It takes a lot for a tenured professor to be fired, but it recently happened to Frances Widdowson. As reported by Fox News, Widdowson “who taught economics, justice and policy studies, was fired from Mount Royal University (MRU) in Calgary, Alberta, last December after stoking controversy for comments criticizing BLM, which she said ‘destroyed MRU’ to such an extent that she ‘doesn’t recognize the institution anymore.’”

In addition, “Widdowson, who studied Indigenization initiatives for 20 years, also took flak for claiming that Canada’s controversial residential school program offered Indigenous children the opportunity ‘to get an education that normally they wouldn’t have received.’ Her comments came amid a national backlash over the discovery of unmarked graves at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia.”

And for that, she was fired, no doubt with the help of a Change.org petition titled, “Fire France Widdowson – a Racist Professor at MRU.”

To quote the petition itself, “Frances Widdowson is a racist professor who works at Mount Royal University. This is a call to demand that the university condemns Widdowson’s hateful actions against the BIPOC community and that she is terminated for her racist remarks.

“Mount Royal University has still yet to make a statement regarding Widdowson’s racist actions and continues to employ her.

“In ignoring the racist actions of people in power, we directly contribute to the systemic racism within our society.”

Now, you may or may not agree with Widdowson’s comments, and you may or may not agree that they were racist.

But she certainly had every right to express these views as a college professor, especially a tenured professor. To deny her that right is to deny free speech, plain and simple. As Elon Musk recently said,

“A good sign as to whether there is free speech is someone you don’t like allowed to say something you don’t like. And if that is the case, then we have free speech.”

But what makes the firing of Widdowson all the more egregious is that those on the left are allowed to engage in all kinds of outrageous hate speech without any penalty in the least or, certainly, without losing their job. (I have documented this radical shift to the left on American campuses in the chapter “The Campus Thought Police” in my new book The Silencing of the Lambs: The Ominous Rise of Cancel Culture and How We Can Overcome It.)

For example, in April 2020, in response to Kansas lawmakers who argued against a complete shutdown of religious services due to COVID, Philip Nel, an English professor at Kansas State University tweeted, “Local branch of death cult, aka @KansasGOP, votes to exempt churches from quarantine rules, endangering the lives of us all.”

That sounds pretty hateful to me. But was Nel censored for this tweet, let alone fired? Not a chance. (For the record, he’s the author of “Was the Cat in the Hat Black?: The Hidden Racism of Children’s Literature” and “Tales for Little Rebels: A Collection of Radical Children’s Literature.”)

Last December, Professor Monica Casper, dean of the College of Arts and Letters at San Diego State University, tweeted this with reference to the Dobbs v. Jackson U.S. Supreme Court case, which could possibly overturn Roe v. Wade: “Two sexual predators, a white lady, and some racists walk into a courtroom…#SCOTUS #AbortionIsHealthcare.”

What a despicable characterization of an immensely important pro-life case.

Does she still have her job? Is she still dean? Take a guess.

But perhaps these comments were too mild, hardly worthy of dismissal or censure.

How about these comments? As reported by Prof. Jonathan Turley on February 2:

“An Australian professor of “moral psychology” used Twitter to call for the death of Trump supporters.  Neither Twitter nor his colleagues objected to Macquarie University Associate Professor Mark Alfano calling for ‘more of this please‘ after reading that a Trump supporter died in the recent Capitol Hill riot. He also called such deaths ‘comedy.’ He is not the first academic to call for such violence or defend killings. We previously discussed Rhode Island Professor Erik Loomis who writes for the site Lawyers, Guns, and Money and declared that he saw ‘nothing wrong’ with the killing of a conservative protester. (A view defended by other academics). Other professors have simply called for all ‘Republicans to suffer.’ What is striking is that such views are neither barred by Twitter nor, according to a conservative site that broke this story, denounced at his university.”

What a surprise!

