Story about BLM Co-Founder Not Allowed Pursuant to Facebook’s Version of Free Speech

For many people it is an interesting fact that the co-founder of organization Black Lives Matters has gone on a expensive home buying spree. Hasn't this story been told hundreds of times over the years when famous people do some expensive signaling? It sometimes raises interesting questions about where these people got all of that money. In this case, it was determined by the New York Post that Patrisse Khan-Cullors bought four houses worth $3.2M. In a country that values free speech, information should flow and people can make of these stories what they want. For some people it won't be a big deal. For others, these purchases are controversial, because it suggests that money that should be going to a non-profit cause is being siphoned off into luxury.

The story about this story is much more interesting. It was reported by the New York Post. But Facebook (and Instagram) will not allow you to share this story, as discussed by FOX:

Facebook has barred users from sharing a New York Post report from last week about the controversial property acquisitions by Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors.

Users of the social media giant noticed on Thursday they could not share the link to a story that shed light on Cullors' multi-million-dollar splurge on homes. Fox News can confirm that an error message appears whenever users try sharing the article on their personal Facebook page or through the Messenger app.

When users attempt to send the link, an error message alleges that the article "goes against our Community Standards."

The New York Post published this follow-up story today, where Khan-Cullors claimed in a strangely narrowly-tailored defense: "“I have never taken a salary from the Black Lives Matters Global Networks Foundation,” she also said Thursday."

Again, this real estate buying spree could be an interesting story for many people, especially for those who wonder whether their donations to BLM (and its many affiliates) are really helping struggling black people.  The NYP adds: "But in insisting she did not take a salary from the organization’s non-profit foundation, Khan-Cullors left unsaid whether she was paid through BLM’s network of similarly named for-profit entities." Shouldn't people be able to freely share this information and make up their own minds about whether it is interesting?

Numerous Facebook users, however, were blocked from sending the NYP story.  One of those people, Abigail Shrier, was blocked from sending it as a private message on FB Messenger. Outraged, she wrote: "Facebook will not allow you to post this NY Post story or even to message it to another person. (I just tested it). So Facebook is now effectively opening your mail and reading the contents for ideologically objectionable material."

Shrier (who has been victimized by silicon valley regarding her book--and see here) (with the modern version of the ACLU joining in with this censorship) is following up on this disturbing censorship.

Continue ReadingStory about BLM Co-Founder Not Allowed Pursuant to Facebook’s Version of Free Speech

The University of Virginia Medical School Engages in Macroagressions When a Student Questions “Microagressions”

The University of Virginia School of Medicine deserves an "F" for the exercise in Wokeness described below, as reported by Reason.  The article is titled, "A Medical Student Questioned Microaggressions. UVA Branded Him a Threat and Banished Him from Campus."

[Update: I have attached key legal filings from this lawsuit, because the details demonstrate that the thought process of the Administrators is pathological - - thoroughly Woke infested. Do this university really think that the students they admit to their medical school are this fragile? I want to believe that people generally act in good faith, but the University's positions in these pleadings are not credible. The faculty and administrators of UVA have completely fallen off the rails regarding the educational mission.

Doc 33 - Amended Complaint

Doc 112 - Defendants' Motion to Dismiss

Doc 113 - Deft Memo in Supp of MTD

Doc 115 - Plaintiff Memo in Opp re MTD

Doc 129 - Court Ruling on Deft MTD

Doc 132 - Order that Discovery may proceed.]

But first, what is the purpose of a college? I fully embrace the definition offered by Heterodox Academy: "We aspire to create college classrooms and campuses that welcome diverse people with diverse viewpoints and that equip learners with the habits of heart and mind to engage that diversity in open inquiry and constructive disagreement. We see an academy eager to welcome professors, students, and speakers who approach problems and questions from different points of view, explicitly valuing the role such diversity plays in advancing the pursuit of knowledge, discovery, growth, innovation, and the exposure of falsehoods."

Here's what UVA did to one of its medical students:

Kieran Bhattacharya is a student at the University of Virginia (UVA) School of Medicine. On October 25, 2018, he attended a panel discussion on the subject of microaggressions. Dissatisfied with the definition of a microaggression offered by the presenter—Beverly Cowell Adams, an assistant dean—Bhattacharya raised his hand. Within a few weeks, as a result of the fallout from Bhattacharya's question about microagressions, the administration had branded him a threat to the university and banned him from campus.

