It seems that the bullies , for example, those that consider “gender critical”:beliefs to be “ transphobic” always resort to name calling. In fact, they make up names , knowing that it confers power. Is there no other defense to their false beliefs? Could it be that they deep down wonder about such? For example , do they really truly believe that a man can be a woman? That belief is so far fetched that any sane person would question it.
As part of the “ woke “ , the gender ideology is in my view the most authoritarian ideology of this century or even the last.
I agree with all of this and admire your courage, I just wouldn't feel that safe. The current administration is doing a lot of things that may end badly (dismantling the CDC and giving HHS to an antivaxxer) and if there's a huge counterreaction we may see a woke renaissance in 2026 or 2028.
You probably already do, but just in case: have a backup plan. When the wokies get back in, they're going to be *pissed*.
Hello Lee. I have found this article very interesting and have subscribed in support of your work. I am just starting out and focus on providing unique perspectives on niche topics in regards to history, philosophy and anthropology. If you or anyone of your readers would like to subscribe, I would be grateful for the support.
lol. The author blocked me when I pointed out the surveys he cites as evidence are not random, representative samples (meaning they have obvious bias that hasn’t been accounted for) and further pointed other logical inconsistencies in his “piece”.
but then I found out where he works (occidental college, 66k in tuition a year) and as a classics professor; it all made sense.
All of his inaction and just “taking the abuse” aside, he doesn’t know how academics form scientific arguments, figuring out what sources stand up to empirical scrutiny, or supporting them with evidence other than anecdotes.
He also doesn’t understand how the modern economy works. Higher education grants job licenses. It’s about making money through endowments that are virtually indistinguishable from hedge funds. The students who pay such ungodly tuition and fees are the lifeblood of the institution and his job isn’t to teach “the classics”, it’s to babysit them for four years.
This is all directly related to his fellow conservatives and their conscious defunding of education, helpfully outlined in “the business memo”. Which may be the funniest part - the conservative “classics” professor doesn’t even know the history of the movement he ascribes to. Decades of conservative decisions led us to this point.
Which is all to say, damn. Feel bad for you Jacob. Wish you could read your Latin in peace, without 1-2 students daring to challenge you on literally anything. Ain’t life a bitch though.
And since you’re keeping track, Jacob, this took 5min to write
What is this supposed to mean?is it OK to bully professors so they don’t dare discuss things that” harm”( woke talk) students? Are students so fragile that they can’t hear opinions with which they don’t agree? It’s the coddling of their “ minds” …they are so afraid of hearing other points of view that they resort to “ telling on their profs! And, no, it’s not only conservatives who decry this trend! I know many liberals who agree that the campus is now one of restricting freedom of speech!
And I find it offensive that you had to put the author’s salary out there! What is that supposed to do?How does that have anything to do with his and others’ being cancelled ? How about putting your college and salary out there?
Damn. If only you had a union, you wouldn’t be at the risk of getting fired for your perceived “slights” against the “leftists”. As someone who has worked in higher education for years, I have NEVER heard of any of this occurring on our public school campus (22k UGRD enrollment).
It is funny that an “academic” would post multiple anecdotes, call it data, and start drawing conclusions from it as if they had empirically studied the “problem”. There are 16 million undergraduate students in the US. To claim, with anecdotal evidence, that an insignificantly small percentage of “left-authoritarian” students have been “wrecking” higher ed, is not only professional malpractice but also just… silly. You’d be laughed out of any room by your fellow faculty if you tried to present this as published research.
To put it bluntly, this is tripe. Also, making an argument from your lived experience isn’t allowed anymore, because it’s “DEI”. Reading this piece with any sort of critical thinking immediately reveals more and more contradictions between the story, reality, and the logical consistency between the author’s stated beliefs and their argument. Maybe you shouldn’t be in higher education.
Don’t cry, bby, you’ve done enough of that over the past four years. It’s really brave of you to show how you were cucked by “left authoritarians” less than half your age, for multiple years. Are you angry because they humiliated you… and you just sat there and took it?
Your post was a long, boring, temper tantrum. What’s the retort to a crying baby? Should’ve left the university for another job. Or do you not believe in the free market labor system?
1. For such a "long, boring, temper tantrum," you sure are wasting a lot of your precious time obsessing over it and taking it oddly personally. If my post really misses the boat so thoroughly, I'd think you'd just ignore it. It obviously put ants in your pants, and I can't help but wonder why.
2. Your comment about the free market is a weird combination of implied mindreading plus passive aggression.
The right wing can be equally or more repressive. What is so disturbing about the situation on campus is that campuses are supposed to be and used to be places where ideas could be discussed freely and rationally, and they have now been been transformed into some of the most repressive places in America.
