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Jeffrey Sachs
@JeffreyASachs
, 5 tweets, 2 min read Read on Twitter
New from me: Last June, the Canadian government adopted a new definition of anti-Semitism to better identify and combat bigotry. Unfortunately, that definition poses a potentially serious threat to campus free speech.

universityaffairs.ca/opinion/in-my-…
Simply put, the new definition explicitly equates anti-Semitism with certain kinds of speech critical of Israel. Supporters insist that this is a harmless innovation, one meant purely to educate and aid in gathering data.

We have good reason to doubt them.
Supporters said the same thing when the US State Department adopted this definition a while back. Then, in 2017, the Department of Education began applying it domestically. The result has been a host of lawsuits and federal investigations over anti-Israeli speech on campus.
Now, even the *primary author* of the new anti-Semitism definition warns that it poses a free speech threat. He is joined in this assessment by @TheFIREorg, the ACLU, and a host of other civil liberties organizations.

nytimes.com/2016/12/12/opi…
@TheFIREorg The Trudeau government is right to take anti-Semitism seriously, but it is vital that we distinguish it from speech that is critical or downright hostile to Israel.
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More from @JeffreyASachs see all

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Jeffrey Sachs
@JeffreyASachs
The Dept. of Education has launched an inquiry into whether the Center for Middle East Studies at Duke-UNC is misusing its Title VI funding, money that it receives to further language training and area studies competence in matters vital to US interests.

insidehighered.com/quicktakes/201…
This is the DoE's letter to the Center. Some of the complaints are legitimate (e.g. TT/T faculty probably *should* be teaching more language courses), but others should straight up terrify you. At least, if you care about academic freedom.

federalregister.gov/documents/2019…
This is the second DoE investigation into Duke-UNC's CMES currently underway. The other, you may recall, was about the program's decision to host a conference on Gaza and some of the speech that took place there.

Read 3 tweets
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Jeffrey Sachs
@JeffreyASachs
I wish I could Like this more than once. Folks, you won’t easily find a more insightful, nuanced, or *human* reflection on the IDW. I don’t know who needs to read it more - the movement’s supporters or its critics. Probably both.
Somebody in journalism please give Oliver a bigger platform. He deserves it.
I really think @cjane87 would be interested in this.
Read 3 tweets
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Jeffrey Sachs
@JeffreyASachs
Good piece overall, but it still succumbs to what I see as the central problem with this issue: conflating the *actions* of the audience with their *effect* on the target. Is being cancelled a matter of the way people critique you? Or is it about what happens to you when they do?
You can get a sense of this problem when Herzog describes Bari Weiss as having been cancelled, even though her career has suffered no obvious damage, and in fact has arguably been enhanced. In this sense, cancellation doesn't really hinge on outcomes at all, just process.
But I don't think that's what people typically mean when they talk about cancellation.

Blurg, I'm too tired to think about this nonsense. Ultimately, I really feel this is just about shifting standards, not a tightening of standards.
Read 3 tweets

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After 70 years of imperial/neoliberal indoctrination the web of lies is so obviously absurde (9/11, Skripal, WH = ISIS, etc.), that it is dissoluting. The empathetic humanity connects, closes ranks and sends their eternal psychopathic rulers and their lackeys into nowhere land.
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(((Yair Rosenberg)))
@Yair_Rosenberg
Anti-Defamation League: In a speech Sunday, notorious anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan claimed that Jews control the government and FBI, and use marijuana to feminize black men—with one @womensmarch organizer in attendance and another applauding from afar. adl.org/blog/farrakhan…
There is a persistent unwillingness to acknowledge that two of the organizers of the @womensmarch are groupies of Louis Farrakhan, whose anti-Semitism and homophobia rivals Richard Spencer's. They're very open about it!
For reference, here is just a small sampling of the horrific things Farrakhan has said about Jews:
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