Lifted from the comments, some scenes from the University of California, Irvine, where great minds reveal themselves: 

Resistance is saying “fuck this,” you know, “fuck the police,” or whoever the fuck you invited over here and then listen to us, listen to what we’re saying. And we’re not just talking out of our ass, like we’re smart as fuck, you know what I mean? We read books, and we know shit; we know statistics. 

Oh, there’s video and everything. 

I understand your positionality… but the reality is it has created a toxic climate… an unsafe learning environment for students… It’s like neutrally playing a speech by Hitler.

That feeling when you’re a teaching assistant and in your communications class you play a Jordan Peterson clip about pronouns and freedom of speech, hoping to spur discussion, and you then get reported and hauled in front of faculty and the manager of the university’s Gendered and Sexual Violence Prevention and Support Office for a ritual scolding, during which you’re accused of remaining politically neutral, which is deemed both a “problem” and in itself “threatening,” before being accused of “gender-based violence.”

The teaching assistant in question, Lindsay Shepherd, has, at the time of writing, been allowed to keep her teaching position at Wilfrid Laurier University, Ontario, but must now file copies of her lesson plans in advance for vetting and must allow faculty members to sit in on her sessions as and when they wish. Presumably, to head off any further political neutrality. 

Readers can watch the Peterson clip here and are invited to report back on any “gender-based violence” they incur simply by watching it.

Update, via the comments: 

Tariq Khan is a PhD candidate at the University [of Illinois] and has taught courses such as “Constructing Race in America” and “U.S. Gender History since 1877.” He is also involved with various anarchist and communist organisations including Black Rose Anarchist Federation and Antifa, in addition to working with the undergraduate socialist students.

And this graduate instructor’s mental state is not at all in question.

Law professor Adam MacLeod on undoing the ‘progressive’ miseducation of his students: 

Slapping a label on the box without first opening the box and examining its contents is a form of cheating. Worse, it prevents you from discovering the treasures hidden inside the box. For example, when we discussed the Code of Hammurabi, some of you wanted to slap labels on what you read [“classist,” “racist,”] which enabled you to convince yourself that you had nothing to learn from ancient Babylonians. But when we peeled off the labels and looked carefully inside the box, we discovered several surprising truths.

Related: “Who is this Mozart?”  

Michael Walsh on the real-world destination of “social justice” activism: 

In the aftermath of the Ferguson riots in Missouri and the Freddie Gray fiasco in Baltimore, the decriminalisation of crime in the name of “social justice” – long a goal of the cultural-Marxist Left – got fully underway. The result was exactly what anyone not fully invested in Critical Theory would have expected… Baltimore is a prime example of what happens when citizens are categorised by skin colour or cultural background, and then have differing standards of behaviour applied to them by what should be an impartial justice system. Instead of “social justice,” the outcome is social disruption, mistrust, resentment and lawlessness.

If violent and predatory behaviour has consequences only for the victim, then the situation is unlikely to improve. 

And David Cole on gentrification, its opponents, and the kind of nakedly racial animus that’s apparently okay: 

Activists [in Pilsen, Chicago] protested the opening of a new restaurant in the neighbourhood. The owners of the eatery, named S.K.Y., are accused of “gentrifying” the neighbourhood with their presence. So of course the activists responded by defacing the building, threatening the staff, and blocking people from entering… But the chef-owner of S.K.Y., Stephen Gillanders, is baffled. His meals start at $7, hardly the stuff of billionaire foodies. So why the resistance from the locals? Well, it turns out that Gillanders is Filipino and his wife is Korean.

Media reports that have mentioned Gillanders’ race have suggested that it’s somehow odd that the activists are attacking a fellow minority… [But] the activists speak again and again of keeping Pilsen “Mexican.” Not “diverse,” not “rainbow,” but Mexican. In fact, CBS Chicago reported that it isn’t just Gillanders’ business that’s being targeted. The protesters are “demanding that non-Mexican owners here [at S.K.Y.] and across the street get out of Pilsen.” Viva la Raza! There’s your identity politics, leftists. This is the logical conclusion of the race-centred worldview that the left encourages non-whites to embrace.

Feel free to share your own links and snippets, on any subject, in the comments.

Toby Young on things you mustn’t acknowledge, even politely, at least among educators: 

Unfortunately, [education charity] Teach First decided my blog was unacceptable. In spite of the fact that it was billed as part of a ‘debate’, and appeared alongside another piece expressing an alternative point of view, the organisation decided to remove it from its website and issue an apology. That’s right, it apologised for publishing my piece. “It was against what we believe is true and against our values and vision,” Teach First explained… The most disappointing thing about the whole affair is that… I was attempting to show how teachers could remain evangelical about raising standards without denying the mainstream scientific understanding about the heritability of IQ and the impact of IQ on educational outcomes. Teach First’s reaction and its description of my piece as “against what we believe is true” suggests it doesn’t share my view that its values are compatible with mainstream science. 

Toni Airaksinen on the Clown Quarter’s high standards: 

An academic journal on “white privilege” has apparently stopped publishing articles following a Campus Reform investigation in September. The journal, Whiteness and Education, published by Routledge, claimed to publish peer-reviewed research on issues including “critical discussions of White racism, White identity, privilege, power, and intersectionality.” However, a closer inspection revealed that the majority of published articles were “accepted” for publication within two days of being “received” — a very short time frame that could not allow for proper peer-review, according to professors consulted by Campus Reform. 

And further to rumblings in the comments, Michael Jones notes an inspired exercise in trolling and what it reveals: 

Signs declaring “It’s okay to be white” have been spotted on college campuses across America and even in Canada over the last week, prompting outrage… Others have questioned why saying “it’s okay to be white” is automatically racist… Even though the campaign has been widely identified as a troll attempt, many took the bait. “I am deeply disgusted that this organised online campaign to divide university communities across the country has come to our campus. It is shameful that anyone would use these posters to promote a racist agenda,” University of Kansas’ student body president, Mady Womack, told the Kansan. The flyers were denounced as “racist” and the school’s Multicultural Student Government convened an “emergency meeting” over it, according to the report.

Given the endless courses and faculty proclamations denouncing “whiteness” as both “oppressive” and a “problem,” something that pale-skinned students should atone for ostentatiously, while promising not to produce children as pale and sinful as themselves, the accusations of racism and divisiveness – because of a small notice suggesting that, actually, “It’s okay to be white” – may ring a little hollow and seem absurdly dishonest. And it’s hard not to admire the economy of the trolling, whereby a modest and unobjectionable statement, one that if applied to any other, comparable group would be utterly innocuous, is denounced, and denounced immediately, as if it were scandalous. Which suggests that there’s no position a pale person could take, short of continual deference and self-abasement, that would keep such people free of doctrinaire convulsion. And which in turns suggests a kind of madness.

Feel free to share your own links and snippets, on any subject, in the comments.