech based on race, color,
national origin, which the Department of Education of both parties
have long understood to include ancestry and ethnicity.

Speaker 9 (40:57):
So for a long.

Speaker 5 (40:58):
Time we haven't had a definition of anti semitism or
what kinds of actions might be discriminatory for being antisemitic.

Speaker 9 (41:07):
Again, actions not speech.

Speaker 5 (41:08):
And the Triple A doesn't create any new investigative authorities,
it doesn't expand powers all of that, So there's no
hypocrisy here. It's it adopts the the kind of gold
standard definition of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. Uh and
you know, the only that that has adherents from scholars

(41:31):
across the ideological spectrum that you know is against negative
perceptions of Jews, just like for purposes of racism, we
have negative perceptions of people of different races and what
have you. So the Triple A, you know, this is
a common myth that it's somehow.

Speaker 9 (41:49):
Going after anyone who speaks.

Speaker 5 (41:51):
Out against Jews or criticizes the government of Israel, or
even as you said, Tucker Carson, Tucker Carlson's absurd plane
that teaching the New Testament somehow now by violates the laws.

Speaker 9 (42:01):
That's completely wrong.

Speaker 5 (42:03):
What it does is define anti semitism for purposes of
Title six, which already makes taking actions based.

Speaker 9 (42:10):
On anti Semitism illegal.

Speaker 1 (42:14):
Can I please interject there, because I just cannot abide
that claim, which is so wildly misleading about what this
law does.

Speaker 4 (42:21):
Anti Semitism knows all about misleading claims.

Speaker 9 (42:24):
Plan.

Speaker 4 (42:25):
Okay, very good argument.

Speaker 1 (42:26):
I'm about to actually give you a substance of explanation
as to why.

Speaker 4 (42:29):
You're being misleading, not just call you that.

Speaker 1 (42:32):
The reason this law is so controversial it got seventy
no votes among Democrats, twenty one no votes among House
Republicans is because anti Semitism was already part of anti
discrimination law. What it did was it wildly expanded the
definition which came from Israel that began pressuring the West
to adopt this massively expansive view. It incorporated certain examples.

(42:52):
So let me give you the examples of what is
now deemed illegal anti discrimination for anti discrimination laws or
anti Semitism for anti discrimination from lows in places like
educational institutions. You cannot say that the crimes of the
Israeli government in war has similarities to what the Nazis did.
If you're allowed to say that about the United States.

(43:14):
You can say what the United States did in Iraq
is similar to what you just can't say it about Israel.
You are not allowed to say that particular Jewish individuals
like Ilia have such extreme devotion to Israel that they
have been instilled with since birth, that they're willing to
even sacrifice American civil liberties in defense of this foreign

(43:34):
country that they've been indoctrinated.

Speaker 4 (43:36):
To revere and protect.

Speaker 1 (43:38):
You may not agree with that assessment about someone like
Ben Shapiro or Barry Wise or Ilia, but you're now
banned from saying it as anti discrimination. You're not allowed
to say that your historical understanding of the world is
that Jews are responsible for the death of Jesus Christ.
You're not allowed to criticize Israel in a way that
is considered to be a double standard, meaning you apply

(43:58):
to Israel's standards you don't apply to other countries. You're
allowed to criticize the United States in the form of
double standard. You're allowed to criticize China or Korea, or
Argentina or Peru or Norway or any other.

Speaker 4 (44:12):
Country in the world.

Speaker 1 (44:13):
You're just not allowed to criticize Israel in a way
that seemed a double standard. This is a law that
takes a massive amount of obviously valid and constitutionally protected
opinions the ones I just went through, and many more
that are explicitly in the law, and it makes it
now an offense under anti discrimination law to express those opinions.

(44:33):
And this has been going on for so long. I mean,
it is not false. And I've posted many times the
language of the law that explicitly incorporates the examples under
this Polocaust from Memorands law, and the examples are incorporated
into federal law, every single one of them by the
explicit text of the law that was just passed those
examples are unbelievably assault of a free speech, limiting free

(44:56):
speech of the rights of American citizens to protect this
foreign country in a way that no other country, and
no other group of people other than Jews enjoys this protection.

Speaker 4 (45:04):
The other thing I.

