Links - 24th November 2019 (General Wokeness)

The social justice warriors came for my head. Not only did I survive, I’m thriving. - "When the left and its media attacked Justice Kavanaugh, I made a joke about the allegations on my blog.Someone was trolling my blog, and in response, there were campus protests. They also pounced while I was at the podium. The New York City-based newspapers (see here, here, here and here) joined in. I had been receiving publicity for work I had been doing on the absence of Republicans from higher education, but the intense media interest was a surprise. I received about 200 hate emails, including several threats. These were paradoxical because the writers were outraged that I had made light of the Kavanaugh sexual assault allegations, so they threatened me with sexual assault. One leftist named Carol D wrote: “Sir, I relish the thought of a gang of boys becoming men at your assholes expense. History will pull back your lizard skin and your pathetic attempt at being relevant will be exposed as nothing more than a losers fame grab.” The left-wing concern about words that harm is evident in Carol D’s work... One of the distortions in the media coverage was the implication that a large number of students supported the protests. In fact, only a couple of hundred out of 18,000 students at the college participated in the protests. About two or three percent of the college’s student-and-faculty body signed an online petition to have me fired. The other 97 percent did not spend a minute on the question. Many students were on my side, but because CUNY’s left-wing administration suppresses conservatives, these students were silent. In thinking about how to respond to authoritarian attacks, practical concerns are important. The best defense against suppression is private resources. Back in the 1970s I knew a couple who had worked at the U.N. but was fired from the U.S. Embassy during the McCarthy era. They took their resources and founded a retail store that built on their international connections. Since I am close to retirement, I was not worried financially. Dissenters in an authoritarian climate need to strategize how to accumulate resources that enable them to remain independent.I made one major gaffe: an apology. When I wrote the blog, I meant it as humor. A friend convinced me to write that I had meant the blog to be satirical in the tradition of Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal.” I later discussed this with a libertarian economist who had been attacked in the Las Vegas newspapers, and he agreed that one should never apologize. Apologies give the pro-Antifa media an additional wedge... Survive the attack I did. Within six months a Wall Street Journal editorial cited my work; a Texas public policy foundation hired me to do a study of a back-to-work training program; I continued to work on a project with friends at Heterodox Academy and the University of Maryland; Lou Dobbs of Fox Business put my name on the TV screen when discussing one of my articles on faculty political affiliation; and the National Association of Scholars, for whom I have written in the past, asked me to write an essay about the student protests at Sarah Lawrence College. As well, the Glazov Gang asked me to do a series of podcasts (and here and here), which have each gotten a couple of thousand hits. My classes have filled to the brim for the past two semesters, and this fall semester my courses are overbooked with waiting lists.There were, of course, some adverse reactions as well. A young representative of a famous conservative foundation said that he did not want to work with me anymore, and a couple of people I had worked with or corresponded with in the past became cool. On the other hand, one of my friends, a well-known Austrian economist, was envious that the students had lumped me in with Kavanaugh and Trump in the protest. Indeed, you haven’t lived until you’ve been burned in effigy. On balance, the event enabled me to separate the cowardly chaff in my network from the imaginative wheat. Having gone through the experience unscathed and better off, I am concerned that many others who have been outed by the left-wing, authoritarian mob lack defenses. My case is exceptional because of my public university, First Amendment, and tenure protections."

