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Free Speech and Academic Freedom are Under Assault

The debate in academia over what constitutes academic freedom should not be much of a debate.

Faculty and staff need the freedom to consider multiple and varying view points, and to engage in ideas that may seem controversial or discomfiting. But conservative forces — in the United States, in Israel, elsewhere — don’t see it that way. While they complain about “cancel culture” and attempt to tie it to the progressive left, they are the ones who are seek to cancel those opinions with which they disagree.

This is the rationale for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ assault on education in his state, and the sudden concern among Republican lawmakers for Jewish voters, which really equates to a canceling of Palestinian and anti-Zionist voices in the American academy.

This essay by Peter Wood is a good example of how rightwing intellectuals attack the left and “wokeness” in one breath, but turn around and call for cancelation of left voices in the next.