Bill Ackman: belief

Transcript context

…Is there some tension between free speech on college campuses and disciplining students for calls of genocide? Yes, there’s certainly a tension. First of all, I think free speech is incredibly important. I’m a lot closer to absolutism on free speech than otherwise. The issue I had was the hypocrisy. They were restricting other kinds of speech on campus, principally conservative speech, conservative views. So it wasn’t a free speech, absolutist campus. The protests were actually quite threatening to students. There are limits to even absolutist free speech and they begin where people feel intimidation, harassment and threat to bodily harm, et cetera, that kind of speech is generally … Again, it’s pretty technical, but as people feel like they’re in imminent harm, by virtue of the protest, that speech is at risk of not meeting the standards for free speech. Harvard is a private corporation and as a private corporation, they can put on what restrictions they want. Harvard had introduced only a few months before bullying and harassment policies, and that’s why Representative Stefanik focused on … It’s not like she said, “Does calling for genocide against the Jews violate your free speech policies?” She said, “Does calling for genocide against the Jews violate your policies on bullying and harassment?” I think everyone looked at this when they said, it depends on the context. They said, look, if you replaced Jews with some other ethnic group, students who’ve used the N word for example, have been thrown off campus or suspended. Students who’ve hate speeched directed at LGBTQ people has led to disciplinary action, but attacking, spitting on Jewish students or roughing them up a bit, seemed like we’re calling for their elimination, didn’t seem to violate the policies. Look, I think a university should be a place where you have broad views and open viewpoints and broad discussion, but it should also be a place where students don’t feel threatened going to class, where their learning is not interrupted, when final exams are not interrupted by people coming in with loud protests. Students asked me when I went up there, “What would you do if you were Harvard president?” This was before I knew what was happening on the Dartmouth campus, I said, “I’d convene everyone together. This is Harvard. We have access to the best minds in the world. Let’s have a better understanding of the history. Let’s understand the backdrop. Let’s focus on solutions. Let’s bring Arab and Jewish and Israeli students together. Let’s form let groups to create communication.” That’s how you solve this kind of problem. None of that stuff has been done. It’s not that hard. Do you think this reveals a deeper problem in terms of ideology and the governance of Harvard in maybe the culture of Harvard?…

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