Tag: cancel culture

Faculty Fear At Cornell: “I worry every day I enter class that I will say something that a student will find offensive”

I have been writing and speaking out for a long time about the toxic climate at Cornell University when it comes to free expression, particularly in light of public attacks by senior administrators on a Chemistry Professor and me over criticism of the riots and looting that took place after the death of George Floyd.

When the university as an institution, or in my case the law school, attacks dissident professors, it sends a message that only one view is acceptable to the institution. When that institutional position is framed in the manner of “we can’t fire him because he has job protection, but ….” it sends a clear message to faculty who do not have job protection, to students, and to staff, that they are at risk if they express similar views. The negative impact of such denunciations was set forth very well by the National Association of Scholars, An Open Letter to Eduardo M. Peñalver, Dean of Cornell Law School In Support of Professor William A. Jacobson.

My writing and observations were vindicated when the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (the FIRE) and two other free speech groups released a survey of students in September 2020, which I covered in this post, Cornell ranks low in campus free speech survey, abysmal on student free expression.

There is more evidence of this toxic campus climate, which shows it is not only top-down, but bottom-up. There currently are a series of Faculty Senate Working Group proposals to impose Critical Race Theory mandates on faculty and students, which of course I oppose, Statement of Prof. William A. Jacobson Opposing Cornell Faculty Senate Proposed Critical Race Mandates:

Why such compulsion? This campus already is awash in CRT-driven programs, courses, events, workshops, and faculty and student activism, and the separately proposed Center will further the breadth of CRT-based education. These voluntary educational opportunities apparently are not sufficient to those supporting Proposals F and S. Rather than being introspective as to why the message is not resonating more broadly and engaging in debate, Proposal F (and separately, Proposal S) uses administrative power to impose the ideology on the campus.

There has been unexpected pushback from many faculty, leading to a watering down of a Faculty Senate resolution for which voting starts May 5.

The original resolution stated ““Be it resolved that the Faculty Senate endorses the recommendations that are set forth in the WG-F Final Report.” The form of resolution has been changed due to “concerns” to “Be it resolved that the Faculty Senate believes that the recommendations set forth in the  WG-F Final Report.  are worthy of careful consideration by the President and Provost” with further limitations, among others, that ” broad, transparent consultation with the faculty must attend any decision to implement a WG-F recommendation.” A similar walk-back also is taking place as to the proposal for CRT educational mandates on students.

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Activists, media, and Twitter mob pressure Spotify to deplatform Joe Rogan over vaccine comments

Joe Rogan, one of the world’s most popular podcasters, is being targeted again, this time for sharing his opinion on whether young people should get the COVID-19 vaccine.

The attempts to cancel Rogan began after a clip from his recent podcast with comedian Dave Smith went viral on Twitter.

In the clip, Rogan begins by stating “I think for the most part it’s safe to get vaccinated, I do, I do” but adds that in his opinion, young and healthy people shouldn’t get vaccinated:

“But if you’re like 21 years old and you say to me, ‘Should I get vaccinated?’ I’d go ‘No. Are you healthy? Are you a healthy person? Like look, don’t do anything stupid, but you should take care of yourself. If you’re a healthy person and you’re exercising all the time and you’re young and you’re eating well, I don’t think you need to worry about this.’”

He also shares his concerns about employers forcing people to get the COVID vaccine and describes his personal experience with his children getting the coronavirus:

“Both my children got the virus. It was nothing. I hate to say that. If someone’s children died from this, I’m very sorry that that happened. I’m not in any way diminishing that. But I’m saying the personal experience that my children had with COVID is nothing.

One of the kids had a headache, the other one didn’t feel good for a couple of days. I mean not feel good like, hmmm, no big deal. No coughing, no headaches, no aching, no, like, in agony, there was none of that. It was very mild. It was akin to them getting a cold.”

Smith also discusses how some people that get vaccinated are putting on a theatrical display and virtue signaling.

“I’m not injecting my daughter with something to fucking virtue signal,” Smith said. “If there’s something that she’s of no risk, statistically has no risk from, I’m sorry, I’m not taking any experiment on her.”

Rogan concludes by describing his amazement that someone stating they don’t want to get their child vaccinated is controversial:

“It’s amazing that that’s controversial. That even saying that ‘I’m not going to inject my child with a vaccine,’ is controversial. It’s crazy. Because again, we are not even talking about the flu which we just found out that killed 22,000 people last year. We’re not talking about that. We’re talking about something that is not statistically dangerous for children. But yet, people still want you to get your child vaccinated which is crazy to me. Like, you should be vaccinated if you’re vulnerable.”

