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Can emotional connections to our identities justify restrictions on free speech?

This provocative episode of Heterodox Out Loud explores the deep tension between personal convictions and public discussions. Host John Tomasi sits down with Jilian Lederman, a graduate of Brown University and a strong advocate for free speech. Together, they examine the complex landscape of free expression on university campuses, focusing on the oppressor-oppressed dynamic and its impact on intellectual diversity and dialogue.

Jilian shares her experiences in political discourse and pro-Israel advocacy, highlighting the intimidation and harassment faced by Jewish and other marginalized students. We also explore her op-ed for The New York Times and her efforts to promote open inquiry and robust debate through various initiatives and student organizations. The episode also touches on changing commitments to free speech principles and creating a more inclusive academic environment.

Jillian Lederman is a 2024 graduate of Brown University, where she studied political science and economics. While in college, she served as the Executive Chair of Hillel International’s Israel Leadership Network, the President of Brown Students for Israel, co-president of Free Inquiry at Brown, and a writer and editor for The Brown Political Review. She is also a Research Assistant for Heterodox Academy. Her writing has been published in The New York Times and The Hill, and she has been interviewed on FOX, CNN, MSNBC, SiriusXM, and News Nation. This fall, she will begin work as an editorial fellow at The Wall Street Journal.

Episode Transcript

John Tomasi: Jilian Lederman, welcome to Heterodox Out Loud.

Jilian Lederman: Thank you so much for having me.

John Tomasi: And I'm not sure if I should say welcome back to the Segal Center for Academic Pluralism because it was only named that a few weeks ago. But you came to the opening of the Center for Academic Pluralism last fall in September, I think.

Jilian Lederman: I did. I had the chance to take the train down from school and come just for the day. It was wonderful.

John Tomasi: Did you say you had the chance to do that?

Jilian Lederman: I did. You invited me.

John Tomasi: I think I begged you to come down and to stand out front and pass out literature or signposts to our location.

Jilian Lederman: I was put to work. I was put to work, but I was excited to come.

John Tomasi: And we were just trying to remember that was the semester had already begun. And it was, was it, was it the third week in September, possibly?

Jilian Lederman: I think so. It was right when classes had just sort of gone into the swing of things.

John Tomasi: Right, right. And you're good enough to come down. And little did we know the storms are about to break over the university.

Jilian Lederman: It was right, right before.

John Tomasi: And so you're a, you're a senior now at Brown University. So you and I, as you know, you and I met your sophomore year in the fall when you came to petition to get a place in a senior seminar. I was, I was teaching that, that semester. Tell us about that. How did you come to be, as a sophomore, petitioning to be in a senior seminar?

Jilian Lederman: Yeah, so I, I was in my third semester total at Brown and I entered college as a freshman during COVID. So I really wasn't all that comfortable in normal life at college. But I was looking at the class offerings and your class didn't come up for me because I was a sophomore at the time and you were teaching a senior seminar. And a couple of weeks into the semester, I saw an article in the Brown Daily Herald, the student paper, that said that you were leaving Brown and going to become the president of Heterodox Academy. I had been very aware of Heterodox Academy throughout high school, very involved in free speech issues in high school. And so when I saw that, I was, I mean, my, my first reaction was, oh, I'm, I'm so disappointed to have missed a chance to take a class. Thank you. And then I looked at the course offerings and saw that you were taking, teaching a class that semester. And it was a senior seminar called the university. And ultimately I figured, okay, it's the last semester that I have the chance to take this class. Why don't I just try and get in? I believe I pestered you with, with several emails asking for an override code to join. And I eventually was able to join on the last day that you could add a class to your schedule.

John Tomasi: I remember, I don't allow sophomores in my senior seminars, but, but I remember, but I never told you this, but I remember thinking to myself, about you, on the one hand, you seem very, very chill, very relaxed. And yet there you were kind of consistently saying, I'd like to get into this class in your quiet way. You were just, you were just consistently there and had this, I had this read on you, as professors get reads on students before I really knew you. Well, I, I had this read on you that you were, I said, I remember saying to, to myself, still water runs deep. And I think that might be true with this one. Little did I know, how deep it runs with you. And, and just for, for our, for our listeners, Jilian, was a great student in that class. And, and the two years since has worked as a research assistant for me, has helped me in fact, prepare for a lot of these podcasts, has built out, questions that, we would talk about and change in various ways. but just really, really, it's been really great working with you for this, for this time. And then, so I'm happy to see you graduate and we'll talk about your plans for next year. I'm, I'm also going to miss having you, be able to come run down from the train and pass out literature outside our building on the street in Times Square.

Jilian Lederman: I will as well. It's been incredible to work with you over the past couple of years.

John Tomasi: So, I want to talk to you about you. So you mentioned, you're interested in, in, open and create issues during, since even from high school. Where did you grow up? What, what was your experience in high school?

Jilian Lederman: Yeah. So I'm from a suburb in Massachusetts. I am one of seven children. So grew up in a very large family that was pretty political. with so many people at home, we would be constantly talking politics.

John Tomasi: What number are you on?

Jilian Lederman: I'm third oldest.

John Tomasi: You're third oldest. Okay.

Jilian Lederman: So it was, you know, political discourse was very common in my house. Sometimes, you know, yelling at each other across the dinner table. It was, it was everywhere. And we loved it. I, it was my favorite thing in the world to have access to.

John Tomasi: I felt, I met your parents. I remember feeling that I felt like there was an intensity about them that I was really, really enjoyed.

Jilian Lederman: Yeah. Very much fostered by them. and at the same time, I grew up in a pretty conservative family and we were in, a suburb in Massachusetts that was generally fairly left-leaning. and that was wonderful for me. I, I loved being friends with people across the political aisle. and it didn't really come up all that much growing up because we were young. because people weren't all that politically engaged, but I was a freshman in high school in 2016 when Donald Trump was elected. And, you know, that caused the firestorm across the world. But in my high school, it, it infected there as well. And I remember coming to school on the day that he was elected, it felt like a funeral and people weren't, wouldn't talk to each other. They didn't know what to say. You know, a lot of it came from their parents, but it came to them as well. And so over the next couple of years, people were far more politically engaged than they had been before. And I would often see them, you know, shutting down political disagreement, feeling scared of, of differences in a way that they hadn't been before. and this cropped up a couple of times at school and as someone who was, who came from this house where that was so taboo to, to be scared of difference, where difference was glorified as opposed to, you know, feared. That was something that I wanted the opportunity to change.

