"Old-school liberals can simply go on championing free-speech values. But the 'woke' or 'identitarian' left cannot go on as before."

"Having long agitated for more sweeping speech restrictions and taboos, they now confront a dilemma: They do not want 'woke' hate speech or sensitivity standards applied to Palestinian-aligned activists, and they are unwilling to police speech that unnerves many Jews in the way that they policed speech they considered upsetting to other identity groups; yet they cannot subject Jews to such a blatant double standard without alienating many Americans and losing moral standing and attendant influence.... One faction wants to resolve the double standard by treating Jews as the woke left treats Black and brown people and members of the LGBTQ community—to grant them the status of an oppressed group and to police speech on their behalf. A more farsighted faction wants everyone to get equal treatment, regardless of identity, when speaking or being spoken about. This conflict is especially hard for institutions that moved away from old-school-liberal speech attitudes toward leftist identitarianism, and created diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging bureaucracies, only to treat Jews inequitably while leaving many Jews and Palestinians alike feeling slighted and aggressed. Why conserve that?"

Writes Conor Friedersdorf, in "How October 7 Changed America’s Free-Speech Culture/The identitarian left cannot go on as it did before the attacks" (The Atlantic).