The reason for this is, most basically, the cowardice of "normal" people, normal professors, normal grad students, normal college students -- those who don't agree but don't speak up. They will bend the knee 99% of the time. Perhaps the most important question to ask at this point is not why there are so many fanatics, but why there are so many cowards.
I saw this at CUNY in the 1990's. They were mostly cowards then, and now we have the generation they gave birth to.
Back to right-wing repression: I worked for right-wingers and lived among them, and they watch like hawks for ideological deviation. They absolutely do. They are nasty, underhanded, hypocritical, and repressive. It's just terrible. They do cluster around charter schools of certain kinds and can be found in various places in industry. However, they are not in control on campus (if by "campus" we mean colleges and universities).
There is no real reason for colleges to exist anymore at the current price; the whole system should be shut down and replaced with high-tech education systems that use objective testing. I bring this up because one reason the left has so much power on campus is that the whole system is fundamentally irrational and wasteful, so those who work within it are terrified. What do I mean? I mean that they are frightened because they must know in their hearts that the system itself is a scam. They don't see any life for themselves in the market, so the idea of not being tenured within the university is terrifying.
I came to believe, over years in the mental health field, that “therapists” too often merely parroted the prevailing viewpoints of the left. Any questioning or disagreements were merely rejected. Inconsistencies with underlying psychological research across populations were ignored and rationalized beliefs became treatment.
Preferred beliefs simply became substitutions for proven research or observations of the real world.
Excellent article! Like many, I used to consider myself to be on the left, but the left has become something I no longer recognize nor wish to support. The leftists almost lead us to extreme societal danger during Covid.
I'm in academia, and can vouch for all your general points--as if there were any real controversy among those who are even vaguely objective and well-informed about the matter.
I'm in a much lower tier of academia than you are, and in a much more moderate state (Virginia) so the madness here was of a somewhat lesser order. And my university has its own powerful free speech protections. Also, until recently, we had an old-school liberal president.
Nevertheless, I've basically had to make calculations every time I say anything publicly--for at least the last 5-7 years. I've still been pretty outspoken, but I've had to make sure everything I said was defensible--e.g. immune or at least resistant to all the politically correct left's detestable sophistries. I also had to keep in mind the effects on my departmental colleagues (who are generally sensible and tolerant (or even supportive) of my antics.
This bullshit has plagued academia since I entered graduate school in the mid-'80s. It died down for awhile, but it's an ongoing problem. The totalitarian tendencies of the left mean that it's never going to voluntarily relinquish control of the university. The madness may go into remission--though I'm skeptical. But it's not going to go away.
Waited 4 years for some honesty from the left. Thank you for exposing the truth. Very, very, brave. It’s been like a living hell. I left the left in the 80’s. I was so angry at being lied to and allowing it to keep me from truly living. Of course, I became a bit of an outcast as more time passed and learned to keep it to myself, not realizing how dangerous that was.
I loved this essay. Nothing bothers me more than teachers being censored for speaking their minds. I went to college in the 90s and never for a moment felt the need to question my professors. Sure I had questions and maybe didn’t agree with what they had to say. I was there to learn. And take what I learned and decide if it’s what I believed in and supported. Sometimes I did and sometimes I didn’t. I loved debate. I could never imagine making a teacher apologize to me for content taught in class. Things are so different today. I’m sorry for what you teachers are dealing with.
My husband and I were just discussing our 17 year old applying to colleges for next year. We just want her to have a full college experience, to have teachers who are not afraid to speak their mind, guide their students to think for themselves and not follow woke ideas. But just real life stuff. Are there any schools out there like this anymore?
Here's another way to do it, where you can search by school and see the free speech rankings and also see how many incidents of "cancel culture" and other zany stuff the school has:
Perhaps you got lucky! It does appear that Temple is relatively good (which is not to say very good or even great) on speech issues. It has a yellow rating (instead of green or red) from FIRE:
But surely you've heard of some of the numerous other cases at other institutions that I link to in the part of the article where I write, "I could go on. And on. And on"?
It seems that the bullies , for example, those that consider “gender critical”:beliefs to be “ transphobic” always resort to name calling. In fact, they make up names , knowing that it confers power. Is there no other defense to their false beliefs? Could it be that they deep down wonder about such? For example , do they really truly believe that a man can be a woman? That belief is so far fetched that any sane person would question it.
As part of the “ woke “ , the gender ideology is in my view the most authoritarian ideology of this century or even the last.
I agree with all of this and admire your courage, I just wouldn't feel that safe. The current administration is doing a lot of things that may end badly (dismantling the CDC and giving HHS to an antivaxxer) and if there's a huge counterreaction we may see a woke renaissance in 2026 or 2028.
