Last Friday, New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg wrote a piece on the legislative war currently being waged on “woke” speech. The same day, I published an article here at Arc Digital making a similar case. Together, we described the onslaught of bills targeting public university professors, students, and school teachers in states across the country, particularly in Iowa, Arkansas, West Virginia, and New Hampshire. All have a single goal: silence left-wing speech.
The response from supporters of those bills, or at least the sentiment behind them, was about what you’d expect: some insults, lots of “you SJWs have it coming,” and a fair amount of confusion. But a few promised something more substantive.
Among them was Christopher Rufo, director of the Discovery Institute’s Center on Wealth & Poverty and an ardent advocate of these bills. Rufo promised a thoughtful and thorough dismantling of my and Goldberg’s argument. So imagine my disappointment this week when I read his response.
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