Why are schools firing professors and kicking out students who question Woke orthodoxy? It's simple. They don't have good answers for the questions being asked by the professors and students. Many schools are now acting like churches, excommunicating rather than intellectually engaging. For more, see John McWhorter's new book, The Elect, in which he explains how Wokeness is not like a religion. Rather, it is a religion. Instead of engaging with good faith intellectual inquiry, the Woke tell people to "Shut up!" They do this through ostracization, expulsion and infinite varieties of ad hominem attacks.

Notice the irony: The crime was "microaggressions," whereas the remedy is physical expulsion, a classic macro aggression.

--

A few links regarding "microagressions":

The theory behind microaggressions—unintentional insults based on race, sex, or another protected status—is woefully inadequate and lacks scientific rigor. Scott Lilienfeld, a clinical psychologist at Emory University, took a close look at the core assumptions that undergird the academic understanding of microaggressions and concluded that there should be a "moratorium on microaggression training."

From "Oberlin College Is Hiring Students to Be Social Justice Activists, Host Microaggression Training"

"There is insufficient justification for concluding that the potential benefits of microaggression training programs outweigh their potential risks, including a substantial increase in the number of false-positive identifications of statements as microaggressions," he wrote.

From New Discourses:

[According to the Woke] there is no way to mistakenly identify a microaggression, as the victim’s perception is considered absolutely authoritative (see also, lived experience). Because of the reliance upon the perception of the recipient of alleged microaggressions, there is reason to be concerned that critical theories of identity can teach people to become more sensitive to and aware of slights that might even be being read into the situation, with no way to make a determination on the matter (see also, critical consciousness and woke). This problem has been noted by lawyer Greg Lukianoff and psychologist Jonathan Haidt in their book, The Coddling of the American Mind, as a kind of “reverse cognitive behavioral therapy” where people are taught to become more and more sensitive to (and less resilient against) slights and minor insults (see also, victimhood culture).

An excerpt from Wikipedia, demonstrating that the concept of microaggressions is controversial:

A number of scholars and social commentators have criticised the microaggression concept for its lack of scientific basis, over-reliance on subjective evidence, and promotion of psychological fragility. Critics argue that avoiding behaviours that one interprets as microaggressions restricts one's own freedom and causes emotional self-harm, and that employing authority figures to address microaggressions (i.e call-out culture) can lead to an atrophy of those skills needed to mediate one's own disputes.[7] Some argue that, because the term "microaggression" uses language connoting violence to describe verbal conduct, it can be (and is) abused to exaggerate harm, resulting in retribution and the elevation of victimhood.[8]

Continue ReadingThe University of Virginia Medical School Engages in Macroagressions When a Student Questions “Microagressions”

Another College Professor Takes a Hit for Expressing Her Opinions at a Compelled “Anti-Racism” Session

In an April 5, 2021 article at Reason, Jesse Singal reports on an incident at Lake Washington Institute of Technology, a Washington State public institution with 6,000 students. Newly tenured professor Elisa Parrett was labeled insolent, insubordinate and disruptive for having the gall to stand up at a compelled and segregated "anti-racism" college assembly based on the preachings of Robin DiAngelo and stating the following:

"Over the past couple of weeks, a lot has happened," Parrett began. "Protests have occurred, riots have broken out, people have been killed. And across the United States, companies, organizations, and schools have proclaimed their support of a movement called 'Anti-racism'"—here Parrett was referring to the capital-A variety. Parrett went on to complain about the segregated setting of the training and what she saw as the generally closed-minded nature of the nation's post-Floyd discourse. "Democracy thrives on conversations, but what we are seeing happening right now in the United States is not a conversation," she read. "It is a coup. Everyday Americans of all colors, creeds, backgrounds, and beliefs are being held hostage. Zealots are telling us, 'You're either with us or against us, and if you're against us, you're an evil bigot.' They are telling us, 'You're either part of the solution, or you're part of the problem.' They are telling us that all people may be classified into two sides: us or them, Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, people of color or white, righteous or bigoted, oppressed or privileged. I don't accept such false dichotomies, and I don't accept the ad hominem implications that come with it. Too often, words like 'privileged,' 'defensive,' and 'fragile' are just ways to dismiss what another person has to say. Too often, words like 'racist' are just a way to intimidate someone into silence." Parrett argued that people should work together to solve "real problems like wealth disparity, poverty, job insecurity, unemployment, the high cost of living, or the fracturing of the nuclear family, whatever form that family takes," but are waylaid by those who claim the "real problems" are "racism, sexism, transphobia…[and] hateful words."

