Anthropology professor Joseph Manson announced his retirement this month with a broadside blog post that detailed the loss of academic freedom and integrity at UCLA. Manson describes many of the things that I have previously addressed as standard measures used to force out dissenting or conservative voices, including the isolation and investigation of colleagues to get them to resign. He is now among that lengthening list of such faculty who have decided to cut their academic careers short rather than work under such intolerable conditions.
Manson was a tenured professor in the UCLA Anthropology Department, who described in detail how the school made life insufferable for those who raise dissenting voices in research on subjects like racial justice or crime patterns. He wrote “I’m a professor, retiring at 62 because the Woke takeover of higher education has ruined academic life. ‘Another one?’ you ask. “What does this guy have to say that hasn’t already been said by Jordan Peterson, Peter Boghossian, Joshua Katz, or Bo Winegard?”
Manson described how the anthropology department was a healthy and diverse intellectual environmental until the 2000s when things began to change dramatically. It is the same time period identified by others when a critical mass seemed to form on many faculties of professors who began to almost exclusively hire liberal colleagues and shun those with opposing views.
Among the examples of the intolerance on campus, Manson gave a detailed account of the “defenestration of a colleague,” P. Jeffrey Brantingham. His colleague created software to predict urban crime through simulation models. The research was immediately denounced as being racist and anti-Black.
“In Spring 2018, the department’s Anthropology Graduate Students Association passed a resolution accusing Jeff’s research of (among other counter-revolutionary sins) ‘entrench[ing] and naturaliz[ing] the criminalization of Blackness in the United States’ and calling for ‘referring’ his research to UCLA’s Vice Chancellor for Research, presumably for some sort of investigation. This document contains no trace of scholarly argument, but instead resembles a religious proclamation of anathema.”
What caught my eye was Manson’s description of the shunning by his colleagues:
“Not only was Jeff ostracized, he was unpersoned. None of the faculty talked about him, if they could possibly avoid it. Meanwhile, our department chair opened most faculty meetings by solemnly intoning that our department was a community, a family, and that ‘we’re here for each other.’ In private conversations, I was able to elicit from some of my colleagues an embarrassed acknowledgment that the Woke faction had treated Jeff abominably, and that we strongly resembled a dysfunctional family in denial.”
It is an all-too-familiar account.
I recently wrote how universities can use course assignments and other collateral means to isolate dissenting professors in an effort to get them to resign. This is particularly the case with tenured faculty.
For many of us in teaching, these cancel campaigns have become a constant, looming threat. There have been drives to fire or discipline faculty who hold dissenting views on issues ranging from racial justice to police abuse to transgender identification to gender statements to pronoun usage to native-land acknowledgment. This includes a recent campaign at Georgetown that successfully secured a law professor’s resignation over a tweet.
Today, a palpable level of fear and intimidation exists among many faculty members that they could be the next target of one of these campaigns. Most professors are not protected by tenure, and universities can cite other reasons for not renewing their contracts.
The percentage of tenured professors has been declining for half a century. Roughly three of four faculty today are what are called “contingent faculty,” or faculty who work contract to contract.
The problem is that this contingency often seems to depend upon an adherence to a new orthodoxy on racial justice, police abuse, gender identification and other issues. It is the subject of my recent publication in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. The article entitled “Harm and Hegemony: The Decline of Free Speech in the United States.”
Most faculty do not want to face the legal or social costs of directly seeking to strip colleagues of tenure. They recite values of academic freedom while working to make life as hard as possible for dissenting colleagues by shifting classes, keeping professors off academic panels and committees and subjecting them to public ridicule, including citing them as examples of intolerance. Few faculty stand up for colleagues who have been tagged by the mob in fear that they could be the next subject of such a campaign.
