E-Pluribus+ : Reactions to Emma Camp's NYT Op-Ed on Campus Speech

This piece is getting quite a bit of buzz. We've compiled the reactions here.

Mar 7

We’ve compiled some of the most salient commentary and reactions to Emma Camp’s New York Times op-ed on campus free speech issues.

First up, some insightful commentary on how certain segments of Twitter have responded to the op-ed:

Jesse Singal, Singal Minded

Jesse Singal @jessesingal

The response to the NYT article about campus free speech is really telling!

Jesse Singal @jessesingal

Example: This is such a profound misunderstanding of what journalism and opinion writing are. I find it really hard to believe that Jason Stanley actually thinks the Times has a 'responsibility' of this sort, or that he actually thinks we're anywhere near McCarthyism.

Jesse Singal @jessesingal

Absolutely goddamn bonkers. There is a large subset of people whose brains have been entirely melted by the last ~6 years.

Jesse Singal @jessesingal

Major figure in the evidence-based medicine movement, just casually tossing out deranged conspiracy theories about the NYT allying with right-wing state governments to pass laws that have only been opposed in the NYT's pages. The liberal intelligentsia is in healthy shape.

Chris Ferguson, Professor of Psychology, Stetson University

Chris Ferguson 🐉 @CJFerguson1111

Interesting to see how an article is posted on free speech and the responses from some *very smart people*(tm) is basically twitter-shaming the young author without a hint of insight.

Jesse Singal @jessesingal

The response to the NYT article about campus free speech is really telling!

Alan Rozenshtein, Law Professor, University of Minnesota

Alan Rozenshtein @ARozenshtein

I'm seeing a lot of responses to this post along the lines of "but this person feels free to express herself in the NYT." Of course THIS person does---the whole point is everyone else she's describing that doesn't feel so free (or has the platform).

Opinion | I Came to College Eager to Debate. I Found Self-Censorship Instead.When we censor ourselves, our learning environments suffer.nytimes.com

Scott Greenfield, Blogger, Simple Justice

Scott Greenfield @ScottGreenfield

Rarely are there so many vacuous reactions that so overwhelming prove the point. Well done.

Emma Camp✒️ @emmma_camp_

I’m so excited to finally share this! My @nytimes guest essay is attached below! https://t.co/UVkUm4mWFG

Next, a good thread from Jonathan Haidt

Jonathan Haidt @JonHaidt

1. I was saddened to read a student's account of how the intellectual climate has changed at UVA since I left in 2011, when it was wonderful. It's not just @UVA, it's most schools... [thread] nytimes.com/2022/03/07/opi…

Jonathan Haidt @JonHaidt

2. At @HdxAcademy we just published our 2021 Campus Expression Survey, which backs up what Emma Camp writes about UVA: 60% of students say they are reluctant to discuss controversial issues; they are most afraid of other students.

Annual Campus Expression Survey - Heterodox AcademyHxA created & validated the Campus Expression Survey to measure how comfortable/reluctant students feel discussing various topics on campus.heterodoxacademy.org

Jonathan Haidt @JonHaidt

3. This is a good time to revisit the 2018 debate about whether there really was a speech crisis on campus. Sean Stevens and I reviewed the evidence to show that yes, there was a real and growing problem. Here's part 1 of our post at @HdxAcademy

The Skeptics are Wrong Part 1: Attitudes About Free Speech On Campus are Changing - Heterodox AcademyHere we survey evidence that attitudes about free speech seem to be changing among the “iGen” cohort, relative to previous generations.heterodoxacademy.org

Jonathan Haidt @JonHaidt

4. Here is part 2, the post with most of the data and graphs laying out the problem back in 2018: heterodoxacademy.org/blog/the-skept…

[Click through to the full thread here.]

Finally, here’s some examples of the unserious and deranged responses from journalists, academics and other blue checks:

Emilite Gorcenski, data scientist and activist

Emilite Gorcenski @EmilyGorcenski

It does not escape my notice that the backdrop for this photo is the site of the infamous neo-Nazi tiki torch rally on August 11, 2017, and it should not escape your notice, either.

Opinion | I Came to College Eager to Debate. I Found Self-Censorship Instead.When we censor ourselves, our learning environments suffer.nytimes.com

Nikole Hannah-Jones, New York Times Magazine, and Exavier Pope, Lawyer

𝐄𝐱𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐫 𝐏𝐨𝐩𝐞 @exavierpope

Watch whiteness work

Ida Bae Wells @nhannahjones

I also do not understand the notion that you are so afraid to speak up about your views that you write about them for your school newspaper and now you write an entire opinion piece in the NYT. But sure.

Sarah T. Roberts, Professor On Leave, UCLA

Dr. Sarah T. Roberts @ubiquity75

This was quite a lot of airtime for pretty thin claims.

Opinion | I Came to College Eager to Debate. I Found Self-Censorship Instead.When we censor ourselves, our learning environments suffer.nytimes.com

Dan Froomkin, PressWatchers.org

Dan Froomkin/PressWatchers.org @froomkin

Is there any other way for a college student to break into the NYT op-ed pages than to write woke-panic claptrap like this? Complete with citation to bogus far-right-funded poll. And hello, this is UVA we're talking about, I call bs.

