It’s easy today for students or administrators to accuse a professor of some wrongdoing and then “investigations” and unfair procedures go into action. There have been many such cases in recent years, and Professor Nicholas Wolfinger has collected a varied assortment of them in a book entitled Professors Speak Out. I review it for the Martin Center today.

The cases include men and women, Americans and Canadians, professors in a wide range of disciplines. The common thread is that top officials fail to stand up for freedom of speech, and countenance blatantly unfair treatment.

In modern America, almost anything can be called “harassment” or “discrimination” so that unhappy students or officials can change a professor with some offense. The accused prof might be terminated from his or her job. Even when that doesn’t happen, the process is a punishment in itself.

Here’s a sample case.

One involves Frances Widdowson, an economics professor at Mount Royal University. She is a passionate believer in equality and freedom and thought that she could exercise her free-speech rights to criticize her university’s “Indigenization Initiative.” She expressed doubt about the university’s belief that there are “other ways of knowing,” meaning that native peoples have some non-scientific means of discerning truth that are not available to others. Moreover, she wrote a satirical reply to a woke university statement. She then learned that academic freedom does not shield a professor who mocks the sacred cows of “progressivism.” The intolerant elements at her school attacked her as a “racist” and demanded that she undergo “antiracist training.” The university’s one-sided investigation concluded that she was guilty of “harassment” because she had denigrated the beliefs of favored categories of people. In a move reminiscent of the “struggle sessions” during China’s Cultural Revolution, she was told that she had to “show remorse” for her transgressions. She didn’t and was fired.

This needs to stop, but unfortunately, many college leaders these days seem to care more about placating angry students or vindictive administrators than in upholding academic freedom and justice.