University of North Carolina criminology professor Mike Adams spent years in university proceedings and litigation successfully fighting for his right to express conservative views. The investigations and attacks never stopped. Indeed, they resumed with new fervor after he condemned Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC) for his pandemic rules with a tweet that compared eating in cramped quarters with a slave ship. It was a stupid and offensive tweet. But we’ve seen extreme comments on the left — including calls to gas or kill or torture conservatives — tolerated and even celebrated at universities. Adams was hammered incessantly over the tweet until he finally relented and took a settlement to resign. He killed himself a few days before his final day as a professor.
For Manson, he had enough despite a distinguished career that could have continued for many years. He wrote of his reluctance “But I strongly suspect that mainstream U.S. higher education is morally and intellectually corrupt, beyond the possibility of self-repair, and therefore no longer a worthwhile setting in which to spend my time and effort.”
That is a loss for UCLA but it is also a loss for the entire teaching academy. Manson is the latest example of the not-so-noble lie that pervades our institutions of higher education. We mouth principles of academic freedom and free speech while allowing colleagues to be hounded and harassed. Most faculty members remain silent as their colleagues are isolated and ostracized. Their departure is silently welcomed because there is less of a reminder of what we have lost in higher education.
OT: Though apparently not Fentanyl, this should be of concern to all based on Biden maintaining open borders causing thousands of pounds of Fentanyl being smuggled at our southern border. 3gms kill.
Woman Hospitalized With Accidental Overdose After Picking up $1 Bill in Tennessee
https://www.theepochtimes.com/woman-hospitalized-after-picking-up-1-bill-in-tennessee_4593606.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-07-17-4&utm_medium=email&est=3GWK6%2B1MphJBj%2FwPGdSr3H0EJR8Ypg12fVR6N0X1fcAlmFr557f1fiOV0hfDjfQxUoo%3D
All of this erosion of individual liberty and the American people continue to sit on their hands.
I am not aware of anyone demanding the censorship of left wing nuts on this blog.
I can not know the posts that are being removed.
But given the breadth of views – especially from the left that get posted, I can see no evidence that Turley is engaged in viewpoint censorship.
I see no evidence that there are things those on the left can not say without being blocked.
Totally completely bat$hit crazy posts by left wing nuts are readily visible
Aside from vague claims – what is it that you think Turley is censoring – it is certainly not left wing idiots – the site is full of those.
Turley has fairly simple rules.
Do not run afoul of the WordPress spam and obscenity filters. That is pretty trivial to do.
And conform to “fair use” copyright rules.
That is pretty much it.
On rare occaisions my posts do not appear. I attribute that to problems with wordpress – particularly as that occurs at other wordpress sites I frequent.
It is generally unwise to attribute to malignancy what can be explained by incompetence or error.
Turley is very slowly moving right – that is driven by the incredible untrustworthiness of the left.
If there are posters here that are demanding the censorship of those on the left I oppose that.
The way to deal with bad speech is more speech, not enforced silence.
Should you be afraid of censorship by the right ? Absolutely.
Most people beleive “turn about is fair play”
You should be very afraid that with power those on the right will behave as those on the left have.
Hopefully the right will behave better with power than the left has.
Your post is speculation. It is also projection.
Always forgotten by those on the Left is that there are as many “poor” whites as poor blacks and hispanics.
You seem to think that people can lie to the country – and either magically the lies will become true, or that no one will notice – ever.
If Dobb’s has a significant negative impact, then Republicans will regret it.
But that is a big if.
It is not 1972, what it means to be poor in the US is radically different.
The cost of a plane ticket is a fraction of the cost of a late term abortion.
The poor today are far more likely to own cars – often decent ones, and have far more ability to travel.
There are more and better options for birth control.
There are legal options to prevent conception after intercourse, and more to prevent implantation in the uterus.
Gutmacher – an arm of PP has found from studies of past abortion restrictions that those did NOT result is increases in the number of unwanted children. They resulted in earlier and wider reproductive choices by women.