Another professor openly wished for the death of Republican lawmakers who were shot at a baseball game in 2017, while in 2018, yet another professor posted this:

“OK, officially, I now hate white people. I am a white people, for God’s sake, but can we keep them — us — us out of my neighborhood? I just went to Harlem Shake on 124 and Lenox for a Classic burger to go, that would [be] my dinner, and the place is overrun with little Caucasian [expletives] who know their parents will approve of anything they do.”

He actually had a lot more to say, but this gives you an idea. Were either of these professors fired? Nope. Were they censored?

In the first example, citing Trinity College professor Johnny Eric Williams, he had also written that “all self-identified white people (no exceptions) are invested in and collude with systematic white racism/white supremacy.” And he tweeted that “whiteness is terrorism,” defending his comments rather than apologizing for them.

As a result of his “let them die” wish for the wounded GOP lawmakers, he was temporarily suspended, shortly after which he was granted tenure. I am not making this up.

In the case of the second professor quoted here, James Livingston, a tenured history professor at Rutgers, the university decided to sanction him but then reversed its position.

Yet Prof. Widdowson, a longtime tenured professor, was fired for comments that were far less offensive than any of these (and, the truth be told, probably quite accurate).

That’s the reality on our campuses today, and I barely scratched the surface of some of the extremism that exists.

The good news is that Widdowson is fighting back with vigor, wit, and determination (in the courts too), calling out the “woke” crowd.

May freedom and equality prevail.

This article was originally published by AskDrBrown.org.

In his November 1 op-ed for The Hill, Fox News Analyst Juan Williams claimed that the “parents’ rights’ mantra in the Virginia gubernatorial elections is simply “a code for white race politics.” To the contrary, this really is about parents’ rights and about what is best for all children. To inject charges of white supremacy and racism is to miss the whole point of why so many parents are so upset. In all candor and with due respect, I would have expected better from Mr. Williams.

The fact is that these parents are concerned with the injection of racism into every phase of their children’s education, not to mention the injection of an extreme LGBTQ agenda. Williams should be standing with these parents, not against them. With reference to campaigning strategies in the 2018 elections, he wrote,

“Virginia Republicans are back with a new and improved ‘Culture Wars’ campaign for 2021. The closing argument is once again full of racial division — but this time it is dressed up as a defense of little children.”

Specifically, he claimed that,

“It is a campaign to stop classroom discussion of Black Lives Matter protests or slavery because it could upset some children, especially white children who might feel guilt.”

To the contrary, every white Christian parent with whom I have interacted wants their children to know the truth about slavery, segregation, and the lasting effects of those sinful institutions. And they want to see equal opportunities for all.

But they do not want their children thinking they are evil because they are white (this is actually happening). And they do not want their children to feel guilty for having a nice home or good educational opportunities, as if all success of all white Americans was built on the shoulders of slaves. In the words of former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice,

“The way we’re talking about race is that it either seems so big that somehow white people now have to feel guilty for everything that happened in the past.”

Most of all, these parents do not want everything to be about race, to the point that math can be seen as racist. Or that famous European poets and historians are cancelled because of their whiteness.

Remarkably, to make his case, Williams repeats the “very fine people” lie, writing, “Recall, it was Trump who famously said there were ‘very fine people’ on both sides of the violence sparked by ‘Unite the Right,’ the 2017 rally of white supremacists in Charlottesville, Va.”

Surely Williams must know that this has been debunked time and time again. But why let a good lie die? He also claims that,

“Critical race theory — broadly, a focus on racial disparities as a fact of American life — is not explicitly taught in Virginia’s public schools or anywhere in American public schools. But Republicans nationwide have made it a boogeyman to excite racial divisions and get their base to the polls.”

To be sure, there are different ways to define CRT. For some, it is healthy, positive, and objective. For others, it is unhealthy, negative, and biased. So, before we debate CRT, it’s important to ask, “What, exactly, do you mean by the term?”

And clearly, CRT in its full-blown, academic form, is not being taught to kids in Virginia (and elsewhere). But are classes taught through the lens of CRT? Without question.

