AND ABOUT THAT CLOSING SPEECH FROM BRIAHNA JOY ON THE HILL’S RISING: On Wednesday I was on the Hill’s Rising with Briahna Joy Gray and Robby Soave.

Briahna claimed that colleges may graduate many people who think of themselves as “liberal” but are actually economically conservative. That doesn’t strike me as accurate.  According to a study by Nate Honeycutt (discussed here) about 40% of professors identified themselves as either Marxist, socialist, activist, or radical, and about 56% of graduate students self-described that way. If Briahna has noticed that fewer older people in the real world lean to the left economically, that is likely because many of us — even those like me who think of themselves as left of center — grew up when Marxist-Leninist countries were collapsing (like the Soviet Union) or had to at least partially embrace free markets (like China). My own experience was made even more vivid by living in Eastern Europe in the ‘90s and getting to talk directly to people who survived the Soviet system. If Briahna has noticed that many elite college grads are more economically “conservative,” which generally means more libertarian, that might be because there is evidence that higher IQ people tend to be more libertarian/classically liberal.

ADMINISTRATORS — NOT JUST DEI ADMINISTRATORS — ARE THE BIGGEST THREAT TO FREE SPEECH ON CAMPUS

But DEI admins are surely a BIG part of the problem, too:

• After tenured University of Central Florida professor Charles Negy tweeted about racial issues, the school issued a statement signed by the president, provost, and chief equity, inclusion and diversity officer condemning the tweets and opening an investigation into Negy.
• Yale Law’s associate dean of student affairs and director of diversity, equity, and inclusion repeatedly summoned a law student to meetings and pressured him to apologize for sending a lighthearted party invitation that used the term “trap house” because it was considered “pejorative and racist.”
• Loyola University New Orleans repeatedly subjected a professor to investigations and assigned him a DEI coach because of his protected in-class and extramural speech.
• After aUniversity of California, Los Angeles music professor showed his class the 1965 film version of Othello (in which Laurence Olivier wears skin-darkening makeup), a dean reportedly sent a department-wide email saying the professor’s that the incident had been reported to the Office of Equity, Civil Rights, and Title IX.
• Also at UCLA, after a student complained about a professor reading MLK, Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” which includes racial slurs, UCLA referred the matter to its Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion for review.
• Syracuse University adopted new policies to hold bystanders responsible for “bias-related incidents” and “hate speech.” The chief of diversity and inclusion said that bystanders “can be held accountable,” and directed students to report incidents either to the school’s Office of Equal Opportunity, Inclusion and Resolution Services or anonymously through its bias reporting policy. Requiring bystanders to be speech police is truly worthy of the name Orwellian.
• A University of California System “guidance document” written by its council of chief diversity officers appeared to instruct students and faculty about how they may talk about the coronavirus (e.g., “Do not use terms such as “Chinese Virus.”).
• In 2023, Stanford Law School (my alma mater) students shouted down 5th Circuit Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan when he attempted to speak at a student-sponsored event. This was after long meetings with DEI administrators and after a precisely ten minute shout down then-Associate Dean of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Tirien Steinbach got up and gave a truly cringeworthy seven minute speech wondering if the “juice” of free speech and of having a 5th circuit judge speak to law students was “worth the squeeze.” The Stanford Law School incident earned its own chapter in “Canceling” as demonstrating the full power of the Perfect Rhetorical Fortress.

THE SINGLE BIGGEST THREAT I HAVE SEEN TO FREE SPEECH AND ACADEMIC FREEDOM (from my latest Substack):

[F]rom a legislative or regulatory standpoint, the single biggest threat I have seen to free speech and academic freedom on campus has been the DEI requirements implemented by the California Community Colleges system. In an effort to combat these requirements, FIRE sued the California Community Colleges Chancellor and the members of its Board of Governors, as well as the State Center Community College District.

In the case, FIRE is representing six tenured professors, each of whom teach at one of three Fresno-area community colleges within the State Center Community College District. Under the new regulations, all of the more-than-54,000 professors who teach in the system must incorporate “anti-racist” viewpoints into classroom teaching and pledge allegiance to contested ideological viewpoints. This includes requiring professors to “acknowledge” that “cultural and social identities are diverse, fluid, and intersectional,” and to develop “knowledge of the intersectionality of social identities and the multiple axes of oppression that people from different racial, ethnic, and other minoritized groups face.”

