This is a clear headed and even handed takedown of the illicit tactics of both the Left and Right partisans. This is why I donate monthly to FIRE - you and FIRE are doing important work (that used to be done by the ACLU before they got taken over by the Wokesters). Thank you for this piece!
What line? They can't even take credit card companies to task when they debank people. The trump administration's executive order spares visa and mastercard.
Tech dirt and mike mansnick... Are doing a far better job of calling out the illnesses going on.
Always brilliant to see principled defense of free speech, I think this is some of your best writing Greg, and I've been reading you a long time. I was honestly hopeful that the right's response to the left's excesses when it came to free speech would be to double-down on free speech, but no such luck.
I am curious if your thoughts on the Colbert/Tallarico/CBS thing have changed, given CBS's comments on what happened.
I know you've been on the 'universities have been hostile to conservatives' beat for years. That phrasing is exquisite; virtually irrefutable, because, surely, some universities have been hostile to some conservatives, somewhere. But let me grant it as a general truth even if not universally acknowledged. I'm curious where high profile, influential, conservatives at elite universities factor in your analysis. Like, Adrian Vermeule at Harvard Law. Heck, law schools generally. Heck, Notre Dame (home of Patrick Deneen). Heck, U Chicago economics and poli sci depts, historically. You can find some cons at all the biggies; like the Maidenform lady, they turn up in the darndest places. Notice, in humanities and sociology depts: not so much! But universities aren't just humanities and sociology departments, *thank the gods*.
I don't say this is dispositive of your wider claim. I do wonder how scary it ever really was.
(I can think of one way it could be considered very scary: looking at how many of the creeps of the New Right elite, all the way up to Babyface Vance-ster, attended elite U's -- and wondering how many of these creatures are reactionaries in the grand old Buckley tradition, despite the career trajectories those diplomas undoubtedly turbocharged)
"one of Hedwig’s creators even popped up in the Times’ reader comments on my essay to talk about it" I've looked at the comments but I'm not seeing it. Can you link to?
The most infuriating aspect of this idiotic snafu is that Symposium has nothing to do with transgender ideology. It is a discussion of love and the relationship between physical beauty and spiritual aspiration (I can see it being accused of “lookism”, of course). The story told by Diotima about the original humans cut into two by Zeus is an allegory of love, in which every person is searching for their missing half. Since homoerotic attraction was normal and acceptable in Ancient Greece, the allegory explains why some people are attracted to the opposite sex and some to their own. It is about sexual preference and has nothing to do with gender. Is Texas now objecting to mentioning the fact that some people are gay?
It's amusing to hear you elevate the Left's rhetoric into abstract, impartial analysis and that of the Right into pure, juvenile ad-hominems. This, while for the last 50 years the erudite and superior "party of tolerance" has been calling Republicans "Hitler", "Nazi", Trump himself a "pedophile" and "rapist", and anyone even a micrometer right of center(or let's be honest, what used to be the actual center) "fascist". This in itself (along with anything attributed to the NYT) makes me wonder why I should bother reading this piece.
That aside, the question of whether gender ideology should appear in a class about Greek history or philosophy is valid. My understanding is that the professor was told that this subject was better suited to a gender studies curriculum. That would depend upon the way the subject was presented. Since blue states appear to champion state power over federal in the case of ICE detention and Sanctuary Cities, surely one could understand that a state which has chosen to reject DEI in education has a say in whether transgender ideologies are inserted into every educational presentation possible, much in the same way Netflix does.l ( When they're not portraying 17th Century Empresses as Black. So much for historical accuracy.)
This subtle indoctrination tactic works much the same way your article does: just present your own subversive bias as the enlightened intellectual progress of the Left, while portraying any who disagree as crass, name-calling swine who have the temerity to reject your pearls--even if they are cheap knockoff.
Plato wasn't censored. Neither was any discussion of transgenderism. The point is that they should be taught within the bounds of particular curriculum. The only thing that is limited here is the ability to shoehorn particular political agendas into places they don't belong and a lost chance to shove another unasked-for Progressive doctrine into the curriculum of malleable young minds who assume they are getting an undiluted Classical education.
But as Lukianoff points out in the piece, the gender studies curriculum was shut down at that university, so your suggestion is a moot one. Rather than trying to stop an ideology from being discussed (which is blocking free speech), why couldn't the state instead insist that the counter-arguments are included in context as a condition of getting state funds?
In his piece on DEI, Lukianoff states "As FIRE has argued, there’s a difference between legislative efforts to tamp down on DEI bureaucracy and attempts to limit or prohibit what can be taught or discussed in class. In keeping with our First Amendment principles, we are constantly monitoring legislation across the country to ensure that efforts to rein in campus DEI bureaucracies don't burden academic freedom or free expression."