Speaker 1 (45:05):
Would say is that, as I've said, this has been
going on for a long time. You know, when there
was this movement to get you fired from Georgetown, I
spoke up in your defense. Not because I agreed with
the views that you had expressed that were so controversial.
I absolutely did not, but because I thought it was
so endangering of academic freedom to demand the firing of
professors at faculties in the United States for opinions they
expressed because other people found them offensive. Have you ever

(45:28):
once in your life, Ilia spoke up in defense of
professors who are fired or denied tenure.

Speaker 4 (45:35):
Because of their criticism of Israel.

Speaker 1 (45:36):
People like Norman Finkelstein, who got blocked from tenure even
though the tenure committee recommended a tenure based on his
scholarship because Alan Dershow, which went on a crusade against him.
Where Steven Salasia, who had tenure at the University of Illinois,
it was revoked because in twenty fourteen he was harshly
criticizing the State of Israel for their bombing of Gaza.
Have you ever once defended a critic of Israel or

(45:57):
a pro Palestinian speaker for the free speech abridgements that
they've suffered.

Speaker 5 (46:04):
Faculty should not be punished or disciplined or investigated for
their extramural speech.

Speaker 9 (46:08):
I'll say that that's not my business. I don't work
for it.

Speaker 3 (46:11):
Why have you defended any specific.

Speaker 9 (46:14):
I've only been in this business.

Speaker 5 (46:16):
Is kind of elevated into this discourse since I had
my own incidents with Georgetown in that time. I'm not
sure what's gone on, but certainly the university professors at
Cornell and Columbia and whatnot, it have celebrated Hamas. Maybe
it's bad judgment to have hired them in the first place,
but they s shouldn't be fired now for giving a
speech to that effect. But going back to Glenn's misleading
invocations of the accurate examples that he quotes from the

(46:39):
IHR A definition of antisemitism, neither the Triple A nor
Title six, as properly interpreted, regulates, punishes, or criminalizes speech.
What it says that if you hold those kinds of
opinions and act on them in the way that discriminates
against Jews, students, faculty, or otherwise, who you admit, who

(47:00):
you huire making decisions in the context of an educational institution,
then you are acting improperly in violation of the law.
Giving a speech saying that applying a double standard to Israel,
or criticizing me or calling me fanatical or whatever does
not by itself violate any sort of law unless you're improperly,

(47:23):
unless you're one of these dei bureaucrats that wants to
impose speech codes and use intersectional hierarchies to go after people. Now,
we can have a debate about whether Title six, either
as written or as enforced, goes too far, whether the
Civil Rights Act altogether goes too far in a libertarian way,
there are valid ways to have that debate. But the

(47:45):
Triple A, the Antisemitism Awareness Act does not criminalize, punish,
or otherwise regulate speech, and if it's interpreted to do so,
I would be happy to take that case because that's
a slam dunk win for anyone who is being disciplined
for anti Semitic speak.

Speaker 6 (48:00):
So let's on this note, Glenn, take some time and
we'll do closings for Yeah.

Speaker 3 (48:07):
I've got one more question.

Speaker 8 (48:08):
Oh yeah, Iliah. And I'm sure you know this this
history pretty well. We could have spent a lot of
time talking about the world worth sit ins and other
you know, civil disobedience. But let's go back to the
nineteen thirties at Harvard. Harvard to it's great shame, as
you know, had a lot of connections to the Nazi regime.
A lot of students at Harvard found that absolutely important.

(48:30):
Nineteen thirty six, students at Harvard enacted, you know, huge
protests anti Nazi protests at Harvard.

Speaker 3 (48:37):
Those protests were red.

Speaker 8 (48:39):
Baited, as you would expect as today you have people
like yourself saying that the Jewish Voice for Peace is
actually a front for AMAS. At the time, it was like, actually,
these anti Nazi protests are just a front for the
Soviet Union.

Speaker 3 (48:50):
It's communist part of the US. Say there's communists everywhere.
Communists have infiltrated our students.

Speaker 2 (48:55):
And.

Speaker 8 (48:57):
You don't have to wonder, you know what structure you said,
you know, the structures of the organizations were attacked. There
was a McCarthy's dismantling over the coming decades. So if
you were back there in nineteen thirties, would you have
been with those protesters or would you have supported a
crackdown on those protesters saying that, look, there's a neutral law.