Under these regulations, faculty performance and tenure will also be evaluated based on professors’ commitment to and promotion of these government-mandated viewpoints. As our client, Reedley College professor Bill Blanken, said, “I’m a professor of chemistry. How am I supposed to incorporate DEI into my classroom instruction? What’s the ‘anti-racist’ perspective on the atomic mass of boron?”

THE NEW VICTORIANS: Some facts on “book bans.”

It’s also doubtful that even some of the most liberal advocates of free speech in any era would fail to understand why some parents object to the presence of certain books in K-12 libraries. For example, one of the most targeted books includes an image of a character performing oral sex on a strap-on (“Gender Queer”); one very graphically illustrates how to use a butt plug (“Let’s Talk About It”); and another gives underage gay kids tips for getting on hookup apps (“This Book is Gay”). This is why FIRE not only takes for granted that “age appropriateness” is and should be part of the analysis for what books are in K-12 libraries (and in the children’s sections of public libraries), but also outlines a process for reconsidering library materials that involves all stakeholders in order to provide “due process” for books.

As for “book banners” coming from the political left, there’s some complexity there as well. While they, too, have their fair share of attempts to remove or limit access to certain books like “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “Huckleberry Finn,” and “Of Mice and Men,” left-leaning censors also have other tools at their disposal. For example, rather than outright banning or restricting access to certain books, they can remove “problematic” content from works of authors like Roald Dahl and R.L. Stine in new editions of their works through the act of “sensitivity reading” at major book publishers. Activists have also pressured publishers to pull books from publication or circulation based on claims they promote harmful stereotypes or because the author wrote about a race or culture different from their own. Either way, the goal is the same: Remove or restrict access to content they deem inappropriate, offensive, or racist from library (and bookstore) shelves.

IN CASE ANYONE EVER TRIES TO TELL YOU THAT DEI IS NOT A THREAT TO FREE SPEECH ON CAMPUS. 

I was on @RisingTheHill w/ @robbysoave & @briebriejoy this morning: https://t.co/AC1hGC3Tbw

We discussed whether DEI administrators are threats to #freespeech on campus — &, well, yes, they are. But it’s not ONLY them. It's administrators & the bureaucratization of higher ed…

— Greg Lukianoff (@glukianoff) January 17, 2024

THE NEW VICTORIANS: Cancel Culture is happening on a historic scale:

Victorians and modern social justice advocates share a deep conviction that their fight is of profound moral and social importance and, therefore, that dissent is too great a risk to the future to tolerate. They both betray a certainty of their own righteousness and a willingness to use legal and social forces to get people to bend the knee. Like the Victorian era, the age of Cancel Culture is highly moralistic and relies on cancelers simply declaring dissenters as immoral or otherwise “bad people” rather than refuting the dissenters’ arguments. As Rikki Schlott and I argue in “The Canceling of the American Mind,” cancelers rely heavily on the psychology of taboo to win arguments without winning arguments.

HIGHER ED AS IT IS AIN’T SUSTAINABLE: As we wrote in our latest book even WITHOUT the groupthink, lack of free speech, and claustrophobic conformity higher ed needs BIG changes:

“If the only problem with higher education today were how expensive it is, it would be enough to warrant reforms. If the only problem were that higher education is saddling millions of Americans with debt while swelling its administrative ranks, that, too, should be cause for change. Or if the only problem were that higher education is neglecting to instill critical thinking skills, that alone would be a huge issue. But all of these things are true. Higher education is begging to be fixed. Given that higher education is the wellspring of the Perfect Rhetorical Fortress, an engine for conformity, and ground zero for Cancel Culture, the case for reform could not be stronger. And small changes around the edges aren’t going to cut it. We need big changes—and even brand-new institutions.”

The Canceling of the American Mind: Cancel Culture Undermines Trust and Threatens Us All—But There Is a Solution (p. 283).

WELCOME TO THE CONFORMITY GAUNTLET!: Higher ed has created far too many pressures that promote conformity at the expense of truth.

