Since the painful testimony from the presidents of three of America’s most elite universities took place Tuesday, social media has been awash with criticism of the women and the institutions themselves after they said that calls for the genocide of Jews had to be put in the proper “context” before action could be taken. 

The chairwoman of the House Republican conference, Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, asked the three presidents a fairly simple question: “Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate [your university’s] code of conduct or rules regarding bullying or harassment?”

All three failed to give a straight answer, saying instead that students who call for intifada, genocide, or abolition of Israel would only be punished depending on the context of the remarks. 

Harvard’s president, Claudine Gay, went so far as to say that calling for the murder of Jews is only punishable if the speech “is targeted at an individual,” not Jews globally. “Antisemitic rhetoric, when it crosses into conduct that amounts to bullying, harassment, intimidation, that is actionable conduct and we do take action.”

The University of Pennsylvania president, Liz Magill, in a more stunning moment, said calling for the murder of Jews is only punishable “if the speech turns into conduct” — meaning students would only face reprisal if they actually began killing Jews. “It’s a context-dependent decision,” she added. 

“If the speech becomes conduct, yes, it can be harassment,” she said again, leading Ms. Stefanik to yell: “‘conduct’ meaning the act of commiting genocide!”

“I have heard chants which can be antisemitic — depending on the context — when calling for the elimination of the Jewish people,” said the president of the Massachusetts Institution of Technology, Sally Kornbluth. 

“The presidents’ answers reflect the profound educational, moral and ethical failures that pervade certain of our elite educational institutions due in large part to their failed leadership,” the billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman wrote on X. “They must all resign in disgrace. If a CEO of one of our companies gave a similar answer, he or she would be toast within the hour.”

The White House on Wednesday issued a scathing statement in reaction to the presidents’ testimony.  “It is unbelievable that this needs to be said: calls for genocide are monstrous and antithetical to everything we represent as a country,” said a spokesman for President Biden, Andrew Bates. “Any statements that advocate for the systematic murder of Jews are dangerous and revolting — and we should all stand firmly against them.”

The chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt, wrote that “there is NO ‘context’ in which calling for the genocide of Jews is OK. These leaders’ lack of moral clarity in response to this line of questioning is shameful but not surprising based on the past few weeks.”

One Jewish Democrat in the House, Congressman Josh Gottheimer, also said the university presidents are leaving Jewish students to the wolves. “How hard is it to say that calling for the genocide of Jews is bullying and harassment?” he asked. “Stunning that these university presidents can’t give the right answer to a simple question. Can you imagine being a Jewish student on these campuses?”

One of Harvard’s most famous faculty members and active Democrats, Lawrence Tribe, spoke out against Ms. Gay following her testimony. “I’m no fan of [Ms. Stefanik] but I’m with her here,” the Constitutional scholar said. “Claudine Gay’s hesitant, formulaic, and bizarrely evasive answers were deeply troubling to me and many of my colleagues, students, and friends.”

Even a former Al Jazeera journalist who has been a fierce critic of the Jewish state, Mehdi Hassan, said the presidents’ answers “were insensitive, foolish, robotic, and offensive.”

On Wednesday, Ms. Gay walked back her congressional testimony after she failed to explicitly say that calling for genocide was an offense worthy of punishment. “Let me be clear: Calls for violence or genocide against the Jewish community, or any religious or ethnic group are vile, they have no place at Harvard, and those who threaten our Jewish students will be held to account,” she said.