We went through years and years of one side being told that it's okay that they're getting selectively silenced for relatively mainstream and popular views, since after all it's corporations doing it and not the government. The very term "free speech" was corrupted into "freeze peach" as a form of mockery and the entire idea was denigrated.
But now that the shoe is on the other foot, literal advocacy for political murder has to be protected (and rounded off to "criticism" in media ledes), apparently.
In fairness, all of these firings are at public universities. The 1A applies at a much higher bar than a corporation.
The shoe was on the other foot when conservative professors were being fired or disciplined for expressing - say "anti trans" viewpoints publicly. The outcomes were largely the same.
The contemporary right operates on a simple principle: everything they complain about is something they plan to do on a massive scale when they get power. It’s just a process of rationalization (“our enemies left us no choice but to do $bad_thing”).
I remember being shocked back in 2016 when Steve Bannon said he’s a Leninist. But it’s a clear-eyed and unusually honest example of how the far right is about becoming the thing you profess to hate.
Recognizing an Appeal/Argument/Deferral to Authority fallacy can secure you a lot of leverage in society
basically it looks like this:
when you don’t like something and an authority also doesn’t like something, you agree with anything the authority levies as punishment
but
was it within the parameters of what that authority can levy?
was it even the accurate authority to levy anything?
if you are not mentally or emotionally capable of answering that question, then the person affected likely can both reverse the punishment as well as harm the authority for acting at all because it should be pretty clear and citable how that authority’s actions fit within the governing system
But now that the shoe is on the other foot, literal advocacy for political murder has to be protected (and rounded off to "criticism" in media ledes), apparently.