Weekly Roundup
Reading, watching, & listening list
Schadenfreude and the American Soul
For FAIR’s Substack, Julian Adorney writes about why a just society punishes wrongdoing—but never celebrates human suffering.
Walking farther along this path will do great damage to our society. But perhaps even more importantly, it will do great damage to our souls. Professor of philosophy Sebastian Purcell writes that "tranquility does not grow from the seeds of anger, nor freedom from bondage to past events." Or as psychologist Susan Krauss Whitbourne puts it, “Taking pleasure in another’s pain doesn’t build you up; it breaks you down by reinforcing a mindset of negativity." This first path might feel pleasurable right now, as we relish the pain of those who we think are causing all of society's ills; but the truth is that it ends in a place that none of us actually want to go.
Bill Maher’s Embrace of Civil Discourse Is No Laughing Matter
For the Cato Institute, FAIR Advisor Erec Smith writes about the value of having conversations with people we disagree with.
Talking is especially important in a free and pluralistic society in which varying viewpoints are not just present but encouraged. In a place where disagreement is all but inevitable, we would do well to find the best ways of dealing with that disagreement. Throughout history, such disagreements would have been dealt with using violence or some other form of coercion. Talking can help us evade such “solutions.” Talking is the glue that holds together civil society.
The dangerous pattern in Trump’s targeting of student activists
For The Washington Post, FAIR Advisor Shadi Hamid writes about the dangers of criminalizing criticism of a foreign country.
The arbitrariness is the point. Now, any noncitizen who wants to write for their local paper or go to a protest must consider whether doing so will be weaponized against them. Better to stay quiet and self-censor. To be afraid of saying what you believe to be true is a feature of the dictatorships that I’ve lived under and my parents came from. That it’s happening here, in the country I love, is heartbreaking.
Harvard’s resistance to Trump is a model for US universities
For UnHerd, Angel Eduardo writes about why the solution to censorious and discriminatory policies isn’t more censorious and discriminatory policies.
The principle is clear: the government cannot condition a school’s federal funding on giving up First Amendment rights. When the Obama and Biden administrations demanded universities restrict student free speech and due process rights under Title IX — the law prohibiting sex discrimination in federally funded educational programmes or activities — this was clearly unlawful. The same argument applies now.
‘Discriminatory’: Cornell agriculture internship only open to ‘Indian tribe’ students
For The College Fix, Madelynn McLaughlin writes about a federally funded Cornell University program exclusively for Native American students.
Monica Harris is a lawyer and executive director of FAIR For All, or the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism, which works to end racial discrimination and promote civil rights and liberties for all.
“Granting or denying any rights, privileges or benefits on the basis of race or ethnicity is inherently discriminatory, whether the beneficiaries are black, Native American, or members of any other identity group,” Harris told The College Fix in a recent interview.
The program that Harris is referring to is the Indigenous Summer Research Scholars Program at Cornell’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
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Looks like the “Harvard resisting Trump should be the example for all universities” did not receive very good feedback at all. Nearly every comment disagreed with the author. People are sick of the hypocrisy and elites. And don’t want to fund them anymore.