As a Daily Wire headline announced on October 31, “Terry McAuliffe Claims CRT Has ‘Never Been’ In Virginia Schools. His Administration Pushed It, Documents Show.” The documentation is clear and undeniable.

Yet Williams approvingly cites McAuliffe, who said, “[Gubernatorial candidate Glenn] Youngkin’s closing message of book banning and silencing esteemed Black authors is a racist dog whistle designed to gin up support from the most extreme elements of his party — mainly his top endorser and surrogate, Donald Trump.”

To the contrary, it is authors with extremist views that are under scrutiny, or, at the least, authors whose views are being exploited by educators with extremist agendas, while contrary views are rejected and banned. (As an aside, but for the record, Youngkin largely campaigned as himself and for himself, not as an extension of Trump, as other political commentators have noted.)

To be clear, I would not deny that white racism remains an issue for some (perhaps many?) families in Virginia. Nor would I deny that some of them would prefer that the full truth about slavery and its legacy not be taught in schools. May they have a change of heart, may they face the facts, and may they enlighten their children. There is no place for white supremacy anywhere and at any time.

Unfortunately, Williams is guilty of a reverse racism, one that projects all kind of nefarious motives on to parents who really do care and who really want their kids to get a solid education rather than cultural brainwashing. In that spirit, I recently tweeted,

“The solution to anti-black racism is not anti-white racism (or anti-Asian racism, etc.). Instead, it is cultivating mutual understanding, respect, and love, with a real desire to see others thrive and enjoy the best of what America has to offer.”

Mr. Williams, I invite you to step higher with me so that, together, we could advance that mutual understanding, respect, and love – based on truth – rather than engage in an endless game of biased and racially charged sniping.

Surely America in 2021 deserves better.

This article was originally posted at AskDrBrown.org.

At a forum at the College of William & Mary on Sept. 27, the ACLU got a sample of what conservatives have been experiencing on campuses for years.

As Claire Gastanaga, executive director of the ACLU of Virginia, began speaking to a small audience, a group of demonstrators marched in with a large banner that said, “Blood on Your Hands.” They lined up in front of the stage, holding placards.

Apparently clueless about what was about to transpire, Ms. Gastaaga said, “Good. I like this. Good.”

She went on to say that she was going to inform the students about their right of protest, “which this illustrates very well.”

No, it didn’t. The students shut her down. They began loudly chanting inane slogans, including “ACLU, you protect Hitler, too!” and “ACLU, free speech for who?” and “The oppressed are not impressed!” The ACLU is also apparently guilty of perpetuating a system of “white supremacy” for not defending jackboot tactics like those seen at Berkeley and Middlebury College against conservative speakers.

What was supposed to be a #blacklivesmatter event was populated almost entirely by white students, presumably many from the W&M’s tony Williamsburg campus. Oppressed, they are not, unless you count the unbearable minutes when they can’t find a parking space for their Audis or Beamers.

For a taste of what Ms. Gastanaga endured for more than an hour and a half, you can see a brief video by an American Civil Rights Union (ACRU) team that filmed the event. It’s strangely satisfying. (See below)

Since the French Revolution, when it was famously observed that “revolutions devour their own,” the progressive left always seems surprised when the forces they have unleashed turn on them. Think back to the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, when old-line liberals like Vice President Hubert Humphrey were stunned by the street violence of the extreme left.

More recently, U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi had that deer-in-the-headlights look when the antifa crowd, like the Occupy movement a few years ago, turned utterly violent. To her credit, she finally denounced their tactics.

In a more serious venue than campus playpens, the ACLU had another sobering experience this past week. During arguments on Tuesday in Gill v. Whitford, several U.S. Supreme Court justices indicated a reluctance to plunge into what Felix Frankfurter in 1946 called the “political thicket,” which is where the ACLU wants them to go. It’s part of the ACLU’s vision to do away with the state and local powers that still hamstring the federal government’s relentless growth.

