Blood Libel at MIT

Whose hearing?

By and
71

Sarah and David react to Robert Hur’s congressional testimony, but first Sarah responds to a recent article that claimed she was assisting Hur in his testimony (and thanks the loyal listeners who came to her defense).

The Agenda:
—David’s thoughts on the Hur hearings
—Lessons in media training
—Differences between the Trump and Biden documents cases
—Partisanship making people awful
—Complaint by Jewish students at MIT
—Blood libel at MIT
—Free speech or no speech on campus?
—Positive racial discrimination?
—The end of judge shopping

Show Notes:
—President Reagan, Mastermind – SNL
—UC Berkeley Jewish students successfully march without confrontation

By and
Comments (71)
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  1. Tommaj60

    When parents stop sending their children to these broken, morally corrupt institutions maybe there will be a change in direction and ideology.
    There’s no incentive for them to change.

    Re: Biden
    I’m guessing our average age in the US means the vast majority of the population knows someone in or who suffered from and died from mental decline —- Alzheimer’s or dementia.
    I for one don’t need talking heads, White House’s lap dogs, or Mr Hur’s testimony to see for myself Pres Biden is suffering from mental decline.
    We recognize his walk from what we saw in our parents or grandparents. You can see him searching his CPU for words, thoughts, ideas just as our Uncle or Aunt did. His eyes are vacant.

    Stop commenting on the what ifs. He’s old, vacuous, feeble. Period. He ought not to be allowed to run his house much less the country.

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  2. Bourgeois Jennifer

    Sarah’s homework situation mimicked mine in the late ‘80’s. In 9th grade honors English, our teacher arranged seating by academic grades. Students with the highest grade sat in the back corner, with grades descending along the rows down to the front opposite corner. Having been physically bullied at my last school, I asked for a seat with my back protected by the wall, rather than keeping my assigned “A” seat in the middle of a row and surrounded by all sides. The only option she gave me was the front - the Dunce corner. I naively chose the feeling of relative safety and moved to the “stupid spot”. My grades in that class plummeted from As to Cs. To prove the point she simply graded on desk placement, just like Sarah, I copied my “top corner” friend’s homework. She got a 100. I got a low 70. When confronted with our papers, Mrs. U had no explanation and, consequently, my grades began to hover just above the passing line. If I had known her seating arrangement was illegal in Texas, I would have told the principal. Alas, I did not and fell below the threshold to stay in honors English. Womp womp.

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  3. Mshroyer

    I wouldn't have guessed from the episode title that one of the things I'd leave the most enraged about is Sarah's high school homework: Judging my math assignment on my handwriting would've had me steaming.

    I was lucky to have a brilliant sweetheart of a teacher who a few times took our small Calc BC class out to breakfast at a nearby southern breakfast restaurant ("Kountry Kitchen with Love", try the grits) to get a morning study session in before official school hours. I wish everyone could've had a math teacher like her.

    (And no, I'm not too humble to brag that I also got a 5 on the exam :) )

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  4. VV

    I haven’t read the transcript, but is Biden’s “I don’t recall” more frequent than, say, Elizabeth Holmes in her deposition for the Theranos case?

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  5. GregS

    You know what really bothers me? That Garland wrote a letter summarizing and mischaracterizing Hur's report to spin it for Biden's benefit, and then delayed releasing the actual report for a month to allow the mischaracterization plenty of time to make the rounds and be baked in. It was bad enough that Hur wrote a letter to Garland complaining about how he'd been undermined!
    Oh wait that was Barr and Mueller.
    But yeah, the Biden administration is just so terrible about this.

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  6. Scroop Moth

    Evangelical white males like the distinction between “actual” and “optical” diversity because they want a seat among the elite and are in a hurry to inherit the earth (and the 7 mountains thereof). They’ll do fine. When they knock, the door will be open to them, because even the scornful can recognize talent when they see it.

    Consider that Evangelical colleges, just like Harvard, prioritize “actual” diversity far less, if at all, than “optical” diversity. For decades, mostly white colleges have agonized over recruiting students of color, and they have excellent institutional reasons for rejecting one form of diversity and seeking the other.

    Ideological diversity isn’t necessary for scholarship and deliberation. Humanistic education enables us to understand a thought without the physical presence of its advocate. Believing in order that they may understand, Christian schools prioritize mission and commitment as accelerants, not extinguishers of learning, because truth engages the whole person, not just a brain. Ideas exist in the world only in institutions that are committed to them.

    That’s all well-understood to Christian humanists.

    Color diversity is more important because institutions have always needed to recruit outsiders in order to insure the loyalty of the movers and doers of the future. Affirmative action is just the arbitrage of undervalued talent.

    Many conservatives think woke is a religion. Therefore, they should support woke universities just like they support Hillsdale College, because institutions are in themselves good. The more the better.

