Mastodawn

Ted McCormick Jan 16, 2023

If you're going to waste my time arguing that what happened at Hamline isn't bad because out-and-out fascists have done worse, maybe stop and think about how asinine that line of argument is.

Yes, people who see academic freedom as a bad thing have attacked it. (Yes, academics like me have commented on that, too.)

The news here is that people who claim it's a good thing, and whose professional responsibility it is to protect it, have also attacked it, and doubled down on the attack.

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Ted McCormick

It's not only unprincipled, it's disastrous strategy. What the Hamline admin did, *and is actively defending*, hands a large and blatant win to right-wingers and Islamophobes. It harms a perfectly good, precarious scholar. And it makes the student who complained into a public target, too. As a comprehensive screw-up on both principles and practice, it's hard to beat. That it's wrapped in the language of concern for students only makes it like every single other self-serving administrative move.