In 2018, the right-wing parliamentary majority in Poland made a pitiful attempt to pass a new law on the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN). PiS and its coalition partners wanted to include in it a provision introducing fines or up to three years in prison for anyone, Polish or foreign, who publicly attributed to “the Polish Nation or the Polish State” co-responsibility for crimes of the Third Reich or other “crimes against peace, humanity, or war crimes.”
An international scandal erupted because the new law appeared to be a tool for censoring freedom of speech by threatening criminal sanctions against people who, for example, pointed to the involvement of individuals of Polish nationality in the Holocaust, such as blackmailers or residents of places like Jedwabne. Israel reacted first, but so did Ukraine (since the law also covered assessments of actions like Operation Vistula). Yet PiS would most likely have ignored objections from Jerusalem and Kyiv in the name of the archetype of “getting up off our knees” in foreign policy, had these objections not received clear support from Washington. Whenever the United States spoke during Donald Trump’s first term, PiS immediately abandoned its “standing tall” rhetoric, sometimes practically falling at America’s feet.
Despite Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki having recently traveled to Germany to speak about “Jewish perpetrators of the Holocaust”, the PiS government and its parliamentary backers quickly tucked their tails between their legs following U.S. criticism and blunted the law’s edge. It became clear that no one would go to a Polish prison even for harsh or exaggerated anti-Polish criticism, and certainly, authors of honest academic works or artistic content would not face penalties. One could get the impression that America—the homeland of unlimited freedom of speech—had once again stepped in to defend the basic principles of liberal democracy.
Today, it is worth abandoning that impression of Trump’s America as quickly as possible and instead reflecting in genuine astonishment on the total hypocrisy of the U.S. president and his administration, composed of figures from the American right. Only seven years after the uproar over the PiS law, the U.S. administration has set itself on a collision course with universities in its own country and is doing precisely what PiS attempted to implement in Poland—dictating which ideas researchers in the U.S. are allowed to express in writing or in lectures. Only this time, the stick is not a law, fines, or imprisonment, but the threat of cutting billions in federal funding.
Trump demands that universities, including Columbia, where he has already succeeded, formally adopt and enforce the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which completely blurs the line between real dislike or hatred of Jews and criticism of Israeli state policy (for which there are currently many very valid reasons). The approach pushed by Trump outlines the concept of the so-called “new antisemitism,” which no longer has much to do with the racist, cultural, or religious anti-Jewish stereotypes typical of the far right. Instead, it focuses on levying accusations against left-wing groups for “demonizing Israel” and on silencing its critics in public debate.
Trump has directed his threats at over 50 universities, demanding that they introduce special measures to protect Jewish students from “discrimination” and to suppress anti-Israeli and pro-Palestinian protests and other student actions. Widely known are already examples of arrests and deportations of foreign students who either peacefully took part in protests or even merely “committed” the act of writing opinion pieces critical of Israel regarding the Gaza war. Both constitute an obvious attack on freedom of speech, exactly mirroring the intentions behind PiS’s failed IPN law project.
Columbia reached a kind of “settlement” with the federal government and, in exchange for the restoration of part of its funding, agreed to incorporate the expanded IHRA definition of antisemitism into its statutes and to apply it rigorously. The university’s president will be responsible for providing federal agencies with access to all files and personal data concerning academic staff, administrators, and students; enabling government bodies to monitor and evaluate compliance with the settlement’s requirements regarding combating antisemitism; and allowing any member of the academic community to file relevant reports on individuals who express criticism of Israel.
Naturally, the Trump administration is attacking not only freedom of speech, which is the foundation of all freedoms, but also academic freedom. The “settlement” effectively prevents scholars and researchers from performing their work. For example, the IHRA definition rules out comparative genocide studies, since any comparison or juxtaposition of Israeli policy in Gaza and its consequences with, for instance, crimes of the Third Reich, is deemed antisemitic. Any free discussion about current events in Gaza with students is excluded.
Retired professor Rashid Khalidi has therefore canceled his lectures on Middle Eastern history at Columbia, pointing out that conducting the course under the IHRA regime is impossible, given that it would require omitting discriminatory Israeli laws that create two categories of citizens and establish a de facto apartheid. Marianne Hirsch (herself Jewish and the daughter of Holocaust survivors) notes that even teaching the ideas of Hannah Arendt, a declared opponent of Zionism, now seems risky under Columbia’s “settlement” with Trump’s government.
There is no doubt that the administration has forced the university to ban or disable the expression of ideas that are, at the same time, unequivocally protected by the U.S. Constitution.
This situation is particularly absurd in light of another action Trump has taken against universities. The federal administration has also threatened to freeze or withdraw funding as punishment for applying DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) principles, including the creation of so-called “safe spaces” where students feeling threatened because of identity-related reasons could avoid any factors (including critical speech) that might cause them anxiety. By demanding the elimination of DEI-inspired approaches for everyone else, Trump simultaneously insists that only Jewish students should be entitled to DEI-style protection and that their sense of safety should be the particular concern of universities. Critics already warn that this could result in them being perceived as especially privileged, potentially leading to increased hostility and resentment.
Either way, Trump’s hypocrisy is plain to see. While he may restrict freedom of speech and academic research however he wishes, others must obtain his permission to do the same. The Polish government under PiS, for example, did not enjoy such “good fortune.”
This article was originally published at https://liberte.pl/hipokryzja-totalna-u-donalda-trumpa/
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