“S. Meyer can’t tell one anonymous commenter from another. He believes that he can, and he wants others to think that he is able to differentiate. He’s often wrong”
Anonymous the Stupid continues with his bag of tricks and lies since that is all he has to offer. The above posting was one of many he made recently, where many were ‘censored’ because ATS controls the deletion by using different email addresses.
His posting up a storm where almost none of the posts have any content shows that his mind is unable to handle the flak from multiple members of the community.
ATS has been proven a fool, a liar, and a trickster.
ATS keeps claiming that he is being canceled when he controls most of those posts and knows which will likely be canceled. He’s a whiner and a liar trying to garner sympathy.
There are multiple Anonymous figures, but the actual number of posters with an anonymous name and icon is relatively small. Anonymous the Stupid wants to hide behind them, and if there are not enough he adds anonymous friends that he controls.
Rarely is an anonymous mislabeled as Anonymous the Stupid, but if that happens, it means the individual is posting drivel almost identical to that of ATS. In such a case why should that anonymous person think he isn’t Anonymous the Stupid when he is?
Anonymous the Stupid, this is my reply to all those contentless replies you recently made. I wish to spare the list the repetitive garbage coming from postings that having no identity and therefore do not exist.
Alter your meds more slowly because the many posts indicate you are playing Whack a Mole with your pills.
People are missing the point here. This is the tactics Marxist has used to take over the CIA, FBI, Military, Unions, and other critical institutions. This tactic is now being used Nationally to turn over the employment of police. Every patriotic law abiding Police Officer will be retiring and leaving the force. The HR Depts of these liberal cities will now be hiring police officers that believe racism is the greatest threat to America, and a racist will be anyone they disagree with. Marxism 101.
Diversity [dogma] (i.e. color judgment, class-based bigotry), Inequity, and Exclusion (DIE) under the Pro-Choice ethical religion normalizes color quotas, class privilege, and affirmative discrimination.
When the good ones leaves, only the crazies are left. Why do people keep sending their kids/money to these institutions?
PRIVATIZATION
OF THE ENTIRE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SYSTEM.
In my opinion, academics should stand by their convictions and remain at their posts instead of taking the “easier” way out by resigning or retiring. What will happen to our educational institutions, the students they matriculate, and the future of our country, if only politically “correct” and often idiotic, faddish viewpoints, remain in our universities. Don’t let the “know nothing” students, ideologically and/or politically driven “professors” and administrators win, simply by screaming loudly! Fight back with reasoned, academically honest arguments, and eventually (and hopefully), that will win the day.
ATS writes: “Many of the regular commenters know exactly what is taking place in the comments section:
Censorship. No one says or does anything about it. Hypocrites.”
The above was deleted. It adds nothing to the blog but lies and confusion. No one should have to put up with this type of cr-p from people like Anonymous the Stupid. Maybe ATS went too far. I hope so.
Semcgowanjr, Anonymous the Stupid does this to Sh!t on other bloggers he disagrees with. He is also a coward, which you already noted.
Below is the comment he made that you received by email because as ATS knew in advance, his comment would be deleted.
——-
“in response to semcgowanjr:
Try using your real name. Only cowards are “anonymous.”
There are good reasons to remain “anonymous.” Do some research and maybe you’ll be able to figure out the most important one.”
“Darren: I’m routinely censored on this blog to the point of being banned. In fact, I am banned as I’ve had to jump IP addresses in order to get comments posted. Any concrete explanation as to why? Another Anonymous once asked and you gave an indirect explanation which was, essentially, cryptic. I’d like to know since I make a point to address my initial comments to Turley and only engage with others here on the heels of their personal attacks on me the vast majority of time. Color me curious as to why the censorship on a blog that values the concept of free speech (supposedly)…”
This was banned because you used the address you use when you wish to be spiteful to others and have their replies canceled along with yours.
You have never replied to my posts addressing you.
So, why is that?
