I just had occasion to spend time among the silenced, shunned, and canceled of the academy.
What they said—or in some cases, conveyed through their silence—was profoundly disturbing.
The impression they left about the state of our disproportionately influential elite academic institutions, and therefore what is to come in the disproportionately influential economic, cultural, and political institutions where their students will matriculate, is perhaps even more profoundly disturbing.
My encounter with dissenters from the prevailing speech-stifling, intellectual freedom-thwarting orthodoxy on college campuses was somewhat inadvertent.
Recently, I reported for RealClearInvestigations on prestigious business school Wharton’s elevation of ESGB (Environmental, Social, and Governance Factors for Business) and DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) as majors—part of a growing trend—and what it portends. In pursuing that story, I sought to find any students or faculty skeptical of what has become the default position of America’s Ruling Class in favor of greenism, BLM-style “anti-racism,” and the like.
No current students would respond to my inquiries. But there were some alumni and faculty who found the school’s push into these areas troubling—often on principled or practical, not political grounds. Yet nearly every potential source expressed grave concerns about revealing their views publicly. Though appreciative a light was being shone on Wharton’s tendentious wading into these areas, some were wholly unwilling to engage. With few exceptions, those who agreed to be interviewed demanded anonymity. Many asked not to be quoted at all.
Why the reluctance to speak? The skeptics were more than equipped to defend their positions, and no shrinking violets. These were accomplished and confident individuals, measured in their critiques, and polished in presenting them. Some had tenure, and the non-professor graduates all had good jobs. So, what did my sources have to fear, beyond taking a contrarian position relative to an institution with which they were associated, on highly subjective matters like whether and to what extent said institution ought to focus on certain courses of study?
The climate on campus—and increasingly in the corporate world—that brings Whartonites such trepidation can be seen in a recent missive against the “anti-ESG” or “anti-woke investment movement,” written by the vice dean and faculty director of Wharton’s ESG Initiative, Witold Henisz. In it, Henisz is adamant: “Climate risk is investment risk. There is no credible other side, only an ideological opposition cynically seeking a wedge issue for upcoming political campaigns.”
When asked to clarify his statement, Henisz doubled down, telling me: “I believe that the science on climate risk as investment risk is settled. I do not see substantive academically grounded debate on this point.”
To this, one of the few interview subjects willing to speak on the record and by name, Isaiah Berg, replied that there are “good-faith disagreements that exist around ESG topics,” and that if Henisz’s “intent was not to persuade, but instead to intimidate those who might otherwise speak up and disagree, he likely achieved his goal.”
The intimidation seems to have indeed worked. What my sources evidently feared were the recriminations they would face on campus, or among alumni in the private sector, for holding positions at odds with the prevailing orthodoxy on right, just, and virtuous ESG/DEI. This is seen as a third rail—one of an ever-growing number of areas where no dissent is allowed. You wouldn’t want to be branded a “climate-denier”—or worse, a bigot—for having the gall to raise objections to ESG/DEI of any kind, would you? One can imagine that if such pressures are felt at Wharton and on environmentalism, then that the same goes for virtually every other prestigious school, and significantly more so on matters of race and sex.
What are the potential consequences faculty and alumni might fear for daring to think differently?
Beyond the fact professors could find themselves ostracized by colleagues, administrators such as the new chief DEI officer Wharton just hired, students, and alumni, they could also find themselves subject to punitive action. Those who have not yet secured tenure could imperil their bids for it. The children of faculty could ultimately bear their parents’ sins, at minimum facing ridicule from peers should their parents be branded Wrongthinkers. In other words, professors believe they could find their personal and vocational lives turned upside down for questioning disciplines likely to encourage the laundering of progressive activism through business.
With ESG and DEI likewise taking over the corporate world, Wharton alumni might well have similar fears. Even if they might face no punishment at work for bucking the Woke party line, do they want to risk getting their kids blackballed from Wharton?
These concerns aren’t merely hypothetical. Coincidentally, I also recently found myself at a dinner among professors at prestigious institutions sanctioned for challenging various progressive sacred cows. They spoke to the personal and professional hardships they have faced for their dabbling in Wrongthink—their names having been dragged through the mud, their careers stalled, and their family members harassed.
These academics stand as living testaments to what can befall those who reject The Current Thing.
Outside of academic freedom conferences such as the one recently held at Stanford, where shunned professors commiserated in sharing their war stories, the place of Wrongthinkers in the academy is a lonely one. Their ranks will almost certainly dwindle unless next generation’s Wrongthinking professors strategically hide their views up to the point of securing tenure—which itself could still fall, leaving thoughtcrimes entirely unprotected.
One might ask, why in a free society should anyone have to strategically hide perfectly legitimate views—including at universities—on subjective, contentious matters?
What will the societal consequences be if people suppress unpopular views, and likewise abandon whole areas of inquiry?
Who wants to live in a country like this—one with this soft, but hardening, social credit system?
The metastasizing progressive monoculture on campuses, which brooks no dissent and weaponizes fear to coerce submission, augurs poorly for an America already in the throes of an anti-cultural revolution.
It is not clear if anything can create a thaw in the chilled culture the academy has wrought, and continues to perpetuate. Perhaps the ranks of courageous truth-tellers—martyrs of a sort—will swell, inspiring still more students and professors to revolt against intellectual tyranny. Maybe a critical mass of donors will say enough is enough, withhold their contributions, and exert real pressure to effectuate change. Schools could face economic hardships that cause them to dismantle the needless, and overwhelmingly Woke, administrative edifices they have put in place. Legislators might also act, in combination with all of the above, to break the increasingly Maoist academy.
Yet still, as some of my interview subjects related, elite institutions are teeming with students already inculcated in an anti-speech, illiberal worldview. The university problem is downstream from an earlier, more fundamental one.
Absent a dramatic shift, my recent experiences among the chilled suggest an even deeper freeze will set in.
Ben Weingarten is deputy editor for RealClearInvestigations. He also contributes to The Federalist, the New York Post, The Epoch Times, and other publications. Subscribe to his newsletter at weingarten.substack.com, and follow him on Twitter: @bhweingarten.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.
