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THREAD: My book with @JonHaidt, Coddling of the American Mind, turns 2 this week!
As part of our series updating the trends we addressed in the book, today we're looking at "right-on-left" #censorship, which is still very much a thing on campus. 1/17 https://www.thefire.org/catching-up-with-coddling-part-three-right-on-left-censorship-is-still-a-thing-on-campus/
As part of our series updating the trends we addressed in the book, today we're looking at "right-on-left" #censorship, which is still very much a thing on campus. 1/17 https://www.thefire.org/catching-up-with-coddling-part-three-right-on-left-censorship-is-still-a-thing-on-campus/
In the book, we talked about 1) @Lisardurden, fired from @EssexCountyWEC for defending BLM on Tucker Carlson.
2)George Ciccariello-Maher, banned from campus, and eventually forced into early retirement at @DrexelUniv for mocking the concept of white genocide in a tweet. ... 2/17
2)George Ciccariello-Maher, banned from campus, and eventually forced into early retirement at @DrexelUniv for mocking the concept of white genocide in a tweet. ... 2/17
3) @SarahEBond, a @uiowa prof targeted with threats for an article pointing out that classical statues were once painted garish colors
Read more about these kinds of cases in @samk_harris’s excellent @voxdotcom article. 3/17 https://www.vox.com/first-person/2017/6/6/15747054/keeanga-yamahtta-taylor-free-speech
Read more about these kinds of cases in @samk_harris’s excellent @voxdotcom article. 3/17 https://www.vox.com/first-person/2017/6/6/15747054/keeanga-yamahtta-taylor-free-speech
Each of these professors were targeted by conservatives & it may or may not surprise you that this hasn't stopped in the years since the book. 4/17
Earlier this month, while discourse about left-wing cancel culture was roiling all over the internet, high-profile conservatives were calling for the immediate termination of Jesse Goldberg, a lecturer at @AuburnU. 5/17 https://www.thefire.org/auburn-university-affirms-that-it-will-not-punish-lecturer-over-anti-police-comments/
Goldberg commented "Fuck every single cop" in response to an @ACLU post about protesters being taken by plainclothes officers in unmarked vans in NYC.
Auburn called it "hate speech" and started exploring "options" to deal with him. 6/17
Auburn called it "hate speech" and started exploring "options" to deal with him. 6/17
Goldberg’s position was eventually converted into a research-only fellowship by Auburn.
Goldberg said he felt safer in that position after receiving many threats of violence. 7/17
Goldberg said he felt safer in that position after receiving many threats of violence. 7/17
Way back in the before times of January 2020, @babson terminated @asheen from teaching after a tweet criticizing Trump's threat to bomb Iranian culture sites with a joke suggesting Iran target American cultural sites like the Kardashian residence. 8/17
An obvious joke to any serious reader, but it went viral on conservative outlets, and @babson capitulated to the angry mob asking for Phansey's termination, while falsely claiming it did so in cooperation with police. 9/17 https://www.thefire.org/babson-falsely-claimed-it-was-cooperating-with-massachusetts-state-police-over-professors-threatening-facebook-post/
Professor Jeff Klinzman was fired by Kirkwood Community College in Iowa for expressing sympathies toward antifa; Kirkwood would ultimately settle a subsequent lawsuit FIRE helped Klinzman bring. 10/17 https://www.thefire.org/victory-college-settles-with-antifa-professor-fired-for-criticizing-president-trump-on-facebook-avoids-first-amendment-lawsuit-from-fire/
When remarks about “crappy white people” by graduate student and teaching assistant @IramiOF went viral, the @universityofga started “vigorously exploring all available legal options.” 11/17 https://www.thefire.org/fire-warns-university-of-georgia-and-state-attorney-general-to-end-speech-chilling-investigation-into-tas-protected-expression/
It's not just professors who face censorship from the right. At @TrumanState, an animal rights group was denied recognition due to its association with @PETA, and the chance the group might pose "emotional risk" to students. 12/17 https://www.thefire.org/cases/truman-state-university-animal-rights-organization-denied-recognition-due-to-emotional-and-reputational-risks/
The Truman State case is an especially interesting datapoint on the "medicalization" of censorship that we talked about in COTAM. I.e. that rationales of physical harm are being used to justify the censorship of political viewpoints. 13/17
Of course many @TheFIREorg's cases do look like the “left trying to censor the right” stereotype.
E.g. @univofscranton stood by when its student government denied recognition to @TPUSA. Chapters of the conservative group YAF were denied at @SyracuseU & @SantaClaraUniv. 14/17
E.g. @univofscranton stood by when its student government denied recognition to @TPUSA. Chapters of the conservative group YAF were denied at @SyracuseU & @SantaClaraUniv. 14/17
It bears repeating that many cases we see involve left-leaning professors facing pushback from further-left students and faculty, like @BretWeinstein & @HeatherEHeying at @EvergreenStCol, @lauriesheck at @TheNewSchool, & @ProfRonSullivan at @Harvard. 15/17
Finally, there's the "big middle" where students & profs get in trouble for apolitical reasons, like pissing off the school PR department.
For more on that, see our forthcoming update to Ch. 10 of COTAM on The Bureaucracy of Safetyism. 16/17
For more on that, see our forthcoming update to Ch. 10 of COTAM on The Bureaucracy of Safetyism. 16/17
I ask you to keep all this in mind when you think about campus issues.
The story of free speech on campus is complex & defies simplistic narratives, including ones that limit it to "left-on-right" censorship. 17/17
The story of free speech on campus is complex & defies simplistic narratives, including ones that limit it to "left-on-right" censorship. 17/17
