Talk:Palestine exception

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MOS:SENTENCECASE

@Noble Attempt, good work on this new article! It seems like it could be an interesting article to expand, so I'll see if I can help in the coming days/weeks.

In the meantime, I noticed you moved this to title case ("Palestine Exception") with an edit note that this was per MOS:SENTENCECASE, but usually this guideline means "Palestine exception" would be the preferred title. Was that a mistake? Sources seem mixed on whether it's capitalised or not, which suggests we should probably use sentence case over caps ("Palestine exception"). If this is a notable exception, it's probably worth gathering some sources here in case anyone tries to move it back. Thanks in advance! Lewisguile (talk) 10:38, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for asking! I wasn't sure if using MOS:SENTENCECASE was the correct term to use for switching the article's capitalization due to "Palestine Exception" being used as a proper noun in most of the sources I found, so that's on me if that is the wrong application of the guideline. After looking closer at mentions of the term in the sources and online, it seems like there are too many that use "Palestine exception" mixed with those that use it as a proper noun for it to be an exception.

Some sources using the proper noun title case: [1][2] [3][4][5][6]

Versus those that don't use it as a proper noun: [7][8][9][10][11]

I can revert the title change back based on that information if that would be best, since there's no significant or serious reason to keep it that way aside from it being the case used in Palestine Legal's extensive write-up of the phenomenon ([12]). Thank you for pointing it out, and I really appreciate your interest in possibly expanding the article too if you are interested (although there's no pressure if you can't)! Noble Attempt (talk) 19:28, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think a move back to sentence case rather than a revert would be best (selecting the option to move for sentence case again). I'll do it momentarily. That way, "Palestine Exception" will become a redirect and you don't have to undo any progress made in the meantime. In the event that the title case is needed for something else (e.g., if someone were to write a book or make a film called Palestine Exception on the subject of the Palestine exception), then we can always remove the redirect later on. I hope that makes sense!

I'd be happy to help with editing this article. I've already done a fair bit of work in this area. Lewisguile (talk) 08:29, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Citation removal in Responses section

Hi Lewisguile, I noticed you made some changes to my edits on Palestine exception#Responses. I have a question about the removal of the Wagner article as well as the removal of the Miller article. First, in regard to the Wagner article, you removed it on the basis of WP:SPS. It is true that Academia.edu is problematic as a reprint platform -- thus the issue of verifiability and specifically the appearance of this article being a self-published source. But the article itself was actually not originally self-published and is verifiable in its original published form. The journal Telos is a reliable peer reviewed source and is indexed in various reliable indexing sources including Sociological Abstracts and other indexing and abstracting publications. It is not freely available full-text on the Web (except for the dubious Academia.edu, which is a reprint site) but I was able to get a copy of the article through a library. Given all of this, would you have a problem if I put back the Wagner citation but without the link to Academia.edu? Keep in mind that articles do not have to be freely available on the Web to meet the WP:V standard. "Do not reject reliable sources just because they are difficult or costly to access. Some reliable sources are not easily accessible." See WP:Paywall. Second, in regard to the Miller citation, you removed it on the basis of the source (The Harvard Crimson) being non-notable. This was confusing to me since notability in WP usually refers to the topic of an article, and not to sources. Did you mean reliability? Also, it was odd to me that this article was removed while five other citations from the Harvard Crimson remain in the Palestine exception. Would you mind clarifying your intent in regard to removing the Miller article? Thanks. Ungathering (talk) 18:25, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Ungathering,

Absolutely, you can include Wagner without the Academia link! My problem was with the Academia link for the reasons you give, and if there's a better, reliable source for it, then insert it and we can judge it on its own basis.

Re: the Harvard Crimson, I thought my edit summary was clear enough, but I'll try to expand. The opinion itself is a dissenting opinion (i.e., not the opinion of the newspaper itself), and I couldn't see why the writer of the op-ed was otherwise notable in their own right. We don't need to include every minor viewpoint, per WP:WEIGHT and WP:NOTEVERYTHING. The view wasn't substantially different from the sources I left in, which had clearer notability and relevance, so I removed it.