John Tomasi: And so I remember when you were pitching me as a sophomore, I remember your part of your pitch to me was that, so the class was called the university. It was the first time I taught that class. Again, it was my last class around as it turned out, but I remember you talking about some things you had done, a project you had done, as a high school's, junior. I can't remember what year you started sophomore year in high school. Yes. About open inquiry. Can you tell our listeners about that?

Jilian Lederman: Sure. So during this time, I decided to found a website, which was called Carpe Notio, which is Latin for seize the idea and effectively.

John Tomasi: So Carpe Diem, we've all know. So Carpe Notio, is that your own device?

Jilian Lederman: That was sort of a play on that.

John Tomasi: Nice. Nice.

Jilian Lederman: and the premise of the website was to educate readers about reasons why thoughtful people might disagree with them.

John Tomasi: Say that again. To educate people of what?

Jilian Lederman: On reasons why thoughtful people might disagree with them.

John Tomasi: Interesting. That's a nice formulation. It's not just asking why does any random dude think something differently than I do, but asking now, why would, how, why would someone who has been thinking about it carefully hold that view in a considered way? Let's say.

Jilian Lederman: Right. Exactly. Interesting. And so on the website, I took a couple of policy issues, abortion, immigration, education, et cetera, and effectively researched and wrote up summaries for the main conservative and liberal arguments.

John Tomasi: Mr. How old were you?

Jilian Lederman: At this point, I think 15, 15, 16, but I was so excited. It was, it was so exciting to be doing this and to be learning about other people as well and other beliefs that, that were in my own and figuring out ways to communicate them. So I learned a lot through that as well. and so I put together this website and then eventually shared it with, my high school history teacher. And he was very much on board, very excited about this idea and started using it in his classes, and then sent it to other history teachers across the state of Massachusetts. And that was the first time I really realized that through writing, through my own voice, through ideas that I might have, I could influence some people in some ways.

John Tomasi: Nice. We're going to, we're going to talk about October 7th and what, what things have been like for you on campus, in the, in the, in the, in this most recent year, this extremely interesting year and difficult year. But just a little bit more about, about, your early time at Brown. You also got involved in the, in the Brown Political Review.

Jilian Lederman: Yes.

John Tomasi: And what's that about? I mean, I was involved, but tell me, what was your perspective on that?

Jilian Lederman: So the Brown Political Review is the largest political journal at Brown. It produces opinion articles, long form opinion articles about different issues, both in the United States and abroad, as well as about the economy. And so I joined that the fall of my freshman year as a writer, and wrote fairly often. They would have students write about three articles per semester and they were long form. so they'd go through a couple of weeks of, of editing and publishing. and so I wrote there for a little while and then became an editor, which is the common sort of progression for students involved. and then had the chance to help other students publish their own pieces. A lot of that was, you know, it was, it was wonderful because it was opinion journalism, which is my favorite type of writing. and I was able to see people present arguments and have to back them up and pitch meetings, and, you know, face critiques and do research and change their ideas.

John Tomasi: As if there was research that, that contradicted it.

Jilian Lederman: That's right.

John Tomasi: And you probably don't know this, but, I, well, I remember the day that four students came to my office, but for Brown students, pitching the idea of creating a new magazine that would be founded on viewpoint diversity. Right. I remember pushing very hard on them. I said to them, listen, you're a viewpoint diversity now, but who says the magazine is going to maintain that kind of ethos as it goes forward. And they were very eager when they came back as Brown students tend to with their plan to ensure that we keep these ideals through time. It became a really big organization. I mean, how many students were working on that when you were there?

Jilian Lederman: So on the writing side of things in my group, there were probably 20, but that was one of maybe six or seven different writing groups. So the whole organization has about 300 people involved.

John Tomasi: That's, that's what I thought it grew from those, those four kind of entrepreneurs into a pretty sizable, pretty sizable, operation at Brown. let's talk about, open inquiry at Brown, another organization that I was not involved in, but you were, what, what is that?

Jilian Lederman: Yes. So it's, that is a student organization that was founded about a year or two ago. a student and I had worked before it was founded to look to create a new free speech organization. That was very much in that mold. And there were some logistical issues with that. And so two other students founded this organization called Open Inquiry at Brown. and its purpose was to bring in speakers from a variety of different viewpoints and interest areas to simply speak to students. and then to have posts event follow-up conversations with students where we were able to, to communicate our thoughts about the speaker that had been brought. and so we've had the chance to bring in a lot of different speakers. I was originally involved in the club and now serve as one of the co-presidents of it. and we've brought people, you know, from a variety of different subjects from healthcare to, you know, comedy and cancel culture was a major event that we put on last year. we had Elizabeth Weiss come and speak to us earlier this year.

John Tomasi: Elizabeth Weiss, some of you may know, is a currently a, a Segal Center fellow and anthropologist who has done some fascinating work about human remains and skeletal sex and other things. She was on, she was on another version of the podcast, in fact.

Jilian Lederman: Right. And she provoked some controversy on campus, but that was sort of the point of the organization was to not be afraid of controversy and to have students come and listen to speakers who they might wildly disagree with and often did.

John Tomasi: So you and I first met in that class you took, your sophomore year in the fall. One thing I remember about that class was that we met outside, up on the RISD, the Brown School of Design. it used to be their admissions office. No, I think it's a museum, one of their museums. And we sat outside beneath these beautiful trees, in the circle of chairs and talked about the university sort of basic. What was your impression about that class? And what did you learn? And what did you learn then?

Jilian Lederman: Yeah. I mean, truthfully looking back, it, it really has been one of the favorite, my favorite classes that I've taken. I'm not fishing for compliments. I know, and I'm being truthful, but I was intimidated. I mean, it was scary to go in as a sophomore into this environment where it was almost entirely seniors. And we were reading a book a week, I think sometimes even more.

John Tomasi: Yeah. and this was, there was a book required then as you were encouraged to do more. Encouraged to do beyond.

