To the Editor:
Re “3 University Presidents Criticized for Remarks on Antisemitism” (news article, Dec. 7):
The presidents of Harvard, Penn and M.I.T. all failed in their congressional testimony to state unequivocally that calling for the genocide of Jews would violate their campus policies, instead stating limply that it would depend on the “context.” Several legal scholars seem to agree that “context” is part of the balancing act for free speech.
As an American Jew holding two degrees from Harvard (one from Harvard Law School), I disagree vehemently that “context” matters. The clear exception to “free speech” has always been falsely calling “Fire!” in a crowded theater, for its propensity to result in harm to a panicked audience.
The same spirit holds true in calling for genocide of any people, for its propensity to result in harm to others. One need not wait for that harm (or in this case, mass death) to occur in order to curtail such hateful, dangerous speech.
And while universities should encourage debate, even over contentious issues, the constitutional right to free speech involves only government constraint. A private university is free to establish its own guidelines for what constitutes acceptable debate, and calling for genocide is clearly not acceptable — as all three presidents could easily have said immediately without legal contortions.
James Berkman
Boston
To the Editor:
Let’s be clear: The presidents of Harvard, M.I.T. and Penn never said that calls for genocide against the Jewish community aren’t despicable. But they weren’t asked to weigh their objectionability; they were asked whether such speech would — or should — subject the speaker to disciplinary action. Those are different questions, the latter of which necessitates a more nuanced answer.
Free speech doesn’t exist only for speech with which you agree, and if it doesn’t cross the bright legal line into literally targeting individuals or inciting violence, punishing it is problematic.
So yes, as Harvard’s president, Claudine Gay, rightly said, context matters as it relates to discipline. But that doesn’t mean there is any ambiguity, any argument, that calls for genocide against Jews aren’t both bigoted and deeply disturbing. They surely are.
Tom Templeton
Clifton Park, N.Y.
To the Editor:
This shouldn’t be a difficult question. Calling for the genocide of Jews not only should violate the code of conduct at any college, it also violates the code of human conduct, period. Any student, teacher or administrator who calls for genocide of Jews, or of any other group, should be immediately expelled. There is no “context” to consider.
The pathetic congressional performances of the presidents of Harvard, M.I.T. and Penn who repeatedly danced around this question while trying not to offend their liberal pro-Palestinian bases was appalling. What total moral bankruptcy these so-called leaders showed.
Mark Godburn
Norfolk, Conn.
Rape of Israeli Women
To the Editor:
Re “An Appalling Silence for Israeli Rape Victims,” by Bret Stephens (column, Dec. 6):
Mr. Stephens has expressed what so many of us feminists have experienced: a refusal even to listen on the part of women who otherwise deplore violence against women.
Mine was during a conversation with a friend whose anti-domestic-violence group I have supported for 17 years. When I tried to bring up the horrific assaults on Israeli women, my so-called friend said, “I’m hanging up now.”
The feelings of grief and abandonment will never leave me, and I can no longer support this group or Columbia University, whose president also ignored my many emails concerning safety for Jewish students.
Jews in America now know that we have very few friends. This sense of loss will never leave us.
Barbara Barran
Brooklyn
Archie Bunker, an Ignored Warning Sign
To the Editor:
Re “Norman Lear, 1922-2023: TV Visionary Jolted America’s Conscience With ‘All in the Family’” (obituary, front page, Dec. 7):
My aunt Ruth Carter worked as Norman Lear’s assistant in the early days of Tandem Productions and later — when “All in the Family” was in its prime — answered Archie Bunker’s fan mail. She was stunned that Archie’s fans saw him not as a figure of ridicule but as a conduit for all the resentments they felt about a fast-changing, more diverse and egalitarian society.
In the 1970s, he embodied Richard Nixon’s “silent majority”; today he’d surely be part of Donald Trump’s MAGA cult.
It’s a pity that progressives didn’t treat Archie Bunker as the warning sign he was. We might have spared ourselves a lot of grief.
Ken Peterson
Monterey, Calif.
A Shortage of Air Traffic Controllers
To the Editor:
Re “Control Tower Vacancies Compromising Air Safety” (front page, Dec. 3):
I read with alarm your article describing in sometimes harrowing terms the continuing shortage of air traffic controllers across the country — a problem felt acutely in New York, where it has resulted in flight delays.
There has recently been a major hopeful development that could ease this problem, but many questions have yet to be answered.
In mid-November, the Federal Aviation Agency announced plans to create a model to allow higher education institutions that focus on aviation to provide training now available at its academy in Oklahoma City, so their graduates can go straight to working at air traffic facilities. They would still need to pass the necessary tests. This could ease the bottleneck, though it obviously raises questions of its own.
But the F.A.A. has yet to release details of how this direct hiring proposal would work, so aviation educators play a waiting game.
Despite the frightening stories of overworked air traffic controllers in the article, these are fascinating and well-compensated jobs when well managed. They require smarts and concentration and are never dull. And they allow kids from financially challenged backgrounds to join the middle class and stay there for the rest of their lives. (At my college, students can’t wait to get into the virtual air traffic room to bring in passenger jets, guide them around the field and virtually send them back aloft.)
What a double win this creative move by the F.A.A. could be — an opportunity to close the wealth gap for those who have not traditionally had access, and faster relief for current controllers who want to get back to loving their careers, and need new colleagues to do so.
Sharon DeVivo
Queens
The writer is president of Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology.
Failure in Darfur
To the Editor:
Re “The War the World Forgot,” by Alex de Waal and Abdul Mohammed (Opinion guest essay, nytimes.com, Dec. 4):
We are seeing the complete failure of international organizations on full display in Darfur and the rest of Sudan, just as it was in Ethiopia.
President Biden is not the emperor of the world and cannot give unilateral orders to sovereign states that should know their own responsibility and international organizations that sit on their hands and look for somebody to blame.
It’s long past time for the United Nations, the African Union and all their members to see their responsibility and act in their own interest.
Bruce Williams
Chicago
