Article from For Liberty by Norm Leahy.
Out of camera range, there’s another kind of protest march underway, this one aimed at silencing – or “canceling” – the opinions, and even the careers, of those who aren’t sufficiently woke.
Reason Magazine’s Robby Soave illustrates what’s happening to researchers and faculty on college campuses who don’t toe the accepted line of thinking:
UCLA recently suspended a lecturer, Gordon Klein, after he declined a demand that he make a final exam “no-harm”—that is, it could only boost grades—for students of color traumatized by the events in Minneapolis. Klein refused, in accordance with guidance from UCLA’s administration not to give students much leeway on exams. In response, the activists launched a change.org petition to get Klein fired, and the school suspended him. His irritated reply to the activists—that he would not give preferential exam treatment to students because of their skin color—has prompted UCLA to investigate him for racial discrimination.
Those hounding wrong-thinking academics have some very influential allies:
University of Chicago economist Harald Uhlig, who had the temerity to criticize some of the more radical demands the protesters have made, is now being pressured to resign as editor of the school’s Journal of Political Economy. In this case, it’s not random students doing the pressuring, but some of the biggest names in economics: New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, University of Michigan professor Justin Wolfers, and even former Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen, who told the Times that “it would be appropriate for the University of Chicago, which is the publisher of the Journal of Political Economy, to review Uhlig’s performance and suitability to continue as editor.”
David Bernstein notes the “Maoist-style” apologies extracted from those who have and bad thoughts, forcing some on the left to wonder where the closed-minded illiberalism on display will lead.
Inevitably, it leads to a reaction – and a self-styled revolution eating its own.
Original article can be viewed here
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