America has the First Amendment, which protects just about any expression of opinion as long as it doesn’t actually create the threat of violence against a person or group.
But students at some elite universities are discovering that right comes at a price.
It’s because the students, extremists on the pro-Palestinian side of the Hamas terrorists’ fight with Israel, do not align with the values of potential employers.
Fox News explained in just one report that three Ivy League students, exercising their right and signing letters supporting the terrorists in Hamas, have seen their job offers withdrawn by major law firms.
“Davis Polk rescinded letters of employment for three law students at Harvard and Columbia universities after the students signed on to open letters in support of Hamas amid the ongoing conflict with Israel,” the report explained. “The firm’s announcement came via an internal email that was later posted to social media, with chair and managing partner Neil Barr explaining that the statements in the letters are ‘simply contrary to our firm’s values.’”
The statement said withdrawing offers of employment to such radicals is “appropriate in upholding our responsibility to provide a safe and inclusive work environment for all Davis Polk employees.”
The BBC reported after the October 7 terror, “which left at least 1,400 Israelis dead,” the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee and more than 30 other student groups put out a letter stating: ‘We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.”
Universities were hurt, too, when they found themselves being cut off from millions of dollars in expected donations because their response to such student radicalism was not sufficient.
And the job offers to students dried up, leading some of the student groups who signed the letters to withdrawn their names, or to otherwise to move away from those comments.
An organization called Accuracy in Media posted signers’ names and faces on billboards.
“We’re merely amplifying the messages that the students have put out themselves. If they regret their messages they can apologize and we will take their pictures down,” spokesman Adam Guillette said.
Another letter came from student groups at Columbia, and charged, “The weight of responsibility for the war and casualties undeniably lies with the Israeli extremist government and other Western governments.”
The report also noted another law from, Winston & Strawn, withdrew a job offer to the former president of the New York University Student Bar Association.
Ryna Workman, in fact, had told fellow students, “Israel bears full responsibility” for the Hamas attacks.
The corporate reaction to such extreme comments wasn’t limited to withdrawing job offers, either.
The Daily Mail revealed Citibank fired “glamorous banker Nozima Husainova” for posting “vile anti-Semitic” comments about Jewish people. Her comment was “No wonder Hitler wanted rid of them.”
The 25-year-old “sparked outrage with the remark which she posted on her now-deleted Instagram page and she’s since lost her job, the bank confirmed Thursday,” the report said.
The New York Post reported one of the results of the clash between personal opinion and corporate values was that Harvard students were rushing “desperately” to backtrack on their condemnation of Israel.
In fact, 17 groups at the school signed a “counter-statement” lashing out at the Hamas supporters for being “completely wrong and deeply offensive.”
Fox reported that another development was that students continued promoting Hamas and condemning Israel, but they were hiding their faces with masks while doing it.
“We are here today to honor our martyrs and to honor the struggle for liberation that they made the ultimate sacrifice for,” a vigil organizer recently said. “Our resistance fighters are defying Zionist intelligence as we speak, exposing the cracks and its ironclad foundation and dispelling the illusion of its invincibility.”
Organizers handed out masks for the Students for Justice in Palestine at George Washington University event called “Vigil for the Martyrs of Palestine.”
A report from the Daily Caller News Foundation noted Ray Rodrigues, the chancellor of the State University System of Florida, called for investigations of extremism, pointing out that calls for Israel to be “wiped off the map” may have violated Florida law.
The report said, “Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) at Florida State University (FSU) hosted a protest on Oct. 11 advocating for ‘Palestinian resistance’ just days after Hamas, a U.S.-designated Palestinian terrorist organization, attacked Israel, killing over 1,300 and wounding thousands, according to Florida’s Voice. Rodrigues said in his memo that allegations had been made that protesters called for Israel to be ‘wiped off the map’ and warned university presidents, if true, the behavior would ‘not be tolerated.’”
He said Florida law prohibits anti-Semitic activities.
And to make the news worse for those leftist college students, their names were being sought.
WND reported that a long list of corporate CEOs joined in a call by billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman to blacklist those students signing the anti-Israel statements.
His plan specifically addressed Harvard students who blamed Israel, “while the group whined about being persecuted in the aftermath,” the Daily Mail reported. The report said CEOs from EasyHealth, Belong, FabFitFun, Inspired, DoveHill and others joined Ackman in outing the students.
Ackman was blunt in his plan: “One should not be able to hide behind a corporate shield when issuing statements supporting the actions of terrorists, who, we now learn, have beheaded babies, among other inconceivably despicable acts.”
Ackman, who heads Pershing Square Capitol Management, has lobbied for the names of students involved in those statements.
The Daily Mail reported, “Among the CEOs now vowing never to hire anyone from the 31 Harvard student [groups] was salad chain Sweetgreen’s CEO, Jonathan Neman, who echoed Ackman’s message and said, ‘I would like to know so I know never to hire these people.’”
And David Duel, CEO of EasyHealth, said, “Same.”
“Share the list,” requested Ale Resnik of Belong.
“Michael McQuaid, the head of DeFi operations at blockchain company Bloq said: ‘I completely agree, and have been wondering the same the last couple of days if/when the names of these students would come out,’” the report said.
Sucks to be a fuzzy-brained liberal.