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Cont: Cancel culture IRL Part 2

Chris_Halkides said:
Paper-skinned crybabies might apply to students who get the vapors because they had to watch Othello, or because a rock (yes, you read that correctly) was referred to by an offensive name over ninety years ago. Although to be fair, it was a large rock.
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College students have unreasonable demands, stop the presses.
 
The Kilborn case at UIC

SuburbanTurkey said:
Yes, if the university summarily fired Stock that would be a pretty serious breach of academic freedom. That didn't happen, and the university was quite firm in their responsibility to protect their professor's right to explore controversial topics. Surely "cancel culture" doesn't include toothless student protest efforts that totally failed, right?
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In comments #674 and #678 I provided links regarding Jason Kilborn and the University of Illinois at Chicago. Does that meet your definition of a serious breach?
 
Chris_Halkides said:
In comments #674 and #678 I provided links regarding Jason Kilborn and the University of Illinois at Chicago. Does that meet your definition of a serious breach?
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Sure. Nobody says that schools don't routinely screw up in this regard, it's exactly why groups like FIRE have to exist. Schools periodically have to be reminded of their obligations.

It's interesting to compare an actual case of censorious overreach to people like Stock who nailed themselves onto the cross and try to pretend they're martyrs.
 
Chris_Halkides said:
When students claim to have heart palpitations and call for tenured professors to be fired, they are play-acting and behaving in an illiberal way. It becomes censorship in the narrow sense of the word when a public college or university accedes to their demands. A public university cannot take off its government hat at will, or at least that is how I understand the law regarding censorship and public educational institutions. Your hypotheticals are so very far removed from any of the examples I provided that it is difficult to know how to respond ATM. I may come back to these issues if I have more time later.
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But why do you refer to such students and protests/cancelling as "the left"?
 
Cherry picked examples of students in colleges don't compare to people in government promoting hate and disinformation to the level the Right is doing.
 
Hold the phone, new right wing freak in danger of getting "cancelled" just dropped:

Amy Wax is in trouble again, this time for her comments on race and immigration. The Robert Mundheim Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania reportedly argued at a conference last week for “taking the position that our country will be better off with more whites and fewer nonwhites.”

More than 1,000 student groups and individuals affiliated with Penn have signed a petition calling for Wax to be relieved of all teaching duties. Wax’s dean, Ted Ruger, the Bernard G. Segal Professor of Law, on Tuesday condemned her remarks.
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https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/07/24/penn-law-condemns-amy-waxs-recent-comments-race-and-immigration-others-call-her

University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax, who insisted she was not a racist despite praising the superiority of "European" culture, now argues that the US needs "fewer Asians" and we need to be asking "how many" Asians are too many.
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https://twitter.com/NathanJRobinson/status/1477763965308620805

Don't be a wokescold, calling an overt white nationalist a racist is cancel culture!
 
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It's always, always, always, always the same.

Someone screeches about being "canceled" just for being "conservative" but it's always for being racist, sexist, homophobic, or otherwise bigoted.
 
Chris_Halkides said:
The ACLU wrote, "Restrictions on speech by public colleges and universities amount to government censorship, in violation of the Constitution. Such restrictions deprive students of their right to invite speech they wish to hear, debate speech with which they disagree, and protest speech they find bigoted or offensive. An open society depends on liberal education, and the whole enterprise of liberal education is founded on the principle of free speech."

I condemn making threats against public health officials (this was mentioned in a recent comment), and I have seen no one else in this thread condoning such things. Most of my examples in this thread come from academia, because that is where I work. One example was blatantly ridiculous but relatively harmless (cancellation of a rock at UW-Madison), but some carry more consequences. For example, a professor potentially losing his job over writing "n_____" in a test question where it was directly relevant is a non-trivial matter, both for him and for the educational system. Both sides do it; I wish neither side would.
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A grease fire on my stove is bad and potentially dangerous, but it's also relatively easy to contain and extinguish. A forest fire is much worse and much more dangerous, and far more difficult to contain and extinguish.

When there's a forest fire raging nearby, destroying acres of woodland and threatening neighboring homes, I don't see the utility in choosing that moment to lecture people about the dangers of stovetop grease fires.
 
lionking said:
Well said. You are correct, but will be ignored by many here fixated only on the right wing cancellers.
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Chris_Halkides said:
lionking,

Your prediction was right on the money.
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It's because "right wing cancellers" are a significantly bigger problem.

Anyone opposed to "cancel culture" on the principle of freedom from oppression would recognize that simple fact.
 
Chris_Halkides said:
When students claim to have heart palpitations and call for tenured professors to be fired, they are play-acting and behaving in an illiberal way. It becomes censorship in the narrow sense of the word when a public college or university accedes to their demands. A public university cannot take off its government hat at will, or at least that is how I understand the law regarding censorship and public educational institutions. Your hypotheticals are so very far removed from any of the examples I provided that it is difficult to know how to respond ATM. I may come back to these issues if I have more time later.
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Well they are not actually hypothetical, but regardless, you're getting away from a rational argument when you insist on the highlighted. There is no rational reason evidence and argument made to address a different point by a different poster should cover all the evidence you believe you have for your view.

