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I find it deliciously ironic and very satisfying. We suddenly have free speech at American universities, at least while Jewish billionaires are threatening to stop the moola. The presidents of top universities have cried uncle and have pledged that free speech will be for them what money was to Shylock. The only problem is that unlike Shylock, they are owed nothing and in fact are the ones who caused the problem in the first place. They are the ones who rooted out what they called hate speech, white supremacy, and other trigger terms. The ones who did away with women who argued that biological sex is real, and trumpeted that speech is violence, and silence is also violence. The ones who allowed woke freaks to rule the roost and poison young minds while they lived high on the hog in their off-campus mansions.

And now, all of a sudden, the very same heads of American institutions that have squelched free speech in favor of woke bullshit are bending over backwards, declaring their hands were tied by their duty to allow unfettered dialogue. Which is also a big lie. There was never a hint of dialogue, nor discussion, just rules set by woke zealots, to be obeyed by everyone, starting with the heads of institutions such as Harvard, Penn, and MIT. (The Penn one is gone; now for all the rest.)

How did this turnaround come about? Easy. Jewish billionaires are not known for acting like blushing brides, and some of the biggest donors decided to call a halt to the giving once the woke freaks turned anti-Semitic. The irony is that free speech was acknowledged only when Jewish students felt intimidated. Until then free expression was allowed only for woke and lefty freaks, with Harvard leading the way for canceling any conservative voices.

Apollo CEO Marc Rowan started it, and other Jewish heads of Wall Street followed. They quickly got results: Israel will not be criticized or else. The heads of famed universities got the message. These were the same heads who didn’t invoke free-speech defenses for conservative speakers when student mobs threatened to burn the place down. Money, you see, dear Takimag readers, speaks louder than words.

So there you have it. A few Jewish billionaires managed in one swoop to do what hundreds of millions of the rest of us failed to accomplish: establish freedom of speech at American universities. The hard left’s takeover of campuses was no secret but was commented upon only by a few conservative reporters and columnists. The sick trend of American higher education included the phasing out of courses on the classics and of kangaroo courts and mob-rule assaults. All this was ignored by so-called administrators until the Gaza riots. College administrations in America are terrified of the campus left, with faculty the most terrified of all. Grievance-mongering student groups rule the roost, and in my not-so-humble opinion, they will return with a vengeance once things quiet down a bit.

That parts of American higher education were led by moral imbeciles was obvious to some of us but ignored by papers like the Times because they served a lefty purpose. That student leaders and senior faculty members began numerous public events by declaring that the campuses were located on occupied lands tells us everything we need to know. These insincere pronouncements, nothing but virtue signaling by a weak and cowardly faculty of third-rate thinkers, are typical of the rot. Which in American education begins at the top.

And it gets much worse. As my friend Roger Kimball wrote in his magnificent opus Tenured Radicals, campus troublemakers in the ’60s and ’70s had returned to the scene of their crimes as teachers, subverting the system from within. These bums had their way, with great books and intellectual traditions of the West being replaced by studies of obscure black feminists and other such nobodies.

Never mind, as Samson whispered to no one in particular when he began to shake the columns. The Jewish billionaires have spoken and American educators have listened. It took one word—genocide—to do the trick. When pro-Palestinian protesters called for an end to the genocide in Gaza, the billionaires got busy. There is only one thing wrong: Americans decry some deaths but not others, and as we tell the world that we provide Ukraine with weapons because we believe in a “rules-based international order,” we also provide weapons that end up killing children on a huge scale in Gaza. 17,700 dead, 70 percent of them women and children, up to this writing on Dec. 11. What factor must Jewish deaths be multiplied by?

So I ask you, dear readers. Wouldn’t it have been better if Israel had used smaller bombs and not pulverized entire neighborhoods, killing thousands of innocents? Palestinian children are dying from American bombs, yet pro-Israeli commentators are surprised that young mobs are calling for the genocide to end. Israel’s army should have used a surgical tactic in response to the October 7 massacre. Instead, Israel has lost an opportunity to show magnanimity and compassion. But not to worry. American Jewish billionaires will now resume the giving, and knowing how easily American university heads bow to the richest, the word “Palestine” will soon be joining the N-word as one never to be uttered.