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Jeffrey Sachs
@JeffreyASachs
, 15 tweets, 7 min read Read on Twitter
A few general thoughts about this.

Lots of people use the language of free speech to criticize the academy, but it's often unclear whether their critique is being made in good faith, or if it's actually cover for something more craven.

This of course is an example of the latter. What presents itself as a critique of academic illiberalism is actually something quite illiberal itself. It's a common maneuver, as @adamsteinbaugh, @sarahemclaugh, and the rest of the folks at FIRE can attest.

nypost.com/2019/05/31/pc-…
The upshot is that if you ARE one of those trying to make a good faith critique of the academy on free speech grounds (and I count @conor64 among their number), you have a special obligation to "police your own". To view skeptically whether your fellow traveller is on the level.
Because the consequences of misjudging can be dire, both at home:

houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-t…

and abroad:

nytimes.com/2018/12/03/wor…
Which brings us to Jordan Peterson, who sat down last week for a chat with Viktor Orban, author of the above tweet. Given his championing of free speech and academic freedom, some are crying hypocrisy. I am one of them. Conor is not.

hungarytoday.hu/orban-meets-jo…
But this is not an isolated incident for Peterson. In 2017, he announced plans to create a searchable database of university courses from across North America and Europe. The database would measure how much "neo-Marxist" content each course contained.

cbc.ca/radio/asithapp…
The ultimate goal, Peterson explained, was to drive enrolment in these classes down so low that whole departments would have to close. Which kinds of departments was he targeting? Come on, you know the answer to that already.
Peterson later put his plan on pause, but only because he worried it might contribute to political polarization. That's not very reassuring. It was particularly cold comfort for faculty at UofT, many of who I know personally and who remain deeply alarmed.

cbc.ca/radio/asithapp…
(By the way, if you're tempted to write off Peterson's list as harmless or even salutary, ask yourself how you'd feel about a person making a searchable database of every prof or PhD student who's contributed to Quillette. Still think it's harmless?)

So that's Strike 1.
Strike 2: The Lawsuits.

Peterson has launched not one, but TWO defamation lawsuits against Wilfrid Laurier University and members of its faculty. Note: The first suit is over private, opinion-based speech. The second was public, but also opinion-based.

vice.com/en_ca/article/…
And as Conor himself explains below, these lawsuits were explicitly launched in order to teach Wilfrid Laurier a lesson and to discourage other faculty members from engaging in speech he considers offensive.

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
He also threatened to sue @kate_manne, @seanilling, Vox, and Cornell. On what grounds? That Manne had defamed him by making the following statements. You tell me if this is a person who genuinely believes in free speech.

thecut.com/2018/09/jordan…
Oh, he threatened to sue this person too.

mic.com/articles/18982…
Strike 1: The List
Strike 2: The Lawsuits
Strike 3: His meeting with Orban

Of course, this isn't baseball. Three strikes doesn't mean you're out, and everyone has their own threshold. But if, by this point, your credulity is not under serious strain, I question your sincerity.
And again, it is precisely those people most deeply invested in a good faith defense of campus free speech who should have the lowest threshold of all. Otherwise you will forgive us if we wonder whether your own critique is on the level.
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More from @JeffreyASachs see all

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Jeffrey Sachs
@JeffreyASachs
Conor is correct here about the distinction. That said, it is routinely collapsed by folks pushing the coddling/PC run amok discourse in order to portray certain people as weak or authoritarian. Let me furnish an example @conor64 knows well: Steve Bannon.
Last September, Steve Bannon was disinvited to the New Yorker Ideas Festival. Not disrupted, not heckled. Disinvited, and disinvited by David Remnick, the man who asked him to come in the first place.

vox.com/policy-and-pol…
There had been an outcry, you see. Remnick explained that his staff, as well as other guests to the event, had persuaded him that Bannon’s presence was a bad idea and the invitation had been a mistake.
Read 9 tweets
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Jeffrey Sachs
@JeffreyASachs
OK, one last reflection on this thread.

Stories about campus free speech controversies get reported in four distinct types of media: local/campus, trade, partisan, and mainstream/national. Think the Boston Globe vs. Inside Higher Ed vs. Campus Reform vs. The Atlantic.
The key actor here is partisan media. With the exception of advocacy groups like @TheFIREorg, they're the only ones actually tracking events on the ground closely. Trade pubs try to keep up, but they lack the resources and all-consuming interest.
And by resources, I mean the networks of students and campus clubs that feed these stories to partisan outlets. Think YAF, the local TPUSA chapter, or College Republicans. When something goes down, an email to HQ is rarely far behind.
Read 11 tweets
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Jeffrey Sachs
@JeffreyASachs
It’s a very peculiar thing that a dozen students calling for an event to be cancelled gets more press than when the call comes from state legislators or even whole state political parties. I can’t quite wrap my brain around it, but I’ve seen this too many times now to deny it.
Some recent examples for the incredulous, ending with a poll.

Two weeks ago, the Nebraska Republican Party successfully pressured former Senator Bob Kerrey to withdraw as commencement speaker for Creighton University. Little publicity outside Nebraska.

journalstar.com/news/state-and…
A month ago, the entire Republican apparatus in California lined up to get a UC Davis prof fired. If you did hear about this incident, is was probably because of me. Sorry, but it's true.

Read 10 tweets

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Mehreen
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Why the popular vote for the House and Senate lies and lunacy is making my hands shake in rage: A thread. With interpretative dancing of rage but you can't see that you poor poor people being deprived of such glory.
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Simon DeDeo
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I would have been happy to let the @bloggingheads episode between @robinhanson and I stand. But since Robin's decided to jump back in as well, I'll make a few remarks.
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John Stoehr
@johnastoehr
Free speech warriors forget something important. People have a right to free speech but they do not have a right to a platform. Free speech warriors blur the two, because if they didn't, they'd lose.
Moreover, free speech is a right protected by the government against the government. When Facebook shuts you down, that is not an infringement of free speech. FB can do what it wants for any reason.
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Jessica Price
@Delafina777
Do we need to talk about how "civil discussion" is itself a dogwhistle?

The idea that "discussion" questioning whether people who aren't white cis men have a right to work in games without threats and harassment, that there's any QUESTION there, is legitimate is already uncivil.
I mean, fine, let's talk about it.

The idea that we should have "civil discussion" with people advocating for the exclusion/persecution/death of others based on arbitrary characteristics like gender/race/sexual orientation/etc. is how the Overton window gets moved.
The idea that it's okay for white people to sit around over cocktails and idly debate whether people of color are fully human, or men to sip brandy and talk about whether women have souls, is itself violent.
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Angus Johnston
@studentactivism
So this story from the @dailycal may turn out to be crucial context for a coming "free speech on campus" brouhaha. dailycal.org/2017/09/14/ful…
If you write or tweet about "PC on campus," you need to read this piece, because there's a good chance it's going to blow up in two weeks.
Here's what's up: Milo has released a list of two dozen speakers for his Berkeley "Free Speech Week," scheduled to start in nine days.
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