It isn't our job to include everything anyone says on a topic, but to offer a summary that details the broad points. As part of that, we include the major viewpoints and any sizeable minority viewpoints, but we don't have to include the views of every person who has a view, whichever side of the debate they fall on.

If the Harvard Crimson article was a featured op-ed (rather than a dissenting opinion), or the writer was demonstrably notable in their own right, we might include it, but we still need to WP:SUMMARISE multiple viewpoints as much as we can. Hence why the edited text tries to combine similar statements (e.g., "x and y both said this..., but y also said...") rather than giving both separately ("x said this... y said this... z said this...").

In any case, the original draft was less specific about who held these views, so it also relied on WP:WEASEL WORDS. I edited it to specifically name the people making these points and to clarify why they are relevant. Lewisguile (talk) 13:46, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your response, @Lewisguile. You provided a helpful explanation of your edits. I appreciate it. Ungathering (talk) 18:04, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. I'm glad it was helpful. Lewisguile (talk) 10:53, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Mismatch between title and Instances section

The title/first line of the lede and the contents of this article don't match very well. The article in the first line of the lede describes our subject as "a legal carve-out of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and other free speech laws in the Western world". In the Instances section:

University of Toronto employment offer to scholar Valentina Azarova: it doesn't appear that there was any legal carveout here. An institution made an offer of employment, rescinded it under donor pressure, and then re-extended it under public pressure. Free speech laws didn't enter the story.
Retraction of an essay by the Harvard Law Review: editors voted to retract an essay. Much the focus of campus drama I'm sure, but I don't think the question was whether publication of the essay was illegal.
Our next instance is from the media section: "Notable examples include different news networks' policies restricting the use of the term "Palestine"". News organisations make editorial decisions about how to cover topics. The BBC famously don't call Hamas terrorists. This is not because it is illegal to do so.
"In one incident, CBC Current guest anchor Duncan McCue was required to issue a public apology for referring to Palestine". Again, news outlets may require their employees to follow their editorial decisions, and in other news, the new Pope remains Catholic.
Social media companies have been "noted to systemically censor or de-weight the use of terms relating to Palestine and the ongoing conflict." Again, not a legal question, and there is no suggestion that the law requires them to do this.
" the Palestine Exception was frequently used to describe documented patterns of disproportionate institutional reactions to pro-Palestinian protests compared to other social justice movements on university campuses." This claim should probably be sourced. Beyond that, it doesn't specify if it's talking about suppression by law enforcement/the state or not, and whether this is done under the rubric of a "carve-out" to free speech laws (as opposed to say, selective enforcement of trespassing laws or a hundred other ways this could happen).
"Investigations by the U.S. Department of Education have been opened at Columbia, Emory University, the University of North Carolina, and at Umass Amherst over their administrations' response to student protests and advocacy since the start of the war." Again no mention of free speech laws/the first amendment. If the US government opens an investigation into potential infractions under the Civil Rights Act, that does not mean it has abrogated (in whole or in part) the first amendment.
The next two paragraphs entirely focus on Harvard University. The first says that Harvard has cracked down much more harshly on these protests than previous ones. Again not a free speech issue. It's a bit funny, because it implicitly recognises that all these protests broke Harvard rules.
The last paragraph of the Instances section is about the exclusion of some students from graduating/participating in a commencement ceremony. These students had been subject to disciplinary processes by Harvard, a private institution.

That is the whole Instances section, and I feel like we're yet to see an instance of what the lede describes as our subject. It's also worth noting that while we talk about the "Western world", all our examples come from the US and Canada. Samuelshraga (talk) 09:56, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Amusingly, I was pre-empted by a number of minutes by @Lewisguile's edit. Just putting this here to note the change. Samuelshraga (talk) 10:13, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I think someone had defined it in terms of free speech law because of the name. Obviously, the sources don't support that. Lewisguile (talk) 10:41, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Re: the use of "alleged", the overwhelming body of evidence treats this as fact. However, we already hedge this by saying "a pattern ... that is said to..." Lewisguile (talk) 10:50, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]