A split federal panel had invalidated Wisconsin’s redistricting plan for its state legislature, calling it an unconstitutional gerrymander because the Republican-controlled legislature had drawn districts favoring the Republican Party.

The ACLU filed an amicus brief in the case, arguing essentially that legislatures, being composed of politicians, should not have the authority to create voting districts. It’s time to change the rules of the game since the vast majority of state legislatures are now controlled by Republicans.

The ACLU had no such problem when Maryland’s Democratic legislators in 2011 drew a bizarre district that meandered from the conservative Western part of the state to liberal Montgomery County. This was intended to unseat outspoken conservative Republican Rep. Roscoe Bartlett. It worked. Mr. Bartlett had won the 6th district by 28 points in 2010, but lost his seat by 21 points to Democrat John Delaney in 2012.

In progressive California, the politically-drawn district maps are so squiggly that they resemble Rorschach blots. But any court-ordered “solution” for redistricting would be an ongoing nightmare, with unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats in control.

Who would appoint the “non-political” panels? How would they determine exactly how many voters of either party or no party should be included in each district? Would distinct communities be split for numerical balancing? Would they do this after every election? How much politics is too much politics? Apart from the difficulties, the whole thing would be unconstitutional.

On August 4, the American Civil Rights Union submitted an amicus brief in Gill, noting that the Constitution gives Congress the power to determine the “Times, Places, or Manner” of holding federal elections but leaves to the states the power to determine who votes. Therefore, establishing districts comprising voters is a state function, not a federal one.

Since the 1960s, the courts have variously waded into the issue, solidifying the principle that there is no place for racial bias in districting, but avoiding a sweeping “solution” to political gerrymandering.

On May 22, in a dissent in Cooper v. Harris, Justice Samuel Alito alluded to Frankfurter’s famous statement and warned against making federal courts “weapons of political warfare,” which would “invite the losers in the redistricting process to seek to obtain in court what they could not achieve in the political arena.”

Speaking of losers, as the ACLU ramps up its campaign against voter ID laws, traditional districting methods and other obstacles to its goal of fundamentally transforming America, its unruly children will be out in the streets in black masks, trying to intimidate anyone who disagrees with them.

When the ACLU itself comes under attack for not joining the mob, it’s a sign that the revolution has begun nibbling on its own.

In the wake of the violent confrontation and death in Charlottesville, Virginia, the response of the church seems curiously one-sided. For example, one of my friends, a pastor, expressed his sadness and anger about the events and that he was grateful for those pastors who stood with the counter-protesters.

Most of what I see on social media are denunciations of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), Nazism, and white supremacy, with calls for pastors to use the opportunity to condemn racism. Since the church of Jesus Christ must oppose any kind of racism, this is a good thing.

But my friend’s post implied that Christian pastors were standing with the counter-protestors, and perhaps suggested that other pastors should too, which is alarming. If Christians aren’t careful, they may be pulled into an association they will later regret.

While the white supremacists must be rejected and categorically condemned for their ungodly ideology, the counter-protestors—known collectively as antifa (short for “anti-fascist”)—are just as ungodly. The two groups live at the extremes of our national politics and are really two sides of the same coin. It is unconscionable for a Christian (much less a Christian minister) to join with either movement.

The conflict in Charlottesville originated with a request from Unite the Right, a white nationalist organization, for a permit to hold a rally protesting the removal of the city’s Robert E. Lee statue. White nationalists, like all American citizens, have the right to gather under the auspices of free speech, no matter how repugnant that speech may be.

And repugnant it is. White nationalism, known also as white supremacy, is a relatively small movement that believes white people are superior to all other races. It includes organizations like the KKK, neo-Nazis, and some armed militias.

Also known as the “alt-right” (“alternative right”), adherents are inspired by fascist movements like Benito Mussolini’s in Italy and Adolf Hitler’s in Germany. The Nazi flag was prominent during the Charlottesville protest, as were tiki torches which called to mind the torch-bearing lynch mobs of the late 1800s and early 1900s. The alt-right despises Jewish people, Christian doctrine, and the American Constitution, and embraces Nietzschean philosophy.

