Last week, the global media expressed its moral outrage at the Presidents of top U.S. universities, accusing them of softness on antisemitism and gross moral hypocrisy. They were accused of not stating that calls for the genocide of Jews were unequivocally against their code of conduct. Yet something more profound was going on here argues contributing writer and editor for the IAI, Charlie Barnett. From warnings of Thrasymachus in Plato’s Republic to Nietzsche in the Genealogy of Morals, the Presidents were weaponising morality. And unfortunately many of their critics were guilty of exactly the same.

Last week the global media was transfixed by a moment that some describe as historic. After the October 7th massacres and Israel’s subsequent military response, incidents of anti-semitism had risen by 337% in the U.S.. Many of these took place on university campuses. Elise Stefanik chaired a Congressional hearing into the matter and when the Presidents of Harvard and Pennsylvania were asked  if calling for the genocide of Jews violated the universities’ rules or code of conduct, the answers were downright strange.