Nathan, your post serves as an apt reminder of the quality of discourse that so many experience in higher education. And the column is not even in some professor’s personal blog, but instead at the Chronicle — essentially the New York Times of higher ed. It is no doubt seen as a clever and just high-larious column in some quarters, but you’ll forgive me if I think this is yet another example of why I roll my eyes when I hear reverential talk about the unique virtues of the community of scholars.
When Supreme Court justices extol the virtues of granting wide discretion to the academic community to regulate the speech and expression of its students, I’d love to show them this column and the countless rants like it. You want to give the keys to the kingdom to these folks? I don’t begrudge Laurie Essig her little booth in the marketplace of ideas, but I guarantee you that virtually every censored student I’ve ever represented could do better.