E-Pluribus+ : Reactions to Emma Camp's NYT Op-Ed on Campus Speech
This piece is getting quite a bit of buzz. We've compiled the reactions here.
We’ve compiled some of the most salient commentary and reactions to Emma Camp’s New York Times op-ed on campus free speech issues.
First up, some insightful commentary on how certain segments of Twitter have responded to the op-ed:
Jesse Singal, Singal Minded
Example: This is such a profound misunderstanding of what journalism and opinion writing are. I find it really hard to believe that Jason Stanley actually thinks the Times has a 'responsibility' of this sort, or that he actually thinks we're anywhere near McCarthyism.
Absolutely goddamn bonkers. There is a large subset of people whose brains have been entirely melted by the last ~6 years.
Major figure in the evidence-based medicine movement, just casually tossing out deranged conspiracy theories about the NYT allying with right-wing state governments to pass laws that have only been opposed in the NYT's pages.
The liberal intelligentsia is in healthy shape.
Chris Ferguson, Professor of Psychology, Stetson University
Interesting to see how an article is posted on free speech and the responses from some *very smart people*(tm) is basically twitter-shaming the young author without a hint of insight.
Jesse Singal @jessesingal
Alan Rozenshtein, Law Professor, University of Minnesota
I'm seeing a lot of responses to this post along the lines of "but this person feels free to express herself in the NYT." Of course THIS person does---the whole point is everyone else she's describing that doesn't feel so free (or has the platform).
Scott Greenfield, Blogger, Simple Justice
Rarely are there so many vacuous reactions that so overwhelming prove the point. Well done.
Emma Camp✒️ @emmma_camp_
Next, a good thread from Jonathan Haidt
1. I was saddened to read a student's account of how the intellectual climate has changed at UVA since I left in 2011, when it was wonderful.
It's not just @UVA, it's most schools... [thread]
nytimes.com/2022/03/07/opi…
2. At @HdxAcademy we just published our 2021 Campus Expression Survey, which backs up what Emma Camp writes about UVA: 60% of students say they are reluctant to discuss controversial issues; they are most afraid of other students.
3. This is a good time to revisit the 2018 debate about whether there really was a speech crisis on campus.
Sean Stevens and I reviewed the evidence to show that yes, there was a real and growing problem. Here's part 1 of our post at @HdxAcademy
4. Here is part 2, the post with most of the data and graphs laying out the problem back in 2018:
heterodoxacademy.org/blog/the-skept…
[Click through to the full thread here.]
Finally, here’s some examples of the unserious and deranged responses from journalists, academics and other blue checks:
Emilite Gorcenski, data scientist and activist
It does not escape my notice that the backdrop for this photo is the site of the infamous neo-Nazi tiki torch rally on August 11, 2017, and it should not escape your notice, either.
Nikole Hannah-Jones, New York Times Magazine, and Exavier Pope, Lawyer
Watch whiteness work
Ida Bae Wells @nhannahjones
Sarah T. Roberts, Professor On Leave, UCLA
Dan Froomkin, PressWatchers.org
Is there any other way for a college student to break into the NYT op-ed pages than to write woke-panic claptrap like this? Complete with citation to bogus far-right-funded poll. And hello, this is UVA we're talking about, I call bs.
Gady Esptein, China Affairs Editor, The Economist
@akruglov You probably haven't heard about a problem on college campuses called "cancel culture" because people are afraid to talk about it except every week in the NYT...
Melissa Byrne, Student Debt Activist
I, too, self censor on the @nytimes oped page.
Emma Camp✒️ @emmma_camp_
Carrie Courogen, Pitchfork Magazine
@emmma_camp_ @nytimes Would have thought twice about all my public social handles noting that I intern for a Koch brothers-backed entity that defends sexual harassment, a professor who believes in pedophilia, and Milo Yiannopoulos before this went live, but you do you, babe.
Tim Rostan, Managing Editor, MarketWatch
Jason Miller, novelist
Ah, yes, for the very first time a young person feels like her ideas are not valued/accepted/taken seriously. Great work, Times!
Seyward Darby, Editor in Chief, Atavist
I swear, wherever there's someone lamenting "cancel culture," you'll find a connection to a debate team or club.
nytimes.com/2022/03/07/opi…
Seyward Darby @seywarddarby
Gary Legum, Freelance Writer
Andrew Stoeten, Podcaster
Aaron Huertas, Data Scientist
That was both very depressing and very infuriating...
I really hate to say this because i don't want to give in to hysterics or overheated thinking, but it really does seem that most of our Blue Tribe culture class (which, let's face it, means every journalist, writer and professor not explicitly Conservative) has surrendered their intellectual independence, their integrity and dignity, and signed onto The Big Lie.
(The Big Lie in this case is that there's not a massive coordinated push by Leftists armed with academic jargon to muzzle their opponents, have them and their ideas pathologized ("only a -phobic with an authoritarian personality would say that!"), and to stretch out the Harm Principle until everyone who refuses to obey their speech codes is too afraid to raise a word of dissent. I mean, did we all hallucinate what happened to Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson, JK Rowling, the Christakises, Bari Weiss, Don McNeil, Heather Heying and Brett Weinstein, the Philip Roth bio and the Norman Mailer book, etc etc--plus sensitivity readers, Silence is Violence, constant language policing, and all the conservative speakers who've been hounded and attacked while trying to speak? Seriously!? To deny all this is unprecedented gaslighting.)
What worries me is that as far as I can tell from reading history, when a large chunk of the ruling/elite/intellectual class of a country has tied themselves to the mast of a Big Lie and refuses to back down, whose only response is to denounce and demonize anyone who stands in their way, this is when very ugly things start to happen.
"You're not really afraid to express your views; you published in the NYTs, after all! Now be quiet while the entire journalism establishment mocks and demeans you.