Opinion | I Came to College Eager to Debate. I Found Self-Censorship Instead.When we censor ourselves, our learning environments suffer.nytimes.com

Gady Esptein, China Affairs Editor, The Economist

Gady Epstein @gadyepstein

Look at least she didn’t write that Putin invaded Ukraine because her fellow students are too woke

Gady Epstein @gadyepstein

@akruglov You probably haven't heard about a problem on college campuses called "cancel culture" because people are afraid to talk about it except every week in the NYT...

Opinion | I Came to College Eager to Debate. I Found Self-Censorship Instead.When we censor ourselves, our learning environments suffer.nytimes.com

Melissa Byrne, Student Debt Activist

melissa “cancel student debt” byrne @mcbyrne

I, too, self censor on the @nytimes oped page.

Emma Camp✒️ @emmma_camp_

I’m so excited to finally share this! My @nytimes guest essay is attached below! https://t.co/UVkUm4mWFG

Carrie Courogen, Pitchfork Magazine

Carrie Courogen @carriecourogen

@emmma_camp_ @nytimes Would have thought twice about all my public social handles noting that I intern for a Koch brothers-backed entity that defends sexual harassment, a professor who believes in pedophilia, and Milo Yiannopoulos before this went live, but you do you, babe.

Tim Rostan, Managing Editor, MarketWatch

Tim Rostan. @mrtgr

Double majoring in Substack and what else? nytimes.com/2022/03/07/opi…?

Opinion | I Came to College Eager to Debate. I Found Self-Censorship Instead.When we censor ourselves, our learning environments suffer.nytimes.com

Jason Miller, novelist

Jason @longwall26

Ah, yes, for the very first time a young person feels like her ideas are not valued/accepted/taken seriously. Great work, Times!

Opinion | I Came to College Eager to Debate. I Found Self-Censorship Instead.When we censor ourselves, our learning environments suffer.nytimes.com

Seyward Darby, Editor in Chief, Atavist

Seyward Darby @seywarddarby

I swear, wherever there's someone lamenting "cancel culture," you'll find a connection to a debate team or club. nytimes.com/2022/03/07/opi…

Seyward Darby @seywarddarby

firmly convinced that debate is one of the worst ills of U.S. society. https://t.co/LVnabaroFQ

Gary Legum, Freelance Writer

Gary Legum @GaryLegum

College student looks at the Bari Weiss grift, says "gimme gimme gimme."

Opinion | I Came to College Eager to Debate. I Found Self-Censorship Instead.When we censor ourselves, our learning environments suffer.nytimes.com

Andrew Stoeten, Podcaster

Andrew Stoeten @AndrewStoeten

Opinion | I Came to College Not Expecting to be Called on My Dumb Bullshit

Opinion | I Came to College Eager to Debate. I Found Self-Censorship Instead.When we censor ourselves, our learning environments suffer.nytimes.com

Aaron Huertas, Data Scientist

Aaron Huertas @aaronhuertas

I am formally launching The Debate Me Bro Center for Discourse Posting to sequester everyone who wants to write this same boring oped over and over again.

Opinion | I Came to College Eager to Debate. I Found Self-Censorship Instead.When we censor ourselves, our learning environments suffer.nytimes.com

2 Comments

Clever Pseudonym

Mar 8Liked by Pluribus

That was both very depressing and very infuriating...

I really hate to say this because i don't want to give in to hysterics or overheated thinking, but it really does seem that most of our Blue Tribe culture class (which, let's face it, means every journalist, writer and professor not explicitly Conservative) has surrendered their intellectual independence, their integrity and dignity, and signed onto The Big Lie.

(The Big Lie in this case is that there's not a massive coordinated push by Leftists armed with academic jargon to muzzle their opponents, have them and their ideas pathologized ("only a -phobic with an authoritarian personality would say that!"), and to stretch out the Harm Principle until everyone who refuses to obey their speech codes is too afraid to raise a word of dissent. I mean, did we all hallucinate what happened to Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson, JK Rowling, the Christakises, Bari Weiss, Don McNeil, Heather Heying and Brett Weinstein, the Philip Roth bio and the Norman Mailer book, etc etc--plus sensitivity readers, Silence is Violence, constant language policing, and all the conservative speakers who've been hounded and attacked while trying to speak? Seriously!? To deny all this is unprecedented gaslighting.)

What worries me is that as far as I can tell from reading history, when a large chunk of the ruling/elite/intellectual class of a country has tied themselves to the mast of a Big Lie and refuses to back down, whose only response is to denounce and demonize anyone who stands in their way, this is when very ugly things start to happen.

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Steven Dale

Writes The Willful Sloth Newsletter Mar 8

"You're not really afraid to express your views; you published in the NYTs, after all! Now be quiet while the entire journalism establishment mocks and demeans you.

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PLURIBUS

E-Pluribus+ : Reactions to Emma Camp's NYT Op-Ed on Campus Speech

This piece is getting quite a bit of buzz. We've compiled the reactions here.

First up, some insightful commentary on how certain segments of Twitter have responded to the op-ed:

Next, a good thread from Jonathan Haidt

Finally, here’s some examples of the unserious and deranged responses from journalists, academics and other blue checks:

Ready for more?