I feel a bit bad about the ire I have for the college activist crowd over the ugly response we’ve seen playing out on campuses across the U.S. following the horrific attacks by Hamas in Israel on October 7. After all, I have a college student of my own. And I was a bleeding heart liberal college student myself. 

But I don’t feel that bad, given some of the awful sentiments we’ve seen them expressing. And even less bad for those who, like the young woman featured in a recent New Yorker article, are certain that their “privilege” as students at an elite Ivy League institution will shield them from future employment consequences if they stand together in voicing their views. “You can’t fire seven hundred Harvard students. It would be a scandal. That’s a privilege we have,” asserted one. 

The @NewYorker published an essay on some of the students behind the now infamous statement supported by 30+ student groups at Harvard, and this is the concluding paragraph: pic.twitter.com/8k3xn4ZWV0

— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) October 20, 2023

My response to that was to note that you most certainly can fire — or not hire — students who loudly and proudly voice their support of a terrorist group. If her Ivy League education hasn’t yet taught her that employers can fire or elect not to hire those whose views they hold repugnant — views, for instance, that call for the eradication of a nation or its people — then it has failed her woefully and she’s about to get a rude awakening as to the limits of her presumed privilege.  

There’s a scandal, alright - but it’s not the one she thinks it is. 

This “Moore to the Point” commentary aired on NewsTalkSTL on Monday, October 23. Audio included below.