Liz Magill resigned recently as president of the University of Pennsylvania after severe backlash for standing her ground to defend pro-Palestine views on campus.

Elise Stefanik (ES): Miss Magill, at Penn does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Penn's rules or code of conduct? Yes or no?

Her resignation came after a recent Republican-led congressional hearing – “Holding Campus Presidents Accountable and Combating Antisemitism” –where the following exchange occurred between her and the friend to the Israeli lobby and congressional panellist, Elise Stefanik:

Liz Magill (LM): If the speech turns into conduct it can be harassment, yes.

ES: I am asking specifically calling for the genocide of Jews. Does that constitute bullying or harassment?

LM: If it is directed and severe or pervasive, it is harassment.

ES: So the answer is yes.

LM: It is a context dependent decision, congresswoman.

ES: It's a context dependent decision. That's your testimony today? Calling for the genocide of Jews is depending upon the context? That is not bullying or harassment? This is the easiest question to answer “yes” Miss Magill. So is your testimony that you will not answer yes?

LM: If it is, if the speech becomes…

ES: Yes or no?

LM: If the speech becomes conduct it can be harassment, yes.

ES: Conduct meaning committing the act of genocide? The speech is not harassment? This is unacceptable Miss Magill. I'm going to give you one more opportunity for the world to see your answer. Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Penn's code of conduct when it comes to bullying and harassment? Yes or no?

LM: It can be harassment.

ES: The answer is yes.

Magill’s position was also mirrored by Harvard University president Claudin Gay who, when asked about the same “calling for genocide” by Stefanik, responded thus:

Claudin Gay (CG): It can be, depending on the context.

ES: What's the context?

CG: Targeted as an individual. Targeted at an individual.

ES: It's targeted at Jewish students, Jewish individuals. Do you understand your testimony is dehumanising them? Do you understand that dehumanisation is part of anti-Semitism? I will ask you one more time. Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard's rules of bullying and harassment? Yes or no?

CG: Anti-Semitic rhetoric…

ES: And is it anti-Semitic rhetoric?

CG: Anti-Semitic rhetoric when it crosses into conduct that amounts to bullying, harassment, intimidation, that is actionable conduct and we do take action.

ES: So the answer is yes, that calling for the genocide of Jews violates Harvard Code of Conduct, correct?

CG: Again, it depends on the context.

ES: It does not depend on the context. The answer is yes and this is why you should resign. These are unacceptable answers across the board.

Both Magill and Gay’s responses speak to both their support for genuine freedom of speech, which protects the right to offend others, as well as their universities’ commitment to such freedom.

At the same time their responses reflect appropriate limits on freedom. Both Magill and Gay were clear that if speech leads to actual, not merely perceived, harm then then there are grounds for disciplining the speaker – be it, for example, a university student or staff member.

But even then it’s not the speech itself that is being punished but the material injury it causes, namely unjustifiable and perhaps even cruel injury against the target (e.g. individual or group of people) of the speech. Without such injury words may indeed be problematic, as in their causing some number of people to feel deeply troubled by them, but that does not warrant censoring them.

Such censorship at once undermines important dialogue and debate, in which even hateful ideas can be introduced and, in turn, contested and delegitimised by others – through well-reasoned argumentation (as opposed to the alarmist tone of Stefanik).

That’s also how learning occurs. If you prevent that at universities they no longer serve their primary function, namely to educate, and so have ultimately lost their legitimacy.

Complementing this view, Magill should not have resigned – as she clearly suggests in a personal video – for failing, at the hearing, to expressly denounce speech that reprehensibly advocates for genocide.

Her doing so implicitly (and publicly) conveys the message that such a “failure” is not only lamentable. It is also wholly unacceptable – professionally and otherwise – as a university president.

This sets the dangerous precedent such that to not condemn certain speech is “proof” that one is not fit to be a university president. They should therefore resign or be dismissed. And on campuses where this is deemed the “appropriate” response, students and staff alike will be expected to also avoid various forms of speech, lest they – voluntarily or by administrative order – be disciplined (expelled or fired) or lowered in standing in the larger university community (demoted, as was Magill, from university president to simply tenured faculty).

To guard against universities becoming this way, we’d be wise to consult with what’s often referred to as the “harm principle”, as defined by 19th century English philosopher John Stuart Mill.

According to the moral rule – which he articulates in his classic work On Liberty and bears quoting at length, given its importance to free speech (a central theme of this article) – “the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection…

“He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even right”.

In a similar vein, universities can ensure the safety of all students, staff, etc. while at the same time honouring their right to engage in speech – from on-campus discussions and conferences to poetry readings and demonstration chants – that is not compelled or restrained by any one authority, such as a politically-motivated university board or administration.

Only where such speech, in keeping with observations made by Magill and Gay, incites audiences to harm others can there be justifiable grounds to limit it.

It should be noted that the harm principle, much as it protects free speech, is not itself an invitation to insult, degrade or belittle. Admittedly such ignoble behaviour should hardly be encouraged, even in contexts (not just universities) where it is legally permissible.

For this, among other reasons, creates avoidable and unnecessary tensions between people. This undermines the possibility of co-operative and healthy community, which promotes human flourishing – a desirable good in and of itself.

In contrast to the spirit of antagonism or even hostility people often associate with free speech, as if it automatically lends itself to combativeness, such community can actually occur alongside free speech. In significant part this is because free speech, in essence, is not enmity but liberty, namely for various parties (individuals, groups, etc.) to be able to express and articulate points of view without hindrance.

Though this may admittedly lead to heated disagreements between those parties it, conversely, can also lead to the same parties seeing what they have in common – ideas, preferences, lived experiences, and so forth. This can lead to shared understandings on which to build or form positive relationships with one another, whether or not they develop to the community level as described.

Universities can exemplify this by promoting freedom of speech within a larger learning environment – made up of libraries, centres of inquiry, other key resources that one can expect to find on campuses – where people can openly express and develop their ideas. Some might be hateful, some bizarre, others still might be illuminating or even brilliant. Whatever their merit such ideas, in the learning environment at hand, can be weighed and tested against others.

In the process, people become more knowledgeable, attuned to reality as opposed to distorted conceptions of it. Metaphorically and reflecting the etymology of “education”, that also involves moving further from darkness (ignorance) and towards light (truth).

This includes at least the possibility that individuals, such as Stefanik, who subscribe to idea that, as Stefanik stated at the hearing, the “intifada…is indeed a call for violent armed resistance against the state of Israel, including violence against civilians in the genocide of Jews” will come to see it it for what it is: a myth (“intifada”, as discussed in a recent article by TRT World, refers to uprising).

More specifically it is a dangerous one that, if only indirectly, mischaracterizes worldwide supporters of the liberation of Palestine as not only antisemitic but genocidal. In turn they are made into objects of serious contempt, which – whether on or off campus – can be met with violence. In the extreme this can lead to their deaths.

Freedom of speech, as an effective corrective against dangerous myths, can prevent this. In doing so, it saves lives too.