Title IX’s Witness Intimidation - WSJ - "Witness intimidation in criminal cases usually calls to mind organized-crime bosses trying to conceal their guilt. In campus Title IX proceedings, however, a different kind of mob exacts a social and professional price from witnesses who defend the accused. Ask Tanaya Devi, a Harvard doctoral candidate in economics. Her mentor, Roland Fryer, founded Harvard’s EdLabs... Ms. Devi worked at EdLabs. She says in an interview that she was close friends with one of the accusers, that she witnessed many of the disputed interactions—and that Mr. Fryer did nothing wrong. Good-natured and occasionally bawdy banter was incessant at EdLabs, Ms. Devi says: “There was so much laughter, so much participation, and so much reciprocation of the joking and teasing. My friend, the accuser, even started some of these jokes.”The friend often complained about low pay but never mentioned sexual harassment, Ms. Devi says. “To me, it seems like you got angry, you left angry, and somehow you’re doing this for personal gain or for revenge.” Ms. Devi publicly defended Mr. Fryer. Since then, she says she’s struggled to find research collaborators and has lost nearly every female friend at Harvard: “Suddenly, I would find that my emails were going unanswered. People would avert their gaze from me walking down the hall. There was this culture of guilty until proven innocent and, if you’re defending him, guilt by association.” Ms. Devi adds that every one of her remaining friends has advised her not to defend Mr. Fryer. One told her that “at a place like this, which is extremely progressive, it will only have a cost—it will have no benefit.” Ms. Devi says she knows of others who also wanted to defend Mr. Fryer but “don’t want to go against the social-media mob.” An immigrant from India, Ms. Devi fears her outspokenness will limit her job prospects in the U.S. “It’s very, very high-risk to identify myself and defend an accused person,” Ms. Devi says. “Everyone protects the identity of the accuser. She gets to hide under the mask of anonymity, and we have to destroy our futures.”...  those who stick up for the accused risk more than their popularity. In December 2016, more than 3,000 people signed an online petition demanding that the University of Minnesota fire head football coach Tracy Claeys. He had supported his players when they questioned whether 10 teammates had received due process before they were suspended for sexual assault.The suspended athletes had certainly behaved shamefully—the event at issue was at best a degrading orgy—but there was reason to question the fairness of the process. Police had reviewed partial video of the sexual encounter and described the alleged victim as “lucid, alert, somewhat playful and fully conscious.”... She also initially told a detective that she had consensual sex with at least one of the players but later claimed he had assaulted her, adding she had misspoken in part “because I was still in the state of shock.” The Title IX report attributed the numerous inconsistencies in her account to “gradual recollection of what she found to be a very traumatic experience, rather than a lack of care or truthfulness.”... as the backlash against Mr. Claeys intensified, administrators gave in and fired him. Athletic director Mark Coyle said that the dismissal aimed “to address challenges in recruiting, ticket sales and the culture of the [football] program” and that it was “not helpful” when Mr. Claeys tweeted in support of the players’ criticism of the Title IX process. Given risks like that, witnesses for the accused are reluctant to come forward, says Justin Dillon, a lawyer who has represented dozens of students accused of campus sexual assault or misconduct. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has proposed much-needed reforms to mitigate some of Title IX’s other due-process shortcomings. But these procedural changes won’t stop peer pressure or prevent social ostracism of witnesses. A culture that begins with a presumption of guilt punishes honest witnesses as well as innocent defendants."

After censoring historic mural, university stops requiring students to attend class in its building - "the change will take effect this spring semester, “ensuring that students who are offended by the building’s central mural that depicts early Kentucky history with black and Native American stereotypes are no longer forced to see it.” The mural has more than historical significance.  It is “one of the only true frescoes in the United States,” and the largest in America painted by a woman, the UK graduate Ann O’Hanlon, according to the O’Hanlon Center for the Arts.Blackford portrays the move as a “much-needed compromise” between activists who wanted it removed – in other words, destroyed – and those who wanted the Public Works Administration-commissioned mural (below) preserved"
Political correctness can only destroy, not create

Constitutional law scholar runs for Yale trustee to protect free speech, intellectual diversity - "For the second time in two years, a Yale alumnus is running for trustee of the Ivy League institution on a platform of free speech and intellectual diversity.This time, it’s a much bigger name: constitutional law scholar Nicholas Rosenkranz.The Georgetown law professor cofounded Heterodox Academy, which advocates viewpoint diversity among faculty, and serves on the boards of both the Federalist Society and Foundation for Individual Rights in Education...
'I have heard from many alumni who love Yale but who share my concerns that the faculty has become too intellectually homogeneous and that the culture on campus has become distinctly hostile to heterodox opinions and to freedom of speech.'...
The defining moment for Kirchick was when Yale gave awards to the student leaders of a 2015 mob that had surrounded and berated one of its professors, Nicholas Christakis.He had defended his wife Erika’s opposition to Yale telling students what Halloween costumes to wear, which enraged some students... "There have been some hostile comments on social media, the tenor of which seems to be that no one who is politically right of center should hold any important position at Yale,” Rosenkranz said. “These comments rather underscore the need for more diverse perspectives on campus”"

