I think a lot of "anti-woke" activists dramatically underestimate the degree to which critiquing the oppressive status quo institutions — racism, sexism, transphobia, ableism, etc — can be isolating or even dangerous for academics.

I know that this is deeply contrary to their impression of things. A lot of them are going to want to dunk on me for what I'm saying right now. They think it's unsafe to challenge progressive talking points and I'm saying it's unsafe to make them.

We're both right on this one.

People who don't like my political discourse often complain about me, @-ing my department, my university, and my university president, in an attempt to use the coercive power of an employer to curtail my speech. (AFAIK my employer has ignored them.) https://twitter.com/jichikawa/status/1347738545822126080

I have occasionally had threats of violence made against me, for speaking out against rape culture in some high-profile cases of professors accused of sexual harassment and assault. Most of those were random twitter trolls, but some were professional academics.

(One time my friends and I were able to work out the identity of the classicist who used his twitter alt to threaten to punch my teeth out, that was fun. We never doxxed him, but it felt good to know who that was. Hi, if you're still reading!)

Around the same time — this was when I was blogging about Laura Kipnis's book — some anonymous people coordinated in the open about seeking UBC students to make false sexual harassment allegations against me. (I don't know whether they actually tried, or if it was just to scare.)

I don't say this to complain or to seek sympathy. A lot of people have it a lot worse. The women I talk to who engage in this kind of work in public get a lot more hostility than I do. (And I don't get rape threats.) And I'm tenured and professionally very secure. I'm fine.

(Indeed this is a big part of why I feel a responsibility to be taking my share of the heat.) https://twitter.com/jichikawa/status/1135421690530238464

This is old news to a lot of y'all. But judging by the state of the "conservative viewpoints are being stifled" literature, a lot of people don't know this.

I know a LOT of philosophers who are afraid to be vocal about their progressive views, especially more radical ones.

I don't mean the platitudes — I don't know students or professors who think it's unsafe to say BLM. But asking an institution to DO something? Absolutely. Asking a department not to have so many all-white syllabi? Our not to tolerate transphobia? That's a scary ask, for many.

I sometimes feel like some amongst the "anti-woke" think that if an adjunct professor says, "we need to do more to protect trans students, and decolonialize the curriculum, and also unionize everybody", her department head will probably give her a high-five and a TT job. lol.

None of this is to deny the observation that many conservative-leaning students and academics have made — which they are better-placed than I to judge — that they often feel uncomfortable expressing their own heterodox views. I'm sure that's true.

But I'm not at all convinced that that's the main or the biggest academic freedom problem we're looking at. So I oppose correctives that operate by creating more space for more right-wing views.

And some — not all, I think, but many of the most conspicuous examples of — "conservative" views that people want to legitimate really are, IMO fundamentally racist, misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, etc., and it is better for there to be strong social pressure against them.

(The pressure I have in mind: saying those are racist views; not inviting people to hold them to give keynote addresses or journal editorships; etc. I do not advocate threats of violence or firing without cause.)

IDK, I want this thread to be building to a big one easy trick or something, but that's just not how this stuff goes. These things are hard! I just wanted to emphasize that I do think there are problems in the neighbourhood here, but that the political lines aren't simple to draw