I’ve never understood the overwrought reactions by right leaning people to the so called ‘woke’ faction. There has been some kind of general orthodoxy in academic settings for decades. It has changed over time. The claim there is some absolute academic freedom inherent to post secondary institutions has always been nonsense. There are things one doesn’t teach or talk about. Thus: Why should this new orthodoxy cause so much vexation and angst? What is it about the nature of these changes(or is it the people) that have led to such ballyhoo and handwringing?
We live in an age where you can express your opinions to millions in an instant. There is no shortage of platforms where one can challenge the liberal orthodoxy. Why then the insistence on the right to broadcast antiwoke views(possibly offensive) in an employment setting? How is this any better than a biological male who identifies as a woman insisting on using the women’s bathroom? Both groups have a black/white approach that masks a very thin skin and an inability to grasp other viewpoints.
Its a sad testament that you don’t understand the issues involved in the article. Issues like marxist-mind-conditioning at universities and colleges – public (where public money supports it) and private, academic freedom and integrity, freedoms of speech, thought, and conscience, coercion, bullying, harrassment, mob-rule, and other forms of threats and used to force compliance with a marxist ideology whose goal is the indoctrination of students who will perpetuate the false dogma, lies, deciet, and reification this fascist-authoritarianism that crushes freedom in every area of society and replaces it with brutality, enslavement, death, impoverishment , and destruction.
The handwringing is because cis-gendered, hetero white males are having to deal with the same kinds of restraints that were historically applied to everyone else.
I am not white.
You are wrong.
The difference is, if you step outside of the woke line, then you are a racistbigotantithisantithatantieverythingandatrumpsupporter.
People who get ahead in life, those who work/study hard, who put in the time and effort, delayed gratification, they deserve respect.
Those who admonish them, the woke mob, do so for their MyWayRightAway, attitude.
I know my grandparents, both sides, would be admonished today for their work/education ethic.
And one side, is really, really brown.
How much time have you spent talking to faculty who aren’t cis-gendered, hetero white males about their experiences as undergrads, doctoral students, untenured faculty — whether they experienced racism and/or sexism and/or homophobia, etc., and had to constrain their speech?
“How much time have you spent talking to faculty who aren’t cis-gendered, hetero white males about their experiences as undergrads, doctoral students, untenured faculty — whether they experienced racism and/or sexism and/or homophobia, etc., and had to constrain their speech?”
Is that a reliable indicator of how much ‘racism’ and ‘sexism’ is out there? Or will the answers received be exaggerations by such people for their own self serving purposes?
Anonymous (the lefty one) is being throttled back.
Good.
He overwhelms discussions with his many posts full of bile.
Sorry that it is necessary, but I hope that Anonymous learns to curb his baser instincts.
Maybe he can earn his way back in.
monumentcolorado,
Actually, it appears anyone using the handle, “Anonymous,” is not being posted.
I have noticed a few others are MIA as well. Did the professor/Darren get fed up with being insulted in what is their own home? The ad hominem attacks? Demands of answering their comments?
Or are they on vacation?
Less hijacking of the topic at hand too.
While I do not wish to see this become an echo chamber, it is definitely more civil, less bile as you point out.
Upstate, the responses being deleted end up in your email. You can see if other anonymous’ are being deleted by clicking on the word ‘commented’ right after the, name. It will either show the post or not.
I hope that generic anonymous’ will not be permitted, but that is Professor Turley’s decision.
S. Meyer,
Well said.
I only hope the anonymous, whom accused me and others of being The Blog Stooge and implying we are one and the same person, can read this and know they are being censored.
(waves to anonymous, you oxygen thief)
Upstate, the one calling others the Blog Stooge I believe is Peter Shill. Anonymous the Stupid is different. Once or twice I named ATS in error because a set of insults between ATS and myself was occurring so I wasn’t careful when the Shill quietly entered.
This is too complicated. I should have stuck to candles. Why, oh, why did I buy a laptop??
Stick with a high-tech abacus. 🙂
Did I not ask,
“What is it you are posting that makes you think you are being censored?”
