They Wanted a University Without Cancel Culture. Then Dissenters Were Ousted(politico.com)
politico.com
They Wanted a University Without Cancel Culture. Then Dissenters Were Ousted
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2026/01/16/civil-war-university-of-austin-bari-weiss-00729688
4 comments
Geez even Lex Fridman bounced.
But I think this was inevitable given how cynical and nihilistic the right has become. There’s no shared belief system anymore. Even Christopher Rufo predicted this.
But I think this was inevitable given how cynical and nihilistic the right has become. There’s no shared belief system anymore. Even Christopher Rufo predicted this.
Tip of an iceberg?
> Indeed, the syllabus I reviewed for a class called “Intellectual Foundations of Science II” covered a range of topics unusual for a science class including “The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief.”
> A student who’d taken the course shared a slide with me on “ensoulment” — the principally religious question of when a soul enters the human body — and said that the class had been told that IVF but not abortion could be consistent with the Catholic belief about ensoulment.
I'll give the author credit for going at least a little beyond the ridiculous "life [personhood] begins at conception" dogma, since they reference the issue of identical twins... But what about chimerism? HeLa cells?
> A student who’d taken the course shared a slide with me on “ensoulment” — the principally religious question of when a soul enters the human body — and said that the class had been told that IVF but not abortion could be consistent with the Catholic belief about ensoulment.
I'll give the author credit for going at least a little beyond the ridiculous "life [personhood] begins at conception" dogma, since they reference the issue of identical twins... But what about chimerism? HeLa cells?
Is UATX another "freedom of speech" rug pull, like Elon taking over Twitter, or Trump "bringing back freedom of speech"? I guess in general, I'm asking if we should be very wary of those using the language of free speech, but don't have a history of dealing honestly with the concept or the realities.