There is a controversy raging at the University of Cambridge after English professor Priyamvada Gopal posted a June 23rd tweet that “White Lives Don’t Matter.” Thousands signed a petition to have Gopal fired but the university has correctly stood by her free speech rights. The question should not be whether Gopal is fired, but the virtual certainty that she would have been fired in many universities if she made the same comment about other races. As a blog focusing on free speech, we have repeatedly discussed the investigation and termination of professors for controversial statements on social media. The greatest concern is the lack of any consistent or coherent protection of free speech in universities. Free speech dies with doubt as to what will be the subject of toleration and what will be the subject of termination. That is why bright line rules are maintained by courts in this field that specifically bar content-based viewpoint discrimination from the government.
After the initial outcry, Gopal reportedly tweeted “I’ll say it again. White Lives Don’t Matter. As white lives.” Twitter however took down the tweet.
While the petition garnered more than 20,000 signatures on Change.org, it was deleted for bullying and harassment. A Change.org spokesman said that the petition was a form of “bullying” because it singled out Gopal. However, given petitions still online against professors for criticizing Black Lives Matter, Change.org has been accused of its own content-based viewpoint discrimination.
Cambridge defended Gopal and even denounced the students’ efforts to have her removed from her position: “The University defends the right of its academics to express their own lawful opinions which others might find controversial and deplores in the strongest terms abuse and personal attacks. These attacks are totally unacceptable and must cease.”
As should come as no surprise, I agree wholeheartedly with the university’s position. The problem is that such protective positions seem to be based on the content of the viewpoint, much like the standard applied by Change.org.
As we have previously discussed (with an Oregon professor and a Rutgers professor), there remains an uncertain line in what language is protected for teachers in their private lives. There were also controversies at the University of California and Boston University, where there have been criticism of such a double standard, even in the face of criminal conduct. There was also such an incident at the University of London involving Bahar Mustafa as well as one involving a University of Pennsylvania professor. Some intolerant statements against students are deemed free speech while others are deemed hate speech or the basis for university action. There is a lack of consistency or uniformity in these actions which turn on the specific groups left aggrieved by out-of-school comments. There is also a tolerance of faculty and students tearing down fliers and stopping the speech of conservatives. Indeed, even faculty who assaulted pro-life advocates was supported by faculty and lionized for her activism.
Most recently, we have been writing about efforts to fire professors who have criticized the “Defund the Police” campaign or the Black Lives Matter movement. Some of these controversies were fueled by petitions on Change.org. Moreover, universities are now regularly denouncing academics or putting them under investigation after criticizing the Black Lives Matter movement or aspects of the the recent protests. Faculty members are even being told by their colleagues that they will be attacked for “racism masquerading as informed commentary.” These campaigns have worked. Most faculty no longer expect any support from their universities if they are accused of such insensitivity. Indeed, in thirty years of teaching, I have never seen this level of intimidation of faculty in terms of what they say on social media or even in their classrooms. The almost universal silence of other faculty to support their colleagues has turned this chilling effect into a perfectly glacial condition for free speech and academic freedom.
The Cambridge controversy captures the problem. It is doubtful that Change.org would have taken down the petition or Cambridge would have chastised the students if Gopal’s message were reversed. However, just as faculty feel that they cannot criticize aspects of this movement or the protests, other faculty like Gopal know that they will be entirely protected. That sense of free speech should be universal among all faculty. It is not.
Thus, I am gladdened by the protection afforded to Gopal but, if this is a true free speech moment, the controversy should highlight the need for consistent protections of such rights for faculty engaging in our national debate for racism and reforms.
I submitted the following to the local newspaper in Cambridge:
‘Sir,
Like so many across the country, I was incensed by the shocking and apparently racist comment, ‘White lives don’t matter’, less perhaps that it was made by a Marxist, feminist academic, Priyamvada Gopal, at Cambridge university.
Reading further, it appears her reasoning behind the comment, was to convey the notion that nobody’s life matters because of the colour of their skin…lives simply matter. There is unquestionably sound logic in professor Gopal’s comments, leaving only the need for an explanation as to why she applied it exclusively to white lives, and not to black lives? Without an equally logical explanation, I think it is not unreasonable for obvious conclusions to be drawn. The point being of course, that all of the conversation, animus, hate, lies, violence, and protests around the issue of race was kicked off by the racist, Marxist group calling itself ‘black lives matter’. There is no opposing, organized group calling itself ‘white lives matter’, only white, British people just like me, who reject the attempts by Marxists and racists to divide us by identity politics, whether gender, sexual preference, or race.
So come on professor Gopal, dare you employ the same logic by declaring publicly, that black lives don’t matter?’
The other important aspect of this of course, is that had she been a white, male (or female) professor making those exact same comments about blacks, or even had she done so herself, would Cambridge university have stood so resolutely behind her? We all know the answer to that one!
Brook Benton matters
Meanwhile, black lives do not seem to matter much to other black people. Two separate shootings of black mothers of eight. One was 34 years old and was also a grandmother:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnplwYQJ1og
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjWdCF3kY3M
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
The guy in the semi truck that ran over a BLM protester turned out to be black.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8494227/PICTURED-Black-man-27-knocked-killed-Black-Lives-Matter-protester.html
Another reason why Cambridge, Gopal and change.org get away with blatant double-standards is that the Main Stream Press pretty much ignores them. There will not be tons of stories on CNN, MSNBC, NPR, WAPO or the others about this, and Steven Colbert will not be making sarcastic statements. But, they will beat the fake Russian Bounty story to death.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
“White Lives Don’t Matter”: Cambridge Defends Professor After Inflammatory Tweets
– Professor Turley
_______________
Abraham Lincoln would like to say a few words on the topic including its ultimate definitive and conclusive resolution.
Abe, OK, Abe, go ahead.
Ahem!
“To his dying day, it appears, Lincoln did not believe that harmony between White and Black was feasible, and viewed resettlement of the Blacks as the preferable alternative to race conflict. ” … Although Lincoln believed in the destruction of slavery,” concludes Black historian Charles Wesley (in an article in The Journal of Negro History), “he desired the complete separation of the whites and blacks. Throughout his political career, Lincoln persisted in believing in the colonization of the Negro.”108
“Frederick Douglass, a gifted African American writer and activist who knew Lincoln, characterized him in a speech delivered in 1876:109
‘In his interest, in his association, in his habits of thought, and in his prejudices, he was a white man. He was preeminently the white man’s President, entirely devoted to the welfare of the white man. He was ready and willing at any time during the first years of his administration to deny, postpone, and sacrifice the rights of humanity in the colored people, to promote the welfare of the white people of this country.’
“Allan Nevins, one of this century’s most prolific and acclaimed historians of US history, summed up Lincoln’s view of the complex issue of race, and his vision of America’s future:110
‘His conception ran beyond the mere liberation of four million colored folk; it implied a far-reaching alteration of American society, industry, and government. A gradual planned emancipation, a concomitant transportation of hundreds of thousands and perhaps even millions of people overseas, a careful governmental nursing of the new colonies, and a payment of unprecedented sums to the section thus deprived of its old labor supply — this scheme carried unprecedented implications.'”
– Robert Morgan
NB, faculty are hopelessly other-directed, as a rule, and don’t do things that get them shunned. What this indicates is that her sentiment is perfectly acceptable at Cambridge, which is to say that its culture is corrupt. The plain truth is that the professoriate is s collecting pool of the worst people in America (or, at least the worst people who aren’t working in school administration, law, and the media).
And the worst people in Britain as well.