From the Harper's Letter to the Khalil Case

How Trump is threatening freedom of speech.

Whether or not it emerges that Mahmoud Khalil has material ties to Hamas, his detention is part of a larger political goal: ending the antiwar movement. The Trump administration has pursued this goal in several ways, including sending the Department of Homeland Security to raid two college dorms in New York; cutting federal funds for Columbia University — $400 million dollars — until it meets certain demands; calling on other universities to stop “illegal” protests; and promoting the investigation of students and professors critical of the war in Gaza.

That some antiwar protesters broke the law during their sometimes violent protests seems quite probable. That a few sympathizers with Hamas participate in these protests is indisputable. But all of its actions taken together suggest that the Administration is trying to suppress a political view, not just enforce the law or root out extremists. It is throwing everything it can at the anti-war movement. Some of it will stick, and some of it won’t, and that’s probably factored into the strategy. Trump has a plan for Gaza, and these protesters are standing in the way.

The Khalil case has people worrying about the future of free speech. Free speech was also a concern during the first Trump administration, but primarily because of firings that took place in the private sector, not because of any state action. Moreover, within the private sector, restrictions on free speech came primarily from the Left, not the Right. The 2020 Harper’s Letter on “Justice and Open Debate” expressed this concern, and it feels quaint to think about it now, in light of the Khalil case. The Harper’s Letter was a critique of the often stifling literary and intellectual culture that sometimes led to editors and writers losing their jobs. The Khalil case is part of a coordinated state effort to suppress a political movement. But thinking about both things together in this crucial moment helps, I think, to clarify what it is that we mean by freedom of speech, what it is that threatens it, and how to nurture it.

I remember feeling very depressed in 2020 and 2021, for obvious reasons: isolation, lockdown, disease and death everywhere. But the absurdity of many of the “cancellations” from that time also bummed me out, and reading about earlier cancellations only contributed to my depression. On two occasions, Dr. Seuss’ books were removed from libraries for having racially insensitive caricatures. Passages from Roald Dahl’s books were rewritten by sensitivity consultants. Singers MIA and Rosalía were accused of cultural appropriation, and the author of American Dirt was accused of appropriating other people’s pain. Publishing houses hired “sensitivity readers.” What I lamented about all this was that, as a culture, we were becoming intolerant of, or losing our taste for, ambiguity, risk, experimentation and just plain freedom. It seemed to me that more than just the fate of a few books was at stake.

That the very existence of certain works was perceived, by a plurality of my peers, as a threat, even as something to be extinguished, disturbed me. The fact that it was progressives who wanted to suppress books confused me. I grew up in a time when it was conservatives who wanted to cut Catcher in the Rye or Huckleberry Finn from public school curricula. It was the Catholic Church (of which I am a member) who, in 1999, called for a boycott of the movie Dogma. In fact, during the Covid years I experienced a few flashbacks to the time I spent in a strict Catholic school where the library books were kept behind lock and key, and you had to ask the librarian for permission to read certain books. (“Why do you want to read Master of the World by Jules Verne?” the librarian asks. I don’t know how to answer.)

Of course, each example cited above is unique and poses different moral questions. Some works really do have racist ideas and can influence readers in a negative way, especially young readers; those who teach young people should exercise judgment in whether and how they teach these books. Each “cancellation” should be examined individually. In general, however, I think

Ross Douthat

had it right when, writing about the second Dr. Seuss cancellation, he said: “flaws are good reasons to develop a diverse canon — but terrible reasons to make the works of important artists disappear.” To expand the range of books we read and discuss, and to provide context through the inclusion of other works, is preferable to cutting and suppressing.

The university is one of the places where the canon is set, and where it can be expanded. And the fact that, in 2020 and 2021, universities were participating in this stifling culture of censorship was, for me, one of the most bewildering things about the whole situation. I could believe that the state, or the church, might be involved in telling me what to read. But if college administrators impose trigger warnings on Homer and Virgil and Machiavelli, then we are all inside that Catholic school. (The librarian warns me that the Jules Verne book contains ideas that could put my soul in peril. I should read with trepidation. Or better, avoid reading Verne at all. “Here’s a book that’s better: The Little Prince.”)

Things have changed. Today, for the most part, it is conservatives who are, once again, purging books from public schools. The Left, at least at Columbia, is preoccupied with protecting the freedom to dissent, and the right to protest.

Freedom needs to be protected from state coercion. But freedom also needs a culture of openness that sustains it. The Khalil case poses a greater material threat to freedom than do the problems outlined in the Harper’s Letter. But both the Khalil case and the Harper’s Letter point to essential elements in a free culture. And the university, if it is to be a place for freedom to think and to write and to protest, must both be protected from state coercion, and nurture a culture of openness.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to place too much hope in the American university system as it exists today. As a former academic, I have a hard time sympathizing with it. Our universities function according to a fundamentally unjust business model. Tuition costs are too high; too many students are in debt. Over half of all college courses in the US are taught by adjuncts who generally have no job protection, no benefits, and make low wages. Almost every tenured academic I have ever met has justified this exploitation in one way or another. Moreover, wealthy schools — schools with endowments in the billions, who are a big source of employment in their respective communities — are now using the moment to paper over their structural problems and justify hiring freezes. Harvard enjoys an endowment of over 50 billion dollars. Even if DOGE ends federal funding, why would they need to impose a hiring freeze now?

Yet the Khalil case suggests that our universities are still, despite everything, something more than hedge funds with students. They are a place where moral and political questions are debated and fought over. Something about the last years has tempted every point of the political spectrum, Left and New Right, Woke and Trumpist, to try to limit open discussion and impose restrictions on books and media. But today, the state has thrown a protester in jail, without charge, and we can clearly see, once again, the value of freedom. In this environment, the universities have a chance to become a hub for free thought and counterculture in the Trump era. Will they seize it?

---

Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us!