Journalist – Historian – Speaker
Steve Bannon is coming to University of Chicago to perform “reasoned debate.” John Warner writes: Zingales says, “Hate cannot be defeated by hate, but only by reason.”Huh? Perhaps hate cannot defeat hate, but does this mean our only alternative is “reason?”I’m trying to think of a single instance in recorded history where hate was defeated …
In my latest Pacific Standard essay, I talk about the ways that some right-wing schools enforce indoctrination and homogeneity, even as our free speech on campus discourse focuses on left-wing schools. In response to National Football League players protesting state violence against African Americans, the College of the Ozarks, a small, Christian liberal arts institution in …
University of Chicago’s Open Letter condemns white supremacist abuse toward scholars of color: https://t.co/9WuFYnbNYZ — medievalpoc (@medievalpoc) October 31, 2017 This letter from the English faculty does a nice job of parsing how to talk about free speech while considering how to protect the vulnerable. They write: We wish to reaffirm that our role as …
For Pacific Standard, I write about the free speech complexities of the upcoming “free speech week.” First, the organizers didn’t even ask the speakers or book the spaces before they started crying oppression. Second, “security concerns” forced the Anthropology department to cancel a long-planned talk. I write: “Thanks to “safety concerns,” the annual distinguished lecture …
Yesterday, I wrote about the adjunct prof fired by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for alleged homophobia. I wrote that we have to pay attention when people with less power are punished for speech, even if their views might be objectionable. Today, I turn to the case of Dr. Jonathan Higgins, the …
The American right-wing has a cultural theory, or at least a cudgel: America is being destroyed by political correctness. College professors and liberal students, especially those of color, are to blame. It’s not a new theory, but in this age of multi-million (billion, for Fox?) dollar media companies and the magnifying effect of social media, …
Friends, we’ve been hacked. Giggling GOP student groups have hacked the free speech pieties of my generation. It’s murky ahead. But recognize we’ve been hacked. — David M. Perry (@Lollardfish) March 7, 2017 In the ensuing debates about platforms and protests, which will be extremely complex and often uncomfortable, forcing us to choose between abstract …
Below you will find a letter from the president of Middlebury on the recent protests around the presence of Charles Murray. My basic take is that giggling GOP student groups have hacked the free-speech pieties of my generation. Those pieties were based on a pre-internet information culture, and perhaps still hold true, but they should …
There’s been a lot of coverage (in my little slice of the world) of a medievalist at the University of Chicago who has been writing quite outrageous things about Milo the Professional Bigot. There’s more to say about Milo, but lots of folks are already saying it. Here’s my thread on the context surrounding Fulton. …
Amidst all the furor over Milo and UC Berkeley, in which non-students staged an action to shut down a speech, the GOP keeps doing its thing – using money and access to power to try and overthrow public universities. I wrote about this most recently here for Pacific Standard and on the blog. Latest examples: Waiting excitedly …