Jilian Lederman: Exactly. and I was in my third semester at Brown. I had never done that before. but it was, I had never been in an environment in a class at Brown and really haven't since where it was truly anything you say is welcomed. And, you know, of course with, with the level of, of good faith and, you know, intellectual backing, but no matter what your political perspectives are, we welcome them in this class and we're going to critique them and challenge them and be prepared for that. And I had never, ever experienced that in a class. still have not most classes across all universities are not like that. And it was fascinating and freeing. And I think really showed me what a class can be and what it should be.

John Tomasi: You know, one of the things that's, that, that really struck me about that class was the collection of students who came, came to it. Right. And there were some remarkable students, especially what I remember most vividly, was a group of about, three or, I think the class was full. So I think it was 18, whatever the max was. I can't remember, but there are, I think three students who I'd known since their freshman years would have been, parts of the Republican club. Yep. And there were kind of like this embattled minority who were, out there to try to get their views. And they would sometimes say very critical things. They would, they would share experience that they'd had on the campus. I remember one time a student came in and he told us how, he'd been at a party the previous weekend. And some person had come down to him and told him that there was some people upstairs in the, in the building who wouldn't come down to join the party because his presence as a Republican made them feel uncomfortable. And he reported that to us and we discussed it in an open way. Like, what might that be? Why might that person think that? And then the really striking thing to me about that, that student in particular was that later on in the class, when people would be saying things that seemed to be critical of Brown, he and all of them, everyone in that class said, I love it here. Do you remember that?

Jilian Lederman: Yes.

John Tomasi: It was really remarkable.

Jilian Lederman: It really was.

John Tomasi: Like even these students who supposedly were in battle or whatever, they, they, they would present that way. And I probably feel that way. Sometimes this is now again, before October, this last October, but they would still say, I love this place. I'll add one more anecdote because it's one that really strikes me. You may, you may remember it. One student in particular whose political views were more aligned with a mainstream in some way, but she was a very thoughtful person who would, again and again, elevate the conversation and challenge. Views that were kind of being presented in ways that are just very sophisticated from a broadly left perspective. Let's say at one point, she, we were talking about what Brown is like, and she used the word effervescent, which I thought was a fascinating because it's a just motion.

Jilian Lederman: Right.

John Tomasi: It expressed things coming up. It has a sense of, fizz, right?

Jilian Lederman: Right.

John Tomasi: That one hopes from any university. And, that term really has really stayed with me.

Jilian Lederman: And I think in some ways that's sort of the, what I love most about Brown, that, that, that busy. Effervescent possibilities. It's, it's what I love most about Brown as well. It's very much the culture that Brown seeks to foster, despite any reputations that it has about political leanings. The culture of openness and, you know, embracing differences is very much part of the Brown core.

John Tomasi: Let's move to more recent events. So I left Brown, you stayed, tell us about your experience since we were last in a class together.

Jilian Lederman: It's, you know, it's, it's been wonderful. I think, you know, I've had the chance to take so many more classes and grow up at Brown and expand my friendships and, you know, expand my understanding of the world. And, you know, I chose this school for a reason and have absolutely loved it. I've loved the freedom that it's given me. I've loved the education that it's given me, the friendships that it's given me.

John Tomasi: you know, you're, you're Jewish.

Jilian Lederman: I am Jewish.

John Tomasi: You grew up in a Jewish family.

Jilian Lederman: Yes.

John Tomasi: A Zionist family, would you say?

Jilian Lederman: Yes, absolutely.

John Tomasi: you're, got involved with Brown students for Israel.

Jilian Lederman: Yes.

John Tomasi: Tell us more about that.

Jilian Lederman: So I joined, Brown students for Israel, which is the student organization, that fights to, to, you know, advocate for Israel politically, but also celebrate Israeli culture. I joined the leadership of that club during my freshman year and then my freshman year, why am I not surprised? It was partially because, because of the COVID situation and because no one else was on campus.

John Tomasi: People, people always say that kind of thing when they like take over an organization as freshmen.

Jilian Lederman: So then I was vice president for a year, and actually just finished up a year and a half as president of the organization. and so when October 7th happened, I was both president of Brown students for Israel and I was the chair of Hillel international's Israel leadership network.

John Tomasi: Tell us, so let's pause on October 7th for a moment. Tell us about, Hillel international. What was your involvement and what does that organization do?

Jilian Lederman: Yep. So Hillel international's, Israel leadership network is a coalition of pro-Israel student leaders, one each from over 150 college campuses across the United States and Canada. And effectively what the coalition seeks to do is we, we have bi-weekly meetings on zoom where we hear from distinguished speakers in fields related to Israel to learn about their advocacy, to learn about on-campus advocacy, to form relationships and communities, across the country and across Canada. And so I joined that network also my freshman year as a member, served as vice chair later on. And then this year, this academic year serve as chair of the network.

John Tomasi: And you use, you've used the expression twice now, I think pro it's a pro Israel group. What does it mean to be a pro Israel group?

Jilian Lederman: You know, that word has a lot of definitions and is more loaded now than it ever has been before, but effectively what it means is Zionist. What it means is in favor of a Jewish state in some portion of Jews ancestral homeland in the Middle East. And that's really all it is, is fighting for that, is believing in that. And, you know, there are many nuances that surround that, that are up to different people's interpretation, but that's at the core of what pro Israel means.

John Tomasi: May I ask you now, kind of moving to the, to the more difficult topics.

Jilian Lederman: Yep.

John Tomasi: May I ask you, on October 7th, how did you first hear what was happening? What, what was your experience that day or the day, the days after?

Jilian Lederman: So that was a Saturday morning, and I woke up essentially to a phone that had blown up overnight with text messages.

John Tomasi: You were in the dorm or off campus?

Jilian Lederman: I was actually at home that day, and had to drive back early to campus. But essentially I had messages from Hillel International, I had messages from campus, I had messages from Israeli friends. And everything was, what's happening, is everyone okay, is everyone alive, is everyone safe? And so really the first couple of hours was scrambling to check in with people to make sure that friends I had who had family in Israel were okay, were safe. and it was an emotional response at first, especially because it was a Saturday, so a lot of more observant Jews were not on technology at the time. and so there was really this sort of informational lag that was happening. And it was, it was a scrambling time and, and because of my leadership positions, both on campus and on a national level, I was responsible for writing statements, for reaching out to people, for getting on social media and really doing a lot of that initial response. which is why I sort of scrambled to go back to school where already some opposition to Israel, some support for October 7th was forming.

