Conservatives in academia have traded stories for years of fear on campus, of keeping their heads down and watching what they say lest they get harassed or fired. Now, the illiberalism of the Left is being turned against its own. It is an illustration of the basic civil-libertarian point that any regime meant to stifle opponents eventually comes back to bite its architects.
The groves of academe have gone from what are supposed to be bastions of free speech to grim prosecutorial arenas where everything you say can and will be used against you. The potential McCarthyites sit in every lecture hall and seminar room and they are children of the Left, students who have been trained and encouraged to be whiny, litigious and censorious.
This is a dystopia entirely of the Left’s making. Its identity politics, feminism and hysteria about campus rape are ascendant on campus. On top of this, it is the Obama administration that weaponized Title IX in response to the alleged epidemic of campus rape and made it a clear and present danger to due process and freedom of expression.
David and Charlie have written eloquently about the Kipnis affair. Here’s my take today in Politico: