Peter Boghossian has decided that he no longer wants to metaphorically punch a time clock in a social justice factory.
Philosophy professor Boghossian has today informed the provost of Portland State University in Oregon that he is quitting his teaching position there because the campus has apparently become besotted with intolerance to free speech.
“While I am grateful for the opportunity to have taught at Portland State for over a decade, it has become clear to me that this institution is no place for people who intend to think freely and explore ideas,” he declared in setting forth in writing various reasons for his resignation.
He also implied the taxpayer-supported institution failed its duty that it owes to students and the public to fundamentally ensure the “freedom to question.”
Boghossian is far from the only educator at the college or secondary school level who has made this kind of difficult decision because of the pervasiveness of intolerant and far-left identity politics and where diversity of opinion is shunned.
……In his letter, the professor recalled that he often brought in guest speakers of all worldviews to address his classes, speakers with whom he often disagreed.
……The letter also detailed the various incidents of harassment Boghossian experienced, plus undergoing two investigations, in connection with going public with his criticism of ideological conformity.
Prof. Boghossian achieved a certain level of fame several years ago when he managed to get several hoax papers published in peer-reviewed journals in connection with “grievance studies” that revealed the intellectual bankruptcy of academia.
The professor acknowledged in the missive that he felt he had a moral obligation to reluctantly exit Portland State.
“For ten years, I have taught my students the importance of living by your principles. One of mine is to defend our system of liberal education from those who seek to destroy it. Who would I be if I didn’t?” he concluded.
Jodi Shaw, an ex-Smith College staffer, and a self-described lifelong liberal, is among those who have also come forward as a whistleblower to challenge critical race theory orthodoxy or the equivalent.
Boghossian isn’t the only college faculty member to quit over the leftwing cesspool that has taken over universities.
Thom Nickels at Pajamas Media describes a conversation he had with a professor who happily retired after enduring the onslaught of triggered social justice warriors:
He said he was glad to be out of the hornets’ nest, away from a world so filled with political correctness that it was difficult to get through the day. Life on campus, he said, is rife with so many non-issue “issues” that it’s like walking barefoot on sidewalks littered with broken glass.
He related how he once told a fellow professor that she “looked very nice today,” meaning that she had selected a particularly nice outfit. Rather than thank him for the compliment, the professor took him to task for being sexist and going out of his way to objectify her as an object (a piece of meat) to be admired.……The ex-professor told me another story, of when his university invited a well-known woman speaker to lecture to students. While the speaker’s presentation was flawless and held the audience spellbound, during the Q and A a well-dressed young man stood up and said that the speaker had disparaged African Americans.
“I compliment you on a good talk, however you made one gross mistake that is offensive to the African American community,” he began. The speaker asked in a soft voice what the offensive remark was.“In your introduction, you described yourself as being the ‘black sheep’ of your family,” the student said. “The use of the word black in this instance connotes negativity and undesirability and as such it casts a poor light on African American students. It is racist.”
Yes, she was right up there with the Ku Klux Klan.……There was a time not so long ago when only the right wing was crazy over censorship. In the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s, it was conservatives who banned books and movies and even speakers (Communists, etc.) from college campuses. Today it is the Left. That’s why the term regressive left in now a part of the national vocabulary. A regressive leftist is someone who has an inability to listen to contrary, uncomfortable viewpoints without throwing out accusations of bigotry, racism, and white supremacy. Labeling someone a “racist” or a “white supremacist” is supposed to shut down all debate. It’s what philosophy professor Christina Hoff Sommers means when she says: “In their war against intolerance, they take on the extremes of intolerance.”
Thanks to the fatuous indoctrination of left wing academic intelligentsia, college campuses have morphed into a petri dish of bat-shit crazy dysfunction.
There are a few professors—Mike Adams, who is a professor at UNC-Wilmington—who won’t put up with the triggered snowflake drama. He lets his students know on the first day of class that they have no right not to be offended, and if they don’t like it, they can drop the class.
How ironic that the Free Speech Movement, which was started by left wing radicals on university campuses in the 1960s, against the ‘oppressive establishment’, has now become the oppressive establishment. Learning, healthy skepticism, courage of conviction and thoughtful analysis of the world have been gutted for a more dumbed-down, spineless, unprincipled, nihilist approach. Just the very act of rebelling against or challenging the agenda and the tactics of students who arrive at the college already radicalized, will get you death threats and social media hate speech.
The inmates are running the asylum.
Related posts:
https://sfcmac.com/school-official-in-new-hampshire-resigns-over-racist-white-privilege-training/
https://sfcmac.com/letter-from-an-angry-parent-to-a-woke-school/