An op-ed piece written by University of Pennsylvania law professor Claire Finkelstein and published in the Post attempts to make the case for the abolition of free speech in America, all so Jews do not have to deal with "antisemitism" on campus.
Ironically, Finkelstein is a member of Penn's Open Expressions Committee. She is also chair of the law school's committee on academic freedom.
In Finkelstein's view, it is a problem that students have the First Amendment right to talk in opposition to Israel and its war on Gaza. Jewish students particularly at America's Ivy League schools increasingly say such speech is upsetting to them, which is why Finkelstein and others want the First Amendment to go.
"Congress could have assembled two dozen university presidents and likely would have received the same answer from each of them," Finkelstein wrote about how complaints from Jewish students about "hate speech" are growing.
"This is because the value of free speech has been elevated to a near-sacred level on university campuses. As a result, universities have had to tolerate hate speech – even hate speech calling for violence against ethnic or religious minorities. With the dramatic rise in antisemitism, we are discovering that this is a mistake: Antisemitism – and other forms of hate – cannot be fought on university campuses without restricting poisonous speech that targets Jews and other minorities."
(Related: Did you know that many of the top posts at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] are held by Jews who hold dual citizenship both in the U.S. and Israel?)
"Hate" speech is still free speech
Finkelstein made the suggestion in her op-ed that "antisemitic" students are threatening to commit "genocide" against Israel in response to the war on Gaza, and that the First Amendment must be abolished to put a stop to this kind of talk.
Assuming this is actually happening as Finkelstein claims, it is already illegal to make violent threats. The First Amendment has never allowed for death threats as she claims, and yet the Post published her tripe as if it is fact.
Finkelstein does not believe that freedom of speech can be tolerated any longer because Jewish students at American colleges and universities feel offended by some of the things they are hearing.
Finkelstein complains that not enough university presidents feel as she does that ending free speech will put an end to the "hostile environment facing Jewish students on campus."
"Countering speech with more speech might just mean adding to the hateful rhetoric on campus and would not solve the problem," she argues.
"And university presidents can set up all the task forces, study groups and educational modules they like, but what kind of educational effort could possibly bring together warring groups that are busy calling for one another's violent demise?"
Finkelstein is most certainly lying about pro-Palestine students calling for "genocide" against Israeli people. She is more than likely stretching the truth by a long shot in order to make her point and justify ending two-and-a-half centuries of free speech in the U.S. just to satisfy Jewish demands.
Finkelstein concluded her piece by calling for "antisemitism" to be reclassified as a form of "violence" that must be punished to the full extent of the law.
"The entire American experiment on free speech needs to come to an end to protect the feelings of Jews and Zionists and shield them from any and all criticism – all while Israel conducts a genocide of children in Gaza and ethnically cleanses half their population," writes Chris Menahan for Information Liberation.
More related news coverage can be found at FirstAmendment.news.
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