NYU Prof Ousted for Anti-PC Twitter Campaign
31st October 2016
“My contention is that this particular social-justice-warrior-left is producing the alt-right by virtue of its insanity. And because it’s doing all these things that manifest to the world, the alt-right is just eating this stuff alive,” Rectenwald told the Washington Square News last Monday. “That’s why I adopted Nietzsche as the icon for the @antipcnyuprof and that’s why I said ‘anti-pc.’ Frankly, I’m not really anti-pc. My contention is that the trigger warning, safe spaces and bias hotline reporting is not politically correct. It is insane. This stuff is producing a culture of hyper-vigilance, self-surveillance and panopticism.”
The paper published his critics’ response on Wednesday from a group of students and professors, including two deans, calling themselves the “Liberal Studies Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Working Group.”
Can’t get much more PC than that. Do you suppose they have a Naming Standards document, like some programming shops do?
“As long as he airs his views with so little appeal to evidence and civility, we must find him guilty of illogic and incivility in a community that predicates its work in great part on rational thought and the civil exchange of ideas.”
And, of course, ‘illogic and incivility’ are hanging offenses. Never mind that illogic and incivility are the hallmarks of the hillbullies and their ilk.
Upon publication of the letter Rectenwald was summoned to a meeting with school officials. The confab was like the Salem Witch trials, he recalled. “They claimed they were worried about me and a couple people had expressed concern about my mental health.”
NYU spokesman Matt Nagel denied the suspension was related to his Twitter account but refused to give an alternative explanation.