Universities must protect free speech. This means they can’t punish students for saying stupid things, however offensive.

But part of protecting free speech is to punish students who violate the rules that make free speech possible for everyone else. This includes punishing those who violently disrupt talks—and it also includes punishing those who tear down fliers depicting children kidnapped by Hamas.

The answer to this moment isn’t to give up on a culture of free speech on campus. It’s to enforce the rules that sustain it in an impartial manner—something most campuses have woefully failed to do. The current reality on many campuses is:

Someone anonymously accuses you of a sexist or racist microaggression? You’ll be subjected to an intimidating interview with our “bias response team”.

You violently disrupt a lecture or tear down posters put up by other students in the name of some activist cause? Nothing happens to you.

This selective application of rules and laws is not just inconsistent; through the strategic use of partial enforcement, it effectively sets up an institutionally sanctioned set of views which are sacrosanct, and an institutionally proscribed set of views that are off limits.

In short, they are a clear and outrageous violation of free speech and academic freedom.

It’s not only @Harvard.

I have reviewed the Twitter and Instagram accounts of @Yale, @Princeton, @Columbia, @Stanford, @Dartmouth and @JohnsHopkins.

Not a single one of them has issued a statement about the atrocities committed by Hamas. I actually think universities should not be in the business of issuing these kinds of statements.

But since they do issue statements about all kinds of events all of the time, it sends a very clear message if they then happen to fall silent when the victims are Jews.

In key respects, one metric now predicts more about the lives that Americans will live than gender or even race: education.

Whether or not you have a BA now not only determines how you will live; it even determines when you will die.

🧵 Democracy and education have always been intertwined. But the importance of education has vastly increased. In the past decades:
* The wage premium has exploded
* Americans without BA-degrees have become more likely to be in pain, to be socially isolated, or to get divorced.

I really wish Musk did basic research before mouthing off.

No, people don't primarily attack the AfD because it has cozied up to Putin. (Though it certainly has.)

They do so because it is a racist party, one that's far more extreme even than right-wing leaders like Le Pen.

🧵 You can have legitimate disagreements about how Europe should deal with migration.

Smart analysts like @rumeliobserver worry about providing an incentive to migrants to risk their lives crossing the Mediterranean. This stuff is hard.

Recognizing that the AfD is terrible isn't.

Have we passed “peak woke”?

This is a question I keep getting. And there are some good reasons to think that it might be.

But I think the answer is no.

Here’s why.

🧵 There was a moment when the “identity synthesis” ruled basically unchallenged.

This was never going to last. Today, it feels much less scary to argue against it. More people are speaking out. Sometimes even in places like Brown or Stanford.

Great! But…

Much of my academic training is in intellectual history.

So to understand the ideas about group identity that have become powerful so quickly, I did a TON of reading.

Here's the true story of the origins of "woke"—and how it explains many themes of today's left.

A loooong 🧵. The new ideas about race, gender, and sexual orientation constitute a novel ideology, which radically departs from the traditional left.

They are inspired by three main traditions: postmodernism, postcolonialism, and critical race theory. And they focus on the role that groups do—and should—play in society.

That's why I call them the "identity synthesis."

One of the ideas that most bothers me in this moment is “cultural appropriation.”

Here’s why we should stop using the term—and embrace mutual cultural influence as a big part of what’s wonderful, not “problematic,” about life in diverse democracies. Over the last years, many forms of mutual cultural influence have come under a general pall of suspicion.

Bon Appétit magazine even apologized for allowing a gentile writer to publish a recipe for hamantaschen, a traditional Jewish dessert!

Here’s the reasons that’s a mistake.

Many liberals have realized that "woke" ideas are wrongheaded.

But they worry that speaking out against them will put them on a path to becoming a crank.

Here's a guide for how to argue against the new ideology without turning into a reactionary.

🧵
nytimes.com/2023/09/22/opi… Should you push back against misguided progressive ideas even though Trump is a bigger danger?

Is it possible to oppose "wokeness" without ignoring genuine injustices?

Can you argue against the identity synthesis without falling into the reactionary trap?

Yes, yes and yes.

Are you fucking kidding me?

The motive may not yet be proven. But to claim that it is "unclear" is just absurd. (From the New York Times.)

A few thoughts and principles about the FBI raid in Miami:

1) The rule of law applies to everyone. If Trump committed a crime, he should be punished for it.

2) Prosecutions against possible political candidates always deserve special scrutiny to ensure they are above the board. 3) The best way to beat an authoritarian populist is at the ballot box, not by disqualifying him from running.

4) If Trump is to be prosecuted, it would ideally be for a morally highly significant crime (like 1/6), not a procedural one (like mishandling classified documents).

