26 Comments

You all are a little late to the party on this one. This has been going on at UIC for at least 3 years, since they instituted their "bias reporting tool." One time administration asked me to use this tool on a student, but I told them I was a cognitive scientist, and that being biased at information-processing was the basis of our field. I told them it would be like reporting someone for breathing. They never followed up.

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FIRE has been warning about bias reporting systems for years: https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/bias-response-team-report-2017

And unfortunately, like many problems which started on campus, these “bias reporting” or “hate incident” hotlines are trickling out of higher ed and increasingly being implemented by city and state governments as well.

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Functionally, “bias reporting” serves as a PR mechanism. Administration can appease students wanting to punish disfavored speech, and then tie the complaints up in an opaque process so faculty don’t get mad. They solve no problems but reduce complaining. It’s a consultant’s dream.

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I’ve been sounding the alarm on BRTs since they were first introduced around 2003. Everyone else is now catching up to what I’ve been on about for my 24 year career.

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I hope you got a couple more years in ya, but you'll have a bigger team this time.

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The etymology of the word "bias" simply means an oblique line. In weaving and sewing, it refers to cutting at an angle. We all have biases as humans because we are not omniscient creatures. To have a particular point of view is to be human.

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Remember when, oh, fifteen years ago maybe, when some of said trigger warnings would lead to all of this? And we were told that we were crazy and parnoid? Yeah. I remember.

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Sep 27Liked by Greg Lukianoff

Perhaps some of these students should read your book!

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Sep 26Liked by Greg Lukianoff

50 years ago, I graduated at the top of my Law School class at a T-5 school. Had 4 years of successful practice before deciding to go into teaching. Spend 45 years as a Tenured Full Professor with a national reputation in my knitch. I never suffered fools well.

Today, I would not be hired, promoted, tenured, nor revered.

My wealth would be 10x greater but my University's law graduates would be less prepared for a world in which their equals are well paid to destroy them every day.

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Students reporting their professors would not be an issue if the administration simply told them to go fuck themselves or just grow up. They can tell the complaining students that this is not an authoritarian institution and will never be one, and if that is what they want, then they should drop out and register at a different school. But that will not happen because the problem is really with the institutions, not the students. I do not mean, of course, that the students are correct in their eagerness to correct wrongthink, but that the real locus of the problem is with the administrators (including especially the college president and the board of trustees, who are responsible for policy), even more so than with the professors -- or the students (who after all, are like sheep running eagerly towards the slaughter -- of their minds).

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I agree with you, but it is not only the administration that is to blame. Students should not be such snowflakes , and should also be more willing to think critically. The gender cult in particular is so fake on the facts about the two sexes, that anyone who believes their lies is just not thinking.

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I grew up in Nazi Germany…well it was the Free City of Danzig, but it had been taken over by the Nazis in 1933. One of the ways the Nazis used to control people was to rat on them …children on parents and probably also students on teachers.

It is very telling that students now report professors if those say “offensive” things in class …. like “ there are only two sexes “! As a former biology teacher , I would hate to be teaching biology nowadays !

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If a “ Bias response team “ exists, it will find bias, even create it it from rumors and gossip if necessary. Otherwise, why do they have a job? Show me the man and I will show you the crime as attributed to Beria. The mechanism becomes a tool to be used against individuals on campus for any number of reasons, even just plain meanness. Anonymous complaints are a key component since a career can be derailed by unknown accusers for unknown purposes.

I suppose denunciation to the on campus “Red Guard “ is now just a part of college life. Sigh.

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Time to start a catchy phrase like Ivy League that shows a university that abides by free speech and critical thinking principles as opposed to an ideology factory.

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As opposed to what we have now - - the Poison Ivy League.

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The man behind Yuri Bezmenov's Substack uses the term DEIvy league.

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I wonder how many of the speech police complained about the real police being called to stop students’ pro-Hamas riots.

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The “instagramming” of higher education.

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Interesting survey data, but totally unsurprising. We already knew this.

This is the world that "liberals" and leftists have created. They made the bed we are lying in.

When conservatives use these tools, it's because they have to. This is the world that leftists created. Conservatives just live in that leftist world.

Please do not try to "both sides" this problem. This problem came from one side.

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I'm of the opinion that, if teachers can punish students for disagreeing with them (they do, they give you worse grades), then students should have the same right (if supported by evidence).

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The truth is an offense but not a sin

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This is a disturbing trend that has been going on for awhile.

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So, you need to define "offensive" and you need to give more context.

On the surface, this seems fair and reasonable: "... more than half (52%) of faculty were worried about losing their jobs or reputation because of someone misunderstanding them, taking their words out of context, or posting something from their past online." But see, you may want to give examples of the types of posts the survey alludes to; a post that says "All women who won't put out should be burned at the stake" is not the same as "Here's my nephew & me playing Fortnite."

Btw: "Emory University professor Carole Anderson was added to a 'watchlist' for arguing that the purpose of the Second Amendment was to empower militias to keep black Americans 'under the boot' of white supremacy." So, in your opinion, the reasonable course of action for this is... ?

Please also remind your readers about the book "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" (published 1903) -- a fabricated document that spread hate and was used by Nazis as a justification to persecute Jews, and which ultimately led to the Holocaust. Irresponsible speech has consequences and can lead to the shackling of freedom. Speech without responsibility leads to oppression, NOT freedom.

I'm sure you're wise enough to teach your children that it's not cool to call people names like "Fugly Small D1ck Hairy Bowling Ball Head R3tard" while encouraging other bully kids to chant these labels and incite them to torture and then burn this human being who did no one harm.

"Freedom of speech." Tsk. Don't use that as propaganda to normalize the spread of hate and hateful behavior.

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There’s a simple remedy - every single professor at an institution start out the school year (or each class) by making the same apparently biased statements so that students understand that people are allowed to speak freely.

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