Because my point is that I don't see what transgenderism has to do with Plato. It's possible that there is a valid reason for this, but more likely it is just another attempt to put yet another agenda where it doesn't belong. The state already has a policy against DEI in curriculum (implying it is a gratuitous inclusion for the sake of ideology rather than historical significance.) If this subject is so important, perhaps another class could be created, but the "gender studies" curriculum, as you say, has been discontinued. There are places that teach such classes if this is of vital importance to a student. There is no obligation for every university to teach every subject, and the choices offered by this particular university reflect the choices of the majority of the population of the state. I am more disturbed by the fact that the vast majority of the faculty of 99% of every university in the US are self-described Democrats or Marxists. No one seems concerned about that in the least, so I think the entire article is moot.
Also, what transgenderism has to do with Plato is called "Myth of the Androgyne" which appears in Plato's "Symposium" - Lukianoff addressed this specifically in the essay so how did you miss it if you actually read it instead of skimmed it?
It's actually 23% of faculty who want other professors to be woke like they are (according to the ERI piece on DEI from 2024), but if the other 77% are either conservative or open to conservative viewpoints being presented, then it's not as dire as you make it sound (which I suppose is how you justify shutting down DEI discussion rather than counter-programming it?)
Studio LEISA, you're missing the point by a mile (complaining about Netflix "portraying 17th Century Empresses as Black. So much for historical accuracy.")
The point is to stop seeing color as definitive. Can't we finally let color-based discrimination just die because (to be historically accurate) our Constitution for about 160 years has emphasized that discrimination "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude" is contrary to our Constitution?
When I left academia to work at USGS, one difference in the new culture struck me right away. Before we could publish anything or give a talk that included our USGS affiliation, we had to get prior approval. It was uncomfortable at first, but it makes sense. As a representative of a government agency, I had an obligation not to undermine the agency, its mission, or my colleagues. The additional level (or two) of scrutiny was annoying at first, but it made sense.
With the budget sequester in 2013, we were all reminded that we could not talk to the press AT ALL unless pre-approved. Ditto for the "shutdown" in 2018. No public discussion allowed (except for those who were certain to follow the approved line). This one struck me harder than the pre-approval for publications. But, again, it did not take me long to understand that as an employee of the US government, I was not free to bite the hand that fed me. Otherwise, I might be cut off.
Should Texas (and its taxpayers) be forced to pay people to teach "gender ideology"?
As Lukianoff stated in the piece, the Supreme Court has carved out universities as a marketplace of ideas" so should have more freedom of speech than a government agency.
This is a clear headed and even handed takedown of the illicit tactics of both the Left and Right partisans. This is why I donate monthly to FIRE - you and FIRE are doing important work (that used to be done by the ACLU before they got taken over by the Wokesters). Thank you for this piece!
Oh not this crap again... the aclu is indeed doing good work. And sometimes the woke actually has a point.
They're suing the trump administration for infringements on speech... in fact, can you even define what woke means?
great work as usual, sir. i am grateful FIRE is holding the line.
What line? They can't even take credit card companies to task when they debank people. The trump administration's executive order spares visa and mastercard.
Tech dirt and mike mansnick... Are doing a far better job of calling out the illnesses going on.
Always brilliant to see principled defense of free speech, I think this is some of your best writing Greg, and I've been reading you a long time. I was honestly hopeful that the right's response to the left's excesses when it came to free speech would be to double-down on free speech, but no such luck.
I am curious if your thoughts on the Colbert/Tallarico/CBS thing have changed, given CBS's comments on what happened.
What do you mean new comfort?
Matt tabby points out a censorship industrial complex, but doesn't criticize trump for the same.
I know you've been on the 'universities have been hostile to conservatives' beat for years. That phrasing is exquisite; virtually irrefutable, because, surely, some universities have been hostile to some conservatives, somewhere. But let me grant it as a general truth even if not universally acknowledged. I'm curious where high profile, influential, conservatives at elite universities factor in your analysis. Like, Adrian Vermeule at Harvard Law. Heck, law schools generally. Heck, Notre Dame (home of Patrick Deneen). Heck, U Chicago economics and poli sci depts, historically. You can find some cons at all the biggies; like the Maidenform lady, they turn up in the darndest places. Notice, in humanities and sociology depts: not so much! But universities aren't just humanities and sociology departments, *thank the gods*.
I don't say this is dispositive of your wider claim. I do wonder how scary it ever really was.
(I can think of one way it could be considered very scary: looking at how many of the creeps of the New Right elite, all the way up to Babyface Vance-ster, attended elite U's -- and wondering how many of these creatures are reactionaries in the grand old Buckley tradition, despite the career trajectories those diplomas undoubtedly turbocharged)
"one of Hedwig’s creators even popped up in the Times’ reader comments on my essay to talk about it" I've looked at the comments but I'm not seeing it. Can you link to?
The most infuriating aspect of this idiotic snafu is that Symposium has nothing to do with transgender ideology. It is a discussion of love and the relationship between physical beauty and spiritual aspiration (I can see it being accused of “lookism”, of course). The story told by Diotima about the original humans cut into two by Zeus is an allegory of love, in which every person is searching for their missing half. Since homoerotic attraction was normal and acceptable in Ancient Greece, the allegory explains why some people are attracted to the opposite sex and some to their own. It is about sexual preference and has nothing to do with gender. Is Texas now objecting to mentioning the fact that some people are gay?