John Tomasi: So tell us more about what was happening on campus then in the days and, and weeks after that, that initial event.

Jilian Lederman: so I went back to campus and those first couple of days we had vigils every night for the people who had been massacred and kidnapped in Israel. and then on.

John Tomasi: And then may I ask, how many students would you attend these vigils? Were they students who were already part of your group? Who would be going to that?

Jilian Lederman: There was about, I would say 150 people at these vigils, primarily Jewish students, primarily people in the group, but also others as well who came together. and in those initial days, it wasn't a controversial thing to hold a vigil for the people who had died. but then on October 11th, there was a statement that was released by Students for Justice in Palestine, which is the pro-Palestinian group on Brown's campus. And it said, we hold the Israeli regime and its allies entirely responsible for October 7th. So it was paralleling language that we saw, for example, in the groups at Harvard, the group of the whole, the coalition of groups at Harvard making a similar kind of statement. Exactly. And like Harvard, they had other groups sign on. So as of now, there are 50 student organizations that have signed on to that statement, that's up on their public Instagram. And so, you know, that really fueled a lot of the, the protests that then happened of within a couple of days after the attack had happened, you know, before there was really any ground military response, there were protests on campus. there were people calling, you know, from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free, which has a variety of different interpretations, but.

John Tomasi: Failing that where, what do you mean?

Jilian Lederman: On campus, there would be, you know, 500 people marching on the main campus space, chanting that slogan, chanting among other different slogans.

John Tomasi: And were there, and were there any, at Brown, we know at some universities, there were some people doing some doxing of some of the student leaders who signed on to these, that, that similar statements. Did anything like that happen at Brown?

Jilian Lederman: To my knowledge, no, most certainly not fueled by anything related to Brown students for Israel or anything that I was aware of. I think students were largely just troubled by what they were seeing, but the doxing that you did see on other campuses with trucks, you know, going around putting people's faces out there that did not happen at Brown.

John Tomasi: What did you think about that? What did you think about that, by the way?

Jilian Lederman: I thought it was horrible. Honestly, I think that, you know, we live in a culture that is meant to, you know, foster free discussion. And the purpose of promoting that value is to protect some of the most horrendous beliefs that exist out there. And in my opinion, you know, as a Zionist, a lot of these beliefs that were being put out there, especially in the wake of October 7th, were, you know, extremely troubling and were offensive. But the idea that to respond to that, someone's identity would be promoted somewhere in order to, you know, have them be vilified, in order to have them be targeted, bullied, that worst, you know, physical abuse. That was completely antithetical to the values that I had been raised with and not helpful to anyone.

John Tomasi: Well, the two words you just used, you said that you found that troubling, some of the statements that were being made were troubling. What else do you think about the statements that were being made of the Students for Justice in Palestine, for example?

Jilian Lederman: I mean, incredibly offensive, I think.

John Tomasi: Well, offensive is the other word you used. So troubling and offensive, what does that mean? What does that mean to you? I don't just mean this as an academic question, like I'm asking you in class. I'm inviting you, if you want to, just to say more about what your experience was on campus then. You're a Brown student. You're a leader. You're finding a home for your place. You found a home. At that point, you found a home for your place for yourself on this campus. What was happening?

Jilian Lederman: To me, you know, people have asked me a lot of times, was I surprised by what happened? And I think looking back, I would say that I was, but I shouldn't have been, because I do think that a lot of the sentiments that were shared were part of a larger culture that had been brewing on college campuses, where there was this sort of, you know, very strict dividing line between, you know, oppressors and oppressed on college campuses. People seeing the world in terms of people, people seeing the world in terms of this very, very simplistic group-based worldview that we can get into a little bit more. But at the time, in their heads, it was, okay, this attack happened, but it was an oppressed group rebelling against an oppressive regime. And while innocent life being lost is sad, it's not, it needs to be contextualized. It needs to be, you know, it is part of this sort of resistance effort that in many ways is pursuing justice. And so at the same time as I'm mourning people and I'm, you know, terrified that my friends and my family are going to be killed, there are people on my campus who are saying, wow, this was really a big part of resistance that happened.

John Tomasi: Right, right. Can I ask you more about the, about the oppressor and oppressed paradigm? So a lot of commentators from the outside of universities have said, this is the underlying problem. That's the underlying framework or template that sort of the Israeli response is being channeled into. That's a widespread thing from outside campuses. Is your sense that on campuses, for example, at Brown, that people were, were, were students discussing this paradigm as something they could talk about or there's living within it and acting as agents within it without fully, how aware were they of this, the possibility that they're actually working in a framework?

Jilian Lederman: Not very aware at the beginning. And it wasn't, I don't know that it really came into, you know, common discourse until a couple of months or weeks into everything that happened. And I think that, you know, people saw the world, we use the term often identity politics, or, you know, your identity is so important to who you are, to how you act, to how you're perceived, which does have a lot of truth to it, of course. But I think that's sort of how people saw the world is, is very much seeing group identity. And the extension of that is putting those group identities into these, into this oppressor oppressed binary, which I think subconsciously people were doing already, but didn't realize that they were doing it. And I think that for a lot of Jews on campus who had fought into that, you know, oppressor oppressed dichotomy, they were shocked or dismayed to see that they had been placed into the oppressor category. And so at a time when we were hurting and we were suffering and we didn't know what to think or what to believe or how to act on campus, the response by people who we thought would fight for us was instead to vilify us.

John Tomasi: Interesting. And you got involved with a couple, I think two other students writing an op-ed for the New York Times.

Jilian Lederman: Yes.

John Tomasi: Can you tell us a little bit about that? What, what, what led to that piece and what was the piece, what was the piece about?

Jilian Lederman: Yeah. So because of my leadership role with Hillel International, I had friendships with a student from Cornell and a student from Yale who were both also on the leadership network. network. And so we came together because of Hillel International and we had been witnessing everything that was happening on campus. There were a couple of physical attacks at different college campuses. And at Cornell, there had just been a student who was arrested for making vile death threats against students on campus. Yes. And we were seeing this and saying, you know, what can we do? How can we speak out? How can we use our leadership positions to make an impact?

