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I could be misunderstanding this statement entirely: "This threat comes from both the left and the right. Two-thirds of sanction attempts from the left of the professor result in some form of sanction. The same is true for 42% of attempts from the right of wherever the professor is politically." but it seems to me this is one of many such statements I see in Common Sense articles lately that tries to claim a false equivalency. There's always this weak attempt to say that this isn't a problem unique to Democrats by pointing to an example of Republicans behaving similarly. For one, the quote above fails to mention how often such threats come from either side. It's far too vague to mean anything.

Bari's excellent speech on the new founders America needs included a similar statement when she compares the minority of conservatives who recently expressed admiration for "European autocrats " (Putin) to the Biden Administration trying to establish a Ministry of Truth.

In American institutions, in universities, and in corporations, the demand for total ideological conformity stems entirely from modern Progressives. Within the Republican party there is a sizable segment that demands such adherence to whatever the Orange Man decrees, but I challenge you to find one example of a professor, government official, or private sector employee losing their livelihood because they suggested they might not like Trump. It's simply not the same.

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Jul 28, 2022·edited Jul 28, 2022

I find it always funny that woke left focus all their actions on virtue signaling and no real action or change. For example these "land acknowledgments", they will be more than happy to say them, happily ignoring that those tribes were slaughtering each other (as did rest of humanity at that period) for that same land long before Europeans showed up. But all their action will end up at that virtue signaling, no real change. Rich universities will gladly do acknowledgments, but god forbid they give the land back and thus in their own eyes correct this injustice, or use their big fat endowments to pay for the land that they are using. Same as our "woke" celebrities who will preach how it is important to protect environment reduce pollution but minute after the speech is over, they will sit in privat jets with no issues.

I feel very sad when I see what has "woke" ideology done to our Universities, sometimes I think that foreign occupation would be more merciful to our higher education than the current "church of woke" that runs majority of our universities.

I slowly start to believe, that we need to abolish tax exemption for universities, and hit those endowments, maybe that would make the to awake from this woke nightmare we are in.

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This case, like many others, is about the Right to Dissent (to hold viewpoints other than that ordained or sanctioned by the Establishment). The right to dissent as Edward R Murrow said back in the 1950s during the height of Mccarthyism is always the first right to go when a nation stumbles down the route to totalitarianism.

Land acknowledgements are not performative politeness/good manners but a statement of a controversial political belief whose ultimate aim is the subversion of the US Constitution. Is stolen land/property protected under the Constitution? Is it right to compel an employee to state a controversial political belief as if it were fact? Or is this an overreach of the free expression clause in the 1st Amendment (the part of the Constitution which protects philosophical beliefs)?

It is excellent that FIRE is fighting back against the erosion of the free expression clause.

In related news: Allison Bailey won her discrimination case against her Chambers in the UK -- her belief that extreme gender ideology as articulated by the charity Stonewall UK harms women and girls is now a 'protected belief' in the UK. It means people can not be discriminated against for holding this belief. It was not up to the court to decide if the belief was right or wrong, merely that it was a sincerely held belief. The Chambers is having to pay out aggravated damages. They had claimed that they were merely following Stonewall's advice.

She lost in her claim against Stonewall -- mainly because Stonewall claimed that their employees were acting a private capacity when they organized a series of complaints against her. In other words, Stonewall had no wish to control the thoughts and actions of its employees even though it counselled other companies to do so.

It shall be interesting to see what happens in the future to the various DEI programmes Stonewall was running.

In short there is protection in the US Constitution under the free expression of religion clause (this is where philosophical beliefs are protected. in 18th century parlance a religion is a series of philosophical beliefs) for contested political beliefs. Universities should stop compelling their employees to utter philosophical beliefs which the employees do not believe in.

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Another day, another story of lefty witch hunting.

Would like to know more about how he was attacked by the right.

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Land acknowledgment is stupid unless the school plans on returning the land. And you know that ain’t happening.

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GregL and J Haidt are leading lights as we go through our own version of the Dark Ages. Thank you FIRE

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It's pretty clear by now that there are two fundamental differences between progressive leftists and normal people, whether conservative or classically liberal.