It's amusing to hear you elevate the Left's rhetoric into abstract, impartial analysis and that of the Right into pure, juvenile ad-hominems. This, while for the last 50 years the erudite and superior "party of tolerance" has been calling Republicans "Hitler", "Nazi", Trump himself a "pedophile" and "rapist", and anyone even a micrometer right of center(or let's be honest, what used to be the actual center) "fascist". This in itself (along with anything attributed to the NYT) makes me wonder why I should bother reading this piece.
That aside, the question of whether gender ideology should appear in a class about Greek history or philosophy is valid. My understanding is that the professor was told that this subject was better suited to a gender studies curriculum. That would depend upon the way the subject was presented. Since blue states appear to champion state power over federal in the case of ICE detention and Sanctuary Cities, surely one could understand that a state which has chosen to reject DEI in education has a say in whether transgender ideologies are inserted into every educational presentation possible, much in the same way Netflix does.l ( When they're not portraying 17th Century Empresses as Black. So much for historical accuracy.)
This subtle indoctrination tactic works much the same way your article does: just present your own subversive bias as the enlightened intellectual progress of the Left, while portraying any who disagree as crass, name-calling swine who have the temerity to reject your pearls--even if they are cheap knockoff.
Plato wasn't censored. Neither was any discussion of transgenderism. The point is that they should be taught within the bounds of particular curriculum. The only thing that is limited here is the ability to shoehorn particular political agendas into places they don't belong and a lost chance to shove another unasked-for Progressive doctrine into the curriculum of malleable young minds who assume they are getting an undiluted Classical education.
Hmm. I wondered if I had read a different essay. So, I re-read it. No, I’m pretty sure this is the same essay. Your take is . . . remarkable.
Thanks for your adorable attempt at patronizing snarkiness, Greg. Keep working on it.
But as Lukianoff points out in the piece, the gender studies curriculum was shut down at that university, so your suggestion is a moot one. Rather than trying to stop an ideology from being discussed (which is blocking free speech), why couldn't the state instead insist that the counter-arguments are included in context as a condition of getting state funds?
In his piece on DEI, Lukianoff states "As FIRE has argued, there’s a difference between legislative efforts to tamp down on DEI bureaucracy and attempts to limit or prohibit what can be taught or discussed in class. In keeping with our First Amendment principles, we are constantly monitoring legislation across the country to ensure that efforts to rein in campus DEI bureaucracies don't burden academic freedom or free expression."
Because my point is that I don't see what transgenderism has to do with Plato. It's possible that there is a valid reason for this, but more likely it is just another attempt to put yet another agenda where it doesn't belong. The state already has a policy against DEI in curriculum (implying it is a gratuitous inclusion for the sake of ideology rather than historical significance.) If this subject is so important, perhaps another class could be created, but the "gender studies" curriculum, as you say, has been discontinued. There are places that teach such classes if this is of vital importance to a student. There is no obligation for every university to teach every subject, and the choices offered by this particular university reflect the choices of the majority of the population of the state. I am more disturbed by the fact that the vast majority of the faculty of 99% of every university in the US are self-described Democrats or Marxists. No one seems concerned about that in the least, so I think the entire article is moot.
Also, what transgenderism has to do with Plato is called "Myth of the Androgyne" which appears in Plato's "Symposium" - Lukianoff addressed this specifically in the essay so how did you miss it if you actually read it instead of skimmed it?
It's actually 23% of faculty who want other professors to be woke like they are (according to the ERI piece on DEI from 2024), but if the other 77% are either conservative or open to conservative viewpoints being presented, then it's not as dire as you make it sound (which I suppose is how you justify shutting down DEI discussion rather than counter-programming it?)
Studio LEISA, you're missing the point by a mile (complaining about Netflix "portraying 17th Century Empresses as Black. So much for historical accuracy.")
The point is to stop seeing color as definitive. Can't we finally let color-based discrimination just die because (to be historically accurate) our Constitution for about 160 years has emphasized that discrimination "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude" is contrary to our Constitution?
When I left academia to work at USGS, one difference in the new culture struck me right away. Before we could publish anything or give a talk that included our USGS affiliation, we had to get prior approval. It was uncomfortable at first, but it makes sense. As a representative of a government agency, I had an obligation not to undermine the agency, its mission, or my colleagues. The additional level (or two) of scrutiny was annoying at first, but it made sense.
With the budget sequester in 2013, we were all reminded that we could not talk to the press AT ALL unless pre-approved. Ditto for the "shutdown" in 2018. No public discussion allowed (except for those who were certain to follow the approved line). This one struck me harder than the pre-approval for publications. But, again, it did not take me long to understand that as an employee of the US government, I was not free to bite the hand that fed me. Otherwise, I might be cut off.
Should Texas (and its taxpayers) be forced to pay people to teach "gender ideology"?
I'm not convinced.
As Lukianoff stated in the piece, the Supreme Court has carved out universities as a marketplace of ideas" so should have more freedom of speech than a government agency.
Really? I didn't recall that, so I read it again. Nope. Still didn't see anything like that.