The leaders of the nation's most elite universities are facing accusations of hypocrisy for defending free speech in the face of anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian protests while censoring conservative views on campus.

Harvard University President Claudine Gay, University of Pennsylvania President Elizabeth Magill, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth all testified at a hearing of the House Education and Workforce Committee on Tuesday about combating antisemitism on college campuses.

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During the hearing, all three college presidents repeatedly invoked the free speech rights of students to justify a lack of institutional action against student groups, such as Students for Justice in Palestine, which have led protests on college campuses featuring chants such as "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free," which is commonly understood to mean a call for the elimination of Israel.

Free speech activists were quick to note that the university presidents' support for free speech is at odds with their institutions' recent history. Last year, for example, a Title IX training at Harvard reportedly instructed students that refusing to use an individual's preferred pronouns could violate the school's code of student conduct and result in discipline.

In 2021, Harvard professor Carole Hooven faced intense backlash from a university diversity, equity, and inclusion official for stating that biology determines whether a person is male or female.

The on-campus reaction to Hooven's scientific statements was so severe that she was forced to take a leave of absence from the university.

In 2022, members of the women's swim team at the University of Pennsylvania were told not to speak to media outlets about Lia Thomas, a biological male who was competing as a woman and eventually won a national championship that year.

Cherise Trump, the executive director of Speech First, a campus free speech advocacy group, told the Washington Examiner in a statement that when it comes to conservatives, "university leaders routinely advocate for blurring the lines between constitutionally protected speech and harassing conduct."

Trump, who is not related to former president Donald Trump, said universities have now embraced a "double standard... so blatant it's impossible to ignore" by championing free speech for pro-Palestinian protesters but not for conservatives.

"These are the same campuses that encourage the concept that speech can be considered violence," she said. "And now, when there are protests, events, classroom interruptions, and targeted rallies against Jewish students led by unruly mobs who are calling for actual violence, these same campuses have discovered their passion for free speech. And considering they regularly take positions on politically charged 'social justice' issues and align themselves with Democratic talking points, it is no coincidence they have suddenly decided they are 'viewpoint neutral' after October 7th.

"For years conservative students or students who don't qualify as part of the 'oppressed' identity groups, such as white men, have had their events shut down and their speech censored," she added. "Yesterday's hearing was the first step to finally holding university leaders accountable in the court of public opinion. It's important we don't let up."

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In a blog post, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression executive vice president Nico Perrino said that Harvard, UPenn, and MIT now have an opportunity to adopt a more consistent approach to freedom of speech. The organization recently ranked Harvard as the worst college for free speech out of 248 schools, a fact that lawmakers raised repeatedly during Tuesday's hearing.

"[T]he solution to this moral cowardice is not to expand the use of vague and overbroad harassment codes so that they apply in more cases," Perrino wrote. "Rather administrators should eliminate these codes and defend free speech in all cases. No hypocrisy. No double standards."