Re: Swastika drawn on floor outside Jewish student’s dorm room
Swastikas, nooses or burning crosses should never be allowed. These symbols are used to inflict harm, not communicate. Yesterday’s hate crime is a reminder to do better. We must champion free speech and denounce hate.
I agree with College President Sian Leah Beilock that “this act of bigotry and targeted harassment at a person’s home will not be tolerated on our campus.” At the same time, I abhor the vacuousness of the “viewpoint diversity” she talks about on panels. Dartmouth should not give microphones to flat-earthers, much less election deniers, eugenicists and proponents of genocide.
We should not pretend that engaging in realpolitik — refusing to sign AACU letters and hiring MAGA RNC attorneys — to avoid Trump’s wrath is a Kantian categorical imperative. Unconditional viewpoint diversity is amoral. We do not have a duty to adhere to it.
I condemn antisemitism, Nazism and dehumanization. I agree with Karl Popper: We cannot extend unlimited tolerance to the intolerant.
Debating what public figures and decision-makers do is fair game. Showing deference to people who dehumanize is not.
Jewish community members deserve a proactive response to this attack from non-Jews. Transgender, non-citizen and other community members under assault deserve the same.
If Dartmouth associates with or extends a speaking invitation to someone who has called human beings “animals,” referred to people using disease metaphors, framed a population as inherently criminal or used terms like “invasion” and “replacement” to spread division, we as a community have a right and duty to object.
We do not have to sit there politely and hear them out.
We can disinvite them and if they show up anyway, we should shout them down.
If your idea cannot be communicated without dehumanization, slurs or incessant incendiary trolling, then it should be met with the same incontrovertible rejection as a disgusting symbol of hate.
Unai Montes-Irueste is a member of the Alumni Council, the Dartmouth Association of Latinx Alumni and the Class of 1998. Letters to the Editor represent the views of their author(s), which are not necessarily those of The Dartmouth.
