The University of California at Berkeley has been ground zero for some of our most heated fights over free speech. Conservative speakers have been blocked or cancelled. A Berkeley physicist resigned after faculty and students opposed a presentation by a UChicago physicist due to his questioning the impact of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs. Faculty and students denounced a history professor who anonymously called for greater academic freedom protections. Now, conservatives are objecting after the discovery of a speech by Berkeley Professor Zeus Leonardo in which he discussed the need “to abolish whiteness.” As will come as little surprise to regulars on the blog, I oppose calls for Leonardo to be fired and believe that this is protected under principles of free speech and academic freedom. Yet, it is the response of the Berkeley faculty and students that is most notable.
Professor Leonardo teaches at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education. The 42-second clip is part of a talk given by Leonardo at the Centre for Culture, Identity and Education at the University of British Columbia in September 2007 and titled “Teaching Whiteness in a Multicultural Context and Color-blind Era.” It has been featured on sites like The College Fix. In the video, Leonardo declared:
“That’s why I am coming up with this recent understanding that to abolish whiteness is to abolish white people. That’s very uncomfortable perhaps, but it asks about our definitions of what race is and what racial justice might mean.”
Conservative sites have previously criticized Leonardo for inflammatory statements, including a guest lecture at George Washington University where I teach. At GWU, Leonardo argued that children are born “human” and then are “bullied” into becoming white: “They were born human. Little by little, they have to be abused into becoming white humans. This abuse is sometimes physical … such as being bullied into whiteness. But also it’s psychological and cultural.”
It seems clear that if a professor made such statements about minorities, there would be an immediate suspension and then termination at schools like Berkeley. However, these controversies have been largely met by silence from the same faculty and students, who campaigned to cancel or fire other academics.
For free speech advocates, the solution is simple. It is all free speech.
I have defended faculty who have made similarly disturbing comments “detonating white people,” denouncing police, calling for Republicans to suffer, strangling police officers, celebrating the death of conservatives, calling for the killing of Trump supporters, supporting the murder of conservative protesters and other outrageous statements. I also defended the free speech rights of University of Rhode Island professor Erik Loomis, who defended the murder of a conservative protester and said that he saw “nothing wrong” with such acts of violence.
Even when faculty engage in hateful acts on campus, however, there is a notable difference in how universities respond depending on the viewpoint. At the University of California campus, professors actually rallied around a professor who physically assaulted pro-life advocates and tore down their display. In the meantime, academics and deans have said that there is no free speech protection for offensive or “disingenuous” speech. CUNY Law Dean Mary Lu Bilek showed how far this trend has gone. When conservative law professor Josh Blackman was stopped from speaking about “the importance of free speech,” Bilek insisted that disrupting the speech on free speech was free speech. (Bilek later cancelled herself and resigned after she made a single analogy to acting like a “slaveholder” as a self-criticism for failing to achieve equity and reparations for black faculty and students). We also previously discussed the case of Fresno State University Public Health Professor Dr. Gregory Thatcher who recruited students to destroy pro-life messages written on the sidewalks and wrongly told the pro-life students that they had no free speech rights in the matter.
When these controversies arose, faculty rallied behind the free speech rights of the professors. That support was far more muted or absent when conservative faculty have found themselves at the center of controversies. The recent suspension of Ilya Shapiro is a good example. Other faculty have had to go to court to defend their free speech rights.
Another example was the campaign to force a criminology professor named Mike Adams off the faculty of the University of North Carolina (Wilmington). Adams was a conservative faculty member with controversial writings who had to go to court to stop prior efforts to remove him. He then tweeted a condemnation of North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper for his pandemic rules, tweeting that he had dined with six men at a six-seat table and “felt like a free man who was not living in the slave state of North Carolina” before adding: “Massa Cooper, let my people go.” It was a stupid and offensive tweet. However, we have seen extreme comments on the left — including calls to gas or kill or torture conservatives — be tolerated or even celebrated at universities.
Celebrities, faculty and students demanded that Adams be fired. After weeks of public pummeling, Adams relented and took a settlement to resign. He then killed himself a few days before his final day as a professor.
The problem is that free speech is under attack from the left with the support of many liberal faculty members and administrators. There is a new orthodoxy that has taken hold at our schools. It is now common to openly engage in content discrimination and for students, including writers at Berkeley, to call for “violent resistance” and speech controls.
The Leonardo controversy highlights the bias shown by universities like Berkeley in responding to controversial speech. The tolerance shown to Leonardo’s exercise of free speech is in striking contrast to the intolerance shown to academics espousing opposing views on race or other issues.
Here is the entire video:
The Toxic Avenger was a good guy, despite being so toxic.
Just because Tucker Carlson might have some nice possessions does not mean his position on issues is right.
What if a professor insisted on teaching his students that the Earth is truly flat?
His dismissal would be a stupidity issue rather than a free speech issue.
I wouldn’t ban him for saying it, but I wouldn’t pay him for it either.
Same here.
By the way, it says a lot about the obvious decay of public education that this loon teaches in the graduate school of education.
Berkley is teaching racism and some of those taking such courses later teach our children how to be racists while being PC.
Free speech is one thing, but the issue is not free speech rather indoctrination. Indoctrination should not be tolerated though the discussion could occur if free debate existed. Free debate is not permitted by the left nor permitted by most universities when this type of subject matter is involved.
These ideas only survive in a closed academic environment.
S. Meyer: “These ideas only survive in a closed academic environment.”
+++
God grant that these hermetically sealed academic environments run out of air soon and have to open the doors and windows.
