Dorian Abbott Offers Advice on How to Survive an Academic Witchhunt

Dorian Abbott's job as professor of geophysics was threatened at the University of Chicago for insisting that hiring decisions should be based on merit. He gives this overview of the situation at Quillette:

In the fall of 2020, I became the target of a cancellation campaign after I’d suggested that the best policy for a university seeking to support underrepresented groups, while staying true to its mission of producing knowledge, is to ensure that hiring and admissions decisions are based on merit. It’s an idea that directly reflects bedrock principles advanced during the Civil Rights movement, and which are still supported by a large majority of Americans. But to the mob, I was just an irredeemable enemy of progress and social justice. As part of the now-standard playbook, my attackers formed a Twitter mob and wrote a denunciatory public letter, cynically misrepresenting my views, demanding that my research and teaching at the University of Chicago be restricted, and urging that my department formally denounce me. Fortunately, at a crucial juncture in the proceedings, the Free Speech Union launched a change.org petition in my support, which was signed by more than 13,000 people. (The list probably includes many readers of this essay. Thank you so much for your support!) My university president, Robert Zimmer, subsequently issued a strong statement defending freedom of expression on campus. As a result, I seem to have survived my cancellation.
The full article is titled: "‘More Weight’: An Academic’s Guide to Surviving Campus Witch Hunts."

The brunt of his article consists of strategies for maintaining one's job when threatened by Woke mobs:

Love the people attacking you. Remember that they are human beings.

Determination:

Note that determination does not mean responding to every person attacking you. Many of the people who join a mob take the view that anyone who disagrees with them is presumptively evil, and they will not be interested in facts or reason. Once you realize that you are dealing with someone in this category, I recommend not engaging with them, especially on social media. Just let it go, continue to put your message out in a positive way, and move on to people interested in a discussion.
Courage: "The lesson is that a mob is a crowd of people who have lost their individuality in a frenzy of group madness, but who can be shocked back to their senses if you stand up to them with courage."

Support: Work as best you can with your organization. Also, "So get in touch with organizations such as the Free Speech Union, Quillette, Heterodox Academy, and FIRE, which can help rally some troops to support you."

Perspective: "One exercise that might help is to play out in your mind all of the negative scenarios you can imagine and show yourself that you can survive them."

Abbott ends his article cautioning that we might need to pick our battles, but suggesting that those in tenured faculty positions have a special responsibility for standing up to the Woke mobs.

Continue ReadingDorian Abbott Offers Advice on How to Survive an Academic Witchhunt

Silicon Valley Continues to Invoke its Vague Guidelines to Clamp Down on Free Speech

Yes, I know. The First Amendment doesn't apply to private companies and social media are private companies. But consider also that 95% (or something like that) of our communications to each other are funneled through social media. When Youtube shuts down a journalist's coverage of a news-worthy event based on an absurd interpretation of its unilaterally imposed guidelines, it's something we should document and fix (I don't pretend to have an easy fix). Matt Taibbi tells the story here. It's part of a growing trend. This issue burst onto the national stage when Twitter shut down the New York Post's account over the Hunter Biden censorship story. Krystal Ball's tweet at The Rising sums up this latest incident:

Continue ReadingSilicon Valley Continues to Invoke its Vague Guidelines to Clamp Down on Free Speech

Abigail Shrier Discusses the Fact-Checking of her Opinion on White House Transgender Policy

Apparently, one can have a false opinion these days. Abigail Shrier explains in this Tweet Thread.

For the fallout, consider Shrier's additional tweets on this thread, including the following:

Continue ReadingAbigail Shrier Discusses the Fact-Checking of her Opinion on White House Transgender Policy

“Normal” is Unethical in the White House Briefing Room

Spot on. Tara Palmeri of Politico is getting blasted for saying something obviously true.

Saagar and Krystal nail it with their commentary.

"Normal" is unethical in a country that ostensibly values vigorous use of the First Amendment.

Continue Reading“Normal” is Unethical in the White House Briefing Room

John McWhorter Discusses the “Use” versus “Reference” Distinction Regarding the “N” Word.

John McWhorter now has a Substack column and I have signed up to support his work. He recently expressed dismay that a particular group of people pretend that they don't understand this distinction: it is one thing to use a rude word as an epithet to hurt someone and an entirely different thing to refer to that word (in this case, the "N" word) by saying it or writing it in order to discuss that word. Woke mobs are doing everything in their power (including attempted cancellation) to characterize non-harmful uses of the "N" as "harmful to people in exactly the same way it hurts people to hurl the "N" word as an epithet.

McWhorter's position (with which I agree) is that this is all theater and power plays. No one is hurt when we discuss the "N" word and all of us know that. In fact, we should be able to freely discuss the use of that word by using the word. This Woke trip wire should be dismantled. What truly hurts us all is to pretend that use and reference are the same. Here's an excerpt from McWhorter's essay, "The N-word as slur vs. the N-word as a sequence of sounds: What makes the New York Times so comfortable making black people look dim?"

The idea that it is inherent to black American culture to fly to pieces at hearing the N-word used in reference is implausible at best, and slanderous at worst. But the second and more important is that insisting on this taboo makes it look like black people are numb to the difference between usage and reference, vague on the notion of meta, given to overgeneralization rather than to making distinctions.

To wit, the get McNeil fired for using the N-word to refer to it makes black people look dumb. And not just to the Twitter trollers who will be nasty enough to actually write it down. Non-black people are thinking it nationwide and keeping it to themselves. Frankly, the illogic in this approach to the N-word is so obvious to anyone who does make distinctions that the only question is why people would not look on and guiltily wonder whether the idea that black people are less intellectually gifted is true.

I would like to be the fly on the wall in the private living spaces of all of those people who claim that they are hurt even when someone uses the "N" word merely to refer to it or discuss it (e.g., to discuss the extent to which it is harmful). I smell the strong stench of hypocrisy wafting from the Woke mob.  How long before it is a terrible thing to even write "the 'N' word" or "N*****" when merely attempting to discuss the word?

Continue ReadingJohn McWhorter Discusses the “Use” versus “Reference” Distinction Regarding the “N” Word.