You probably already do, but just in case: have a backup plan. When the wokies get back in, they're going to be *pissed*.
Hello Lee. I have found this article very interesting and have subscribed in support of your work. I am just starting out and focus on providing unique perspectives on niche topics in regards to history, philosophy and anthropology. If you or anyone of your readers would like to subscribe, I would be grateful for the support.
Looking forward to reading more of your stuff.
Respectful,
Crusader
lol. The author blocked me when I pointed out the surveys he cites as evidence are not random, representative samples (meaning they have obvious bias that hasn’t been accounted for) and further pointed other logical inconsistencies in his “piece”.
but then I found out where he works (occidental college, 66k in tuition a year) and as a classics professor; it all made sense.
All of his inaction and just “taking the abuse” aside, he doesn’t know how academics form scientific arguments, figuring out what sources stand up to empirical scrutiny, or supporting them with evidence other than anecdotes.
He also doesn’t understand how the modern economy works. Higher education grants job licenses. It’s about making money through endowments that are virtually indistinguishable from hedge funds. The students who pay such ungodly tuition and fees are the lifeblood of the institution and his job isn’t to teach “the classics”, it’s to babysit them for four years.
This is all directly related to his fellow conservatives and their conscious defunding of education, helpfully outlined in “the business memo”. Which may be the funniest part - the conservative “classics” professor doesn’t even know the history of the movement he ascribes to. Decades of conservative decisions led us to this point.
Which is all to say, damn. Feel bad for you Jacob. Wish you could read your Latin in peace, without 1-2 students daring to challenge you on literally anything. Ain’t life a bitch though.
And since you’re keeping track, Jacob, this took 5min to write
What is this supposed to mean?is it OK to bully professors so they don’t dare discuss things that” harm”( woke talk) students? Are students so fragile that they can’t hear opinions with which they don’t agree? It’s the coddling of their “ minds” …they are so afraid of hearing other points of view that they resort to “ telling on their profs! And, no, it’s not only conservatives who decry this trend! I know many liberals who agree that the campus is now one of restricting freedom of speech!
And I find it offensive that you had to put the author’s salary out there! What is that supposed to do?How does that have anything to do with his and others’ being cancelled ? How about putting your college and salary out there?
The 66k is the annual tuition cost for occidental college, dumbass.
“What is this supposed to mean”? Idk gerda , maybe try a little reading comprehension
Damn. If only you had a union, you wouldn’t be at the risk of getting fired for your perceived “slights” against the “leftists”. As someone who has worked in higher education for years, I have NEVER heard of any of this occurring on our public school campus (22k UGRD enrollment).
It is funny that an “academic” would post multiple anecdotes, call it data, and start drawing conclusions from it as if they had empirically studied the “problem”. There are 16 million undergraduate students in the US. To claim, with anecdotal evidence, that an insignificantly small percentage of “left-authoritarian” students have been “wrecking” higher ed, is not only professional malpractice but also just… silly. You’d be laughed out of any room by your fellow faculty if you tried to present this as published research.
To put it bluntly, this is tripe. Also, making an argument from your lived experience isn’t allowed anymore, because it’s “DEI”. Reading this piece with any sort of critical thinking immediately reveals more and more contradictions between the story, reality, and the logical consistency between the author’s stated beliefs and their argument. Maybe you shouldn’t be in higher education.
Don’t cry, bby, you’ve done enough of that over the past four years. It’s really brave of you to show how you were cucked by “left authoritarians” less than half your age, for multiple years. Are you angry because they humiliated you… and you just sat there and took it?
So you say you’re “ brain damaged ”? Got it!
I'm still waiting for an unfriendly/critical comment that makes contact with anything I said or was trying to do in the piece.
So many people with nothing to say but looking for somewhere to say it.
Your post was a long, boring, temper tantrum. What’s the retort to a crying baby? Should’ve left the university for another job. Or do you not believe in the free market labor system?
1. For such a "long, boring, temper tantrum," you sure are wasting a lot of your precious time obsessing over it and taking it oddly personally. If my post really misses the boat so thoroughly, I'd think you'd just ignore it. It obviously put ants in your pants, and I can't help but wonder why.
2. Your comment about the free market is a weird combination of implied mindreading plus passive aggression.
lol what have I taken personally? It takes less than a minute to comment on your hysterics
TFW you get all hysterical commenting on someone's hysterics.
lol omg- it’s so funny to find out where you work. According to your reviews, your students actually like and respect you. Why so hateful then?
The right wing can be equally or more repressive. What is so disturbing about the situation on campus is that campuses are supposed to be and used to be places where ideas could be discussed freely and rationally, and they have now been been transformed into some of the most repressive places in America.
