Thought experiment: suppose a nativist or race-hate group put up flyers on every other door of a college dormitory attacking Mexico for allowing so many of its citizens to cross our southern border and take away jobs from Americans. Think there might be the usual outcry about racism and bigotry? The only question would be how fast the administration would go to DefCon1 and cancel classes for a day of healing and safe spaceouts. I’ll bet the time could be measured in nanoseconds.
And would a college administration accept the excuse that “since we put the flyers up on every other door, we weren’t targeting any racial or ethnic group”? Of course they wouldn’t.
So behold nearby the flyer from the “Students for Justice in Palestine” (just imagine what Orwell would do with this name) that appeared on every other door of the dormitories at Scripps College in California last week, which was approved by the Scripps administration.* When called on whether SJP is targeting Jewish students, they repair behind the “every-other-door-so-it’s-random” rationale, which, as I say, would not be acceptable in the case of any other nation or ethnic group.
These flyers are not unique to Scripps, of course, and show the rot of higher education that bends to the will of leftist pressure groups. I’d like to see what happens if s “Students for Trump” group tries to put flyers on every other dorm door somewhere.
The photo nearby is a bit grainy, but you can make it out if you squint (or click to embiggen). I especially like the last complaint—that Palestinians haven’t been able to get building permits on the West Bank. Sounds just like California. How about justice for low income Hispanics in California who can’t get affordable housing because of the anti-growth extremism of the white liberal elite? Reminds me of the time I remarked at a “Smart Growth” conference a few years ago in California that the “Smart” in Smart Growth clearly stands for “Send Mexicans Across the River Tomorrow.” The outrage was predictable, yet somehow no one could dispute the distributional effects of California’s land use regulations. But in any case, here’s a victim class a lot closer to home, and more deserving, than the Palestinians. Instead, I’ll just call “Students for Justice in Palestine” what they are: anti-Semitic bigots and tools.
* You may remember Scripps as the college that invited—and then disinvited—George Will to speak after he had the temerity to question the premise of “rape culture” orthodoxy. Can’t have any dissenting opinion on that.
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