“I mean, if you’re a white person who says they’re engaged in dismantling white supremacy, but + you’re forming a white family + reproducing white children that ‘you want the best for’ – how is that helping + not part of the problem?”

It appears however that dumping your white spouse for a non-white spouse is equally problematic:

if you’re white + forming a family w/ multiracial children + not dealing w/ your own racism or systemic white supremacy, how’s that helping?

That would seem to leave the instructions that, if you really oppose white supremacy as a white person, you need to avoid any procreation. It is clear that Daniels is not a fan of families, railing in one tweet that the NBC hit drama “This Is Us” as showing “how f-cking sacred the family is.”

I fully support the protections of free speech and academic freedom for Professor Daniels.  While I strongly oppose her views (and frankly find her work simplistic and sensational), these are provocative theories that are part of a diverse discussion over the role of race in our society.  However, once again, it is not hard to imagine what would happen to an academic saying such things about the need to deter African-American or hispanic families – or the value of reducing minority procreation or families.

Ironically, I am more concerned about Daniels’ statements that she used progressive stacking in classes, which actively seek to minimize the participation of white male students based on their race and gender.  Daniels’ simply dismisses the obvious discrimination by rejecting its premise that we is favoring women above men: “That gets it the wrong way around. This is a way of dealing with discrimination that we as professors can introduce into the classroom. It’s a good strategy, if you can do it.”

Indeed, she expresses her avoidance of calling on white males as dealing with her own bias in favor of males:

“If I have a class of 40 students, since Hunter is predominantly young women, I may have four or five young men in class. There’s still implicit bias, where we value men’s voices more than women’s voices, or men’s voices are deeper and carry more in a class. So I’m always trying to overcome my own bias to pick on men in class more than the women.”

My chief concern, which I have expressed repeatedly over the years, is the double standard applied by universities over such statements and practices.  It is difficult to discern an objective standard in these cases while universities continue to engage in content-based speech regulation.  Hunter College has made no statement about Daniels’ use of progressive stacking or her comments about white people. In the meantime, various schools have held meetings and investigated the appearance of signs that say “It’s Ok To Be White” on some campuses this week.

As we have previously discussed (including the recent controversies involving an Oregon professor and a Drexel professor), there remains an uncertain line in what language is protected for teachers in their private lives. The incident also raises what some faculty have complained is a double or at least uncertain standard. We have previously discussed controversies at the University of California and Boston University, where there have been criticism of a double standard, even in the face of criminal conduct. There were also such incident at the University of London involving Bahar Mustafa as well as one involving a University of Pennsylvania professor.  As a free speech advocate, I would like to see speech protected across the board for faculty and students alike.  That is why I support the courageous stand of the University of Chicago and a few other schools on free speech and academic freedom.

As for Daniels’ rather unhinged view of white families as little engines of white supremacy, I can only say that such a view is not just grossly unfair but decidedly uninformed.  I am not sure if this is part of her academic work in either the sociology or the Africana department, but it seems to substitute stereotypes and generalities for serious intellectual analysis.

What is disturbing is that Daniels rails against implied racism and insensitivity while showing little empathy or sensitivity herself.  For example, she is quoted in denouncing controversial conservative speakers like Milo Yiannpoulus on campuses and saying “That kind of viciousness is characteristic of the alt-right movement. It’s a kind of sadism where the more someone suffers the more they get off on it. It’s a really disturbing cultural moment that we’re living in.”

That “disturbing cultural moment” would seem to extend to Daniels’ own insulting and stigmatizing tweets.