How Intellectual Inquiry Became Code for Defending Bigotry

Conservatives say they’re just “asking questions,” but the ones they ask have a disturbing thing in common

Image: Koldunov Alexey, Shutterstock, standard license, purchased by author

When conservatives bemoan the state of education and its supposed hijacking by woke mobs intent on destroying critical thought in the name of political correctness, they insist they are only interested in the search for truth.

The left, they say, seeks to shut down that quest — the animating spirit of education — by canceling professors with right-leaning views, de-platforming speakers, and running roughshod over free speech in the name of dogmatism.

Scholars should be able to ask all the questions and explore all subjects, without fear of censorship or professional banishment, they say. Nothing should be off the table just because it makes certain people uncomfortable.

But they don’t mean it.

…the search for truth is not the priority of these conservative and “classical liberal” critics of the left

And I’m not even talking about how relatively calm they’ve been in the face of multiple states banning classroom discussions of systemic racism in K-12 schools (possibly public…