EDITORS' CORNERUPDATED
OPINION: Voicing concerns does not equate to condoning internet trolls
There’s a growing predilection among progressives to, in the face of criticism, refer to their philosophical opponents as stochastic terrorists or cyberterrorists.
One of Harvard’s best and brightest, David Hogg, recently tweeted that “what republicans [sic] are engaged in has a name. It is called stochastic terrorism.”
According to Dictionary.com, “stochastic terrorism” is defined as “the public demonization of a person or group resulting in the incitement of a violent act, which is statistically probable but whose specifics cannot be predicted.”
Hogg, who rose to prominence after the 2018 Parkland, Florida school shootings, appeared to be piggybacking on the notion that conservatives are to blame for the recent Colorado Springs nightclub shootings. He had retweeted New York congressman Ritchie Torres’ Twitter thread which said:
The political leaders who keep stoking fear and hate against LGBTQ people and who keep obstructing any and all attempts at gun safety: I hope those demagogues will one day come to grips with their own role in the senseless shootings that inevitably follow.
NBC News’s Brandy Zadrozny did the same thing, attributing (among other other things) conservative worries about the sexualization of kids to a “right wing moral panic.”
As could be predicted, Hogg, Torres and Zadrozny were made out to be fools as the Colorado Springs killer turned out to be — wait for it — a non-binary individual who uses they/them pronouns and “Mx.”
MORE: Student writer upset at The College Fix for covering her anti-white op-ed
The instructor of a University of Chicago course “The Problem of Whiteness” also suggested in response to criticisms she was the victim of a cyber harassment campaign, as she received profanity-filled emails that called her vulgar names and denigrated her character.
The student who flagged the class publicly, Daniel Schmidt, had told The College Fix earlier this month “Can you fathom the amount of outrage if a course called ‘The Problem of Blackness’ were taught? Why aren’t white students similarly outraged? Enough is enough. Things will become far worse unless students at every university call out anti-white hatred every time they see it.”
The professor accused Schmidt of being directly responsible for what she’s had to deal with, alleging he “deliberately misrepresented” her course in order to “stoke white grievance.”
Schmidt told Breitbart.com the scholar should be “condemned” by U. Chicago for her accusations against him, saying “Leftists have ruined the lives of countless people they disagree with, canceling careers and waging harassment campaigns.” He added the school would have undertaken a “months-long apology tour” if the course was about any other racial group.
The reality is critics of critical race theory within higher education with a genuine concern need to be able voice them without being accused of racism and terrorism. This is not to condone vile threats made against scholars, which is entirely uncalled for, but voicing concerns does not equate to condoning internet trolls.
Six years ago the American Association of University Professors complained that outlets like The College Fix were engaging in “politically motivated witch hunts” by “targeting” academics.
Fix founder John J. Miller responded thusly: “Students who challenge their teachers are neither harassers nor censors. They’re journalists and whistleblowers, who find the one-sided politics of their professors to be newsworthy.”
Around the same time, former Fix Assistant Editor Daniel Payne perfectly encapsulated the current phenomenon:
Consider the astonishing progression of events here: A professor tweets a gross and ignorant series of opinions, a news outlet reports on it – and it’s the news outlet that gets criticized! Only in academia could such pretzel logic ever be taken seriously.
More succinctly: “The College Fix reports on higher education – and we’re not going to stop.”
Editor’s note: The post has been amended to clarify our stance.
MORE: U. Wisconsin prof worries College Fix reporting could ‘harm her career’
