According to his letter, the professor is resigning as a protest of how one of his colleague in anthropology was treated. The colleague (Jeff Brantingham) developed a predictive policing system, turned it into a company (PredPol), and started selling it to police departments. Brantingham was widely critiqued for PredPol, including by many computer scientists and statisticians. You can find many critiques of PredPol in ACM journals.
Here are the alleged acts of "thought policing" mentioned in the article:
1. Graduate students signed a letter critiquing his work and calling for the UCLA administration to investigate the ethics of the project
2. The anthro department has various sections. The sociocultural anthropology section of the anthro department decided to not allow him to list courses under sociocultural anthro. He continued to teach the class under a different anthro section.
3. The anthro department held a public panel discussion about the state of the field with regards to issues of race, and during that panel, his research and business were criticized
4. The anthro department did not issue any press releases publicizing his work
5. He stopped going to faculty meetings
Other allegations of "thought crimes" at UCLA anthro are sprinkled in, but are more just examples of people expressing views the author disagrees with, including:
1. Someone in the department used the word "Latinx" at a panel. There is no claim that anyone was sanctioned, punished, or even criticized for using Latina or Latino.
2. The department is no longer requiring GRE scores.
3. Candidates for jobs and promotions must include a statement discussing one's contributions to diversity.
4. Statements were issued by various deparments critiquing Israel's actions
Seems to me like someone just doesn't like having to defend their low-quality work.
Except these criticisms aren't limited to UCLA. US Universities have created an alternate reality of offenses and priorities not shared by our adversaries, our competitors and many of our friends around the world. As a result our students are graduating with impossible expectations that cannot be met, and they will be flattened by others less idealistic and 'virtuous' to paraphrase Machiavelli. Think I'm wrong, well then give these a listen:
And predictive policing will become increasingly important as fewer people have any interest in a profession as slandered and scrutinized as police work.
Here are the alleged acts of "thought policing" mentioned in the article:
Other allegations of "thought crimes" at UCLA anthro are sprinkled in, but are more just examples of people expressing views the author disagrees with, including: Seems to me like someone just doesn't like having to defend their low-quality work.