John Tomasi: How are you communicating with them?

Jilian Lederman: This was through text, through FaceTime. We're friends. And so we were, you know, going through this together and just feeling very helpless.

John Tomasi: So the network goes to those networking going along among the students.

Jilian Lederman: Yes, absolutely. And that was a huge part of what the Israel Leadership Network did as a whole is bringing together people in this time, you know, connecting college campuses across the country. And so we started talking and, you know, writing things and saying, OK, can we can we write an op ed about what's happening? Can we, you know, use writing to make change? And we eventually wrote an op ed for The New York Times, which is called What is Happening on College Campuses is Not Pre-Speech.

John Tomasi: And when did it come out?

Jilian Lederman: It came out, I believe, at the beginning of November.

John Tomasi: I'm trying to make it easier for our readers to Google it and find it and read the piece because it's a fascinating piece. Can you say, can you tell us a bit about the piece?

Jilian Lederman: So what the piece said was it basically went through a lot of the different things that have been happening on college campuses. So at Cooper Union, there were students who were stuck in a classroom because Jewish students who were stuck in a classroom because pro-Palestinian protesters had chased them. There was the incident at Cornell where there was death threats made. There was an incident at Columbia where a student was violently attacked. And effectively what we were doing is describing these instances and drawing a line from them to a lot of the discourse that had been circulating on college campuses, whether that came from professors, whether that came from student groups, and then pairing that with what university administration's responses to those types of discourse had been. And effectively, the conclusion of the piece was right now there is a culture of intimidation and harassment of Jewish students, and universities need to do more to step up and counter that. And, you know, we then, after that piece was released, went on a couple of different television stations to talk about the piece and also our experiences on campus, which, you know, I think the impact of that was something that, you know, we didn't realize that it was going to take off like that.

John Tomasi: I mean, the impact on yourselves? What do you mean? The impact on what?

Jilian Lederman: On ourselves? I mean, we were getting, after these television appearances, after the article was published, we were getting messages from people everywhere, constantly streaming into our phones. Thank you for doing this. Thank you for writing. You know, we appreciate having a voice out there in the world. And since then, there have been a lot of different students who have, you know, gone on some of these television stations and released op-eds. That's very much something that students have taken on as a way to express themselves. But at the time, you know, it did feel like we were speaking for people and, you know, having these opportunities.

John Tomasi: It was the first big one that I remember. I mean, it was big because you were involved.

Jilian Lederman: Yeah.

John Tomasi: But as I remember, it was sort of nationally kind of one of the first big pieces, especially now having students talk about their views. And so we've been describing, you've been describing for us, you know, a very strong, a very deeply rooted free speech tradition and a set of views that weren't just ill-considered things you thought because why not? These are considered views you have over a number of years building up in yourself about freedom of speech. In that piece, was there some wobbling about that? How would you describe the piece? It's a co-written piece. Yep. And I'm not asking you to disown any part of it by any means, but what were you thinking then about your convictions and what was your thought process?

Jilian Lederman: It was one of the most difficult times for me in terms of thinking about those principles because they had been so core to who I am and to how I perceive myself, especially in the political arena. And I was existing on campus at a time when myself and my community had been excluded, had been vilified, had been constantly experiencing, you know, glares on campus or students who, you know, were turning Zionist into this dirty word.

John Tomasi: What's calypso? What did glare on campus mean?

Jilian Lederman: So this was primarily after a lot of the publicity came out, but anyone who was a public Zionist on campus at the time.

John Tomasi: You also wrote, you also wrote a letter, a letter to the Brown, to the student paper.

Jilian Lederman: Yeah, so three other students and I at Brown also wrote a public letter to the Brown Daily Herald in defense of Israel that was then signed by nearly a thousand Brown Jewish students and alumni. And so these types of public expressions put a target on my back and put a target on other students' backs, including students who had just attended Brown Students for Israel events or wore a kippah around campus or stood at a table that had an Israeli flag at it. And so, you know, we would get posted on social media or there would be students who would, you know, glare at us walking around campus if they knew who we were. And it very much felt like we were existing in this environment of intimidation where we didn't feel like we belonged at Brown.

John Tomasi: And let me just add, you know this well, but I'm just going to say it anyway, that we've heard similar things from students all across the country. Some people say more at the elite schools. I'm not sure whether that's true or not. We're actually, HxA is looking for data on that question. But what you're describing is something that I've heard from a lot of students across the country.

Jilian Lederman: Right.

John Tomasi: Another thing you wrote around that same period, I think, was an essay about DEI, Why We Must Dismantle DEI. Is that the right title?

Jilian Lederman: Yes. It was actually called Why Jews Must Dismantle DEI.

John Tomasi: Why Jews Must Dismantle DEI.

Jilian Lederman: It was intended to be a provocative headline. It was also published in my local Jewish journal. So it was to a Jewish audience. And the premise of the piece was that at the core of diversity, equity, and inclusion, the system itself, not the individual words, is this oppressor-oppressed dichotomy where people are sort of crudely divided into just their group identities and then sorted into oppressor or oppressed, depending on how well they're doing in society. And what I made the connection to was that because Jews in many ways have been doing well in Western society and because Israel as a country has been generally doing well and succeeding in the world, that naturally people would see Jews and Israel as the oppressors in this framework, and that therefore, you know, when this October 7th attack happened, that it was resistance against oppressors as opposed to simply a terror attack against innocent civilians.

John Tomasi: Let me ask you about how you see that, what your objection is to that division between oppressor and oppressed. So just a moment ago, you said your objection was that people are being crudely divided into those two categories. Does that mean you think that they could be divided into those two categories as a useful analytical tool, if done with more sophistication? Or are you thinking that the division is itself in some deep way not helpful or perhaps wrong and directionally wrong even?

Jilian Lederman: I think that in almost every case, dichotomies obviate some level of nuance. And so, you know, while there are, of course, oppressors in the world and...

John Tomasi: You mean obfuscate?

Jilian Lederman: Obfuscate, yeah.

John Tomasi: Yeah, I think obfuscate means to anticipate so as to make unnecessary.

Jilian Lederman: Yes.

