By Dan McLaughlin
Monday, March 08, 2021
Talking about cancel culture is
one thing; doing something about it is another. In the long term, conservatives
and other non-leftists need to build more of our own institutions resistant to
woke pressures, and we also need to liberate young people from the clutches of
indoctrination by woke thought-programmers. But in the meantime, how can we
fight back in the institutional structures where pressure campaigns find both
sympathy among those in power and fear of standing up to the new censors? What
can be done in universities that won’t stand for academic freedom on
principle, dictate the inclusion of propaganda in course syllabi,
and muzzle dissenting faculty?
Robert P. George of Princeton has been
that rarest of philosophers, engaged in how ideas are implemented in the real
world. As he tells Wesley Yang at the Chronicle of Higher Education, it
was past time for academics concerned about freedom of speech and thought in
the academy — by no means only conservatives, but libertarians, moderates, and
old-style liberals as well — to join forces to provide material support to
those targeted by the mob:
[Prof.
George] offered a vivid zoological metaphor to describe what happens when
outrage mobs attack academics. When hunted by lions, herds of zebras “fly off
in a million directions, and the targeted member is easily taken down and
destroyed and eaten.” A herd of elephants, by contrast, will “circle around the
vulnerable elephant. Academics behave like zebras,” George said. “And so people
get isolated, they get targeted, they get destroyed, they get forgotten. Why
don’t we act like elephants? Why don’t we circle around the victim?”
To that end, he formed a national
organization, starting with 20 Princeton professors, and backed by millions of
dollars in funding, mostly from a major conservative donor’s seed money:
Today,
that organization, the Academic Freedom Alliance, formally issued a manifesto declaring that “an attack on academic
freedom anywhere is an attack on academic freedom everywhere,” and committing
its nearly 200 members to providing aid and support in defense of “freedom of
thought and expression in their work as researchers and writers or in their
lives as citizens,” “freedom to design courses and conduct classes using
reasonable pedagogical judgment,” and “freedom from ideological tests,
affirmations, and oaths.” The alliance will intervene in academic
controversy privately, by pressuring administrators, and publicly, by issuing
statements citing the principles at stake in the outcomes of specific cases.
Crucially, it will support those needing legal aid, either by arranging for pro
bono legal representation or paying for it directly. “Universities know,”
George told me, “that university faculty can’t afford to fight city hall or the
university, so they know they can do anything to these people without any
consequences. So we’re going to shift that — so that the university
general-counsel offices will know that the university is in the fight of its
life if it violates academic-freedom rights.”
Read the whole thing, including quotes
from Professor Keith Whittington, who chairs the organization. The problem of isolating and personalizing the
mob’s targets to pick them off one by one is pervasive with left-wing pressure
campaigns, whether they are against college professors, corporate sponsors of
radio and TV programs, sports teams, even state governments. They must be met
by a collective response if the madness is to be fought. Three cheers for
Professors George & Whittington for doing the legwork to make that a
reality, and good luck to the Academic Freedom Alliance.
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