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On Campus Speech, We Need a Return to First Principles
Keith E. Whittington /

On Campus Speech, We Need a Return to First Principles

The alternative to robust free speech norms is an unfettered scramble for political spoils.
Society & Culture
University Presidents Testify In House Hearing On Campus Antisemitism
Claudine Gay, president of Harvard University, Liz Magill, president of the University of Pennsylvania, Pamela Nadell, professor of history and Jewish studies at American University, and Sally Kornbluth, president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, testify before the House Education and Workforce Committee on December 5, 2023, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Being a university president amid the Israel-Hamas war has not been especially pleasant, and last week things got quite a bit more unpleasant for three in particular. The heads of Harvard, MIT, and Penn who testified before a House committee probably anticipated pushback—a hearing billed as “Holding Campus Leaders Accountable and Confronting Antisemitism” was never going to be a good time.

Photo of Keith E. Whittington
Keith E. Whittington

Keith E. Whittington is a contributing writer at The Dispatch and the David Boies Professor of Law and Director of the Center for the Study of Free Speech and Academic Freedom at Yale Law School. He is the author of The Political Foundations of Judicial Supremacy, and he was a member of the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States.

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