Time to celebrate as woke power hits the wall, in Australia and the USA, writes Tim Blair

The woke movement has scored many victories, but it appears it has hit the wall in its crusade. Most notably when the heads of some of the USA’s most prestigious colleges appeared before their government, writes Tim Blair

Credit where it’s due. The woke movement has scored many victories by relentlessly and ruinously arguing that up is down, female is male, diversity is unity, justice is evil, and peace is war.

Some of these victories, of course, are decidedly on the soft side. Wokens often win by taking on institutions or entities that are either already inclined towards squishy leftism or can’t be bothered getting into a fight.

Again, credit to the woke and their successful strategy. It’s easy to tear down antagonists that are too lazy or too unaware to be antagonised.

But every so often our woke warriors come up against opponents they just can’t defeat. They collide with rigid, time-tested elemental forces that won’t be shifted by screaming, pleading or playing victim.

The Prime Minister Anthony Albanese held a press conference after the Voice to Parliament was defeated in the referendum. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

They run headfirst into logic and reality. And logic and reality don’t yield to anyone, woke or not.

We saw a striking example of this in October. “Australia has just had the world’s first referendum on identity politics, a creed so established among its elites that Anthony Albanese, the Prime Minister, wanted it embedded in the Constitution,” Fraser Nelson, editor of the UK Spectator, wrote at the time.

A devastated Yes voter. Picture: Getty Images

“The Yes campaign outspent No by five to one. It had sports stars, companies and the whole establishment on its side, yet still lost every Australian state. Stunned, it blames its defeat on racism, ignorance, misinformation and general black magic.”

Or, in other words, woke hit the wall. And now it’s happened again, possibly in a far more significant and influential way.

Background: as is the case in Australia and throughout the western world, American universities are philosophically owned by the left. Their humanities departments, especially, are horribly fertile breeding swamps for commie simps.

Dr Claudine Gay, President of Harvard University, Liz Magill, President of University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Pamela Nadell, Professor of History and Jewish Studies at American University, and Dr. Sally Kornbluth, President of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, testify before the House Education and Workforce Committee at the Rayburn House Office Building on December 05, 2023 in Washington, DC. Picture: Getty Images

In those environments, a twisted, “wokified” version of truth prevails. From the politically perverted view currently dominant in universities, even left-infested agencies such as the ABC, BBC or The New York Times seem monstrously right-wing.

So when the presidents of Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology testified last week before a US House of Representatives Committee, they gave the sort of answers that would have satisfied their campus comrades.

The trouble was that Penn’s Liz Magill, Harvard’s Claudine Gay and MIT’s Sally Kornbluth weren’t on campus. They weren’t protected by a cocoon of leftist bias and bigotry. They instead appeared before the world via video – and to normal viewers their woke testimony proved profoundly shocking.

Dr Claudine Gay, President of Harvard University, testifies before the House Education and Workforce Committee at the Rayburn House Office Building on December 05, 2023 in Washington, DC. Picture: Getty Images

All three university presidents were asked if calls on their respective campuses for the genocide of Jewish people would constitute harassment. To most people – or at least people with even a vague knowledge of history – the answer to this question would be obvious. And brief.

But none of the university bosses could manage a straightforward or unequivocal “yes”. Magill’s response went way beyond standard leftist evasion and into an area of legal discussion that may have last been explored during the post-World War II Nuremberg trials.

“If the speech turns into conduct, it can be harassment, yes,” Magill said. “It is a context-dependent decision.”

Let’s unpack those comments, as an academic of Magill’s standing might say. Speech about genocide only becomes harassment if it turns into conduct. That’s the “context” we’re talking about here. By that standard, anyone can screech as much as they like about killing all the Jews, but it would only become harassment if they actually … killed all the Jews.

That’s where we are currently at with the anti-Semitic left. In the wake of October 7’s atrocities, they’ll indulge all manner of Jew hatred – and they’ll indulge even more of it, right up to the level of genocide.

Liz Magill, President of University of Pennsylvania. Picture: Getty Images

Magill last week quit her $1.8 million University of Pennsylvania gig. She kind of had to, once businessman Ross Stevens told the university he’d withdraw a $150 million donation unless Magill went. According to The Wall Street Journal, the university’s board at first “stood by Ms Magill, overwhelmingly expressing continued support for her in a virtual meeting on Thursday”.

But, the WSJ continued, the board – presumably just as reality-detached as Magill herself – found themselves “increasingly at odds with others in the school community and the broader public”.

In this story of woke academics versus Israel and the Jewish people, the school community and the broader public are our proxies for logic and reality.

Just as the Australian people stood up to the woke horror that would have been the Voice, civilised forces in the US have risen up against Magill and her university associates.

Count this as a meaningful win. Now we move on to the next.

Originally published as Time to celebrate as woke power hits the wall, in Australia and the USA, writes Tim Blair