Disproving ahhell's arguments simply doesn't need to address your feelings about how representative your examples are, feelings that are contradicted by your chosen expert's view.

You keep going down different paths to avoid the fact the core of what ahhell said was wrong, and what johnny karate said was right. 'What about student protestors' just isn't a point there. It doesn't address the actual contention. To be clear, I don't agree with your conclusion either, but that doesn't change the truth or validity of 'for every this there is a this'. There isn't.

EDIT: In short; is there a reason to limit the set to your examples that isn't cherry picking?
 
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what is left of the left

Darat said:
But why do you refer to such students and protests/cancelling as "the left"?
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I would not call them conservative in the modern sense of the word. Maybe calling them woke or progressive is more apppropriate, but I am not sure. Curiously Professor Stock touched upon this issue: "I am on the left — or at least, a version of the left that doesn’t involve trying to get employees sacked by bosses, which may or may not be the left as we now know it."
 
Graham2001 said:
Some would call this 'War on Christmas' but I call it interesting that, as the article indicates, the person who's writing was cited by the people behind the ban actually disagrees with their interpretation.

Not surprising is that when asked for comment beyond their initial statements the only response is stonewalling....


https://rochesterbeacon.com/2021/12/23/jingle-all-the-way-maybe-not/
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:confused: I genuinely don't understand what is even "potentially" controversial about Jingle Bells - it's a completely secular song. There's no reference to any holiday involved in it whatsoever.
 
Stout said:
In the future, could you please include Cringe Warning when posting such links? I cringed so hard I actually hurt my neck when I read this part with the knowledge that we're talking about educators here.



I'm actually embarrassed for these people :o
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Oh FML. I didn't read the actual link, just the blurb Graham put up there. That's... absurd, ridiculous, asinine, ludicrous, preposterous, nonsensical, and a host of other synonyms for stupid beyond all belief.
 
Chris_Halkides said:
I just read the article "Two plus two makes four" in the October 16th-22nd issue of The Economist magazine (it is probably behind a paywall). It covers an incident at the University of Sussex involving Professor Kathleen Stock's alleged transphobia. Lady Kishwer Falkner wrote a letter to The Times stating in part, "university is a place where we are exposed to ideas and learn to death with each other" and that students "do not have a right not to be made uncomfortable/. They can't say that because they feel uncomfortable, someone should be fired." Change the word "uncomfortable" to "unsafe" and this could easily be a description of what is happening in the United States. A quick Google search took me to a Guardian article which indicated that Professor Stock resigned.
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FYI, Professor Stock resigned because the university was unable to ensure her physical safety from those who labeled them a bigot and threatened them.
 
Censorious fascist gets SLAPPd:

Update: Today, we won a COMPLETE legal victory against the Proud Boy and Capitol rioter who conspired with
@MrAndyNgo
to try to silence my reporting on their misdeeds through their intimidation, false smears, and baseless legal threats.

Judge found him "Evasive and not credible"
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https://twitter.com/chadloder/status/1478540286699589633

You can read about this sordid affair here:

https://theintercept.com/2021/11/10/proud-boys-antifascist-tweet-chad-loder-court/

Fascists in California filed frivolous protection orders against the antifascist researcher in an attempt to prevent them from covering their violent rallies.

Propagandists, including Andy Ngo, made sure to advertise that Chad Loder had to surrender all firearms while the protection order was pending, which resulted in a torrent of credible death threats to them and their family, including people showing up at their address.

In a follow-up tweet, Ngo informed his 900,000 followers that Loder had been required, because of the temporary restraining order, to surrender their gun to the police until the case is settled. Loder told me that Ngo’s tweet, which named the area they live in and showed the inside of their apartment, had triggered threats, including from a retired LAPD homicide detective who tweeted to Ngo: “I’m going to see Chad one day. I’ll take photos of the aftermath.” (The former detective, Sal LaBarbera, told me that he did not mean to threaten Loder with violence.)
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https://theintercept.com/2021/11/10/proud-boys-antifascist-tweet-chad-loder-court/

Fortunately California has an anti-SLAPP law, and this fascist will be responsible for paying all of Loder's legal fees to squash the frivolous protection order complaint. There is a further hearing scheduled in March to award Loder damages.

Fascists are pretty upset with Loder, who covers their activities on the West Coast and was part of an effort to identify a man who assaulted a journalist with a club at the transphobe/fascist Wi Spa rally, who has since been charged with a felony. The same man also confronted and assaulted Loder when they had to appear in court to answer the frivolous charge.

Fascist is big sad:

Loder celebrated their victory with a Twitter thread, which included a screenshot of an Instagram comment from Kiefer that read: “LA judges are CROOKED as **** and should all be investigated.”
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Chris_Halkides said:
I read through this link; I agree that the matter of threatening election officials is very serious indeed. However, it is not cancel culture as I understand the term.
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People are being driven out of their livelihoods by mobs of angry people. Seems to check a lot of boxes.

What's the missing ingredient?
 
johnny karate said:
People are being driven out of their livelihoods by mobs of angry people. Seems to check a lot of boxes.

What's the missing ingredient?
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It's not the other side doing it to his side.

That's literally it. That's all it is.

He'll hem and and how and gruff and huff and get indignant and complaint and bluster a lot about it not being his side, but that's all it is.
 
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