It’s seriously flawed on so many levels. They just jumped out at me one by one. For example:
resistance must not be allowed to harden into its own brand of dogma or coercion—which right-wing demagogues are already exploiting.
A fallacious slippery slope argument that assumes the worst of liberals and progressives while assuming that right-wing demagogues have much traction outside their hardcore Know-Nothing 27% base or have any real commitment to free speech beyond paying lip service to it when convenient.
Editors are fired for running controversial pieces;
This is about the Cotton piece in the NYT. Which the editor in question didn’t read (despite defending it), which the Times admitted didn’t meet the outlet’s publication standards, and which proposed measures against peaceful protests that posed more immediate dangers to a liberal society than the piece itself being pulled.
books are withdrawn for alleged inauthenticity;
This is probably about American Dirt, a novel promoted as an authentic and insightful look at the ordeal of an undocumented Mexican immigrant (complete with “authentic dialect”) written by a privileged white woman. Or, as others have pointed out, it could be about the controversy surrounding JT Leroy. The books were not censored, but the hype intended to make them bestsellers (complete with blurbs from some of the letter’s signatories) was certainly deflated.
journalists are barred from writing on certain topics;
Yes, if there’s a clear conflict of interest. Which happens very rarely (more often it’s the case of someone like Sydney Ember, a veteran of Wall Street, being assigned to cover Sanders throughout his primary bid despite her obvious antipathy toward his policies).
professors are investigated for quoting works of literature in class; a researcher is fired for circulating a peer-reviewed academic study;
Yes, if it’s clear they did so thoughtlessly or if there’s a strong suspicion they did so with malicious intent. Otherwise academic tenure remains as strong as ever (at least for older faculty who escaped eternal adjunct status), for better and worse.
and the heads of organizations are ousted for what are sometimes just clumsy mistakes.
Heavens forfend that someone given a well-paid executive position not be given a second chance after one (or several) major screw-ups. The people who signed this letter are the kind of people who keep the “glass floor” in place because they’ve invested their own reputations in their career success. When you ask why fabulists like Stephen Glass or Jonah Lehrer or James Frey are given chance after chance after chance despite screwing up, consider that it’s people on this list who give them those chances (because they’re “in the club”).
We need to preserve the possibility of good-faith disagreement without dire professional consequences.
This is the core flaw of the letter: there is no good-faith disagreement with someone when there is obvious and consistent bad faith on the other party’s part. Nazis, white supremacists, Identitarians, TERFs, and the post-Gingrich GOP (etc., etc.) can be safely assumed not to be dealing in good faith, and can be safely assumed to be trafficking in long-discredited ideas that don’t deserve a reputable platform or serious consideration from the kind of people who signed this letter.
America’s cultural elite, at least as represented by the names still on this list, needs to get over its privilege and realise that 99% of Americans have never had a chance to participate in open debate in reputable public forums – frequently because they’ve been barred from them by gatekeepers like the signatories. They might also want to re-acquaint themselves with Popper’s Paradox.
