What college presidents — and their critics — got wrong

Also: Our first-ever Cog playlist [Donate ❤️]( [View in Browser](  December 17, 2023 Dear Cog reader, On Dec. 5, the presidents of three elite universities – Harvard, MIT and Penn – testified before a congressional committee about antisemitism on their respective campuses. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know the rest of the story: all three faced a fierce backlash after giving legalistic answers to a question, asked by Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), about whether a student calling for the genocide of Jews would be punished. This story was everywhere. People at my local dog park couldn’t stop talking about it. It was SNL’s [cold open](. The Daily, the New York Times podcast, did an [episode]( that looked beyond the immediate testimony, and dug into the bigger issues about the politics of free speech and dueling hypocrisies from liberals and conservatives. Cog weighed in, too, with two pieces. [The first]( by Sol Gittleman, who worked for more than 40 years at Tufts as a professor of Judaic Studies and an administrator, argues that the hearing was more about anti-intellectualism than antisemitism. “True — some of those condemning Israel today are also anti-Jewish. They really are virulent antisemites,” he writes. “But nuance was not on the congressional agenda last week. Bringing down three academic giants, three extraordinary women scholars, most certainly was.” (Full disclosure: I was lucky to take Yiddish literature class from Gittleman in college.) The [second piece]( by constitutional law scholar and Boston College Law professor Kent Greenfield, argues that part of the presidents’ missteps arose from a fundamental misinterpretation of the First Amendment. He reminds us that the First Amendment restrains the government, not private parties. Harvard, Penn and MIT, as private institutions, “can establish whatever speech policies that embody their core values,” he writes. In his view, when the presidents of those universities implied that they had no choice — essentially saying “it’s not us, it’s the Constitution” — they were inaccurate. They do have a choice. We had some lighter fare this week, too. Samuel Habib wrote about dating and living independently as an adult with a disability (he has a movement disorder, among other diagnoses, and uses a 350-pound wheelchair). Habib’s story may be familiar to you. His dad, Daniel Habib, is a filmmaker and the father-son pair made “[My Disability Roadmap]( a New York Times Op-Doc that won an Emmy. And Cog editor Kate Neale Cooper created our first-ever [Cog playlist]( She combed through the 250+ pieces we published this year and curated an eclectic four-and-a-half hour soundtrack to our stories – everything from Tito Puente to Tina Turner to Taylor Swift. Happy listening. Until soon, Cloe Axelson Senior Editor, Cognoscenti [Follow]( Support the news  Must Reads [There’s no roadmap for being an adult with a disability. So I’m making my own]( I wanted to live alone, go to college and find a girlfriend, writes Samuel Habib. I asked some of the most famous disability advocates for advice. [Read more.]( [There’s no roadmap for being an adult with a disability. So I’m making my own]( I wanted to live alone, go to college and find a girlfriend, writes Samuel Habib. I asked some of the most famous disability advocates for advice. [Read more.]( [The outrage at Harvard, Penn and MIT is rooted in American anti-intellectualism]( Members of the congressional committee who questioned the presidents of Harvard, Penn and MIT were far more interested in easy soundbites than real evidence or complex narratives, writes Sol Gittleman, who was an administrator and a professor of Judaic Studies at Tufts University, for more than 40 years. [Read more.]( [The outrage at Harvard, Penn and MIT is rooted in American anti-intellectualism]( Members of the congressional committee who questioned the presidents of Harvard, Penn and MIT were far more interested in easy soundbites than real evidence or complex narratives, writes Sol Gittleman, who was an administrator and a professor of Judaic Studies at Tufts University, for more than 40 years. [Read more.]( [What the college presidents got wrong about the First Amendment]( Harvard, Penn and MIT are private institutions with the right to establish speech policies that embody their core values. Disagreements will arise about the meanings of specific phrases or words, writes Kent Greenfield. But universities should not be allowed to throw up their hands and say the issue is not for them to decide. [Read more.]( [What the college presidents got wrong about the First Amendment]( Harvard, Penn and MIT are private institutions with the right to establish speech policies that embody their core values. Disagreements will arise about the meanings of specific phrases or words, writes Kent Greenfield. But universities should not be allowed to throw up their hands and say the issue is not for them to decide. [Read more.]( [The soundtrack to our stories: The 2023 Cog Playlist]( Thirty of the essays we published on Cognoscenti in 2023 featured music: All in all, the names of nearly 60 singers, songwriters and bands appeared on our pages. So, we made a playlist. [Read more.]( [The soundtrack to our stories: The 2023 Cog Playlist]( Thirty of the essays we published on Cognoscenti in 2023 featured music: All in all, the names of nearly 60 singers, songwriters and bands appeared on our pages. So, we made a playlist. [Read more.]( [Here's a bold solution to women's health care: Train doctors to listen to women]( The Biden administration is trying to improve women's health care by accelerating research on women and disease. But the initiative is ignoring the real problem, writes Diane O’Leary. We need to train doctors to stop blaming women's mental health for their symptoms. [Read more.]( [Here's a bold solution to women's health care: Train doctors to listen to women]( The Biden administration is trying to improve women's health care by accelerating research on women and disease. But the initiative is ignoring the real problem, writes Diane O’Leary. We need to train doctors to stop blaming women's mental health for their symptoms. [Read more.]( What We're Reading "Even relatively small, simple changes to our daily routine or mind-set can have meaningful, positive effects on mental health and well-being in both the short and long term. Listen to the birds, breathe, hug or hold hands, and channel your inner Betty White." [Our Best Brain Tips for a Healthier, Happier Life]( The Washington Post. "[I]n overturning Roe, the court set aside more than precedent: It tested the boundaries of how cases are decided." "[Behind the Scenes at the Dismantling of Roe v. Wade]( The New York Times. "Burning fossil fuels inevitably produces carbon dioxide. CO2 hangs around in the atmosphere for a long time—on the order of centuries—and, the more it builds up in the air, the warmer the world will get ... The desire to avoid confronting this unfortunate reality has produced any number of schemes for dealing with climate change without dealing with fossil fuels." "[What Did COP28 Really Accomplish?]( The New Yorker. "The fact that a university ought to be a place of learning and teaching matters in the constitutional calculus." — Kent Greenfield, "[What the college presidents got wrong about the First Amendment]( ICYMI [OpenAI is a threat to labor, but its employees staged one of the most successful collective actions in tech]( The company’s employees demanded that the board reinstate Sam Altman as CEO and won, writes Ethan Marcotte. Whatever reservations you might have about artificial intelligence, it’s still okay to applaud this display of tech worker power. [Read more.]( [OpenAI is a threat to labor, but its employees staged one of the most successful collective actions in tech]( The company’s employees demanded that the board reinstate Sam Altman as CEO and won, writes Ethan Marcotte. Whatever reservations you might have about artificial intelligence, it’s still okay to applaud this display of tech worker power. [Read more.]( If you’d like to write for Cognoscenti, send your submission, pasted into your email and not as an attachment, to opinion@wbur.org. Please tell us in one line what the piece is about, and please tell us in one line who you are. 😎 Forward to a friend. They can sign up [here](. 🔎 Explore [WBUR's Field Guide]( stories, events and more. 📣 Give us your feedback: newsletters@wbur.org 📧 Get more WBUR stories sent to your inbox. [Check out all of our newsletter offerings.]( Support the news     Want to change how you receive these emails? Stop getting this newsletter by [updating your preferences.](  I don't want to hear from WBUR anymore. Unsubscribe from all WBUR editorial newsletters [here.](  Interested in learning more about corporate sponsorship? [Click here.]( Copyright © 2023 WBUR-FM, All rights reserved.