John Tomasi: You know, like these grammatical things.

Jilian Lederman: Point taken. Thanks, okay.

John Tomasi: Still a student.

Jilian Lederman: So, it would obfuscate. Obfuscate nuance. And, you know, there are oppressors in society. There are those who are oppressed in society. And I would never deny that because to do so would just be counterfactual. And there is racism and there are people who experience the world differently because of their group identities. But the idea that your state in society is entirely a result of immutable characteristics that you made no choice in having, I think, diminishes individuality and does so in a way that, especially in this case, unfairly marks people as worthy of hostility. I mean, what the oppressor-oppressed dichotomy does is say, either you merit hostility or you merit pity. And both of those emotions directed toward a group of people as a whole, I think, are incredibly damaging to a society that is meant to be based on individuality and freedom.

John Tomasi: Yeah, that's very interesting. And there's probably some question also within that cluster about agency.

Jilian Lederman: Right.

John Tomasi: Some people say merit. You probably know about an article by Pamela Paresky about the hyper-white Jew that's gotten a lot of attention. I came out in the journal Sapir. Tell us more about, so to what degree did your free speech commitments, I've heard you describe yourself as a free speech absolutist, which I don't think you are. And I'll ask you about that in a minute or two. But that's your label. I've heard you describe to yourself. To what degree did your free speech commitments flicker? Flickr or waver or maybe put it more positively, because we are trying to learn. We're trying to grow. We're trying to not just react to experiences we don't like, but hopefully learn from them, develop new views, realize in ways that things we thought when we were high school sophomores developing websites for teachers to go on and use, or sophomores getting into classes and so on. We hope to think we hope to think that we're going to be evolving and growing and becoming new people through through our learning and our experiences. Did you learn and grow, outgrow some of your free speech feelings and commitments? How do you look at it? What happened with you?

Jilian Lederman: I think what happened, honestly, is that some of my principles wavered and have since now come back to where they were before.

John Tomasi: Can you describe the wavering?

Jilian Lederman: So a lot of it is in the New York Times article. And, you know, while I still stand by most of the messaging in that piece, I do think that at the time, some of the principles that I advocated, which was, you know, student groups that incite or justify violence should not be given funds to continue to operate on campus. Those, that idea, I think, was misguided and driven at the time by some level of emotional connection that I hadn't had the time yet to distance myself from.

John Tomasi: But do you mean to say that groups that incite violence should be, that there should be protected speech?

Jilian Lederman: No, but what I mean to say is that I think that a lot of times there are ideas and slogans that are put forth on college campuses that people perceive to incite violence. And they do so in a way that, you know, categorizes ideas that don't incite violence as inciting violence.

John Tomasi: Let me show you, you should understand that. They're perceived to incite violence.

Jilian Lederman: People, I think.

John Tomasi: Is that the formulation you want?

Jilian Lederman: I think that.

John Tomasi: Do you mean to say that they're intended to incite action?

Jilian Lederman: What I would say is that, not intended to, but I think that there are certain slogans such as, from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free, that some people perceive as calling for the elimination of the Jewish state, which in many people's minds would mean, you know, death or expulsion of the Jewish population there. While I generally agree that that slogan, you know, means what people say it means, I also think that a lot of people who say it don't think that and have different perceptions of what it means. And so I think that when people say, okay, this is what these words mean and these words incite violence, and therefore we must restrict this speech, it gets into a very dangerous territory where someone's perception of certain words runs true and informs top-down decision-making in a way that I think doesn't do anything to improve the state of discourse on campus and instead just allows those sentiments to fester in ways that are far more unhealthy than if they had just been allowed to be said in the open.

John Tomasi: Interesting. So that's, that's a, that sounds like a return to a fairly classic free speech set of free speech doctrines. Doctrines that say that we want to know hate speech, where it resides, how it's expressed, how widely it's held, so that we can understand the world we're living within and navigate it more, more skillfully, let's say, to, to make it a better place as we're all trying to do on some, on some level.

Jilian Lederman: Right.

John Tomasi: But I just want to, I want to go a little slower still if we can. So here you are on campus, you have this tradition of beliefs and activity, leadership on these free speech issues. What did you, can you, if you're, if you, if you, is there, is there anything you want to share with us about things that a day when you thought to yourself, this has gone wrong and it's not what I thought it was to be for free speech? Was there, was there anything in particular that way, an experience, maybe the violence at Cornell, but, but, but was there something from your own experience walking across a campus where you had by now become no longer a, a quiet sophomore, but a, but a strong principled senior, what, what, what, what was that like for you?

Jilian Lederman: I think that there were a lot of days like that. I mean, ultimately I stopped going onto campus and, you know, myself and a lot of other Jewish students who I know would exclusively stay either in their dorms or at the Jewish spaces on campus.

John Tomasi: I remember when you told me that, I can't remember what month it was. I remember one point you, you told me that students were withdrawing into themselves and removing themselves from campus in some way.

Jilian Lederman: Exactly. And, you know, I was seeing this freshman class that had just started school and I was friends with a lot of the Jews in the freshman class. And what ultimately resulted is that they were only friends with each other and still are only friends with each other because it felt like, either Jews were being targeted or any Jew who expressed Zionist inclinations or viewpoints was being targeted. And so the only people who you wouldn't face that judgment from were part of your own group. And so people were coming to college this time when you're supposed to be meeting people from so many different identity groups and so many different viewpoints. It's just the purpose in a lot of ways of college. And instead, they were just staying with the people who they already knew and already identified with. And it was just this entire reversal of what college is supposed to be. And even for myself as a senior, you know, I was more confident in myself. I was confident in what I believed and why I believed it. And I wasn't going to stop speaking out, but it was uncomfortable to be on campus and uncomfortable to be at parties and uncomfortable to be around a lot of these protests that were happening. And it just felt like college wasn't what it had been and what it was supposed to be and something had to be done. And at the time, I think my response was, okay, a lot of these protests are the origin of what's happening. And they are inspiring people to act in these ways and to exclude students on campus and intimidate. And so that's where you need to target a lot of the action. I think that might have been misguided because I think the problem runs far deeper than that. But that was the thought process at the time.

John Tomasi: So you recently wrote me a note that has a passage in it that really struck me. And I'm going to read it out loud to you. These are your words.

