Very Special Snowflakes: Harvard Refuses to Name the Student Who Repeatedly Insulted a Visiting Former Israeli PM by Saying She Was "Smelly" and Had a "Very Smelly Odor"

The Washington Free Beacon, on the other hand, ID's him, after Harvard asks them not to.

Harvard Law School is declining to disclose the identity of a student who repeatedly accused former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni of being "smelly" during a public discussion, a description many have described as anti-Semitic.

I don't buy that that line is "anti-semitic," though I have a feeling the student in question is such. Jews are not typically slurred as being "smelly." What I see is rudeness, and he's allowed that, but I'm bit baffled at Harvard's efforts to cover up this event.

The most special of its Very Special Snowflakes must have their bad behavior purged from the public record.

The university also deleted a portion of the video of the public event in which Husam El-Coolaq, whose identity the Washington Free Beacon has confirmed with multiple sources, made the accusation. El-Coolaq was listed as a Harvard Law School representative on the website of the student-run organization Harvard Arab Students on Wednesday, but has since been removed.

The exchange between Livni and El-Coolaq, an activist in the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (BDS) movement, was cut from the video, though portions of the conversation were leaked in transcript form.

El-Coolaq reportedly asked Livni, "How is it that you are so smelly?"

"Oh, it's regarding your odor," El-Coolaq said. "I'm question [sic] about the odor of Tzipi Livni, very smelly."

Note the efforts Harvard Law is going to here on behalf of benevolent censorship -- they're not trying to silence this ugly cur. They're trying to protect him.

He made public statements, in a public forum, but Harvard is going hyperactive to delete his statements from the public record.

... El-Coolaq's name has been withheld from the public and reporters attempting to write about the episode.

Why? The smelly son of a bitch said these comments in a public forum to a public official (or former public official). Why the censorship overdrive?

...

In this correspondence, Salinger requested that the Washington Free Beacon withhold from publishing the student's name to "minimize the damage."

Damage? To whom? If it's damage to BDS and this particular student, that is damage they are well-entitled to.

So this is the world we live in now: They'll censor you for speaking ideas they don't like, and they'll also consensually censor the words of their allies which they might agree with but which might be politically damaging.

They're just going to censor and censor until official reality -- the reality contained in transcripts and on video and which is permitted to be spoken officially -- conforms to the reality they wish to be, or the reality they wish the world to see.

posted by Ace at 04:54 PM

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