They are anaerobic academic institutions.
Well that’s a thought.
But those microbes still thrive on money. Feed them less.
When I think of the hot air from Berkley-type academia, I think of gas gangrene and its foul-smelling gas. One needs to cut out the cause immediately, or both will spread, eventually killing the host.
S. Meyer, “ Berkley is teaching racism and some of those taking such courses later teach our children how to be racists while being PC.”
No they are not. You’re just too uneducated to really comprehend what you’re reading. It’s truly sad how bad your attempt at comprehension is. You should stick to watching game shows and cartoons. They are much more appropriate for your level of comprehension
I note you weren’t smart enough to make your case. Instead, you relied on insult. I’ve written enough about CRT and everything that comes with it that you should have been able to choose at least one item to prove your case, but you have nothing. You shoot blank bullets.
Once again, this proves that a statement like Leonardo’s is so outlandish, insane and illogical that it could only survive in an Academic institution.
My suggestion is that those who adhere to Leonardo’s suggestion emmigrate pronto to the various and sundry nations on this globe that have no whiteness. Problem solved for all of us – win-win.
Putin isn’t exactly tying his own hands not to escalate the situation.
It requires an escalation on one side to prevent an escalation on the other side.
“It requires an escalation . . .”
Listen to some Wagner. Maybe that will sate your militaristic urges.
If you are all white then stand out in the sun for 5 hours and you will be red or tan. If you turn red then you are American Indian. If tan you are black like me. Or tan like Obama.
This same kind of wokism has infected the Biden administration, which is why they aren’t doing more to help the crackers of Ukraine.
It’s interesting how people like Zeus who present these mumbo jumbo theories never debate them with say a guy like Thomas Sowell. In order to blindly accept their views you would have to have your head up your assets and be able to whistle Tchaikovsky 5th through your navel.
Why is it in America’s interest to see a large piece of Western civilization getting destroyed without doing much to stop it?
Why do you ask a loaded question?
What do you think makes the question loaded? Perhaps it is your emotional attachment to leftism and fascism.
That’s obvious, because the progressive left would love to see all of Western civilization destroyed.
These child-like educators seem to be intent on testing the limits of constitutional protections under the First Amendment. OK. They can do that. It’s unfortunate, however, that they are in a position to influence the minds of those who may not have sufficiently developed their critical thinking skills, and may not be able to recognize the absurdity of the rants. Add to that the cost of higher education and you have a lose-lose proposition. Moreover, the inclusion of the word “equity” in the mantra (DEI) is intellectually dishonest. Equality of opportunity is one thing, but equality of outcome is another thing altogether. It’s time to re-read Emerson on Self-Reliance.
These otherwise unemployable academics and race hustlers have never seen the working end of a broom or shovel.
Government funded Berkely remains one of the homes of racism students infected by staff.
All of the anti speech at universities is understandable.
Those professors don’t have the facts on their side. The professors, don’t have the IQ, knowledge, education, training, experience, etc, to support their intellectual position. To challenge them is to have them roll up in the fetal position furiously sucking their thumb. Intellectual infants in their full glory.
They have spent their entire lives in a bubble of leftist thought. No conversation, never a challenge, no new ideas or perspectives. Just the carefully curated, leftist dogma.
I don’t want this guy silenced. All of his ideas should be broadly distributed. I want the world to know how he thinks. Parents need to know this is a prefect example of the people educating their children thee send to these institutions of “higher education”. And yes all the professors are all the same. They all drink from the same source of leftist, ideology, and silence all that might bring a new thought, or different perspective. NEW ideas are not allowed. ONLY approved dogma is allowed to be uttered by any person.
Yes please. Shine the light on all that is College content today.
“They have spent their entire lives in a bubble”
Perhaps, in general, academics are risk-averse and don’t want to face the challenges of a business career where failure means a loss of a business or job rather than being elevated to a higher position.
You are on a roll today, S. Meyer! You rock!
Thank you Catherine for making me smile.
At a time when the brave men and women of Ukraine are dying in their fight to survive as a people and a nation against a nuclear tyrant, it is sickening to read of a silly little man like Zeus Leonardo “fighting” an imaginary boogie man like “whiteness” and being paid for it by what used to be a prestigious university. The harshest punishment is to ignore him and turn our prayers and attention to people who need and deserve them.
Great perspective, Honest Lawyer!
The conservative side of the equation should promote, publicize, and carpet bomb the literary universe with these messages. Exposing this poison for all to see is the only way to reduce them to the frauds that they are.
The question is how whiteness should be abolished? Should every child be injected with skin altering pigment?
I’m tired of reading about anti-white racists now just as I was tired of reading about anti-black racists in the 60s. They’re despicable people. They’re not worth worth thinking about. If an institution tolerates them, it’s despicable, too. Not really much more to be said.
Avoid the toxic, embrace the good and pity those who can’t tell the difference.
Zeus is an academic fraud IMO and universities are replete with hypocrites likewise masquerading as intellectuals. They can say what they want, but the real danger to the Republic is the hate that they push on their students. Reasonable minds can differ, but holy cow, this stuff is insane.
Ready now to read the whataboutisms
The first amendment is critical to a free nation. The only way to combat these hateful lunatics is to turn away, ignore them, and isolate them. Instead we expand their messages, promote and praise their thinking, and shower our young with their insanity. We must be clear — this is a full frontal attempt to destroy our country from within by Marxist.
DSNC:
Of course it is but it’s doomed to fail. People won’t easily give up their freedom to the insane. See midterm election polling.