Jilian Lederman: Great.

John Tomasi: I'm going to share it with the whole world.

Jilian Lederman: Perfect.

John Tomasi: You talked about the experience you'd had on campus being a free speech person and then now encountering that sense of not feeling at home on the green, feeling that you had to hide from the glares and maybe worse. And then this is what you wrote to me, quote. And the experience has, however, given me a new understanding of why other individuals and groups have tried to restrict speech in the past. So it gave you an understanding, you say, about why other individuals and groups have tried to restrict speech in the past. Can you say a little bit more about that?

Jilian Lederman: Absolutely. I think, you know, the best way that I can explain that is that in the days after October 7th, I would have conversations about it with friends who disagreed with my Zionism, with, you know, condemned October 7th, condemned everything that had happened, but disagreed with my perspective on why it happened or what the state of Israel means. And those conversations were some of the most difficult I've ever had because of how emotionally tied I was. It felt like when someone was telling me something that disputed a notion that I had, it felt like an attack at the very core of who I was. And I didn't know how to handle that emotionally. And that had never, ever happened to me before because all of my friends disagree with me. And my favorite thing in the world is to talk with friends about disagreements.

John Tomasi: So for you, this is lovely, for you, the space of disagreement and contestation is in a sense safe, it's familiar and safe space. You're comfortable, you grew up with it.

Jilian Lederman: Exactly.

John Tomasi: You're comfortable having people say, let's try on and push back.

Jilian Lederman: Exactly. And I was now entering a space where it felt like when that happened, when I had felt so safe with that, now it was manifesting in what felt at the time like an attack on my identity. And that was fairly brief. It didn't last all that long. It was mostly just in the couple of days after October 7th. But I very much understood that for a lot of people, those types of disagreements on a variety of different issues feel that same way. And so when they're all the time encountering disagreement as an attack on their identity and who they are and what their perception of themselves means, it makes sense to me why they would say, this is hate speech. This should not be allowed. This is something that is, you know, too beyond the bounds of a free society to permit. That, I think that, you know, because I've been exposed to that so much, I was able to get over that inclination much more quickly and have those conversations and, you know, repair those relationships. But I understand why others haven't if they don't grow up in the environment that I grew up in.

John Tomasi: And yet, I want to push you a little bit more on that, if I may. I love the sentiment, as you know, and I admire so much about the way you've navigated this situation, watching it from afar. But it seemed to me that at Brown, other things have been happening beyond those first few days. There was a student, a Brown student, who was shot and is left paralyzed, a Palestinian student. There was a vigil for that student where the president, well, tell us about what happened. Were you there that evening?

Jilian Lederman: I was in class that evening, but I saw a lot of the content that came out.

John Tomasi: And so what was happening then?

Jilian Lederman: What happened was that the university organized a vigil for this student, Hisham, who was shot tragically in Vermont.

John Tomasi: What was his name again?

Jilian Lederman: Hisham, who was shot in Vermont over Thanksgiving break. And the university organized a vigil for him and to recognize what had happened, to give students a place to talk about it. And the president of Brown University, Christina Paxson, spoke. And while she was speaking, students began shouting, began going up on stage behind her. And eventually she cut her remarks short and the vigil ended.

John Tomasi: So she was effectively shouted down.

Jilian Lederman: Yes. And at that time, you know, you mentioned earlier doxing and all of these debates over free speech on college campuses. And, you know, there was a lot of discourse going around about how there were people trying to shut down pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses and how a lot of the pro-Palestinian movement was about free speech and about being able to say sentiments that contradicted what administrations thought. And now we had reached a time where that same movement, or at least that movement at Brown's campus, was shouting down speech. That was part of something that then manifested itself in a variety of different other events that happened on Brown's campus where people were taking these free speech principles and using them when it was convenient and then disregarding them the moment that they then decided, okay, this belief is beyond the pale. This person is beyond the pale. This needs to be shut down.

John Tomasi: And on that point, beyond the pale, is there such a thing as beyond the pale?

Jilian Lederman: You know, we have the phrase until it incites violence. And there is speech that incites violence that's not allowed. You know, the student at Cornell who said, I'm going to kill all the Jews on this campus, he was arrested. You're not allowed to say that. But most speech does not rise to that standard. And giving it a wide frame and not trying to restrict that to the point of speech that, you know, people can dispute whether it incites or not, I think is a valuable approach to take to speech.

John Tomasi: So, Jilian, we're winding down toward the end of this conversation. It'll go on with you and me, I'm sure, offline. You've been a student at a really special university during a really special time. And you have friends across the university system, people with whom you talk about these issues on a regular basis. What's your sense of where universities are right now? What's your sense of where we might be going regarding this issue and lessons you might learn from it?

Jilian Lederman: I think it's an incredibly tough question because over the past couple of months, people have questioned universities more, at the very least in my lifetime, but I think far before that, more than they've been questioned before. And there are a lot of people who are saying universities are lost. They cannot come back from this. So, we need to establish new institutions that either compete with universities or replace them completely. I'm not ready to say that quite yet. I think that universities at their core are good for society. They are places where people come together to talk to each other, to learn about each other, you know, from such different backgrounds. And produce something good in the end and go out in the world and do good. And I still think that that's something that universities are and perhaps can aspire to be and maybe have deviated from that a little bit. So, you know.

John Tomasi: But is there learning going on? I mean, learning means something like changing from your position in a way that might be an elevation of what you previously saw. Now you see it in a more sophisticated way. It might be a directional change. Learning can take a variety of different kinds of directional forms, we could say. Yeah. Do you see, and I think you've done learning, I think you've sort of have a deeper understanding about some of the impulses that lead people to say, don't say that, let's prevent that speech. Do you think learning is going on widely? What one sees from the outside, looking at campuses as sort of polarized groups taking over, administrations being challenged and so on. What's your general sense? Do you think learning is happening across the range of student groups?

