It is quite peculiar how there are still people who claim that cancel culture is not real. However, my experience of combatting censorship on college campuses for the past 22 years has shown me just how real and even deadly cancel culture can be.
My career began shortly after 9/11, during which I often found myself defending professors who made controversial statements about the attacks.
One of my first cases involved a conservative professor named Mike Adams.
He had been targeted by the University of North Carolina at Wilmington after he challenged a student who claimed America deserved the attacks.
As a non-partisan organization called the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), we repeatedly defended Professor Adams over the years due to his irreverent conservative advocacy.
Following 9/11, more than a dozen professors were targeted and punished, with three of them losing their jobs.
While these numbers may seem small, the reality is that even a single professor losing their job for expressing their viewpoint has a chilling effect on speech. When the firing begins, people become afraid of speaking up to protect their livelihoods.
What’s even more concerning is that between 1957 and 1973, the Supreme Court established strong protections for professor and university student free speech rights through various rulings. However, these protections seem to have been forgotten in the face of cancel culture.
Cancel culture today has far surpassed anything seen in the past half century.
In the last decade alone, there have been over 1,000 campaigns to punish professors for their free speech. About two thirds of these campaigns have been successful, resulting in almost 200 professors being fired or forced to leave their positions.
These statistics are actually a gross underestimate when considering that one in six professors report having faced discipline or threats for their speech, and one in three report being pressured by colleagues to avoid researching controversial topics. Consequently, 90% of surveyed professors admit to self-censoring out of fear, which is a stark contrast to the 9% of professors who self-censored during the height of McCarthyism in the 1950s.
Cancel culture has permeated every industry, from journalism and publishing to K-12 education and comedy. By cancel culture, we are referring to the noticeable increase since around 2014 of campaigns to get people fired, expelled, deplatformed, or otherwise punished for speech that should be protected by the First Amendment.
Contrary to the claims of cancel culture deniers, the impact on individuals is often profound. For example, just this year, principal Richard Bilkszto of Burnhamthorpe Collegiate Institute and Adult Learning Centre in Canada took his own life after a run-in with a diversity trainer cost him his job, friends, and reputation.
Another tragic case involves Professor Mike Adams. FIRE and I had successfully defended him in the past, but in June 2020, amid a wave of campus cancelations, Adams faced demands from students to be fired for jokingly comparing lockdowns to slavery. Ultimately, Adams reached a financial settlement with UNC, which further upset his detractors.
Despite his resilience, Mike Adams continued to be targeted, with protesters even going to his house. He had filed a police report, but since he had already signed his severance agreement, there was little I could do. The following week, he tragically took his own life.
These are just a few examples of why the notion that cancel culture is driven by compassion is nonsensical. While cancelers may believe they are defending marginalized groups, their actions inflict cruelty on real people.
Another academic, Dr. Carole Hooven, went through a grueling experience at Harvard University for alleged “transphobia.” This incident highlights one of the most damaging consequences of cancel culture: the erosion of public trust.
In 2022, Dr. Carole Hooven appeared on Fox News to discuss her book “Testosterone,” in which she argued for compassion and respect towards transgender individuals while acknowledging the reality of biological sex. As a result, she faced backlash from Harvard administrators and eventually left the university. More recently, a panel she was scheduled to appear on at the joint annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) and Canadian Anthropology Society (CASCA) was canceled due to concerns of “harm.”
While the mistreatment of individuals like Hooven, Adams, and Bilkszto is a problem in itself, it also undermines the public’s trust in experts. When people see that expressing certain views on biological sex, diversity, equity, and inclusion, or current events can cost them their careers, why should they trust those who are supposed to be experts?
Cancel culture not only ruins lives and careers, but it also undermines our trust in the shared facts necessary for a thriving democracy.
By ignoring the problem of cancel culture, we are putting ourselves at risk.
Greg Lukianoff is the president and CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and co-author of the book “Canceling of the American Mind.”
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