(49:18):
You can't hold an anti Nazi protest on Harvard's campus,
and we're going to enforce the law.

Speaker 5 (49:24):
Well, the neutral law wouldn't say an anti Nazi protest.
It would say that you can't camp, and you can't
do certain things. You can't use bullhorns to disrupt classes,
and yeah, those should be applied evenly, whether you're pro.

Speaker 9 (49:36):
Nazi or anti Nazi.

Speaker 5 (49:38):
The Woolworth protest, you're talking about the civil rights era
in the fifties and sixties. The point of those protests
was to sit peacefully at lunch counters and get arrested
and thereby make national news and expose the illegitimacy of
segregation and other racist laws. The students here at Columbia
don't want to be arrested. They complain when the police
are involved with their cause.

Speaker 9 (49:59):
Is so just?

Speaker 5 (50:00):
They should be like, look, arrest me, I want to
show the world what you know. The the illegitimate authorities
are here in enforcing their their their unjust racist whatever
laws against encampment or or what have you.

Speaker 9 (50:14):
So you know these are apples and oranges.

Speaker 6 (50:19):
So Glenn final thoughts, and then we'll go back to
you Iliot for final.

Speaker 7 (50:22):
Thoughts as well.

Speaker 1 (50:23):
Obviously on these kind of shows, people can make any
sorts of claims about what the law says or doesn't say.
And because I regard this law that was just passed
two weeks ago by the Republican House, and obviously with
the lot oft part from Democrats, but Republicans have been
waiving the ban or of free speech and the evils
of censorship for the last decade when it comes to
their own speech being targeted. Just want to make clear

(50:43):
what the law says and want people to go read it,
because it's a very short law. It expands the definition
of anti semitism by adopting the ihra A definition, and
it specifically says this new definition quote includes the contemporary
examples of anti semitism identified in the ii ihr A definition.
If you then go look at the examples of the

(51:05):
ihr A definition of what constitutes anti semitism for anti
discrimination law, it says you cannot accuse Jewish citizens of
having more loyalty toward Israel than to their own country.
You're allowed to say Catholics have more loyalty to the
Pope than they do the United States.

Speaker 4 (51:24):
You're allowed to say the.

Speaker 1 (51:24):
Irish have more loyalty to their or country of origin,
or Indian Americans do, or Evangelicals have more loyalty.

Speaker 4 (51:31):
You just can't say it about American Jews.

Speaker 1 (51:33):
You're not allowed to deny the right of the state
of Israel to exist. You can say America was founded correctly,
the UK was founded correctly, they shouldn't exist.

Speaker 4 (51:40):
You just can't say that about Israel.

Speaker 1 (51:41):
You're not allowed to criticize Israel in a way that
applies a double standard or a difference of criteria to
the way you criticize other countries. You can have all
a party all day criticizing your own government in the US, Canada, whatever,
in a way that's a double just not Israel. You're
not allowed to say that Jews you believe historically either
killed Jesus or responsible for his death, even though many

(52:03):
Christians have long believed that and been taught that that
is now formally anti Semitism under the law and You're
not allowed to effectuate any comparison between the acts of
the Israeli government and what the Nazis did, even if
you believe they're completely similar. And again, you can compare
Nazis to any other country, including your own, just not
to Israel. That is what the law explicitly incorporates as

(52:24):
formally illegal speech for purposes of anti discrimination law, for
which you can be sued or otherwise punished. That is
what the law says. I hope people go read it.
I just read directly from it.

Speaker 4 (52:33):
Now.

Speaker 1 (52:34):
The other point that I want to make is the
hypocrisy of the American right is that they are very
vocal when it comes to things like speech codes or
victimization narratives or safetyism narratives. Every single minority group, black
people and Latinos and women and immigrants and Muslims and
trans people who have used these narratives, Oh, we're very

(52:54):
vulnerable in the United States. We're endangered, we're victimized. Hate
speech incites violence against us. Therefore we need speed protections.
Every single conservative I know has viciously mocked that narrative
for the last ten years. Because these are coming from
minority groups that they don't really care about now though,
that exact same narrative. American Jews are this unique victim

(53:15):
group in the United States. They're being uniquely endangered. They
don't feel safe on campus because they're passing by slogans
that they feel threatened by or uncomfortable by. That now
they need speech codes on campus and to be able
to prohibit certain slogans like from the River to the
Sea because it makes Jewish students feel uncomfortable.