Wonderful news. Fingers crossed.

And absolutely shameful that Democrats spent big to support a full-on MAGA candidate over an honorable Congressman who voted for Trump's impeachment.

https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1554649707091222530

Democrats should by all means spend big to help their own candidate win against Meijer in the general.

But to boost Meijer's GOP opponent because it (supposedly) increases their likelihood of victory, even though it strengthens outright election-deniers, is unconscionable.

I do not call people "racist" lightly.

But this speech by Viktor Orban is clearly and openly racist.

The "conservative" intellectuals and Republican politicians who court Orban should be deeply ashamed of themselves. Sovereign nations have a right to set their own immigration policies. Though I disagree with some of Orban's actions during the refugee crisis, I don't dispute his right to control Hunary's border.

But to say that Europeans must not mix with non-Europeans is simple, ugly racism.

Many journalists have deeply internalized some weird combination of Gramsci and Foucault: They believe that how they describe the world has an enormous impact.

But thankfully, what people believe mostly does not depend on what the NYT or WaPo write.

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/… This is a great example:

"What caused Biden’s dip was the withdrawal from Afghanistan — or, rather, the media’s 24/7, highly negative coverage of it."

Or perhaps what caused the dip was images of desperate Afghans clinging to military planes, not how pundits spun those images?

Trump is a big danger to democracy. And yet, he has a good chance of winning reelection.

What can Dems do to beat Trump in 2024?

@TheAtlantic, I propose a two-part plan:

1) Biden should bow out of contention.

2) Dems must hold a *real* primary contest.
theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/… 1) Biden Should Bow Out

America owes Biden enormous gratitude. He has served the country admirably for decades. In 2020, his broad appeal ensured that the country defeated a dangerous demagogue.

But... will Biden maximize Democrats' hopes of defeating Trump again in 2024?

No.

Trump is an acute threat to democracy.

Biden and Harris, the most likely 2024 Democratic nominees, are deeply unpopular.

And no one seems to have a plan to turn things around.

Things can always change. But right now, America is headed for disaster.

🧵
persuasion.community/p/mounk-americ… Why are things so dire?

1) Trump is a serious danger to democracy.
2) Trump is likely to do a lot more damage if he wins a second term.
3) Republicans may try to steal the 2024 elections.
4) Biden is old, weak, and deeply unpopular.
5) Harris is even less likely to beat Trump.

One of the weird stories of the past decade is how much a dissolution of basic norms of decency has allowed a minority of narcissists to sow nasty personal conflict in thousands of institutions around the country.

We hear about this with famous institutions. But it's everywhere. This, I think, is an underestimated reasons for the deep sense of anger and malaise in the country.

Many people feel deeply on edge in the obscure institutions that are very important to their lives: local companies, charities, church groups, PTAs, etc.

So everyone's miserable.

Misleading your readers about whether you have done your basic journalistic due diligence is a much worse offense than retweeting a stupid joke.

A newspaper that doesn't recognize this will very rapidly lose any remaining credibility it enjoys. To my non-American followers:

I'm sorry about all this provincial content and these seemingly obscure allusions.

It's hard to explain to outsiders how utterly stupid the cultural and political life of the American elite has become.

Do yourself a favor and don't even try.

What are the top things universities could do to encourage a culture of free debate and inquiry, not just in the classroom but also in dorms and dining halls? Obviously, students don't need to debate politics all the time.

But according to surveys, two thirds of students at U.S. colleges say that many of their classmates don't feel comfortable expressing their views.

If you don't think that's a problem, I don't know what to tell you.

Just gonna note that there's a marked difference in the quality of toilet paper between American and European universities.

It makes sense to have public financing of higher ed. But you just can't expect the average taxpayer to foot the bill for a four-year all-in luxury resort.

https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1531240407010623489

(And a lot fo the problem with American higher education is that it is impossible to attend the best universities without being forced to pay for living in a luxury all-in resort for four years.)

The only thought I have about the supposed rivalry between the Brooklyn and the Manhattan factions of New York's "hip" young lit world: Gratitude that I'm too old to be part of either.
newstatesman.com/ideas/2022/05/… The brief period during which I hung around "fashionable" literary parties in Brooklyn in my mid-twenties were probably the least personally or intellectually nourishing months of my life.

"The violence has *colored* perceptions that the subway is unsafe."

Yeah, I mean someone being murdered on the subway in the middle of the day will do that... I'm a fan of opinion journalism. And sadly most op-eds won't agree with my views most of the time. That's the price for free speech.

But it's astonishing to what extent *news* journalists now habitually choose their words with an eye to the conclusion they want readers to draw.