A reader is shocked by the equivocal testimony by three elite university presidents on controlling hate speech.
When I was growing up, one of my favorite shows was the Three Stooges. The slapstick antics of Moe, Larry and Curly always ended with Moe as the bully and poor Larry and Curly as the usual victims. Boy, do I miss them.
The other day, I came across a new generation of stooges testifying before Congress. Unlike the original trio, this new generation, masquerading as presidents of three leading institutions of higher education, were not funny — but scary as hell.
Their inability to respond to a straightforward yes or no question regarding genocide against a country and her people was pathetic.
The fact that all three quickly apologized and the president of Penn resigned spoke volumes about their ability to think clearly and provide civilized responses.
Harvard President Claudine Gay, with her smirk and feigned reply of “not really understanding the question” raises the question, just what in the hell are they teaching at Harvard these days? The fact that 700 Harvard faculty rallied to her defense is even more disturbing. Then again, if one looks closely at a majority of Trump’s lawyers either being indicted or forming his defense for attempting to overthrow democracy, many are Harvard graduates.
But I digress.
The remaining two stooges (at Harvard and MIT) need to resign. They are a blight on higher education and rational discourse. Long ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that free speech has limits. If failure to respond to a call for genocide against a people because of their religion doesn’t grab your attention, then higher education as we know it is in grave danger.
The original Stooges were funny. These stooges are anything but.
Dr. Mark N. Levine, Coconut Creek
Much is made about how to ensure that former President Donald Trump goes on trial before the 2024 presidential election. Some commentators have suggested that prosecutors will overwhelm jurors with testimony, documents and other irrefutable evidence necessitating a guilty verdict against Trump.
Not so fast.
In the U.S., many believe that catastrophes like the 9/11 attacks, mass shootings and the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol are staged, or worse, are inside jobs conducted by deep state (government) agents.
This includes a lot of citizens who are eligible to serve as federal and state jurors. They may not proffer their beliefs during jury selection, but the twice-impeached former president and current Republican front-runner knows there are millions of potential jurors who would never vote to convict him, even if he shot someone in broad daylight on New York’s Fifth Avenue, as he has suggested.
Conviction on federal and state felonies requires unanimity among juries of people who are randomly selected. I would suggest there be extra concern among us who were taught that our system of justice is to be admired universally, including the fundamental soundness of a jury of one’s peers.
Sheldon I. Saitlin, Boca Raton
The human race is multiplying at an unforgiving rate, and it’s partially responsible for the increase in worldwide temperature, but it is rarely mentioned.
It took 200 years, up to 1825, to double the world’s population from 500 million to 1 billion. It took only 100 years to achieve the next doubling that brought the total to 2 billion by 1930, and only 45 years more to achieve yet another doubling, to 4 billion by 1975.
Today the world’s population is about 8 billion, according to the U.S. census, a doubling that again took about 45 years.
At this rate, the earth will have more than 15 billion humans by the middle of this century. Oil and coal use are the biggest polluters and are responsible for most of the increase in rising temperatures, but don’t lose site of our own body heat.
Ira Gross, Boca Raton
