Eli Lake has catalogued the corrupting influence of billions spent funding U.S. colleges from the Hamas-harboring gulf-state of Qatar. Lake’s litany includes $740 million to my employer, Carnegie Mellon University, for a computer science campus in Doha. Perhaps this can help to explain the sensational moral rot currently on display at CMU’s main Pittsburgh campus.

Let’s begin with an exhibit that just opened in the building in which the Carnegie Mellon University board of trustees usually meets. The exhibit is called the Violins of Hope. There was a splashy opening on October 5 that included the university’s president, Farnam Jahanian. The exhibit’s stated purpose:

Through lessons of the Holocaust, [to] demonstrate humanity’s amazing ability to rebound from even the darkest depravity. The centerpiece of this event is the Violins of Hope Exhibit, which showcases violins played by Jewish musicians during the Holocaust. Each instrument has a unique emotional history that tells a story of perseverance and hope.

As a community that has already experienced attacks of hatred and division, Pittsburgh is especially sensitive to the need for unity. Thus, it is our hope that this landmark project will bring our community together, tuning out prejudice and building bridges that last.

The official opening was Saturday, October 7. Something more like the literal Holocaust happened on that day.

The next, on Sunday, Jewish students painted the fence in the middle of CMU’s Pittsburgh campus in blue and white with the words “We stand with Israel.” This fence has a tradition of being painted with words and slogans going back nearly 100 years. It is supposed to be the one place on main campus where free speech reigns supreme.

Students are allowed to repaint the fence beginning at midnight and no later than daybreak. If they want their message to remain, they have to guard the fence 24 hours a day. On Monday, not 24 hours later, the fence was repainted by Palestinian-supporting students, with the words “Free Palestine” on one side of the fence and “75 years of Occupation” on the other. The fence sits about 200 yards from the Violins of Hope exhibition space.

On Monday afternoon, Jahanian issued an open letter to the campus community. The first sentence read, “I share the grief and horror felt by so many in our community following the unprecedented wave of violence and brutality that was directed at civilians in Israel and Gaza this weekend.” No Hamas, no terrorism, no mention of anti-Semitism. But plenty of moral equivalence.

By Thursday of that week, the fence had been repainted and, after a barrage of emails from faculty and staff, there was another letter from President Jahanian. This time he got around to condemning Hamas by name, but no mention of anti-Semitism or anti-Zionism.

The following Monday, the fence was once again repainted by students supporting Hamas butchery. This time, along with the Palestinian flag, the message was updated to “Stop the Genocide.” Of course, the butchery of Israelis is not the genocide to which these students refer.

I should say here that the Hamas-supporting CMU students do have permission to do what they’ve done. The university set the rules and these students are playing by them. The immorality of cheering for the new Nazis just a brief walk from an exhibit memorializing the victims of last century’s Nazis is another matter.

But the actions of students are not the most urgent problem here. It is the inaction and inability on the part of the university to impart basic moral lessons that is most important. Perhaps nearly a billion dollars from the Qataris has killed any hope for moral clarity.

Equally clarifying is that while these goings on have been taking place, schoolkids—Jewish and non-Jewish—have been coming to campus to view the Violins of Hope. Why should they waste their time seeing these instruments that were “saved” when the humans who played them are dust and anti-Semitism is alive and well? Can we finally, finally put to rest the lie that Holocaust education prevents pogroms, builds understanding, or reduces anti-Semitism?

On Friday, October 27, President Jahanian has invited the CMU campus community to participate in the fifth anniversary commemoration of the Tree of Life massacre here in Pittsburgh. He writes, that we will gather “to remember the lives lost and forever changed by the tragic attack on the Tree of Life … five years ago and to honor the resilience of our Jewish, Carnegie Mellon and Pittsburgh communities.” The event has been moved inside the university center rather than outside at the site of the permanent memorial for the 11 victims, which is spitting distance from the fence, by the way.