Cancel culture came for Clarence Thomas at George Washington law

For more than a decade, George Washington University Law School benefited greatly from the teaching of Justice Thomas, who combines a legendary career with one of the most inspiring life stories in the history of the court. Whatever the reason for his cessation in teaching, he deserves our thanks.

He also deserved better. He deserved greater public support from individual faculty members. He deserved greater understanding from students. He deserved an equally vocal counter-campaign in support of free speech and a diversity of viewpoints at the university.

Yet, there is now an overwhelming fear among faculty and students that they could be the next person targeted in a cancel campaign or shunned by colleagues. These campaigns threaten everything that brings meaning to an intellectual, from access to classes to conferences to publications.

Many choose to remain silent as the mob pursues their colleagues. For those tagged as dissenters, the atmosphere is perfectly Robespierrean. French revolutionary leader Abbe Sieyes captured this atmosphere as a liberal thinker who was later suspected of being an independent thinker.

When asked what he had done during the Reign of Terror, he replied: “I stayed alive.”