Apparently, the recent case at a university in London where the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (intended as a satire on ID) had its posters banned habeen resolved; they were restored, with apologies.
But, as Greg Lukianoff at Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has found, many students today are comfy with censorship, indeed, they see it as a good cause. Columnist Jonah Goldberg tells us about a new trend to see it as a form of “academic justice”:
Harvard Crimson editorial writer Sandra Y.L. Korn recently called for getting rid of academic freedom in favor of something called “academic justice.”
“If our university community opposes racism, sexism and heterosexism, why should we put up with research that counters our goals simply in the name of ‘academic freedom’?” Korn asks.
Helpfully, she answers her own question: “When an academic community observes research promoting or justifying oppression, it should ensure that this research does not continue.” More.
STEM types are not necessarily insulated. There may be no way to tell whether what you are doing falls afoul of someone or other’s sense of justice.
One could easily dismiss these students as part of that long and glorious American tradition of smart young people saying stupid things. As Oscar Wilde remarked, “In America the young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience.”
But we all know that this nonsense didn’t spring ex nihilo from their imaginations. As Allan Bloom showed a quarter century ago in “The Closing of the American Mind,” these ideas are taught.
Indeed, we are now up to our knees in this Orwellian bilge. Diversity means conformity. More.
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