Category Archives: cancel culture

Against Trespass

Posted on by under activism, cancel culture, moralism, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine

“The conflict over Palestine is unusual in many different ways, principally of course because Palestine is not an ordinary place.”

–Edward Said, “Introduction,” Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question, p. 1.

“Direct action,” in activist parlance, is a form of public protest to induce some party to meet one’s demands–a demonstration, a sit-in, a disruption. Some direct actions (not all, obviously) involve trespass of some kind. What counts as trespass in any given context, particularly a university campus, can often be a confused and confusing affair. So I’m restricting attention in this post to the cases in which it’s clear that a given action commits trespass (is “trespassory”). Given all that, I want to make a case that pro-Palestine activists should stop engaging in direct actions that involve trespass. But first, a few clarifications. Continue reading →

Resistance in Action

Posted on by under activism, cancel culture, liberty and the left, moralism, Trump 2

I’ve previously mentioned my work with Resistencia en Acción, a migrant defense group based in Princeton and Trenton, New Jersey. Much of what Resistencia does is to face down ICE whenever the need arises. And to put it bluntly: ICE has to be faced down. It’s less a law enforcement agency than a glorified group of thugs–an American Gestapo–intent on solving, by brute force, problems that they themselves have confabulated. Continue reading →

Why Princeton students disrupted Naftali Bennett

Posted on by under activism, cancel culture, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine

This post was written by Princeton Alumni for Palestine, of which I’m a member. The piece was rejected for publication in both The Daily Princetonian and Princeton Alumni Weekly. I’ll be posting a separate post on this topic, in my own name, in the near future.–IK

To understand why students had to disrupt Naftali Bennett’s visit to Princeton on April 7th, it’s important to recenter ourselves on the ongoing events abroad. Hamas and Israel at last reached a ceasefire earlier this year which was recently unilaterally broken by Israel, which resumed its genocidal campaign. Full stop. Well over 50,000 deaths have been recorded, of whom 15,000 are children. These figures are a “clean” report. Yet according to the Lancet, the death toll is likely to be in the hundreds of thousands. Anyone who does a cursory search of the images from Gaza will find evidence of the deeply horrid violence that Israel  has been enacting on innocent civilians, journalists, medics, UN aid workers and children. And let us not forget that these weapons are supplied with our tax dollars. Continue reading →

Heterodox Academy 2025

Posted on by under activism, cancel culture, General announcements, moralism, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine

Though I’m totally unsympathetic to the organization, I thought I’d announce that I’ll be giving a paper at the 2025 Heterodox Academy conference this June in Brooklyn. The conference runs June 23-25, and will be held at the New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge. My talk is part of a three-person session at 8:30 am on the 24th called “The Skeptics’ Panel,” and is titled “Kalven’s Complicit Executioners: A Critique of the Kalven Committee Report.” There’s nothing particularly “skeptical” about my argument; it’s a straightforward rejection and critique of so-called “institutional neutrality.” I’ve laid out a version of the argument here, and will be blogging on related themes in the near future. Continue reading →

PFS on Yechiel Leiter: A Response

Posted on by under activism, cancel culture, moralism, MTSP Discussion: George Sher's Desert, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine

I subscribe to an email list owned by a group called Princetonians for Free Speech (PFS), which just today put out an open letter to Christopher Eisgruber, President of Princeton University, in advance of tomorrow’s speech by Yechiel Leiter, Israel’s ambassador to the United States. I don’t ordinarily feel the need to respond to statements by PFS, but in this case, a brief comment is in order. Continue reading →

Princeton’s Genocide

Posted on by under activism, cancel culture, Fatwas, moralism, MTSP Discussion: George Sher's Desert, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine

In October 2024, after several years of activism (most recently spearheaded by Princeton Israeli Apartheid Divestment, or PIAD), the Council for the Princeton University Community (CPUC) invited written comments from members of the Princeton University community weighing in for and against divestment from Israel. The CPUC rejected the bid for divestment about a month ago.

What follows below is my written statement to the CPUC, which essentially speaks for itself–and likewise speaks to the title I’ve given this post.  I will, in the near future, be posting some supplementary material, including screen shots from The Daily Princetonian of Meir Kahane’s two appearances at Princeton advocating ethnic cleansing and genocide (April 1984 and February 1988), the written version of my follow-up question to the CPUC about the issue of complicity, and the transparently evasive “response” to my question offered by Hilary A. Parker, Vice President and Secretary of Princeton University. I’ll also be posting a written response here to John Groves, chair of CPUC’s Resources Committee. Both Parker and Groves refused my repeated requests to offer a candid disclosure of the facts concerning the University’s investments, opting for concealment and evasion. Continue reading →

Naftali Bennett at Princeton

Posted on by under activism, cancel culture, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine

What follows are screenshots of a long message from the Instagram page of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) of Princeton University (with the Princeton/Palestine Liberation Coalition and SJP’s national and state affiliates), regarding the forthcoming visit to campus on April 7th of Naftali Bennett. I’ll write up a longer comment this weekend, but for now, suffice it to say that I agree with SJP, and wanted to amplify its message. If you click the first thumbnail to enlarge, you should be able to click directly through the whole series. Otherwise, click each thumbnail to enlarge, reading them left to right across the page.

Continue reading →

By Diverse Means

Posted on by under activism, anarchism, cancel culture, moralism, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine, Trump 2

I saw a news item the other day that wasn’t funny, but still made me laugh. “Trump Pauses Dozens of Federal Grants to Princeton,” read the headline: 

The Trump administration moved this week to suspend dozens of federal grants to Princeton University, the fourth Ivy League school that has seen its financial support from Washington reduced or explicitly threatened since March.

Christopher L. Eisgruber, Princeton’s president, told the university community in an email late Tuesday morning that “several dozen” grants had been suspended. …

Mr. Eisgruber said that the university had been told on Monday and Tuesday that it was losing at least some research support from the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy and NASA.

You don’t see the humor? Let me explain. Continue reading →

Journey of a Thousand Miles

Posted on by under activism, cancel culture, character based voting, moralism, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine, Trump 2

“A journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step.”
–Lao Tzu (supposedly)

From my March 22 post on recent events at Columbia:

What’s not a question is that strategic planners who couldn’t see this coming do not deserve to be employed. In a just world, these overpaid, over-hyped, preening incompetents would be thrown unceremoniously out of their plush offices directly into the streets of Morningside Heights.

From The New York Times, less than a week later: Continue reading →