Speaker 4 (53:34):
Words are violence.

Speaker 1 (53:36):
All of these narratives that the right has heaped scorn
on forever are now being enthusiastically embraced in the name
of protecting the one minority group to whom they feel
a certain kind of loyalty. The hypocrisy is nauseating. It
is so suffocating. And the bigger problem is that this
is a long time effort now in the United States
to target israel critics and pro Palestinian activists with the

(53:58):
kind of censorship that when it's directed at the American right.
As an actual free speech advocate, I object to, I
object in all cases. The problem is so many conservatives
exempt the one cause they care about most, which is
devotion to Israel, not allowing Israel to be subject to
criticism or have activism against it, and they want to
use all these narratives and use all this censorship.

Speaker 4 (54:18):
And it's been going on way before since October seven.

Speaker 7 (54:21):
Fun word to you, Elia.

Speaker 5 (54:27):
Glenn's quoting of the Anti Semitism Awareness Act and its
incorporation of the definition by the IRA.

Speaker 9 (54:34):
Are absolutely accurate.

Speaker 5 (54:37):
Where Glenn is inaccurate is that he says that that
kind of speech is now being punished.

Speaker 9 (54:46):
The Triple A does not create any new causes of action.

Speaker 5 (54:50):
It does not regulate speech or do anything with those
new definitions. Again, the gold standard, the widely accepted standard
of antisemitism, other than apply them to Title six, and
for purposes of Title six, speech is not regulated or

(55:10):
criminalized or punished in any way. Again, any university administrators
that have in the past used invoke Title speech Title
six to punish speech are acting improperly.

Speaker 9 (55:21):
And I have defended those.

Speaker 5 (55:23):
Who, in all sorts of contexts, are the targets of
those kinds of which hunts. So again, you can be
as antisemitic as you want in your speech and expression.
Where Title six is being violated is where universities take
negative actions against someone based on antisemitism as defined in

(55:44):
the ways that Glenn said.

Speaker 9 (55:45):
So if someone doesn't admit a Jewish.

Speaker 5 (55:49):
Student, or punishes a Jewish student, or takes an adverse
action against faculty because they think Jews kill Jesus, and
that person is a Jew, that's evidence of antisemity motivation
for that action, not because that person has said something
or been part of a rally or anything else.

Speaker 9 (56:09):
That's a fine distinction.

Speaker 5 (56:11):
Perhaps, But again this all goes to Title six, and
we can debate the Title six as it's laid out
in theory or in practice, but there's no new causes
of action, no new regulation or punishment for speech under
this legislation to the extent that it's going to be used.
If it takes force in a way to punish speech,
I would be very much against that because again you

(56:32):
have to remember there is a difference between speech and action.
Certain kinds of speech, death threats, incitement of violence is
not protected, and then time, place, and manner regulation. So look,
there's a reason why the pro Israeli other than perhaps
that UCLA incident, which again we don't know what exactly
went on, but pro Israel demonstrations tend to have American flags,

(56:54):
it's singing, it's joyous. There's no intimidation, there's no harassment,
there's no attacks on America and the West. Whereas the
intersectional pro hamas pro terrorists uh uh uh you know,
intersectional left uh groups and campments that we've seen are intimidating,
are harassing, are uh willing to break the rules because

(57:16):
they don't believe that they're bound by the rules because
of the righteousness of their cause. And yet they're not
willing to suffer the slings and arrows of of civil
disobedience punishment to showcase those rules, because I guess they know.

Speaker 9 (57:30):
That most people are not going to be in their corners.

Speaker 5 (57:33):
So I remain as staunch an advocate of free speech,
possibly more uh than than Blen and I reject the
label of I reject the label of of of either hypocrisy,
which is which is not a crime. Uh but I
but I do think that the de I structures and
the University of leaderships need to be fundamentally reformed so

(57:54):
that we can all go on to enjoy uh you know,
students can enjoy their their their educations rather than be
disrupted by these illiberal protesters regardless of the underlying merits
of their expression, which should be protected.

