Meanwhile on the International front....

There is no first amendment issue here.

UPenn, Harvard and MIT have codes of conduct. For example, the "conservative" online sites made a big deal out of Harvard's Title IV training a few years ago, in which before students can enroll in classes, they have to go through this online idiocy in which, among other things, they are told that using wrong pronouns for people and making remarks about gender identity violate Harvard's policy and could lead to expulsion. There was a "power and control wheel" on one slide that had "sizeism and fatphobia," "cisheterosexism," "transphobia," "ageism," and "ableism" as things that violate its Title IX policies.

Claudine Gay put out an immediate and impassioned statement about racism and inequality after the death of George Floyd.

Look at the Lia Thomas thread on here with regard to UPenn. They silenced all dissent when it came to members of women's swimming team having the temerity to protest a man who had taken hormones being on their team and pasting the competition. Free speech wasn't at issue when people objected.

This. ... wasn't that fucking hard. No matter how that idiot Congresswoman framed her questions: "Anti semitism is pernicious. It's against our code of conduct. If any member of our community creates a hostile environment for Jews, we will take it very seriously, and just like any other kind of hate, that kind of conduct can lead to expulsion."

Instead. ... they hemmed and hawed and gave "it depends on the context" answers.

If it was anti-Arab or anti-black or anti-lesbian or anti-transgender or anti-anyone-their-orthodoxy-has-decided-is-the oppressed-and-not-the-oppressors. ... no fucking way they don't find their words and speak eloquently about how there is no place on their campus for such vile behavior.

Claudine Gay, Liz Magill, Martha Pollack, Minouche Shafik, etc. all have jobs that have required coddling the "preferred" speech that is sacred on their campuses. But at the same time. ... they are the most prestigious schools in the country, with huge endowments. and the number one job of those college presidents has always been to bring in large donations.

This is just the latest: Penn loses $100 million donation after its president's bungled congressional hearing

Penn had already lost an insane amount of money prior to that hearing. ... She somehow blew it and made it worse.

In October after the terrorist attack, you could say, "OK, the inmates are running the asylum at these schools, and the administrations are petrified of taking the "wrong" stand. But by the time they were appearing in front of that hearing, how the hell can't they have prepped themselves to just sit upright and say, "We won't tolerate anti-semitism. Full stop." It wasn't that difficult.

 

The problem with people who try to turn everything into an absolute is that the opposite all-or-nothing proclamation could follow, also:

"Obviously none of the death in Gaza has been wanton or deliberate and intentional with the purpose of killing as many people as possible. Look at this photo of a surgical strike they did. They could have taken out the whole block, but the fact that they didn't in that instance is proof positive that everything that Israel has done has caused the minimum amount of death and destruction necessary to take out Hamas."

FWIW, I know next to nothing about air strikes and missiles and military action (same as all the experts commenting on the original tweet). I'd still guess that if you are trying to take out some sprawling infrastructure that is underground using bombs or missiles, for example, it would likely be completely different in terms of the precision that is possible.

Also, the guy whose tweet you shared is a real gem. His feed is filled with pro Hamas tweets. This is pinned to the top of his feed.

 

Well, as long as I met your seal of "mostly right" approval.

Lia Thomas was William Thomas, swimming for the men's team at Penn before taking hormones and swimming for the women's team. If I describe that as "a man who had taken hormones," no, I am not going to strain to "do better" so I can avoid a silly language police lecture from you.

Lia Thomas can be / identify as whatever she wants. Unfortunately, some advocates for her right to that choice don't just speak out about discrimination against transgender people. ... they have expanded that into strident stupidity in which a mob now tries to police how others talk. To the point that others are petrified of even stating objectively apparent things. For example, Lia Thomas' wikipedia page never says the name "William Thomas," in talking about Lia Thomas' life prior to transitioning. It pointedly refers to the then William Thomas, a swimmer on Penn's male swim team at the time, as "her" over and over again in that section.

I don't have any feelings about someone saying they identify as whatever they want to identify as, or changing their appearance however they want, or asking others to refer to them however they want. It personally doesn't bother me, nor does it excite me. But that isn't even the point. How I feel about it is my problem not theirs, as long as their individual choices aren't infringing on me or anyone else. I certainly wouldn't want people taking my attributes or choices that have no bearing on them and using it as a reason to discriminate against me.

But no. ... I am not going to run at 10.0 on your euphemism treadmill to talk around a situation like the one I was describing -- an athlete who was born with male physiology and male hormones and was a top male swimmer, who then created a controversy in women's swimming by taking hormones and then competing against women who had been born with female physiology and female hormones, many of whom had a problem with how it affected their competitive aspirations in their sport -- out of fear of someone else playing language police and tsk tsking me.