The line gets a laugh, but students know I’m serious because I say it in a speech about difference, discourse and the reason they are in that classroom. Which isn’t to commit genocide—or to stop it. They aren’t there to do anything besides learn: what the law is and isn’t, how to prosecute or defend war criminals, what works and doesn’t. What they do with that knowledge is up to them. Some defend corporations. Others liberate oppressed communities by any means necessary. Some become military judge advocates, while others oppose America’s wars. On Israel and Gaza—you can imagine.
If a student tried to commit genocide in my class, I’d call the police. I’d do the same if he urged his classmates to kill Jews, Palestinians, Ukrainians or Russians, because inciting people to commit genocide is also a crime. If that is what “advocating genocide” means, then yes, genocide isn’t allowed in my classroom.
But arguing that genocide shouldn’t be a crime is allowed. You want to say that acts widely considered genocide can be legally justified? Say more. That killing Armenians in 1915, Bosnian Muslims in the 1990s, Ukrainians or Israelis or Palestinians in 2023 isn’t genocide? Discuss. I’ve argued similar positions myself, and my university neither would nor should punish me for it.