"Thank you, Elisa," said the facilitator, cutting Parrett off about three minutes into her remarks. "No, you don't get to cut me off—I'm going to finish what I have to say," she responded. "I'm going to ask that you share the platform with the rest of the 200 nearly people who are here today," replied the facilitator. But Parrett continued for about another minute, telling the all-white attendees of the mandatory, segregated conversation that universities should be places where "ideas could be discussed, explored, debated, and assessed"—and that "this is not that."

Prior to the session, Parrett was bothered by the fact that the college had segregated the attendees of this session, separating the "whites" from the others. The college referred to this technique as "race based caucusing."  Singal quotes another professor who spoke out in an email to senior administrators: a "conference based on segregation by skin color does nothing to build a community of belonging."

The favorite technique by people captured by Woke ideology is the ad hominem attack and Washington Institute of Technology did not disappoint.  Following the struggle session, a college administrator wrote to Parrett, indicating that her: "egregious behavior which has led to substantial harm to hundreds of colleagues on campus." The charge was that Parrett's behavior was "downright scary, startling, and bewildering as she yelled a diatribe."  The college told Parrett that she had used her "new positional power [as a tenured professor] in a very corrupt, insolent and insubordinate manner." She was placed on leave and denied access to her college email account. The President of the college sent an email blast to every member of the college community indicating that she was "disappointed, angry, and shocked" by Parrett's dissent during the training.

Jesse Singal spoke to one of the administrators who criticized Parrett. She said,

a large cohort of professors and academic administrators were so emotionally devastated by hearing someone raise concerns about White Fragility–style diversity trainings that they could no longer do their jobs.

What happened next? A college "investigation" that has so far officially cost $80,000. Unofficially, it's closer to $250,000.

LWTech went to war against a tenured faculty member, launching a cartoonishly over-the-top disciplinary process that included the hiring of a private investigator, dozens of interviews, and claims of widespread trauma.
As you'll see if you read Singal's entire detailed article, the college's arguments comedically and instantly disintegrated when they encounted Singal's mild cross-examination of the administrators, especially after his revelation that he had a copy of a secretly recorded audio file of Parrett's statement at the session.

Parrett kept her job because her behavior was not fire-able, not even close.  On March 26, 2021, the college issued a vague reprimand.  One might be tempted to say that this reprimand was intentionally vague in order to stifle Parrett (and, as an example, others) from speaking up when a college next employs shrill racism as a "remedy" for racism.  Singal comments: "It wouldn't be surprising if this were one of the more expensive written reprimands in community-college history."

The bottom half of Singal's article reviews some of history of similar incidents (with links), mentioning violations by both the political left and right, but expressing concern that the far left is careening into a tailspin.  Much of this is due to the far left's expanding concept creep regarding the definition of "harm." Singal explains:

In this worldview, everything is a harm. There is no such thing as legitimate political disagreement, because we (the progressive in-group) already know the correct answer to every question (even if the answer can sometimes change overnight), and anyone who disagrees clearly—clearly—does so not because of some well-founded political or philosophical difference but because that person wants to harm the innocent people we are righteously hellbent on protecting.

In my writings, I've often asked, and I again ask: Where do you draw your line?  At what point will you say a firm "No" to Woke ideology?  At what point will you take a deep breath and say what you are thinking, that's it's not OK that everything is turning into Evergreen College.  Longstanding social psychological research highlights how important it is for you to be the one to speak up.  You are not alone.  Far from it. Be brave.

