Ideacide: How On-Line Petitions and Open Letters Undermine Academic Freedom and Free Expression

Abstract

ABSTRACT:This article investigates two recent cases of academic mobbing in the United States. The first concerns Bruce Gilley, whose paper "The Case for Colonialism," published in Third World Quarterly, was heavily criticized by the academic left. The second concerns Rebecca Tuvel, whose article "In Defense of Transracialism," published in Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, was equally reviled. In both cases, the authors and journal editors endured extreme on-line criticism, including some death threats. The authors analyze this on-line academic bullying through the lens of social psychology. They particularly identify a scissors logic, opening up a major division between the politics of academia and the general public; a new ideology of safetyism; and a new culture of complaint. They argue that these new on-line and sociological phenomena amount to ideacide, or the attempt to extinguish ideas rather than debate them either within the academy or within the public spheres.