Speaker 8 (58:10):
All right, But the claim that you're making that the
it's actually the campus protests that are harassing and violent
is contradicted by the study that Glenn mentioned and also
by all, well.

Speaker 5 (58:22):
How do you count something that's mostly peaceful as the
number of people who we will know?

Speaker 9 (58:26):
I mean, I don't think it's not at all that. No,
I mean we you know, who are you going to
believe near your lying eyes? Right?

Speaker 5 (58:32):
It's we all see what's going on at these things,
and how they're disrupting the educational missions of the universities.
How Columbia decided to take all their classes online. Several
schools have now canceled their graduation.

Speaker 9 (58:43):
That's not normal.

Speaker 5 (58:44):
The intimidation and harassment that we're seeing is not normal
and and and should be investigated and punished.

Speaker 3 (58:50):
You can walk around all these encampments.

Speaker 8 (58:52):
Columbia canceling its graduation because it couldn't handle the encampment.
It's a different thing than like them being forced to
And there are huge.

Speaker 4 (59:02):
Numbers of Jews inside these encampments.

Speaker 1 (59:03):
There are anti semitism exhibits about the evils of anti
semitism right in the encampment in Colombia. They celebrated Passover
dinner together. There are Jews, huge presence of Jews inside
these protest movements on almost every campus.

Speaker 5 (59:18):
There are fellow traveler idiots in any organism. There are
fellow travelers and useful idiots in any organization.

Speaker 8 (59:26):
Well, we'll also link to Glenn's article about the Anti
Semitism Amendment whatever that act was.

Speaker 3 (59:32):
Called the Triple A.

Speaker 8 (59:34):
So people can decide for themselves if Congress just expanded
the definition for just no reason and it'll have no effect,
or whether expanding it had a purpose.

Speaker 7 (59:42):
And we'll see what happens in the Senate.

Speaker 6 (59:44):
Elia Shapiro and Glenn Greenwald, Thank you both really appreciate
this debate. I know that we're all eager to sort
this stuff out, so thank you both for being willing
to have the conversation. Ryan, I loved that debate. Actually,
it's kind of the debate that we were all waiting for.
I feel like I haven't seen those two sides represented
so well.

Speaker 3 (01:00:04):
Who won?

Speaker 6 (01:00:05):
Well, it's again, this is gonna be like last week, right,
like it's not a pylon because I genuinely think there's
nuance to Ilia's side I was surprised that he supported
the Triple A bill, you know what I mean, like,
that's I think that's an incredibly tough sell from a
free speech proponent.

Speaker 7 (01:00:22):
I was actually surprised by that.

Speaker 8 (01:00:24):
Right, it's certainly not free speech absolutism, right, even if
you take his claim at complete face value that these
definitions are only being used in furtherance of some type
of quote unquote prosecution against a student who has also
done some other things. You know, those other things could

(01:00:44):
be protesting at an encampment, and it is an expandon
It is using speech within the framework of punishing someone
even if you were even if he even if you
take him one hundred percent of phase value, and saying
that it alone is not enough that you need something extra.
The fact that speech can be that something extra is

(01:01:05):
not something that a free speech proponent could support.

Speaker 7 (01:01:08):
I was looking forward to this.

Speaker 6 (01:01:10):
So a couple of weeks ago, I was on Megan
Kelly and Meghan and Ellianna Johnson. We were playing clips
of I want to say it was Columbia, and it
was like after the Alcasom's next Target thing had happened,
and there were some really legitimate examples of obvious bigotry
and or incitement that was happening around the campus protests.

(01:01:30):
And then we interviewed Sofia SOUTHI student just like two
days later, a student who was practicing just peaceful civil
disobedience at the Colombian campment, a Jewish student by the way,
and we asked her about some of the specific exact
examples that I had been talking about the other day.
And I think, you know, Glenn is absolutely right, there's

(01:01:50):
this weird conflation. It's not weird at all, predictable conflation
of the actual bigotry and incitement with some of the
peaceful protests, and that's really dangerous. And we've talked about why,
and Safia SOUTHI shared some of the same frustrations that, like,
it's not easy to you were talking about the red baiting.
That's not easy for people who want to legitimately participate

(01:02:12):
in civil disobeyity.