Continue ReadingAnother College Professor Takes a Hit for Expressing Her Opinions at a Compelled “Anti-Racism” Session

The Woke Endgame: Evergreen State College

I didn't want to be spending so much time writing about Wokeness, but it has become clear to me that this is an ideology that reverses many of the hard-earned gains we have made through the Civil Rights Movement and that Wokeness ideology leads to endless societal dysfunction. Because human flourishing important to me, I have no choice but to speak out, at a time where many of my friends and acquaintances have the exact same concerns I do, but are afraid to speak out. Their fears is are based on these things:

1. They don't want to get into yelling matches with activists, which they see as inevitable;

2. They fear being called names like "racist"  for things that are not racist.

3. They fear mobs of people following them, threatening them and their families or damaging their property;

4. They fear loss of their reputations based on false accusations by mobs, and

5. They fear the loss of their jobs and/or careers based upon mass-cancellation techniques.

I realize this all sounds hyperbolic, but my conclusions are based on the many dozens of occurrences on which I have written about at this website, as well as many other articles by many other writers. Common responses to my writings have been A) ad hominem attacks, B) scoldings that I have no right to discuss certain topics, as though only certain people have the right to talk about certain things, and C) Whataboutism - Why am I not writing about something else that they would rather I write about, e.g., white supremacist groups? In response to this last point, I already see widespread ridicule over white supremacy. It is not taking root in any of our sense-making institutions such as schools (including prestigious colleges), media outlets (including STEM journals and magazines) and government offices.

I see the opposite happening with Wokeness, and it seems to be spreading logarithmically with only scattered voices having the courage to stand up and cry out, "Emperor Has No Clothes." Those voices include Andrew Sullivan, Matt Taibbi, Seerut K. Chawla, Glenn Greenwald, Brett Weinstein, Heather Heying, Eric Weinstein, Bari Weiss, Sam Harris, Jesse Singal, Jordan Peterson, Jonathan Haidt, Helen Pluckrose, James Lindsay, Benjamin Boyce, Jonathan Kay, Claire Lehman, John McWorther, Glenn Loury, Caitlin Flanagan, Heterodox Academy, Colin Wright, Joe Rogan, Buck Angel, Peter Boghossian, Coleman Hughes, Bill Maher, Peter Rufo, The 40 Black Intellectuals who recently spoke out against the racism by Smith College, and the plucky crew at Quillette Magazine. There are others out there and I am not excluding any of them intentionally.  Most of these people lean significantly to the left on many social issues, yet Woke advocates commonly call them "conservatives," which is a modern version of an attempted ad hominem attack.

I want to give special attention to James Lindsay's excellent Woke Encyclopedia at New Discourses, so very helpful in that the Woke onslaught always involves long streams of highly suspect terminology.

What provoked this article?  I just finished watching several episodes of "The Complete Evergreen Story," by Benjamin Boyce.  As described by James Lindsay, 

Benjamin Boyce was a student at The Evergreen State College as it melted down, thanks to the applications of critical race Theory on campus. There, not only did he have a first-person view of the mayhem the campus descended into as it happened, he was responsible for filming and documenting a great deal of the footage that has since come to light and found a home in documentaries. Ever since, he has been on a quest to further understand what happened at Evergreen and to document it in full, not to mention similar issues as they crop up in the surrounding Washington state communities.

Boyce has presented this Evergreen tragedy in 23 chapters. His story covers the destruction of what was, and what could still be, an excellent college. What happened in 2017, however, left Evergreen in intellectual and social shambles and resulted in dramatic reductions in the number of students attending Evergreen.

It turns out that students aren’t clamoring for the privilege of paying for an education in such a hostile environment. Evergreen accepts 97% of applications, but enrollment dropped to 2,854 full-time students last fall, compared to 3,810 the semester of the protests. Enrollment increased over the same period at other Washington universities.

The story of Evergreen College was entirely ignored by most left leaning media powerhouses.  The New York Times has yet to write a single word about the 2017 Woke-triggered implosion at Evergreen College.

I am writing this article to provide the above links to the writers I have found most informative and instructive about the Woke movement.  I am linking to these writers with the hope that those who are fearful of speaking out can read these works as an aid to finding their own voice.  I am also writing this article as a warning and a prophecy that Evergreen State College was not simply an occurrence but a vision for where we are headed unless we all find the spine to stand up and draw a line in the sand.  Unless we do these things together, everything will become Evergreen State.

