GMU free speech conundrum. The George Mason University Board of Visitors passed the following resolution on antisemitism last month after extensive debate, reports the GMU student newspaper The Fourth Estate: “This board directs the University, including all of its administrative departments, offices, schools, and academic units, to refrain from sponsoring or endorsing any organization, event, or other activity whose position or posture is antisemitic under the [International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance] IHRA definition.” 

This makes me uneasy. The IHRA definition is expansive, ranging from denying the Holocaust, accusing Jews of controlling societal institutions, or targeting the state of Israel using criteria not applied to other countries. I oppose all such forms of antisemitism, and I fully support Israel in its war against Hamas, but I’m reluctant to tell faculty (“academic units”) that they cannot condemn Israel. I find the anti-Israel pronouncements of left-wing faculty to be reprehensible. But grotesque utterances should be fought in the arena of ideas, not suppressed administratively.

Update. Here is the final version of the GMU board resolution, the language of which differs somewhat from the draft version I quoted from The Fourth Estate. In the final version, the Board directed the University to disseminate the IHRA definition as part of a factsheet but did not formally adopt the definition for university purposes.

The green movement as new religion. Climate change wasn’t an issue in 1st-century Judea, but it is becoming a central organizing principle for some Christian churches these days. WHRO reports that a coalition of nonprofits and community leaders are turning New Bethel Baptist Church in Portsmouth into a “resilience hub” where people can talk about addressing the impact of climate change at the local level — by planting trees, installing solar panels, setting up electric-vehicle chargers, and addressing the impact of extreme heat. Said one of the nonprofit leaders: “The church is sitting here, doing its thing just like any church. But we’re going to tap into (that) and layer on some additional programming and really enhance the church to address the needs of the community.”

Jesus did champion the poor, but I don’t recall that urban heat-island inequities made it into the beatitudes…. and I doubt it’s high on the list of Portsmouth’s poor.

Who started this culture war? Public affairs officials at the Naval Surface Warfare Center at Dahlgren outside of Fredericksburg have begun complying with a recent Trump administration order to remove social media and online content promoting Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility (DEIA). officials must take down all news articles, photos and videos published between Jan. 20, 2021, and Jan. 19, 2025, until all the content is fully reviewed and the DEI content is scrubbed, reports the Fredericksburg Free Press. The article’s headline frames the action thusly: “Culture wars reach warfighters.” Interesting.

Didn’t the culture wars first reach warfighters when controversial DEIA content was originally posted? Have the culture wars reached Dahlgren only now that someone wishes to take it down?