    Instead of deploying free speech absolutism as a solvent to dissolve the ethos of woke ( as Sarah and David do) conservatives should encourage, strengthen and enlarge their own impressive institutions.

    Don’t worry, stranded in their ideological ghetto, students at Stanford will learn everything there is to know about originalism without needing to feel triggered or undermined by the presence of a Trump judge with a third-rate education.

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  7. Kevin D

    I’d like to chime in again on MIT, as an alum and as a current instructor at the Institute. Firstly, thank you for posting the link to the complaint from Jewish students on campus. For those who don’t have time to read the 108 page complaint, the most salient section is Exhibit A (starting on page 77), which is a report generated by members of the MIT community, detailing the recent experience of the MIT Jewish community. As David and Sarah pointed out on the pod, many of the allegations are both disturbing and well documented.
    This report on the experience of MIT’s Jewish community is written in a way that will resonate at MIT. It is focused on facts and the evidence of those facts, and includes even-handed descriptions of the public response from the MIT administration. I maintain my cautious optimism for MIT, as in my experience, it is an Institute that does a good job of self-reflection and course correction (see, as a recent salient example, the 'MIT Statement on Freedom of Expression and Academic Freedom').
    This leads me to a question for David or Sarah, or those on this forum with far more legal experience than I have as a lowly engineer. Right now, as far as I can tell, the only path to understanding whether MIT is taking effective action is to observe whether incidents continue. This is the only path I know of, because the disciplinary processes for both students and employees are completely confidential. Quoting from the Institute Discrimination and Harassment Response Office:
    “
    STATUS OF CASES. As of February 23, 2024, 32 cases are in various stages of the complaint resolution process (inclusive of cases that have been resolved).
    CONFIDENTIALITY. We understand that some members of our community would like more detail about how cases are addressed and resolved. COD rules (and for cases concerning individual students, federal law) and MIT policy require that disciplinary cases be handled confidentially. As a result, MIT’s practice is not to share details about specific cases with the MIT community while the COD or HR processes are ongoing or after they are complete.
    “
    This means that there is basically radio silence on the outcome of these cases, or even on whether the cases have been resolved or are pending. Given the referenced federal law and policies, what options does the MIT administration have to reassure the MIT community (and beyond) that real action is being taken to address the problem? What should I, as a member of the community, reasonably expect of them?

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  8. Kungfurocketman

    Thank you David for pointing out positive examples of elite universities that handle free speech in a consistent and classically liberal way. On so many issues, we have seen how just pointing out the transgressions of the "other side" does not get them to change and only serves to provide justification for people on one's own side to do similar things. Pointing out and celebrating the people acting honorably and responsibly helps reinforce the message that this is what is considered normal and acceptable. People take their cues for what is expected behavior from what they hear most often, so I am grateful for you drawing attention to some good examples.

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  9. Williambaldwin

    A non-lawyer with two unrelated questions: As far as campus speech, etc. goes, I get the difference between public and private and that rules apply to public universities that don't apply to private ones. However, I am also under the impression that the acceptance of federal funds does obligate any university that does so (including private) to abide by some rules (e.g., non-discrimination, Title IX). Do I have that correct?

    And, if I do, then why not a rule/law saying that the acceptance of any public funds (ideally at both federal and state level) obligates the accepting university to abide by the rules of public universities? I realize that you'd need the right Congress to do this, but is it theoretically possible? Also, what would be the pitfalls? I can think of religious schools having a problem (one that I think could be figured out), but what are the other things I'm not seeing? (For the record, I'm a big fan of private entities doing pretty much whatever they want. I just think that once you take someone's money, then they have a say in what you have to do to keep it.)

    Second question: From what I learn on AO, different judicial circuits have different ideological leanings, and these seem to correspond, at least somewhat, to the regions they serve. Why is this? Is it just happenstance? Could a conservative president with enough appointments not remake the Ninth, or a liberal remake the Fifth? Or is it something along the lines that the president appoints a qualified person from the area to the seat, and that person will usually share the opinions of the area. For instance: Is a seat on the Fifth circuit such a good gig that a liberal president could offer one to a Berkeley law professor who would jump at the chance?

    Thank you.

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  10. Israel.D.Gale

    I'm confused about Sarah and David's dispute at the end of the campus antisemitism lawsuits discussion about whether other elite schools can improve the situation using the Chicago free speech model. The lawsuits are about harassment and a campus environment hostile to Jewish students. Isn't that a separate topic from free speech? If we were talking about a workplace environment hostile to women, for example, full of disparaging misogynistic remarks and pornographic pictures on the walls, would anybody be framing it as a free speech issue?

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    1. Incognito

      It helps to frame harassment as unprotected speech when it comes to university issues. It gets more complicated as these lawsuits are against the universities not individual (students) but ultimately the distinction holds. I think the FIRE document (David French is one of its authors) has been the best explainer I've found.

      https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/fires-guide-free-speech-campus

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