The claim that there was no “self-censorship” in academia until the “illiberal left” came and destroyed “free speech” is not worthy of serious discussion. Speech has always been (self-) regulated, everywhere, and the debate has always been over who gets to define the regulations. 
Speech is never completely unrestricted, and shouldn’t be - there are always agreed upon limits. Who gets to make the restrictions and who needs to comply, who has to pay a price for violating the norms and who gets to be immune from critique by pleading “free speech.”
These are conflicts over who gets to determine what is and what is not acceptable in a society or in sub-systems of society, like academia. What irks people like Friedersdorf is that those who traditionally got to define those limits face more scrutiny today than they used to.
Until very recently, that “culture of freewheeling discourse” Friedersdorf misses so much was entirely dominated by white men. Yes, it’s become slightly more likely for those men to get into trouble for racist, misogynistic, disrespectful behavior. I’d call that progress.
Of course, if you believe that not only are you entitled to say and do whatever you want without legal or cultural sanction, but that this culture of elite impunity is actually what’s driving “truth-seeking and knowledge production,” then “leftist” activism really is a threat.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