Yale is a ‘squid monster’ that puts student comfort over learning, new documentary says - "The recent violent protest at Middlebury College against libertarian scholar Charles Murray shows that campus attacks on free speech are “not right-wing sensationalism” but evidence of institutional “rot,” Montz said to introduce the screening. The documentary portrays a university that has drifted far from its 1974 Woodward Report, a defense of freedom of expression against justice-minded suppression in the Vietnam era... Out of dozens of students who had publicly defended Erika, only one student agreed to appear in the documentary, Montz narrates. Grace Pan says she was accused of violating her status as a “queer woman of color” for expressing her unexpected views.The other students “don’t want to jeopardize their ascension into America’s ruling class,” Montz narrates, quoting one student who said there’s no professional benefit to saying “controversial things.”... In the crowd footage, a student scolds Nicholas and says “now I want your job to be taken from you.” As Montz narrates, “these are moves of power, not moves of reason.”The student protesters next target a free-speech conference that was happening on campus at the same time the Christakises became radioactive.One makes it into the room to lunge toward and shout down Foundation for Individual Rights in Education President Greg Lukianoff, who had filmed some of the interactions between Nicholas and students.Lukianoff’s offense was apparently joking that the students who yelled at Nicholas had acted as if he had “burned down an Indian village.”... What’s behind this shift? University of Pennsylvania Law Prof. Amy Wax, a Yale alumna, says the school has become an “entertainment warehouse” for students... Former Yale English Prof. William Deresiewicz, whose bestseller Excellent Sheep scolded the Ivy League for producing students who couldn’t think critically, blames the increasing number of administrative offices that cater to students’ every whim... It’s this non-academic bureaucracy that Montz terms the “squid monster,” which is “chowing down on the very heart of the university.” He cites the university’s $50 million faculty diversity initiative, a direct response to the fall 2015 protests.Showing social media postings from Yale offices, Montz narrates that administrators seem more interested in handing out “cookies and puppies” than promoting intellectual rigor... The crazy thing about the Halloween costume debacle is “there’s no history of racist Halloween costumes” at Yale... Yale was a different place in the George W. Bush administration, Kirchick recounted. Students twice hosted the controversial Middle East scholar Daniel Pipes, a vocal critic of “radical Islam,” with no attempted shoutdowns.But there were clues as to who was interested in intellectual exchanges, he said: Conservatives dominated the Political Union, a debating society. “A lot of the liberals on campus didn’t want to debate. They were out protesting”... Then-Yale College Dean Jonathan Holloway wasn’t interested in debating either, according to Montz. In footage that didn’t make it in, students surround Holloway – a black professor of African-American history – and call him a “race traitor” for not swiftly condemning Erika Christakis.“In that moment” Holloway could have challenged the ignorance of students with his “vast intellectual arsenal,” yet days later he joined with President Salovey in apologizing and announcing the new diversity initiative... 2003 graduate Peter Somerville said “the customer service mindset takes over” in students when tuition is so high – the sticker price will be $69,000 next year.It’s paying for the so-called squid monster, said Montz. Pointing back to the violent Middlebury protest in response to a social scientist whose work students had never read, he said that administrators “need students to be unhappy to justify their expansions.”2016 graduate Ugonne Eze pointed to another factor: the pursuit of “social cachet.”Students who don’t express “the right ideas” can’t attain the high-level connections they need to justify their Ivy League educations. They are “radicalized” by their peers, and they speak the language of intersectionality and oppression by the time they graduate... The Yale Halloween freakout can’t be analyzed outside the growing influence of the Black Lives Matter movement at that time, said Foster. A young black woman who yelled at Nicholas Christakis that “we are dying” was using the “vernacular” of the movement.It speaks to the perception of black people that they are “at a unique risk” even in safe settings, and the BLM movement only heightens their “fragility,” Foster said. Perhaps Yale has now decided that this “hyperbole” around offensive words is “the new boundary line.”Kirchick chimed in that white people are loath to tell a black person “you’re being ridiculous,” regardless of the circumstances: Everyone is afraid of being called racist.And professors don’t want to challenge illiberal students, because “these kids cycle out every four years anyway,” said Montz, claiming that a “relatively small slice” of the professoriate is actually egging on raucous student protests.