IT MIGHT NOT HAVE MATTERED WHO CHARLES NEGY QUOTED.

That's a Central Florida professor of abnormal psychology who took exception to the preachments from the diversity weenies with a favorable reference to a controversial source. It might be that the Holy Inquisition is after the heresy qua heresy, moreso than on the use of sources.  Cornell's William Jacobson is on the story.  Here's a Twitter ukase from some functionary at Central Florida.  "Being actively anti-racist means calling out and confronting racist comments. We are aware of Charles Negy’s recent personal Twitter posts, which are completely counter to UCF’s values. We are reviewing this matter further while being mindful of the First Amendment."  Apparently Lernfreiheit and Lehrfreihet are counter to these values, First Amendment notwithstanding.  Jonathan Turley elaborates.

Faculty at state schools have the added protections from government regulation of speech.  However, even public school principals have faced content-based discipline for questioning the protests or BLM movement.  It is the lack of a clear standard or consistent application as academics that is so troubling.  The message of academics is that their positions can be lost if they express opposing views or dispute a rising orthodox position on these positions on campus.

Again, I often find statements from academics on both sides to be repugnant and inflammatory. However, I am admittedly “old school” when it comes to free speech, particularly on campus.  I have been writing for years about the erosion of free speech values in our colleges and universities. I have never seen the level of fear and intimidation in speaking with faculty today.  Most are afraid of being labeled racist if they utter a single objection to these measures or the targeting of unpopular colleagues.  The result is a chilling effect on speech that is being actively encouraged by Administrators and faculty in investigating, censuring, and condemning faculty to express opposing views on current issues like “Defund The Police.”

When I first entered teaching 30 years ago, universities were viewed as places of passionate debate and pluralistic viewpoints.  For years, we have seen ideological rigidity and intolerance supplant those values – a trend that is destroying the very intellectual freedom that gives life and meaning to our educational institutions. This is not about any individual academic or the merits of their speech. It is about all of us and when we will take a stand for the right of expression and academic freedoms — even of those with whom we vehemently disagree.

The intellectual monoculture will collapse eventually, and nobody left inside the woke universities will even have a clue why. By contrast, at least one Soviet official could joke about how Marxism-Leninism had to leave New Zealand alone in order that the rest of the (now Soviet) world would know what the price of anything was.