And Then I Found Out…

UPenn President has just resigned. pic.twitter.com/xZAgjY2dii

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) December 9, 2023

Public opinion is a bitch. And, as usual, it is fighting the wrong battles:

NUANCE WARNING!

I'm pretty reluctant to weigh in here because of the ecosystemic climate for Jewish identity generally, but it seems like the outrage here is ... probably overdone and *certainly* rewarding bad faith actors.

Take Magill (Penn). She is asked DIRECTLY

1/ https://t.co/mpxZCs5yOe

— Lee Kovarsky (@lee_kovarsky) December 6, 2023

I confess that I do not understand what answer other than *it depends* is reasonable and can be given in sworn testimony.

3/

— Lee Kovarsky (@lee_kovarsky) December 6, 2023

But it's *extremely* clear that this is not punishable under the Penn policy.

And this business about how speech is punishable when it "crosses into action" is not about when speech "crosses into genocide."

5/

— Lee Kovarsky (@lee_kovarsky) December 6, 2023

Look, I'm deeply sympathetic to the argument that campus speech practices are awful right now and that Jewish identity is particularly precarious. I've made that argument over and over on this shitty site.

7/

— Lee Kovarsky (@lee_kovarsky) December 6, 2023

But it seems to me that folks can't just keep retweeting and accepting at face value outrage porn produced by Elise Stefanik and signal boosted by Bill Ackman - at least not if they want to be taken seriously by people who might not be predisposed to agree with them.
/end.

— Lee Kovarsky (@lee_kovarsky) December 6, 2023

As i was saying: there are few signs of intelligent life on Twitter. Or in Congress, for that matter.

That should have been a clue that you didn’t understand the context of that video clip you were seeing.

And before you go all “holier-than-thou:”

Wrong. She was asked a legal question.

— Lee Kovarsky (@lee_kovarsky) December 7, 2023

Context is all; which means, it was a Congressional hearing:

Exactly - Gay tried to give the same answer she would later give about the genocide question, and Stefanik cut her off twice.

— James Surowiecki (@JamesSurowiecki) December 6, 2023

Really better to stay away from those things.