556 Comments
Jul 7, 2022·edited Jul 7, 2022

Believe me, nobody here in Colombia or from any country in Latin America prefer the artificial term "Latinx". If you use that word here you will get reactions that go from derision to plain mockery. That ridiculous word it's the creation of some woke Americans of Latino ancestry, who want to claim their identity based on stereotypes and false assumptions about "Latino" cultures, as if all Spanish-speaking countries were a monolith.

In conclusion, many feel here this is just a thing that woke "gringos" with a Hispanic surname (and uppity white ones, of course) care about, and who want to know more than the supposed cultures they're supposedly proud of. I cannot think of anything more condescending.

On the other hand, I always read these stories of college humiliations with a bad feeling. These people are so blinded and brainwashed that it's almost parodical. How could you be so eager to destroy other person's life?

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I am one of the 99% who doesn't speak up publicly or professionally. I talk about it with friends and family, specifically the "woke" ones, but I won't, for example, share an article like this on Facebook or speak up when a colleague casually mentions the prevalence of white supremacy in America. I work in an entirely different field but one only marginally less woke than higher education. I'm 34 and my career is just starting to have something resembling momentum. I think the ongoing revolution at American universities is the single most important threat to our country, including China, but I'm not going to be another white male easily dismissed for wrong think. I just can't do it.

Thank you for writing this, Prof. Manson.

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In the kingdom of the blind, a one-eyed man can get pretty lonely.

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I get my blood boiling when reading articles like this. Our higher education has been hijacked by woke inquisition that does nothing but purity tests and prosecuting people for any hint of disagreement or free thought.

We are now slowly reaching the point, where normal people are force either to censored themselves or resign or in case of speaking up having their livelihoods taken away and for ever be branded racists, fascists, nazis or what ever.

Hopefully we are also reaching the point, where this woke left is slowly staring to eat its own (as any revolution does). Evermore liberal, progressive elites on the costs are being attacked for not being radical enough or daring to question any tenets of woke religion.

What ever the outcome in the future, sadly woke ideology will follow us for couple next years. Lets hope that with increasing religious zeal of woke mob, evermore people start to wake up from this woke nightmare we are currently in.

This will probably end like Lysenkoism (pseudoscience) in Soviet union, which affected biology departments of USSR. Basic ideology of Lysenkoism is very similar to todays woke ideology in USA, that both had support of politics, both denied basics biology and both we not based on facts but on made up examples. I recomend everyone reading up on Lysenkoism and be shocked by similarities to current issues on our Universities. Well its not surprising, because both ideologies come from same left leaning "kitchen".

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"As you won’t be surprised to hear, Jeff is not a racist, but a standard-issue liberal Democrat."

Please stop insinuating all racists are, you know, Republicans. I'm sure the woman who wore a gorilla mask to throw an egg at Larry Elder considered herself a standard-issue liberal Democrat. There is racism (and anti-Semitism) within both parties, but the Democratic party actively and publicly weaponizes racism and anti-Semitism to achieve its goals against any target (white, black, Jewish, Asian) who isn't 100 percent committed to their poisonous program.

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I am a UCLA graduate and majored in Anthropology (1979) so this article grabbed my attention right away. UCLA will no longer have my financial support. I am grateful my own children are grown and graduated from college already before all the woke stuff started full throttle.

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Jul 7, 2022·edited Jul 7, 2022

Perhaps when the Republicans take over the house they can hold hearings on the state of free speech on college campuses. My dream would be that they tie federal support of colleges to campus free speech. There are metrics published by FIRE ( https://www.thefire.org/largest-ever-free-speech-survey-of-college-students-ranks-top-campuses-for-expression/ ) that have been tracking this for years, that could be used to incentivize colleges to change their policies to promote free speech.

In hospitals, Medicare requires certain clinical performance metrics be met in order to get Medicare reimbursement, and since Medicare is 40-60% of a hospitals income, it's taken very seriously, and drives change. If you look at the FIRE metrics, the best colleges still have very low free speech metrics. Requiring them to meet certain levels in order to realize their federal funding could drive significant changes on the campus.

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“The principal driver of the doublethink in my department and so many others at UCLA is fear of the woke faction. “

This only happens because the university leaders are cowards.

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I have a graduate degree from UCLA and lost much faith in the place when the campus Ministry of Truth cast out Keith Fink, whose case is mentioned here. Guy was right-wing, yes, but his First Amendment course was very popular on campus, not least because he didn't tell students what to think (rare at UCLA now, sadly) and was respectful of all views. Contemporaneous discussions of the matter have been scrubbed from Daily Bruin archives and even stupid Wikipedia.

In a country where two-thirds of young adults can't name the country from which the founders declared their independence and where high schools no longer have civics classes, a First Amendment course is a fine way to begin to understand the Bill of Rights. That such cannot be tolerated at a major public university should concern us all.

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Jul 7, 2022·edited Jul 7, 2022

Good luck to you Professor Manson. I wish nothing but the best for you and your future. This postmodern/woke ideology snuck up on most everyone else, including me, seemingly overnight. I was fired from my position for a series of comments I posted on my personal FB page.

My comments were impolite, passionate, and were widely tolerated, except one woman, who just so happened to be a colleague of mine. She decided to take a screen shot of my comments to present to our employer's HR team director.

The snowflake claimed she felt threatened by my comments, which weren't directed at her, nor any one else in particular - the outcome: I was fired immediately.

My sense is this extreme and intolerant overreaction came directly from the director of the HR team, who previously worked for ultra-woke Ellen DeGeneres in hyper-woke LA. before becoming the so-called "Chief People Person" at my former company.

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“Jeff wasn’t racist… he was a democrat.” Those things are not mutually exclusive.

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When I read these stories I first get angry, then try to visualize how I’d respond if this were happening to me.

The color of my skin, though, would be an important dynamic, but I suspect with me these folks would try the “sellout” and “coon” route.

What I’d pray for is the courage to fight back, go on the principled, honorable offensive, yet take and name names.

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So brave. Not.

When the leopard comes, and is eating your colleagues face, you shoot the damned leopard. You don't flee.

A tenured professor chose the easy way out.

The only way this turns is if enough people choose the hard way.

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A lot of people left Germany in the thirties and they were derided by many of their countrymen as foolish and over-sensitive. One of those people was an eccentric professor named Albert Einstein. I have never heard or read anywhere that anyone called him foolish or stupid.

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founding

At some point, we need to abandon the anodyne term "woke" and replace it with the far more accurate term - Marxism. What is occurring today is no different than Russia in 1917, China in 1949, Cuba in 1959, and Venezuela in 1997 - condemn/rewrite history, set the population against itself, attack/censor free speech, condemn meritocracy and replace it with allegiance to "equality of outcome." The end state of this process is the always the same (see the 4 once-prosperous countries listed above). Words matter and until we collectively start describing what's happening in America accurately, we should not expect different results.

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Tenured, leaving and retiring? Why dont you stay on and make them try to fire you. It will cover your monthly nut while you more publicly expose the racist scumbags who run that s..hole department.

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