And I have asked on more than one occasion.
I have noted some comments disappear after having been posted.
However, I would agree with Darren in his decision as those posts e.g. Commenter such and such is The Blog Stooge! and then something insulting, it is insulting and a useless comment, serving no purpose of the topic of discussion.
It is the professors blog. While he is a proponent of free speech, he can also say he does not want insults, racist, anti-Semite, calls for violence against a person or group of persons. Perhaps he and Darren decided to clean up the comments section. It is the professors blog. He is not making money off it (i.e. ads)
No one is making you come here.
It is a free country . . . so far.
Why are the alumni of this university not up in arms over this woke takeover of their beloved institution. The recent graduates are not the big money alumni — those who graduated in the 1940’s and 1950’s in particular have left endowments and those who graduated in the 1960’s and thereafter as well, who donate a LOT of money and are made up by a majority of individuals who don’t believe this cancel culture is a positive…..UCLA will respond when the cash flow from alumni starts to dry up — and I read just this week that UCLA has pissed off Governor Newsom by electing to leave the PAC 10 and move to a more nationally visible and more lucrative conference, the Big 12 — Newsom had a hissy fit because as he put it ‘I wasn’t consulted! I am the Governor!’ Many of us former California residents had a good laugh over that. Seriously though, across the USA, Alumni are the only ones who can shut down this woke takeover of higher education —
cry harder. if you’ve been complaining since the 2000s, you’ve been out of touch with everyone since the 2000s. the “maybe the holocaust didn’t happen?” or “is racism really a thing?” crowd are no longer tolerated and smart people are tired of dealing with backwards ass ideals that we previously had to entertain. if you haven’t evolved your beliefs in TWENTY YEARS, then you’re teaching history.
OK, Vladimir Ilyich. What’s next for you, you brave revolutionary, hanging the Kulaks or starving the Ukrainians? Pouring lead down the throats of priests as a molten Eucharist? Execution of the Tsar’s children? Please tell me, you holder of the flame of the glorious proletarian struggle, please tell me.
What is it you are posting that makes you think you are being censored?
And, if your prior IP address was coming from a country that is known for bots (i.e. you are using a VPN) that just maybe automatic plugin of WP.
I have had a few of my posts not go through, likely for that reason. Not that I posted anything really controversial.
Note: The comment plugin is currently experiencing a hiccup. I can see the Reply box, but the name and email addy boxes are nowhere to be seen.
Note: I had to reload the page to get the comments plugin to load correctly.
My post was meant as a reply to the Anonymous addressing Darren.
Dont know why did not appear under his/her post.
WP plugin hiccup?
No, it means that the comment you were replying to was deleted after you clicked on “reply.”
No, the comment I was replying to was still posted when I responded to it. For that matter both appeared on the blog. Only mine was not under that particular post but as a new one.
You should get some education as to how WP works before posting.
Upstate: ATS has been using the WP censor to be spiteful and to have certain posts deleted after posting. This was one of them, and likely you pressed the reply button on the email, so it replied directly and therefore posted as a new comment. Had you clicked commented, your posting would have been posted under the deleted post and deleted also.
I made a note of this in a bunch of emails a while back showing that ATS was doing this in a spiteful manner, If curious you can go to this link and search the related comments.
https://jonathanturley.org/2022/01/10/the-vaccine-mandates-the-supreme-court-considers-a-trip-to-major-questions-land/comment-page-1/#comment-2150023
“I expect the following comments to be deleted.”
Try using your real name. Only cowards are “anonymous.”
This stuff goes back to the Sixties when leftist students started making a career out of academia so they could keep their draft deferments. Then black activists started pushing for fake courses in “black history,” “blackness” and other “studies” that really weren’t studies. Schools then started hiring those who had graduated with such degrees to appear socially aware. Their goal is to elevate blacks to the top and push white to the bottom with everyone else in between.