First, unlike the latter, progressives are constantly up your butt, demanding that you do and say precisely what they demand, even as what they demand changes almost daily (witness the addition of X's etc to almost every definition or witless slogan). The latter are mostly content to go about their lives in a laissez faire manner, as long as one's peculiarities don't impinge upon society or underage children.

Second, progressives are entirely humorless. They are the least mirthful, unhappiest and loathsome creatures on this planet.

In fact, I'm now convinced that the only proper reaction to their incessant and dreary hectoring is a mirthful snort of indifference or a swift punch in the nose.

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I often wonder why administrators and faculty at places like UW do not reassign say 20-30% of their generous salaries to support their noble causes. Much cheaper to just signal virtue?

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Institutions of higher education are, in my mind, voiding their social contract. They should be churning out intelligent, productive citizens. They appear to be instead doing their level best to build militant infants. Most professions do not require a college education to be successful. In some cases, I would argue that all a degree does is increase the degree holder’s debt, with no related way of paying off said debt.

My wife and I are both products of a time when high schools were scrapping vocational programs and preaching that the only way to success and prosperity was through a college education. That philosophy is emphatically and almost laughably false. From the tone of these articles in Common Sense that I keep reading (seems there’s at least one per week), it seems that many colleges have become little more than woke tent revivals. People are slowly beginning to realize what enormous grifters most of these universities have become. All those little militant infants that they’ve released on the world now want the rest of us to pay off their loans as well. Hard-working decent people don’t want to shoulder the financial burden of some woke zealot who got an education in how to hate them. I wouldn’t give them a penny. Forget about just dropping the donations to your alma mater. Wake up. Stop sending your kids there. They’ll probably be better off.

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To say that any Professors in this country are threatened by right leaning administrations is laughable. I can think of only a few right leaning universities in the whole country.

I think the authors sources are likely confusing left wing threat with right wing. For example anything perceived as racist is traditionally considered right wing. Something that may have had some small merit 50 years ago but the vast majority of racist thought today is a result of left wing ideology.

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How different are these 'land acknowledgements' and other 'woke' rules from any other religion? These LA statements sound like prayers to me, not that there's anything wrong with that, but the people uttering them would be appalled by starting a meeting with a prayer.

The America I was raised in prepared us to be independent, thick skinned and strong. Woke seems to say that all of those things are bad, and instead we should guard against the weakest in our society from having their feelings hurt, or be left behind.

The latter is not a formula for a successful society.

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I'd be curious to see how these institutions would respond to calling their bluff by getting a majority of students to demand these colleges sign over the land to the native tribes.

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Thank You, M. Lukianoff. I can't say enough about how much I appreciate FIRE and "The Coddling..." which I'm reading right now. TYTY. (I'll continue to make donations, tho money's a little tight this year.) TY again and again.

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It is important to recognise that many on the Right are more interested in just attacking the Left (which is easily justifiable, to be fair) than actually promoting Free Speech (the Right often just wants to have the Right make the decisions rather than have the Left do it). So I certainly appreciate the "This threat comes from both the left and the right." line from FIRE because although it is the Left that is the CURRENT threat, they don't hold any historical monopoly - the world has a Free Speech problem, and that is not exclusive to the Left as the only culprit.

If you (Mr Lukianoff) have not already done so, I would suggest you get in contact with FSU (the Free Speech Union https://freespeechunion.org/) in the UK for mutual benefit.

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Thank you FIRE. Keep fighting the good fight. It seems like this is what the ACLU once did before they went full woke and lost their way.

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I teach at a high school. I live in a liberal state and so what I (recently) see is the muzzling of students and parents if they don't adhere to the 'progressive' agenda. It's very scary. I find it difficult to have a nuanced debate because most students are afraid and some will not even admit that their parents are Republicans for fear of being 'different' from their peers. I don't know what it's like in more conservative states-- maybe it's the same but reversed. We are doing a disservice to these young people to not encourage real REAL critical thinking. That said, I could be "sent to the principal' if I try to encourage more open dialogue.

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