Harvard Professor J. Lorand Matory claims that he is seeking a greater civility on campus through reasoned academic discourse, but his real intention seems to be to create that civility by having only his side of the discussion be heard.

As evidence of what Professor Edward Alexander has called "the explosive power of boredom" in rousing the liberal professoriate to its ideological feet, Harvard's prolific Professor of Anthropology and of African and African American Studies, J. Lorand Matory, was yet again fulminating in the June 5th issue of the Harvard Crimson about the “chilling” of free speech on campus and seeking, as he has been for some time now, "a civil dialogue in which people with a broad range of perspectives feel safe and are encouraged to express their reasoned and evidence-based ideas."

And what were those "reasoned" ideas that had caused Professor Matory to feel "unsafe" on Harvard's insulated campus? Criticism of Zionism and Israel, of course, an issue about which Professor Matory and others have many notorious opinions, but which are being suppressed, in his ominous view, through "imbalances in access to money, media, and society’s administrative apparatuses [which] constitute the censorship of dissent." Professor Matory's implication is that on this one issue — criticism of Israel — the sacrosanct notion of "academic free speech" is being threatened by Israel’s defenders who wish to stifle all speech critical of the Jewish state.

That reference in Matory’s opening line to “access to money, media, and society’s administrative apparatuses” as a tool to obviate criticism of Israel is itself particularly odious, as it echoes precisely the classic form of anti-Semitism which positions Jews as the holders of great power, wealth, and influence, and those able to sway public opinion to protect Jewish interests — which in current times has meant Israel’s interests...