Jilian Lederman: I would hope so. I don't think that we're at the learning stage yet. I think that right now we're still at the stage where people, students, and administrations are realizing something that was broken for a long time. And are still trying to come to terms with how exactly it was broken and what that means. Because right now, you know, my life on college campus is more polarized than it has ever been. And there is no discourse across the aisle. And in classes, it feels very similar. I mean, from my perspective, a university in its greatest sense is meant to encourage skepticism among students about everything. You know, it shouldn't be absent of values, but it should take a group of students into this university setting and say, you have your beliefs, and now I'm going to teach you how to be skeptical about them and how to be skeptical about each other's beliefs. And so in a classroom, if a student puts forward an opinion, the professor's job, if a student doesn't do it first, is to question that opinion and to challenge that student to defend that opinion, such that students then go out into the world and have their beliefs, but also realize that they might be wrong. And something could come out that would be better than what they currently believe that they can then adopt. What universities are doing right now is saying, you have your beliefs. Some beliefs are right. Some beliefs are wrong. And it's fine if you just isolate yourself into the beliefs that you already have and find your affinity groups and stay in those safe spaces and don't go across the aisle. Don't cross the picket line. And I think that I would hope that universities are realizing what has happened more than they have before, that this is a breaking point for them so that they then can go on and learn and improve as the years go by.

John Tomasi: Can I just say, I don't think I agree with something that you just said about what you think?

Jilian Lederman: What's that?

John Tomasi: Well, you said that you think, as I heard you, I think you said that the point of universities is to encourage skepticism or to help them take a critical view on what they think. And let me just propose to you a different way to think about that and you can reject it or change it in any way you like, right? Skepticism is a level of education that's extremely important to attain. That is the awareness that things you thought or things you think deeply could be wrong. So you hold things in a certain kind of way now, a different way because of that, let's call it skepticism. But I think the point of the university, and I think I see this in you too, that's why I'm saying I don't think you believe what you said. I think the point of the university is to do that in service of something more, in service of inspiring people with a sense of wonder about this world we live in, with a sense of hopefulness, with the possibilities of change, with something like this idea, that idea, that word I mentioned before from one of our fellows, one of the students in that class about effervescence, to live in a world of effervescence where things are bubbling up and there are possibilities. Not that there aren't bad things, not that there aren't going to be setbacks, terrible things that happen as part of the human experience that will go on this way. But through education, perhaps, we aspire to a way of walking in the world that is in some sense effervescent and not merely skeptical. That's how you strike me, frankly. But is that just too much of a correction of what you wanted to say? What do you make of that?

Jilian Lederman: I think that it's not incompatible because when I say skepticism, to me, the idea is there are ideas in the world. If you say, which is commonly said, that universities are meant to pursue truth or pursue prosperity and help people get to ideas that make them as happy and as prosperous and as successful as possible, then I think that the idea then has to be, if we're going to have free speech at universities, then this free speech, this open discourse will eventually get us to those ideas. And so you need skepticism for that. You need skepticism to develop wonder.

John Tomasi: Nice, nice.

Jilian Lederman: And so I don't think that they're incompatible. I think they very much go hand in hand.

John Tomasi: Another thing you said that I don't want to put out here anyway, just trying it on together if we can. I'm really struck by something you said a few minutes ago about how you became, the Jewish students at Brown became isolated from campus. I think I would want to add to this idea about hopefulness and wonder, the sense of wonder, and maybe walking in the world with a sense of effervescence. There's something about doing that together on a campus. That's a point you made early on in this conversation. You talked about what's college about, what's the experience. Well, it's bringing, it's meeting people you wouldn't have met.

Jilian Lederman: Right.

John Tomasi: It's meeting people who are unlike you in all different kinds of ways. And not just meeting them where you may meet someone at a cocktail party and not see again or just talk over briefly with about something, but rather meeting them in a sense of generating that effervescence together. Like universities as communities doing this, not just pockets happening, but doing it in communities. We don't know what's going to happen next year. You're going to be graduating this spring. By the way, what are you doing next year? I know, but tell our audience.

Jilian Lederman: I'm going to be working with the editorial team at the Wall Street Journal. It's fabulous.

John Tomasi: I was trying to recruit you for Heterodox Academy, as you know, but we're going to have you around the corner.

Jilian Lederman: I'll be in New York. I'll be in New York.

John Tomasi: But do you see, I'll give you the closing word on this, and you can move this question the way you like to do to make any kind of final remarks that you might like. We don't know what's going to happen next summer and next fall when people return to campus. We don't know what might happen five years from now or 10 years from now. That's the timeframe that HxA looks at as we think about improving culture through time, through the slow, important principle work that we do. What's your sense about the opportunities for effervescence together on campuses or a healthy skepticism together on campus? Do you see that around the bend? What's your best guess?

Jilian Lederman: I see that around the bend perhaps in the long term, like you said, you know, within a couple of years, five, 10 years. Ultimately, the current situation is not tenable. The way that universities are operating right now is sort of let's get through this year. Let's, you know, keep tensions calm. Let's put a Band-Aid on things and try not to let the tensions boil over until we get to the end of the year. And then there's the summer. And so, you know, in my conversations with Brown's administration, which I know more than any other one, but I also hear from students having conversations with administrations at other schools, that the goal long term is to create more opportunities for dialogue and to, you know, not shut down speech, but to put on events, to sponsor events that bring students together. I think that's maybe the first step of the puzzle. I think it really runs a lot deeper than that when it comes to the intellectual diversity of professors, the intellectual diversity of the student body. So I do think that there's opportunities for change because what's happening right now is just not a situation that can continue where people are so fragmented. And so to the extent that there is positives in the future, it's that we've reached that breaking point. And students have realized that they don't like living on a campus where they are so segregated into their identities. They don't like being, you know, siloed into these intellectual bubbles where there's no disagreement and where these beliefs just get reinforced and reinforced and reinforced without any challenge at all. So I think that administrations either responding to outside pressure or responding to pressure from students will make efforts, hopefully, to have events on campus that bring people together to ensure that college classes are places where this type of discourse happens. I think it probably will, in the long run, require personnel changes in faculty, perhaps in students, perhaps administrations as well. But we're broken right now. And so there is an opportunity to put it back together in a way that's much more positive for the future of universities, for students, and for the country as a whole.

John Tomasi: The purpose of this podcast, or the hope of this podcast, is to give our listeners an insider's view of the state of open inquiry in higher education. Jilian Lederman, thank you for appearing on Heterodox Out Loud.

Jilian Lederman: Thank you so much for having me.