Not just antisemitism: Conservative students ask Congress to fight censorship of their speech

Many Americans were horrified to see campus infringements on Jewish student speech in the wake of Hamas terrorism against Israeli civilians, from vandalizing hostage posters to the chilling effects of chanting a genocidal slogan against Jews.

Some university officials dragged their feet. Harvard President Claudine Gay finally condemned the Hamas slogan and common campus chant "from the river to the sea" on Nov. 9 after prominent alumni including hedge fund magnate Bill Ackman blamed her weeks of inaction for the spike in antisemitic campus incidents.

Conservative students shared a message with Congress last week: #metoo.

Current and former Young Americans for Freedom chapter leaders testified at the first House Judiciary Committee hearing on campus free speech in six years, sharing the administrative roadblocks to and physical threats against their events with conservative speakers.

They were largely overshadowed by discussions of how to respond to the spike in campus antisemitism, with Democrats calling for increased funding for the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights and Republicans floating greater scrutiny of foreign funding.

By testifying first, the conservative witnesses also bore the brunt of pro-Palestinian protesters' attempts to shut down the hearing by successively standing up, yelling slogans and getting dragged out one by one by congressional security.

Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, compared infringements on campus speech to the feds' active role in a private consortium led by universities to mass-report alleged misinformation to tech platforms, the subject of a Judiciary interim staff report last week.

Judiciary Republicans also made several videos with non-witness students sharing challenges to their speech and a supercut of campus attacks on conservatives and Jews, including a Stanford Law School administrator de-platforming federal appeals court judge Kyle Duncan.

The University at Buffalo, a State University of New York campus, delayed the contracts for both  Lt. Col. Allan West and Daily Wire host Michael Knowles and forced its YAF chapter to change the venues, recent graduate Connor Ogrydziak testified. 

He said heckling shut down the West event and the chapter's members "were chased by a 100-person mob across campus," with one calling 911 from a bathroom, but no consequences followed from UB or prosecutors.

University of Iowa student Jasmyn Jordan broke down as she described getting doxxed and accused of violence because "I'm black and hold conservative principles." 

The administration did not punish those who displayed a "Punch your local Nazi" sign inside its chapter's event with West and threw "20,000 marbles" on the floor to block the entrance to its event with the Daily Wire's Matt Walsh, she said. 

Nothing happened to a hall mate who "stalked outside of my bedroom door," nor to vandals who chalked over YAF messages in violation of university policy, Jordan said, her voice rising to a shout. 

Protesters stole the sign from their event with detransitioner Chloe Cole, who challenges so-called gender affirming care including mastectomies and cross-sex hormones, and police never got it back, while posters for left-wing groups remain "completely unattacked," according to Jordan. 

"The rules are continually permitted to be broken by left-wing students" who are "coddled" by the university, she said, alleging "no move toward change" after meeting with university administrators.

"I hold no truck with trying to silence" conservative students, the committee's ranking Democrat, New York Rep. Jerry Nadler, told the students. He said Students for a Democratic Society shouted him down as a Columbia undergraduate because "I was not left-wing enough."