FIRE launches Faculty Legal Defense Fund to Defend Faculty Members for Engaging in Constitutionally Protected Speech

Scholars in higher education who were targeted for their expression have quadrupled since 2015. In response, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education ("FIRE") has launched its Faculty Legal Defense Fund to defend faculty members under attack for engaging in constitutionally protected speech. The FLDF provides free legal assistance to faculty at public colleges and universities across the country. I am proud to be one of the attorneys who will be working with FIRE on this effort.

A new report from FIRE shows an alarming 74% success rate for campaigns targeting collegiate scholars for their constitutionally protected speech — and the data suggest the worst is yet to come.

What is the focus of this effort? "Targeting Incidents," which are defined as follows:

We define a targeting incident as a campus controversy involving efforts to investigate, penalize or otherwise professionally sanction a scholar for engaging in constitutionally protected forms of speech. Our definition of a targeting incident does not include instances in which the scholar is subjected to harassment or other forms of intimidation, but does not face an attempt at being professionally penalized or sanctioned. Nor does it include cases where the individual(s) or group(s) expresses opposition to a scholar’s speech, but does not make any demands that the scholar and/or institution take action to remedy the situation.

Universities that are more likely to violate the rights of their faculty are those who have not adopted "The Chicago Statement":

Because the University is committed to free and open inquiry in all matters, it guarantees all members of the University community the broadest possible latitude to speak, write, listen, challenge, and learn . . . . [I]t is not the proper role of the University to attempt to shield individuals from ideas and opinions they find unwelcome, disagreeable, or even deeply offensive.

—Excerpt from the Chicago Statement

Continue ReadingFIRE launches Faculty Legal Defense Fund to Defend Faculty Members for Engaging in Constitutionally Protected Speech

Performance versus Legitimate Concern on Racial Matters

John McWhorter is now writing several times per week at the New York Times. I can only assume that the NYT hired McWhorter to help deprogram them, to save from their self-induced immersion in the cult that is "antiracism." I'd like to be the fly on the wall when NYT staffers discuss this new hire among themselves. I expect that it would be, in equal parts, entertaining and distressing. But the good guys won this battle, an McWhorter has been handed a turbo-charged megaphone for his eloquent and witty brand of common sense.

Here is an excerpt from one of McWhorter's early columns at the NYT. The title is "The Performative Antiracism of Black Students at the U. of Wisconsin."

Treating a people with dignity requires not only listening closely and sympathetically to their grievances, but being able to take a deep breath and call them out on aspects of those grievances that don’t make sense. And there will be some, unless those airing the grievance are fictional creations instead of human beings.

On race, we should assess, look ahead rather than backward, channel our thoughts and feelings with cortex rather than brain stem, and think slow rather than fast — and the notion that this counsel is “white” is science fiction. That goes for both protesters and those whom they protest at. Instead, too much of what passes as enlightenment on race these days involves merely pretending that something makes sense out of fear.

Continue ReadingPerformance versus Legitimate Concern on Racial Matters

Another Look at Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility

First, some statistics:

White Fragility became a New York Times bestseller for more than a year. In September 2019, Slate noted that "White Fragility has yet to leave the New York Times bestseller list since its debut in June 2018, making it the fastest-selling book in the history of Beacon Press." In June 2020, during the George Floyd protests, it reached no. 1 on the New York Times list. The July 26, 2020 edition of the list marked the book's 97th week in the Paperback Nonfiction category, where it was ranked number 1.
Now, some facts about Robin DiAngelo, carefully and accurately reported by The Woke Temple:

Here is DiAngelo's thought process, in all of its glory:

That so many American news media outlets, universities and HR Departments could embrace this divisive, poisonous, pathological, infantile, baseless nonsense for the past couple of years should send a chill through every one of us. How is it possible that so many people supported her patently racist ideas and her repeated infantilization of blacks? The fact that this utter crap was ubiquitously touted by American elites at the same time that they refused to honor Martin Luther King's brilliant time-tested idea to judge people only by their content of character demoralizes me.

It's difficult to determine how to de-program the thousands of people who run our sense-making institutions who continue to tout this garbage.

Continue ReadingAnother Look at Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility

Woke Verizon Institutes Race Reeducation Camp for Employees

Verizon is Woke. Report by Christopher Rufo at City Journal:

Verizon has launched an internal program teaching that the United States is a fundamentally racist nation and encouraging employees to support a variety of left-wing causes, including “defunding the police.”

According to documents that I have obtained from a whistleblower, Verizon launched the “Race & Social Justice” initiative last year and has created an extensive race reeducation program based on the core tenets of critical race theory, including “systemic racism,” “white fragility,” and “intersectionality.”

In the flagship “Conscious Inclusion & Anti-Racism” training module, Verizon diversity trainers instruct employees to deconstruct their racial and sexual identities and, according to their position on the “privilege” hierarchy, embark on a lifelong “anti-racism journey.” Employees are asked to list their “race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, religion, education, profession, and sexual orientation” on an official company worksheet, then consider their status according to the theory of “intersectionality,” a core component of critical race theory that reduces individuals to a network of identity categories, which determine whether they are an “oppressor” or “oppressed.”

Continue ReadingWoke Verizon Institutes Race Reeducation Camp for Employees

The Importance of Free Inquiry at the Academy

Heterodox Academy has released this 3-minute video arguing for something that 20 years ago would have puzzled most people.

This video advocates for

  • Free Inquiry at the Academy
  • Encouraging the Life of the Mind, and
  •  The Use of Evidence when taking positions, rather than relying on mere feelings.

But this is 2021, and we are, in many places, continuing our descent into a new Dark Ages where an increasingly acceptable way to win an argument is to silence one's opponents, using economic threats and brute force if necessary, even at the Academy.

I fully support the following ideas of Heterodox Academy:

.

I fully support the above ideas in my role as a law professor and in my personal life. As an attorney affiliated with Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), I am willing to push back against persons and organizations violating these principles where they involve violations of civil rights, including violations of the First Amendment.

In fact, FIRE has now established a Faculty Legal Defense Fund to protect the speech of faculty members.  Here is how it works:

Public college and university faculty who face a threat of sanction by their institution or have been punished for expressive activity—whether it’s instruction, scholarship, or speaking on issues of public concern—can submit matters for FLDF consideration. They can do so through FLDF’s dedicated 24-hour Hotline at 254-500-FLDF (3533), or submit a case online. Our staff quickly review the matter and, if it falls within FLDF’s mandate, connect the faculty member with one of the experienced nearby lawyers in the FLDF network for assistance.

Continue ReadingThe Importance of Free Inquiry at the Academy