The New York Times recently ran a long story on Amy Wax, a law professor at University of Pennsylvania. Wax, who is a religious Jew, can lay claim to a brilliant academic pedigree. She is also an in-your-face racial supremacist and many have called for her to be sacked. It happens that I just published a book, I’ll Burn That Bridge When I Get to It! Heretical Thoughts on Identity Politics, Cancel Culture, and Academic Freedom, that addresses many of the key questions posed by her case. The writer Glenn Greenwald recently asked my opinion in this matter. Herewith a slightly amended version of the reply I sent him.
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Principles and parameters
I. Ideational speech versus mindless epithets. At the most general level, one can stake out two poles. On one end is speech possessing ideational content. However offensive the content might be, if it is susceptible to rational inquiry, it shouldn’t be censored. On the other end is speech that lacks ideational content: calling someone a kike, nigger, cunt. These epithets are verbal clubs, designed not to stimulate but, on the contrary, to preempt intellectual exchange. Pace the ACLU, I see no grounds for its toleration on a university campus. Before one crosses the university’s threshold, a tacit pact has been signed between the student and the institution: to pursue Veritas. It is not an obligation, however, to subject oneself to gratuitous humiliation—that is, speech the one and only purpose of which is to degrade. There’s also the consideration of what
— source normanfinkelstein.com | Norman Finkelstein | Mar 16, 2023