Five proposals for a truce in the "cancel culture" wars

First, make it harder for skittish employers to fire or blackball people over their political views. Carano’s dismissal from “The Mandalorian” over a series of inflammatory social media posts spurred conservative complaints about Hollywood’s liberal orthodoxy. So why not work to narrow the morality clauses used to keep Hollywood and sports stars in ideological line, and strengthen the protections for speech in collective bargaining agreements? There’s plenty in this principle for liberals, too, as the Colin Kaepernick controversy demonstrated. Similarly, both left and right frequently argue that academia has become inhospitable, whether to conservatives who question the rigor of certain disciplines or to professors who criticize the policies of the Israeli government. The solution to both sets of complaints is to do more to defend faculty from firing and to prevent politicians and donors from monkeying with tenure decisions. People across the political spectrum should stand up to a Kansas effort to make it easier to suspend or terminate professors, including those with tenure. Newspapers and magazines, too, would do well to set expansive standards for what ideas their employees can explore — and make clear they’ll defend writers and editors who come under coordinated attack from the right or the left.
Advertisement

Join the conversation as a VIP Member

Trending on HotAir Videos

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement