McGill University Students Want Prof Stripped of Emeritus Status for Criticizing Social Justice, BLM, Etc.

McGill University Students Want Prof Stripped of Emeritus Status for Criticizing Social Justice, BLM, Etc.

Philip Carl Salzman is a retired Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at McGill University in Canada. He has become the target of a cancel culture mob for the crime of criticizing social justice, rape culture, Black Lives Matter, and other aspects of the academic left which are considered beyond reproach.

Students want Salzman stripped of his emeritus status and are demanding a review of the university’s policy on academic freedom.

The outrage mob and all that comes with it, is quickly becoming the norm on college campuses.

? Students demand McGill University strip a professor of Emeritus status and overhaul McGill's policy on academic freedom.

Claims free speech/expression represents "rhetorical violence against marginalized communities" and is "dictated by whiteness." https://t.co/kFwDYuKkzp pic.twitter.com/ixT7R0XqdM

— Colin Wright (@SwipeWright) December 2, 2020

Here are some excerpts from a letter students addressed to the McGill community:

It is no secret that, like many other academic institutions, McGill University was built on a history of oppression, its existence made possible by profiting off of the labour of enslaved and marginalized peoples. This regrettable history not only tarnishes the University’s past but also continues to influence how the University operates today. Scholars have abused their right of free speech and academic freedom to defend acts of rhetorical violence against marginalized communities on campus, shielding racist, sexist, and transphobic speech behind the term “controversy.”

Freedom of expression is traditionally considered central to permitting the free exchange of ideas and debate and fostering the university environment. Free speech, however, does not exist outside of its social context…

In the past year, several articles have been posted on public forums by Professor Philip Carl Salzman, a retired Professor Emeritus of the McGill Anthropology Department. In one recent example, Salzman goes on to write that “the Middle East is a place where doing harm and being cruel to others is regarded as a virtue and a duty.” Salzman goes on to condemn multiculturalism, immigration, gender parity, cultural equality, social justice, and the Black Lives Matter movement, along with dismissing the existence of rape culture and systemic racism.

Despite their editorial nature, Salzman’s opinions are presented as though they are objective facts. Meanwhile, his affiliation with McGill lends him credibility that would not otherwise be afforded if not for his status as a Professor Emeritus of a respected institution such as McGill University. In providing such commentary while presenting himself as an affiliate of this University, Salzman’s recent publications in public fora demonstrate a lack of consideration for his responsibility as an academic…

For these reasons, we, the undersigned, demand the removal of Professor Philip Carl Salzman’s Emeritus status. To ensure lasting change we, furthermore, demand an immediate, transparent, and student-centred overhaul of McGill’s Statement of Academic Freedom, enshrining the University’s commitment to inclusivity in teaching and research in policy.

Richard L. Cravatts of the Times of Israel has written an excellent response to all of this:

Suppressing Academic Freedom in the Name of Inclusion at McGill University

In what has become an increasingly frequent and troubling occurrence on campuses, a McGill University emeritus professor of anthropology, Philip C. Salzman, is under fire by pretentious, virtue-signaling students who wish to hear only viewpoints that conform with their own and who, in attempting to shield others from ideas that might make them uncomfortable, want to suppress the ideas of their ideological opponents.

The notion that a vocal minority of self-important ideologues can determine what views may or may not be expressed on a particular campus is not only antithetical to the purpose of a university, of course, but is vaguely fascistic by purposely or carelessly relinquishing power to a few to decide what can be said and what speech is allowed and what must be suppressed; it is what former Yale University president Bartlett Giamatti characterized as the “tyranny of group self-righteousness.”…

Because they do not understand that the central role of the university is foster the pursuit of knowledge and truth and not, primarily, to create a “safe” space where no one’s feelings are hurt by “rhetorical violence” and students do not have to be exposed to ideas of which they do not approve, the letter writers were also responding to a recent confirmation by McGill’s administration that academic freedom is a paramount goal of the University.

One of the problems facing academia is that progressives rule the field with a supermajority, yet behave as if they are a repressed minority.

The left screams in defiance that it will not be silenced, as it does everything it can to silence any critics brave enough to speak out against them, knowing full well that they will become the next target of the mob.

Featured image via YouTube.

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