
What happened when I challenged the PC campus culture at NYU - pmiller2
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/11/03/campus-pc-culture-is-so-rampant-that-nyu-is-paying-to-silence-me/
======
riverside
For those who don't want to read the article, "What happened when I challenged
the PC campus culture at NYU" really means "What happened when I tweeted a
bunch of right-wing garbage and associated it with my employer, by name":

> What if Trump triggers a few hundred thousand liberal totalitarians to jump
> out of their dorm windows? one can only hope. #TriggerWarning
> [https://twitter.com/antipcnyuprof/status/780573017382481920](https://twitter.com/antipcnyuprof/status/780573017382481920)

The answer is that you're asked to take a leave of absence because you're
embarrassing everyone.

Shed no tears though, I'm sure Professor Edgelord will do just fine in the
conservative talk circuit for years to come.

~~~
ppod
I think the mention of suicide was wrong, but it sounds like you're saying
that a University should fire any employees that express right-wing views. You
actually said 'right wing garbage', but I didn't see any fact-checking on
either side.

~~~
riverside
My critique of his actions starts and ends with this: If you're posting a
bunch of trollbait just to see if your peers and students will react poorly,
and then they do, and you get in trouble for it, good.

~~~
LyndsySimon
How is this any different than saying "If you're a black man and you appear in
public with a white woman just to see if people will react poorly, and you get
in trouble for it, good"?

Before someone suggests that I'm equating the two actions, I am not. My point
is that this line of thought absolves others of responsibility for their
actions. Whether or not the professor anticipated the response is irrelevant
to the question "Is this sort of response wholly inappropriate?"

~~~
riverside
>How is this any different

>Before someone suggests that I'm equating the two actions, I am not.

Sounds like you know the answer!

~~~
LyndsySimon
> My point is that this line of thought absolves others of responsibility for
> their actions.

------
FrancoDiaz
_when the university implemented a bias reporting hotline, by which students
can anonymously report professors and classmates for any number of viewpoint
transgressions related to race, gender and orientation, real or perceived_

Sounds very east german to me.

 _The cause of Professor Rectenwald’s guilt is certainly not, in our view, his
identity as a cis, white, straight male. The cause of his guilt is the content
and structure of his thinking.”_

These people think they're part of some Soviet kangaroo court.

All these SJWs are just evil as far as I'm concerned. If they ever get real
power, there would be a civil war.

~~~
actuallyalys
_Sounds very east german to me._

They are not even remotely comparable. The East German government created a
network of hundreds of thousands of informants, maintained a separate penal
system for political prisoners, prevented citizens from leaving the country,
and used information gathered from surveillance to systematically destroy
dissidents' lives.

The author of the article was put on paid leave for the remainder of the
semester. It's unlikely that professors and classmates reported to the hotline
would face even that.

~~~
cmdrfred
I don't think the political prisons were built overnight. It was likely small,
well meaning laws that slowly over time became corrupted. I can see the
grandparents point. Reporting hotlines for things that are essentially thought
crimes worry me.

------
heisenbit
He created an EXPERIMENTAL twitter account and played alt-right troll. And
then showed that nobody engaged constructively with him.

If he had researched the topic he should have known that anyone who engages
with trolls looses. So anyone who is half sane will steer clear. And he gets
the left wing trolls feasting on his bait.

Scientific value: Likely close to zero.

But the question here is more: Experimental personas in social media and
impact back on real life. Where should the line be drawn?

------
maverick_iceman
Yes, having right wing thoughts is a crime. They should not only be fired from
jobs but sent to labor camps for reeducation and publicly purged in show
trials. George Orwell would have been so happy to see his fiction becoming
reality.

------
maverick_iceman
_> The cause of Professor Rectenwald’s guilt is certainly not, in our view,
his identity as a cis, white, straight male. The cause of his guilt is the
content and structure of his thinking._

And here I imagined thoughtcrime is something from George Orwell's fiction,
never expected to someone actually get punished for this crime. Winds of
change, I guess.

------
norea-armozel
"...while drawing out the predictable, _censorious responses of so-called
progressives_ , self-appointed thought police at NYU and elsewhere who
have..."

So let me get this straight. If I block you, mock you, ban you from my site,
or otherwise not associate with you I'm magically blackballing you the same
way a university can? Sorry, but I'm not buying this bull. This is why I
really, really hate intellectuals of this stripe. They claim that it's
"censorious" to do what we already do in person. I don't talk to Trump
supporters in real life. Are they censored by me not engaging them? Am I
magically impeding their freedom to protest, write articles, publish articles,
or otherwise make their message heard by the mere act of not listening as an
individual? Michael Rectenwald and company need to stop conflating the
legitimate concern of institutional censorship with the non-issue of free
association. So how about he and his fellow trolls get a clue and stop whining
cause people don't talk to each other on Twitter or Facebook.

------
throwaway274739
It's very interesting that in these predictable "oh no, the PC culture is
oppressing me" stories, the hapless victim is inevitably a white male of
extraordinary privilege and power.

I put forward that this is not a coincidence. We tend not to see these stories
written by, say, a trans Woman of Color who works as a cleaner. Why is that?
Do you think she faces less oppression and discrimination in her day to day
life than this privileged white male who works at NYU? Of course not!

What we see here is one of the subtleties of privilege, power structures and
white supremacy in this country. White people, upon encountering even the
slightest challenge to their power, will lash out with extraordinary anger and
self righteousness (exhibit A: the Trump campaign).

In contrast, trans people, People of Color, undocumented immigrants, and
pretty anyone whose not a straight white Christian male is expected to endure
any number of indignities at the hands of the white power structure.

What we are seeing now is People of Color, LBGTQs, and other oppressed groups
saying to white men like the author is we've had enough. I commend them for it
and hope everyone can see past his crocodile tears.

~~~
dikdik
Didn't lil Wayne just face some internet backlash for saying he "hasn't
experience racism" and that BLM is a bunch of bullshit?

The so called "oppressed minorities" that do speak out against the PC culture
are framed as Uncle Tom's and brushed under the rug.

------
bradknowles
When I read the title of the article, I thought he was talking about publicly
supporting Apple and macOS against Microsoft and Windows, and how that had
come back to haunt him.

Sigh....

------
ryao
Am I the only person who thought this was an article by a Mac OS X user upon
reading the title?

~~~
dllthomas
Nope.

------
kapauldo
This guy belongs at an art school, not a serious university. Get back to work
educating young people not play time trying to provoke people.

~~~
Shanea93
He's a professor of liberal studies, you could say that this sort of action is
entirely within the remit of his profession.

