Brett Weinstein's prophetic 2019 statement: It's about a breakdown in the basic logic of civilization and it's spreading." Brett explains that we let these ideas fester in:
phony fields that act as a kind of analytical affirmative action, where ideas that do not deserve to survive are given sustenance ... To the extent that these ideas are allowed to hold sway [it's as if] one truth is equal to every other truth, right? My truth is as good as your truth... We have to fight this.
Brett's full discussion, which occurred in the aftermath of the insanity that forced Brett and his wife Heather Heying out of Evergreen State University.
The Academic Freedom Alliance (AFA) today released a statement urging institutions of higher education to desist from demanding “diversity statements” as conditions of employment or promotion. The AFA’s statement responds to the rising trend of academic institutions requiring members or prospective members of faculties to sign pledges or make statements committing themselves to advance “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) or to detail the ways in which they have done or will do so.
“Academics seeking employment or promotion will almost inescapably feel pressured to say things that accommodate the perceived ideological preferences of an institution demanding a diversity statement, notwithstanding the actual beliefs or commitments of those forced to speak” said Janet Halley, co-chair of the AFA Academic Committee and Eli Goldston Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.*
Today’s statement, which is available in its entirety here, further warns, “This scenario is inimical to fundamental values that should govern academic life. The demand for diversity statements enlists academics into a political movement, erasing the distinction between academic expertise and ideological conformity. It encourages cynicism and dishonesty.”
Regarding the AFA’s statement, Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University*, said, “The danger that mandatory DEI statements would function as ideological loyalty oaths worried academic freedom advocates and other civil libertarians from the start. Experience, far from diminishing that worry, has heightened it.”
“A legitimate debate exists regarding how to promote equal access to higher education, as well as ensure a diverse intellectual community of learners. When the very terms of discussion (e.g., equality, equity, color blind, and meritocracy) are contested concepts, to prevent diversity statements from being used as ideological litmus tests, universities should refrain from requiring DEI statements.” said Lucas Morel, co-chair of the AFA Academic Committee and John K. Boardman, Jr. Professor of Politics and Head of the Politics Department at Washington and Lee University.*
The AFA position dovetails well with Jonathan Haidt's analysis that universities must choose between truth or "social justice," not both:
We still have a First Amendment, but Caitlyn Flanagan warns us that we are closing up shop on free speech:
America was the first country in history to enshrine a formal, legal, and enforceable protection for free expression, ensuring that people have the right to speak no matter who’s pissed off or how powerful they are.
Whenever a society collapses in on itself, free speech is the first thing to go. That’s how you know we’re in the process of closing up shop. Our legal protections remain in place—that’s why so many of us were able to smack the Trump piñata to such effect—but the culture of free speech is eroding every day. Ask an Oberlin student—fresh outta Shaker Heights, coming in hot, with a heart as big as all outdoors and a 3 in AP Bio—to tell you what speech is acceptable, and she’ll tell you that it’s speech that doesn’t hurt the feelings of anyone belonging to a protected class.
And here we are, running out the clock on the American epilogue. The people on the far right are dangerous lunatics and millions on even the center left want to rewrite the genetic code.
If you don’t want to stick around for the fire sale (The Federalist Papers! “Letter From Birmingham Jail”! Everything must go!) and you’re not too eager to get knifed on a Friday morning because of something you said, you might want to look into relocating to one of the other countries shaped by the principles of the American Revolution. They aren’t hard to find. Just go to Google and type in the free world.
Weiss, who cited the “illiberal environment” at the Times as reason for her departure from the paper two years ago, first told the story while interviewing Scott on a Wednesday episode of her podcast, Honestly With Bari Weiss. Weiss recalled:
Weiss: Here’s what happened. I was at the New York Times and you or your staff sent in an op-ed about the bill, and why it fell apart. And this is the part I’m not sure if you know — there was a discussion about the piece, and whether or not we should run it, and one colleague, a more senior colleague, said to a more junior colleague who was pushing for the piece, ‘Do you think the Republicans really care about minority rights?’
Scott: Wow.
Weiss: And the more junior colleague said, ‘I think Tim Scott cares about minority rights.’ And then — and here’s the pretty shocking part — the more senior colleague said, ‘Let’s check with Senator Schumer before we run it.’
Scott: Wow.
Weiss: And the colleague, the younger one, refused. Because he said — because that colleague said — it wasn’t an ethical thing to do.
Many Republicans believe that progressives are running Google or other big firms, and these executives are making censorship choices about how to elect more Democrats or foist health choices on the public. They do this, so goes the theory, even if it means making less money. While it's certainly the case that plenty of conservatives get knocked off big tech platforms, so do many others with all sorts of viewpoints (like pro-choice advocates marketing abortion pills on Instagram). More importantly, Google executives are heavily motivated by money, and they would vastly prefer not to have to deal with difficult censorship decisions that amount to which politically powerful customers to piss off.
What is really happening is that these firms are trying to monopolize a market, and then exploit their resulting power to generate cash. Only, in speech or cultural markets, fostering a monopoly means not only that you are able to extract profits. It also means, willingly or no, you become a powerful influence over speech. Large publishing houses choose who gets published and who doesn’t, and that confers significant power. The more dominant the publishing house, the more power. Search engines or social networks are vastly more concentrated, but a similar dynamic exists. Once you control society’s single search engine or social network, editorial choices, whichever direction they lead, help determine what is heard in the public square. So what these executives are doing isn’t trying to censor, but trying to ensure that they have market power in targeted advertising, search advertising or book sales. They simply end up as speech police, because that’s what it means when you build a monopoly that can determine who gets to be heard and who doesn’t.
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