The reason for this is, most basically, the cowardice of "normal" people, normal professors, normal grad students, normal college students -- those who don't agree but don't speak up. They will bend the knee 99% of the time. Perhaps the most important question to ask at this point is not why there are so many fanatics, but why there are so many cowards.
I saw this at CUNY in the 1990's. They were mostly cowards then, and now we have the generation they gave birth to.
Back to right-wing repression: I worked for right-wingers and lived among them, and they watch like hawks for ideological deviation. They absolutely do. They are nasty, underhanded, hypocritical, and repressive. It's just terrible. They do cluster around charter schools of certain kinds and can be found in various places in industry. However, they are not in control on campus (if by "campus" we mean colleges and universities).
There is no real reason for colleges to exist anymore at the current price; the whole system should be shut down and replaced with high-tech education systems that use objective testing. I bring this up because one reason the left has so much power on campus is that the whole system is fundamentally irrational and wasteful, so those who work within it are terrified. What do I mean? I mean that they are frightened because they must know in their hearts that the system itself is a scam. They don't see any life for themselves in the market, so the idea of not being tenured within the university is terrifying.
I came to believe, over years in the mental health field, that “therapists” too often merely parroted the prevailing viewpoints of the left. Any questioning or disagreements were merely rejected. Inconsistencies with underlying psychological research across populations were ignored and rationalized beliefs became treatment.
Preferred beliefs simply became substitutions for proven research or observations of the real world.
Despite all the mentions of "totalitarian" and "fascist," this amounts to a whole lotta First World complaining.
You can minimize the experiences of anyone living in America that way. You sure you want to go that route?
Excellent article! Like many, I used to consider myself to be on the left, but the left has become something I no longer recognize nor wish to support. The leftists almost lead us to extreme societal danger during Covid.
Tight.
I'm in academia, and can vouch for all your general points--as if there were any real controversy among those who are even vaguely objective and well-informed about the matter.
I'm in a much lower tier of academia than you are, and in a much more moderate state (Virginia) so the madness here was of a somewhat lesser order. And my university has its own powerful free speech protections. Also, until recently, we had an old-school liberal president.
Nevertheless, I've basically had to make calculations every time I say anything publicly--for at least the last 5-7 years. I've still been pretty outspoken, but I've had to make sure everything I said was defensible--e.g. immune or at least resistant to all the politically correct left's detestable sophistries. I also had to keep in mind the effects on my departmental colleagues (who are generally sensible and tolerant (or even supportive) of my antics.
This bullshit has plagued academia since I entered graduate school in the mid-'80s. It died down for awhile, but it's an ongoing problem. The totalitarian tendencies of the left mean that it's never going to voluntarily relinquish control of the university. The madness may go into remission--though I'm skeptical. But it's not going to go away.
Anyway: good work on all this, Jussim.
Waited 4 years for some honesty from the left. Thank you for exposing the truth. Very, very, brave. It’s been like a living hell. I left the left in the 80’s. I was so angry at being lied to and allowing it to keep me from truly living. Of course, I became a bit of an outcast as more time passed and learned to keep it to myself, not realizing how dangerous that was.
Good Lord….
I loved this essay. Nothing bothers me more than teachers being censored for speaking their minds. I went to college in the 90s and never for a moment felt the need to question my professors. Sure I had questions and maybe didn’t agree with what they had to say. I was there to learn. And take what I learned and decide if it’s what I believed in and supported. Sometimes I did and sometimes I didn’t. I loved debate. I could never imagine making a teacher apologize to me for content taught in class. Things are so different today. I’m sorry for what you teachers are dealing with.
My husband and I were just discussing our 17 year old applying to colleges for next year. We just want her to have a full college experience, to have teachers who are not afraid to speak their mind, guide their students to think for themselves and not follow woke ideas. But just real life stuff. Are there any schools out there like this anymore?
University of Austin is the most obvious candidate:
https://www.uaustin.org/
I'd also search FIRE's "college free speech rankings":
https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/2025-college-free-speech-rankings
Here's another way to do it, where you can search by school and see the free speech rankings and also see how many incidents of "cancel culture" and other zany stuff the school has:
https://www.thefire.org/colleges
I've taught politics at Temple University for 25 years and this has not been my experience.
Perhaps you got lucky! It does appear that Temple is relatively good (which is not to say very good or even great) on speech issues. It has a yellow rating (instead of green or red) from FIRE:
https://www.thefire.org/colleges/temple-university
And there have only been about 6 recorded attempts to suppress speech there in recent years:
https://www.thefire.org/colleges/temple-university/cases
But surely you've heard of some of the numerous other cases at other institutions that I link to in the part of the article where I write, "I could go on. And on. And on"?
I've taught politics at Temple University for 25 years and this has not been my experience.