Well, you got me thinking because I greatly respect your work and writing on first amendment rights.
I guess I would ask in return if someone walks into a police station and confesses to a crime, is the resulting arrest punishing him for his speech?
Because racism in federally funded universities is a crime. No different, I suppose, than a corporate CEO writing a public letter that his company is full of fraudulent accounting and insider trading. Is it anti-free-speech to then investigate that company?
Perhaps another answer is that few people truly expect PU to be punished but enjoy the calling out of an obvious hypocrisy. Eisgruber was participating in this weird Maoist Kabuki dance of racist self-shaming that we are supposed to take seriously and not seriously simultaneously
Like Mother Teresa calling herself a sinner, we are all supposed to respect the humility but ignore the implications.
I guess there is also some good old-fashioned ugly shadenfreude to all this. I am exhausted getting called a racist and I am happy to see Eisgruber squirm for it. And it really is pretty funny.
And if you ranked government threats to free speech on campus, I am not even sure this is in the top 100. Princeton University and its President have the ability to defend themselves.
Adjunct professors who get fired by public universities for suggesting that looting Apple stores may not be the best way to bring accountability to police forces are much more vulnerable and largely undefended nowadays.
But no, if forced to be serious about this, I am not happy at all at the how the Department of Education (DOE) has morphed into fascist thought police. I thought their title IX work in the last administration was destructive and this is no less so
Somehow we have made the DOE more activist than the (largely supine) SEC or FTC.
It is an interesting topic. How steadfast of a free speech defender am I going to be with university presidents who are willing to cancel my speech without a thought. I like to think I am pure on this, but it is hard. I appreciate your prodding, but it is still difficult.
And good God, I am supposed to be giving up Twitter. Ack, I have a problem. Good night all.
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