Activist group Media Matters were sure to frame its headline to highlight Spotify’s association with Joe Rogan, a common technique when trying to apply pressure to a platform.

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Richard Dawkins Cancelled As 1996 Humanist Of The Year After Tweets About Transgenders 25 YEARS Later

Biologist author Richard Dawkins has been stripped of an honour awarded to him by The American Humanist Association in 1996, following tweets that he says merely called for a discussion on transgender issues.

The AHA issued a statement that claims “Regrettably, Richard Dawkins has over the past several years accumulated a history of making statements that use the guise of scientific discourse to demean marginalized groups, an approach antithetical to humanist values.”

“Consequently, the AHA Board has concluded that Richard Dawkins is no longer deserving of being honored by the AHA, and has voted to withdraw, effective immediately, the 1996 Humanist of the Year award,” the organisation added.

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Gender studies professor faces cancel mob after writing blog post about trans ideology

Professor Donna Hughes, the director of graduate studies in the Gender & Women’s Studies program at the University of Rhode Island, is now facing backlash and calls to resign for a blog post she wrote about the transgender movement.

Professor Hughes published an opinion column on 4W, an “explicitly radical feminist website,” titled: “Fantasy Worlds on the Political Right and Left: QAnon and Trans-Sex Beliefs.”

Hughes argues that “trans-sex fantasy has imagined–and is enacting–a world in which how a man feels is more real than his actual reality. And now the fantasy has the weight of the federal government behind it.”

The gender studies professor says that the “American political left” is getting seeped into its world of “lies and fantasy.”

Hughes said that the trans-sex movement is not like the “imaginary world of QAnon” and that “real children are becoming actual victims.”

Professor Hughes also stated that the biological category of women’s sex was being “smashed.”

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Teen Vogue’s Black Editor in Chief Forced To Resign After Old Tweets Criticizing Asians Resurface

Alexi McCammond, the newly hired and already fired editor-in-chief of Teen Vogue, a publication that teaches teenage women about the joys of promiscuous lifestyles and anal sex, was forced to resign after “racist” tweets she wrote in 2011 resurfaced. McCammond, a woman of color, made allegedly racist statements against Asians in the decade old tweets.

In one 2011 tweet, McCammond wrote, “Outdone by Asian. #Whatsnew.” In another, she wrote, “Now Googling how to not wake up with swollen, Asian eyes…” In a third, McCammond mused, “Give me a 2/10 on my chem problem, cross out all of my work and don’t explain what I did wrong… thanks a lot stupid Asian TA [teaching assistant]. You’re great.”

Despite the tweets being a decade old, and despite McCammond herself being a black woman, this warranted a media frenzy that ultimately resulted in her early departure from Teen Vogue, despite a public apology from McCammond.

“I should not have tweeted what I did and I have taken full responsibility for that,” wrote McCammond. “I wish the talented team at Teen Vogue the absolute best moving forward. Their work has never been more important, and I will be rooting for them.”

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The Left’s Culture War Is A Dangerous Distraction That Warrants Total Resistance

Bill Maher made an interesting point on his show last Friday, arguing that America’s obsession with political correctness is crippling its institutions, leaving the country hobbled in the geopolitical race with China. That’s an accurate assessment, one that also tasks the defenders of cultural sanity with resisting wokeness while not getting bogged down by trivialities at the cost of basic efficiency.

That’s an impossible balance to strike. Despite the left’s false but emergent narrative that conservatives are foolishly and disproportionately obsessed with the culture war, I’d contend the response is largely proportionate. That isn’t to say flashpoints like the fight over Dr. Seuss are never milked or depicted inaccurately by some. Of course they are.

But it’s clear that ignoring and conceding perceivably small battles like, for instance, six Dr. Seuss books or Mr. Potato Head is what empowers the left’s culture warriors to take control of everything. By dismissing flare-ups of insanity on college campuses or in the legacy media, leftists normalized their radical new standards before the public even saw it coming. It’s like the metaphor of the boiling frog. Death by a thousand cuts.

Standards are set in the small dust-ups. The legacy press covers them from the left, then corporations and government institutions respond to the pressure, sometimes convinced the cost-benefit analysis suggests it’s easier to roll over. But rolling over sets the standards, and the standards are unjust.

But those standards are also now the ones by which we’re forced to live, lest we face social and professional consequences for alleged bigotry. Bear in mind that workers without the financial means of a canceled celebrity or journalist are hurt most by those rigid strictures of cancel culture, forced to violate their consciences or suffer financial consequences for perceived transgressions.

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