Speaker 8 (01:02:13):
Were there some student communists who participated in the anti
Nazi demonstrations on Harvest campus in nineteen thirty six, of
course that's you.

Speaker 3 (01:02:20):
There was good for them, of course, yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:02:23):
And so I actually do think one of the reasons
I was looking forward to this debate is that the
nuance here is really really difficult for the legacy press
to address appropriately. And those two were I think, like
great representatives of their side. I think, you know, even
as someone on the right, I think that goes wildly
too far to support the triple A bill when you

(01:02:43):
even have Republicans talking.

Speaker 7 (01:02:47):
I've heard this just through my own.

Speaker 6 (01:02:48):
Reporting, pretty mainstream conservative Republicans uncomfortable with the language and
that bill and working in the background on the Senate
side right now to tweak it.

Speaker 7 (01:02:58):
I actually heard that from Soursus yesterday. So there you go.
I mean, when you have that, I mean that's rough.

Speaker 3 (01:03:04):
Hopefully hopefully they're not talking to Ilia. It's fine. Just
just let that, just let that roll.

Speaker 8 (01:03:11):
But I think you can dumb down the argument to say, look,
if you commit civil disobedience, you can you break the law.
You get arrested like that's and in some ways, like
in the World War example, that is the purpose of
getting arrested. You're trying to expose the law. But there
are there are degrees at work here. An intense crackdown

(01:03:34):
followed by attempts to kind of expel and imprison students
is different than say, hey, everybody who wants to get it.
This is how protests often work. If you're if you're
committing civil disabedience and you want to get arrested, come here,
form a line over here.

Speaker 3 (01:03:50):
If you don't, this is your opportunity to go.

Speaker 9 (01:03:52):
Now.

Speaker 8 (01:03:52):
Anybody who doesn't leave, we will assume that you're you
want to be protested.

Speaker 3 (01:03:56):
They get, they get they.

Speaker 8 (01:03:58):
Get jailed, they get a little fine, They in court,
sometimes they play the pine, sometimes spend the night. That
is different than some of the more violent crackdowns slamming
professor's heads into the sidewalk that are intended to suppress
the content of the expression that you're seeing.

Speaker 3 (01:04:19):
And I think it's impossible to.

Speaker 8 (01:04:20):
Divorce people's attitudes about this from the actual content of
these of these protests.

Speaker 6 (01:04:27):
It was also very helpful that Glenn said right off
the bat, people who are engaged in violence. I don't
want to put words in his mouth because I don't
remember precisely how he phrased it, but people who are
engaged in like actual you know, non protected speech and
speech that we can all you know, say is like
incitement or whatever, you know, they should be punished. There
should be consequences. If you're like egregiously violating, you know,

(01:04:50):
some of these some of these very obvious examples. I
thought it was helpful that Glenn established that right off
the bat, because yeah, nobody here is saying that there
have been like these protests have been perfect. And on
the other hand, though, I think I shouldn't say nobody
has been saying that, because I think there have been
some people on the left who have acted.

Speaker 7 (01:05:07):
Like, oh yeah, nothing, like everything is absolutely perfect.

Speaker 6 (01:05:10):
Any criticism of this is tantamount to.

Speaker 3 (01:05:14):
Objectively supporting the other side, which I understand.

Speaker 7 (01:05:16):
Right, right, or like saying yeah, it's.

Speaker 3 (01:05:19):
Yes, giving sucker to the genocide, right.

Speaker 6 (01:05:22):
Which is a very heavy accusation too. So I was
just really pleased with how well I think they both
represented their respective sides. Obviously, I think both of us
agree with Glenn Moore at the end of the day.

Speaker 3 (01:05:33):
Yeah, I think.

Speaker 6 (01:05:34):
So it's been friend to do this on Friday. So far,
we're three weeks in. I hope everybody's enjoying the show.
Breakingpoints dot com to subscribe. If you're a subscriber, you
get this on Thursday night, so you get a little early.

Speaker 3 (01:05:44):
We will see you guys on Wednesday