White supremacy, white nationalism, neo-Nazis, the KKK, and the alt-right all share the same goal: a whites-only nation that preserves a white culture rooted in its European ancestors. They would say they are fighting the encroachment of foreign cultures that threaten to eventually supplant “white” culture.

Such ideology has no place in our body politic, which was founded on the Lockean idea that “all men are created equal.” It should also go without saying that such sentiment rejects the biblical teaching that mankind was created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27) and, therefore, all men equally retain a measure of the divine imprint, all are sinners, and all are candidates for salvation, no matter ethnicity or skin color.

In sum, the white supremacist movement is a fringe activist cult that deserves to stay on the margins of society. There must be no uniting with them.

But neither is there uniting with antifa, the anti-fascist movement (sometimes known as the “alt-left”) which is heavily rooted in anarchy and opposition to the state. The September 2017 issue of The Atlantic includes an essay titled, “The Rise of the Violent Left,” in which Peter Beinart writes,

Antifa traces its roots to the 1920s and ’30s, when militant leftists battled fascists in the streets of Germany, Italy, and Spain. When fascism withered after World War II, antifa did too. But in the ’70s and ’80s, neo-Nazi skinheads began to infiltrate Britain’s punk scene. After the Berlin Wall fell, neo-Nazism also gained prominence in Germany. In response, a cadre of young leftists, including many anarchists and punk fans, revived the tradition of street-level antifascism.

…

Since antifa is heavily composed of anarchists, its activists place little faith in the state, which they consider complicit in fascism and racism. They prefer direct action: They pressure venues to deny white supremacists space to meet. They pressure employers to fire them and landlords to evict them. And when people they deem racists and fascists manage to assemble, antifa’s partisans try to break up their gatherings, including by force.

This explains what we saw in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election and what has followed. Members of antifa consider Trump a racist and have lumped conservatives and Republicans in with white nationalists. That’s why Ann Coulter, Ben Shapiro, Gavin McInnes, Katie Pavlich and Ann McElhinney, Charles Murray and other conservatives have encountered sometimes violent protests shutting down their speaking engagements on college campuses.

It also explains the violence at Trump rallies (click here, here, here, and here). This is not a defense of Trump (some of his supporters were no better) but illustrates what is happening in our country and why.

Perhaps the most even assessment of the events in Charlottesville came from Sheryl Gay Stolberg of The New York Times, who tweeted, “The hard left seemed as hate-filled as alt-right. I saw club-wielding ‘antifa’ beating white nationalists being led out of the park.”

Further, recall that the antifa counter-protestors were, in essence, defending the removal of Robert E. Lee’s statue. Excising history calls to mind the communists of Stalinist Russia or current U.S. nemesis Kim Jong-un, who airbrushed allies-turned-enemies from photos and purged state records of any evidence they ever existed. Where will such a purge end here in America?  Will Mt. Vernon or the Jefferson memorial be next?

The antifa movement is Marxist in form, emphasizing divisive identity politics and class warfare, and sanctioning the use of violence to subvert authority. They are godless materialists who believe that a socialist utopia can be achieved via their views of diversity, equality, and tolerance, and that violent resistance is necessary to overthrow the established order. Anarchy by definition is opposed to the biblical admonition to be subject to the governing authorities (Romans 13:1).

If allowed to progress, both movements—white nationalism and antifa—ultimately end in dictatorship. Hitler and Stalin may have been enemies in World War II, but the sickle and swastika both oppressed their people, just from different directions.

The truth is obvious: Christians must not make common cause with either movement. Yes, we must oppose racism wherever and whenever we find it, but we must not join a violent, anarchical movement simply because it too opposes racism.

We stand against both racism and anarchy, and we do so in the name of Jesus Christ who submitted himself to the ruling authorities to atone for the sins of all men. And it is to Jesus Christ alone whom we owe our allegiance and obedience.

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