HARVEY FOR HARVARD: FIRE’s co-founder Harvey Silverglate is running for Harvard’s Board of Overseers to try to fix the place (if that’s at all possible, Harvey can do it). Get this and other news in my new ‘Weekend Free Speech Update.’ 

HARVARD, CLAUDINE GAY AND THE SILVER SPOON RULE: It can never, ever, ever be elite higher education’s own fault.

For the love of God, if you are defending the status quo in higher education — particularly at Harvard, of all places — you are defending some of the most influential and powerful megacorporations in the country, wherein even regular professors make more than triple what the average American family makes in a year. These schools are so wealthy they can leave tens of billions of dollars in their “rainy day fund.” Whether you’re right or wrong on the points, you are certainly not rebels fighting the power, looking out for the little guy, or, otherwise on the side of “the people.” 

CENSORSHIP IS LIKE TAKING ZANAX FOR SYPHILIS. Check out my “Fight the Guardians” speech from the 2023 FIRE gala. I am playing with the idea of making it the theme of my next book. Let me know what you think! 

FIRE’S FREE SPEECH ARMY WANTS YOU!

In my latest for Fox Digital, I make the case for readers to join FIRE’s free speech movement. Our goal as of June 2022 was to recruit 1 million free speech defenders within three years. We have 900,000+ after just a year and a half, so maybe we should be going for 2 million! Lord knows it’s a big fight and we need all the help we can get!

KILLER MIKE! JOHN CLEESE! BILL MAHER! OH MY!: My 2023 is six videos!

THIS SHOULD HAVE A LOT MORE SIGNATURES! “Join me in signing ‘A Vision for a New Future of the University of Pennsylvania’: New statement is a welcome potential step forward for free speech on campus”

FOXNEWS.COM: “2023 was a ‘dire’ year for freedom of speech on campus, says this organization. Will next year be any better?” 

HOW TO CONVINCE YOUR RELATIVE WHO BELIEVES CANCEL CULTURE IS A HOAX: “Our book helps explain how it got so bad and what can be done about it, and will provide you with all the data and examples you need to prove that cancel culture is not just real, but happening at a historic scale. And for those who still refuse to believe that cancel culture is anything but a hoax, here’s a humble suggestion, ‘Canceling of the American Mind” will look just great under their Christmas tree.'” 

PROFESSOR MIKE ADAMS’ SUICIDE STILL HAUNTS ME: The consequences of Cancel Culture can be more dire than we think.

MY ‘REAL TIME’ WITH BILL MAHER AND THE ‘NEW’ CAMPUS FREE SPEECH CRISIS. Includes clips from my appearance on Bill Maher’s show last week, along with why telling antisemites to only talk to other antisemites and thinking it will make things better is a really dumb idea.

JOIN ME IN SIGNING ‘A VISION FOR A NEW FUTURE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA‘: The new statement is a welcome potential step forward for free speech on campus.

FIRE STATEMENT: Penn resignations can be exactly what the university needs to restore free expression It could also be a disaster, of course, but we’ll work our butts off to prevent that from happening. I have some reason to believe the reformers want serious and fundamental change (in a good way).

WSJ LISTED ‘CANCELING’ AS ONE OF THE TOP POLITICS BOOKS OF 2023: More at the end of the latest post for the Eternally Radical Idea.

CATCH ME ON REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER TONIGHT: 10pm ET / 7pm PT
More details in my “shot for the road” at the end of latest Substack post. We’ll be talking about my new book, cancel culture, and the congressional hearings on antisemitism.

PRESIDENT MAGILL: GIVING ADMINS EVEN MORE POWER OVER FREE SPEECH AT PENN IS A TERRIBLE IDEA: For 50 years a segment of the higher ed community has wanted colleges to ditch free speech. Don’t let them win

NEW IN FOX: Almost 1 in 10 college students threatened with punishment for their speech: new study.
Bureaucracy raises the cost of higher education while clamping down on speech
By Adam Goldstein & me

“…one of the first steps to both a freer and less expensive college experience is to dramatically decrease the campus bureaucracy, eliminate positions that exist to police speech, and make sure every university employee is informed that their job is to protect free speech and academic freedom, not to squelch it.”