Mob Rule at the University of Wisconsin But Anti-Israel Protestors Convicted for Disrupting Speech

Yet another example of the intolerance of the  left was enacted at the University of Wisconsin when a mob shut down a press conference put on by the Center for Equal Opportunity (“Studies Show Severe Racial Discrimination at University of Wisconsin,” by John Anderson, Youth for Western Civilization). This is a truly amazing example of the power of the left to shut down public debate when the interests of Whites are being compromised. Demonstrators knocked down employees of the hotel and shouted down the speaker to the point that he simply left.

httpv://ww.youtube.com/watch?v=cseOkBeicdQ

Damon Williams

The video shows Damon Williams, Vice Provost, Chief Officer for Diversity & [anti-White] Climate at University of Wisconsin-Madison egging on the students by chanting and pumping his fist. Officially sanctioned disruption of free speech.

The issue at the University of Wisconsin (my alma mater) is that the highest-scoring Blacks and Latinos score below the lowest quartile of Whites and Asians. As the YWC article notes,

The odds ratio favoring African Americans and Hispanics over whites was 576-to-1 and 504-to-1, respectively, using the SAT and class rank while controlling for other factors. Thus, the median composite SAT score for black admittees was 150 points lower than for whites and Asians, and the Latino median SAT score was 100 points lower. Using the ACT, the odds ratios climbed to 1330-to-1 and 1494-to-1, respectively, for African Americans and Hispanics over whites.

For law school admissions, the racial discrimination found was also severe, with the weight given to ethnicity much greater than given to, for example, Wisconsin residency. Thus, an out-of-state black applicant with grades and LSAT scores at the median for that group would have had a 7 out 10 chance of admission and an out-of-state Hispanic a 1 out of 3 chance—but an in-state Asian with those grades and scores had a 1 out of 6 chance and an in-state white only a 1 out of 10 chance.

Thank God that sort of thing can’t happen in California. Recently an Orange County jury convicted ten Muslim students of a misdemeanor for disrupting a speech at the University of California-Irvine. These students stood up and read prepared statements, thereby interfering with the speaker—actions far less disruptive and physically threatening than those of the UW-Madison students.

But wait. There’s a big difference between the UCI and UW situations. The UCI students were voicing their opinions during a speech by the Israeli ambassador.

Jewish organizations are going full bore in an attempt to shut down campus speech critical of Israel. A recent article appearing in the Chronicle of Higher Education described examples where Jewish groups have attempted to shut down criticism of Israel.

As director of his institute’s [i.e., Institute for Jewish and Community Research] campaign against anti-Semitism, [Kenneth L.] Marcus has prodded the Education Department to investigate complaints of anti-Semitism at higher-education institutions such as the University of California at Santa Cruz. In April, the American Association of University Professors issued a statement that cited the Santa Cruz investigation in arguing that some complaints of anti-Semitic incidents on American college campuses do not involve actual discrimination but instead represent attempts “to silence anti-Israel discourse and speakers.”

The intended target of the complaint about Columbia University was …  Joseph A. Massad, a controversial Palestinian scholar who has been accused by some Jewish organizations of teaching anti-Semitism. Mr. Marcus said the Office for Civil Rights has told him it did not plan to investigate Mr. Massad because it lacks evidence of bias against Jewish students in his classroom. Mr. Massad did not respond to an e-mail Tuesday seeking comment.

There is certainly some resistance by universities to this pressure (unlike the case of shutting down the CEO report by the multicultural left). The statement by the AAUP notes that,

By trying to censor anti-Israel remarks, it becomes more, not less, difficult to tackle both anti-Semitism and anti-Israel dogma. The campus debate is changed from one of exposing bigotry to one of protecting free speech, and the last thing pro-Israel advocates need is a reputation for censoring, rather than refuting, their opponents.

The attitude of Marcus represents, I think, the attitude of the wider Jewish community on free speech: “The biggest problem may be the failure of some universities to take anti-Semitism allegations seriously, especially when academic freedom is frivolously invoked.” Similarly, the Jewish Federation and Family Services Orange County which sponsored the event at UCI labeled the students as engaging in intolerable “hate speech.”

As noted previously (“The Hate Crimes Prevention Bill: Why Do Jewish Organizations Support It?“), it is only a matter of time before Jewish activist organizations make an all out assault on the First Amendment which is currently protected by a tenuous-in-the-long-term 5-4 majority.

While I certainly don’t condone the actions of the Muslim students, there is a clear double standard. In the Wisconsin case, don’t look for any discipline of either the students or the administrators involved:

One would have to be very naïve to think that the University of Wisconsin will be moved by the two CEO reports to mend its admissions policies; or that it will hold Vice Provost Williams and Dean [of students Lori] Berquam accountable for abusing their authority; or that it will discipline the students involved. There is in Williams’ subsequent statements a glow of satisfaction that things came off very much as he hoped. And the absence of broader press coverage points to the usual fate of such stories [i.e., the lack of coverage of the story by the major print media]. They are just too awkward to fit with the official narrative of how “diversity” enriches American higher education. When we think of diversity, we are not supposed to think of gross discrepancies in admissions standards, unfairness to applicants, and “mismatches” between admittees and institutional standards, let alone flash mobs organized to intimidate critics, or university officials purveying falsehoods to whip students into taking illegal actions. (Peter Wood, “Mobbing for Preferences,” Chronicle of Higher Education)

Basically, Jewish organizations want carte blanche to shut down free speech that they don’t like but don’t look for similar pressure on speech disliked by the multicultural left. As a result,  prosecutions of those who disrupt speech will be very selective. No charges in Madison, while the UC-I students are dragged into an expensive court case and ultimately convicted. They were also disciplined by the university. One would love to see the sorts of pressure exerted on the Orange County District Attorney.