Here are episodes 1, 2 and 3 of Benjamin Boyce's comprehensive documentary regarding Evergreen State.

I'll end with some deep pessimism. I fear that conversation is no longer productive with the Woke. This is clear in many places today as I have documented at this website. it is abundantly clear in the Evergreen videos, as numerous students demonstrated that they are incapable of having a meaningful conversation with the clear-headed, patient, politically liberal Evergreen College biology professor, Brett Weinstein.


Continue ReadingThe Woke Endgame: Evergreen State College

Peter Boghossian: Don’t Mistake Criticism of Ideas for Harassment of People

Professor Peter Boghossian of Portland State has been called a "bully" and accused of harassment by a colleague, Dr. Jennifer Ruth, professor of film studies and vice president of grievances and academic freedom at Portland State University. Ruth set forth her accusations in a paywalled article published by the Chronicle of Higher Education. Boghossian recently responded with a detailed letter to the editor at the same publication. Boghossian's response takes aim at a set of recurring problems, all of them related to Woke Ideology. These problems are currently exploding into view at many American universities. I am quoting Boghossian at length because his letter succinctly identifies Ruth's hypocrisy--her unwillingness to subject her ideas to meaningful criticism in a meaningfully public venue.

As Boghossian points out, this dispute exhibits multiple iterations of ironic hypocrisy in that the topic of Ruth's alleged distress is that she should be able to attack people and ideas, face no meaningful pushback, at an institution dedicated to dissecting and critiquing ideas, at which she serves as a VP of "grievances."  And she has chosen to protect her original accusations against Boghossian (and is colleague, Dr. Bruce Gilley) behind a paywalled article. Gilley has written his own response here. Intellectual dysfunction doesn't get any better than this.  Boghossian does a great job of setting forth some basic principles common sense at his publicly available article:

By claiming that criticism of published ideas and pedagogical models is harassment, and by creating institutional mechanisms that erect barriers to wholly appropriate critique, entire lines of scholarship become exempt from scrutiny. The academic process depends on having the freedom not only to state ideas but also to criticize other ideas. Limiting criticism in academia is tantamount to telling potters they can make all the clay pots they want so long as they never use clay. This is particularly disturbing because the claims in question — almost always about race, gender, and sexual orientation — are presented as knowledge and then used to influence public policy.

It is worth noting that criticism is framed as harassment only by academicians working in certain domains of thought that are in Critical Theory’s orbit. Civil engineers are not claiming that criticism of truss bridge design is harassment. Physicists are not claiming they’re being persecuted when their contributions to quantum theory are criticized. Philosophers are not claiming victimization when their arguments about free will are scrutinized. Claiming criticism is harassment occurs when a discipline’s North Star is not Truth, but ideology.

The internal rationale for calling criticism “harassment” is as simple as it is absurd: because these Critical Theories are believed to proceed from one’s “social position” as an occupant of some “identity category,” the person and her ideas are treated as though they overlap. They do not. Thinking they do is a dangerous mistake for anyone to make, not least institutions that are nominally devoted to Truth. The backbone of rational thought is separating people from ideas to protect the dignity of the former while being free to criticize the latter. . .

One reason I use Twitter is to inform the public of what is going on in university classrooms and in what counts these days as academic scholarship. Academics who disagree with my ideas also frequently criticize them on Twitter. This is of value for nonacademic onlookers who can compare our arguments. Extramural criticism is one of the few avenues left now that academic journals have become echo chambers that reinforce and promote specific ideological lenses. . .

There’s a dual irony in Ruth’s accusations. First, if there’s an institutionalized rule that criticism of academic work is harassment, how would Critical Theory, which is entirely predicated on criticizing existing systems, have emerged? It would not have.

For yet other perspectives on this dispute at Portland State, consider this article at DI and this article by Bruce Gilley: Silenced by the Sheep: Academia’s New Censorship.

Continue ReadingPeter Boghossian: Don’t Mistake Criticism of Ideas for Harassment of People