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Don Moynihan Profile picture
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7 May, 5 tweets, 2 min read
Laws banning speech have already been passed in some states, but we are finally starting to see a media recognition about how "critical race theory" is a carefully constructed moral panic theatlantic.com/politics/archi…
These laws serve multiple purposes: they are culture war fodder with a racial valence to distract from the GOP's threadbare economic policies. While obviously unconstitutional, they will still succeed in chilling speech by teachers/faculty who don't want to be pilloried on Fox.
Media, esp. local media & right wing media, have largely accepted the framing of CRT as a dangerous theory that must be stopped, rather than as an unconstitutional attack on free speech motivated by a desire to stop conversations about race and power.
Its like the the creators of this moral panic took out a billboard saying "here is how we are going to misrepresent and deceive you on this" and everyone just still went along with it.
Thread from William Jackson Harper of The Good Place that illustrates how chilling effects of anti-CRT laws will work. Trump's Executive Order on diversity training led to members of our military being told not to watch and discuss the movie Malcolm X.

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More from @donmoyn

Don Moynihan Profile picture
8 May
One thing that I think people off-campus (and even some people on campus) might not fully understand is the capacity of universities to self-regulate reasonable standards around speech. Given that, outside regulation is dangerous.
I'll give two examples from my time in Wisconsin.
Example 1: In the 1990s, UW-Madison adopted speech codes, for the best of intentions, but were (IMO) excessively restrictive. Faculty disagreed. Some organized to oppose, and succeeded in reversing the codes at the Faculty Senate. nas.org/academic-quest…
Example 2: the first time I heard evidence about the potential for diversity training to sometimes backfire was probably 2013 or so from psychology faculty at the Faculty Senate. The point was not to ban training, but to use an evidence-informed approach.
Read 9 tweets
Don Moynihan Profile picture
6 May
Cheney is being ejected from the Republican Party because she continues to speak out against its anti-democratic wing.
Greenwald avoids talking about that when attacking those who praise her. Much easier to mock people's bios.
"Ha-ha, look this person who supports BLM and MeToo also praises politicians who don't vote to overturn elections" is perhaps just less of an own than GG thinks it s.
GG will talk about Cheney's past and all the reasons she is a terrible person. But thats not why she is being exiled from GOP party leadership though, is it? Or why some liberals are praising her? It's almost like some people want to downplay efforts to overturn US democracy.
Read 6 tweets
Don Moynihan Profile picture
5 May
When people complain about excessive wokeness on campus, the examples are often vague or poorly reported. This one is not. Students don't want to participate in a song that originated in a minstrel show, and alum want to compel them to do so.
*Student guides don't want to include a plaque featuring the song on campus tours
*Student band members don't want to play the song, so the university now has two bands!
*Student athletes don't want to be compelled into singing the song ImageImageImage
UT did its own investigation into the history of song, and determined the song was not overtly racist. But obviously many students don't agree. washingtonpost.com/sports/2021/03…
Read 4 tweets
Don Moynihan Profile picture
5 May
Oklahoma legislature the latest to censor speech about race in American history in schools.
Striking how a bunch of conservative activists have persuaded state politicians to ignore the judgment of educational professionals about what should be taught in the classroom. Statement from OK City Schools Superintendent opposing the law kfor.com/news/oklahoma-…
Signs of a successfully-created moral panic: "we can confirm that this vaguely defined thing is happening at some colleges"
Read 4 tweets
Don Moynihan Profile picture
3 May
Good morning to everyone except the very serious free speech warriors who are encouraging, or strategically ignoring, state censorship of discussions of race in the classroom tennessean.com/story/news/pol…
The term Orwellian is overused, but this is very straightforward doublespeak. Conservatives claim to be fighting state imposed speech but they are the ones passing laws that determine what can and cannot be taught in the classroom.
Those pushing the efforts to censor speech in the classroom are pretty upfront about their propaganda and you can see it disseminate in real-time. See Megyn Kelly concur with the new use of terminology "state sanctioned" and then uses it with her 2.5M followers.
Read 4 tweets
Don Moynihan Profile picture
2 May
The juxtaposition of the Democracy Dies in Darkness header and hosting the book tour of the guy who encouraged Capitol insurrectionists is too much.
The @washingtonpost then presents a fawning bio that Hawley's publicist presumably sent them ("a leading champion in Congress for working families") while skipping over the whole insurrectionist/voting to overturn the election thing.
washingtonpost.com/washington-pos…
Hawley's twitter feed is full of complaints about how the media and tech giants are trying to censor him. And yet, the newspaper owned by Jeff Bezos is giving Hawley the most flattering platform to hawk his book.
Read 6 tweets

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