Israel-Hamas Conflict: Impact on Free Speech

The FIRE team gets together to discuss the October 7 attacks in Israel and the resulting censorship on college campuses in the United States. 

FIRE President and CEO Greg Lukianoff, Director of Campus Rights Advocacy Alex Morey, and General Counsel Ronnie London join host Nico Perrino for the conversation.

** We will conduct a listener survey starting Monday, Nov. 13. “So to Speak” listeners who subscribe to the show’s email list will receive an email with a link to the survey. If you are not an email subscriber, you can subscribe at the bottom of sotospeakpodcast.com or by subscribing to the general FIRE email list at thefire.org and noting that you would also like to subscribe to the “So to Speak” list. We appreciate your feedback: It will help us improve the show!

Timestamps

5:13 - October 7 attacks on Israel 

6:04  - Greg’s initial thoughts 

14:58 - Alex’s initial thoughts

20:29 - Protected vs. unprotected expression 

28:11 - Statements from donors, students and faculty; double standards

40:49 - Institutional neutrality and the Kalven Report

51:01 - Combating Anti-Semitism, the Daryl Davis example 

54:46 - Students for Justice in Palestine 

1:01:48 - Tearing down posters 

Show Notes

• Transcript

• Harvard student group letter (The public-facing Google Doc that originally hosted the letter was deleted.) 

• Bill Ackman letter to Harvard

• The Kalven Report

• Daryl Davis 

• FIRE Letter to University of Florida President Ben Sasse re: Students for Justice in Palestine (after recording this episode, Brandeis University derecognized its campus chapter of SJP. Here is FIRE’s letter to Brandeis).

• Ron DeSantis, Tim Scott, and Marco Rubio call to revoke student visas 

• Trump Truth Social post calls for the expulsion of students who support Hamas