![]() In ten months, Weiss has racked up three articles on the subject. On the topic of campus politics and free speech, Andrew Sullivan has written in New York magazine about a half-dozen articles, warning that "the broader culture is in danger of drifting away from liberal democracy." His colleague Jonathan Chait has written another dozen on PC culture, arguing that "these episodes are the manifestation of a serious ideological challenge to liberalism." In The New York Times, Bret Stephens regurgitated a speech as an article called "Free Speech and the Necessity of Discomfort," while David Brooks dedicated a piece to "Understanding Student Mobbists," for which he spoke to exactly zero students. ![]() It's not difficult to intuit why she beamed at her videographer as the no-platformers chanted. Sommers herself tweeted about the event's coverage at least 70 times and scored a Wall Street Journal piece out of the ordeal. The news of Sommers's slightly curtailed lecture was hyped in at least 11 outlets, including Breitbart, the National Review, and two separate opinion pieces in The New York Times. But the number of publications and prominent journalists willing to cover them is quite high. The number of students who resort to these tactics is fairly small-Sommers regularly gives talks at universities without incident. You would think that these “mobs” on college campuses and Twitter were sending the unwoke to a Soviet-style gulag. More urgently, in the age of social media and conservative trolls, no-platforming turns into amplification on steroids it does the very opposite of what it aims to do. ![]() In the current moment, liberal ideas are dominant at universities, but it's not hard to imagine a world in which they are considered dangerous. It is a terrible tactic for a number of reasons, for both academic freedom and the advancement of progressive causes. The activist practice of no-platforming-denying public figures platforms like speaking engagements or articles, through protest or other means-has become an irresistible motif for the media. As the ringleader yelled, "Black lives matter," Sommers turned to the camera euphorically grinning from ear to ear. ![]() When she attempted to give her talk, a handful of students, led by a blonde ringleader in a black "Stay Woke" jacket, disrupted it with chanting about comrades while holding up a cardboard sign that read "No Platform for Fascists." It was a Ben Shapiro wet dream. Prior to the speech, activists handed out flyers labeling her "a fascist," among other hyperbolic charges familiar to anyone who has spent time on a college campus. But her stance toward those with whom she disagrees is mostly derisive, serving up red meat to a social-media following rabid for the denigration of feminist and minority causes.Īt Lewis & Clark Law School, Sommers found what seems to be her favorite kind of audience: a disruptive one. In interviews and recorded talks, a soft-spoken Sommers emphasizes the importance of being reasonable and polite, tut-tutting meanness. The difference between the two is that Goldin offers both better data and solutions to nuanced issues while Sommers only offers naysaying. Sommers likes to position herself as a Goldin, a noble academic who questions received wisdom to further a worthy cause. The economist Claudia Goldin wasn't tossed out of Harvard for her work on the gender pay gap, pinpointing childcare, not gender directly, as the cause. Plenty of scholars and writers have challenged feminist talking points. And she's been outspoken about the due-process rights of men accused of rape on college campuses, but apparently has no interest in addressing the complexity of a crime that is notoriously difficult to prove. She has had plenty to say on how biological preferences may account for gender distribution in STEM fields, while she's been silent on harassment of women in tech and finance. But if there has been one feminist cause worth addressing in the past 30 years, you wouldn't know it by reading her work. She likes to call herself a feminist, specifically a "factual" one. Among the Free Speech Grifters, Sommers has perfected the art.
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