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As a professor, I’ve seen woke and MAGA censorship. Which is worse?
The Washington Post ^ | 10/18/2025 6:30 a.m. EDT | Crispin Sartwell

Posted on 10/18/2025 11:18:14 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum

Both attacks on free speech are devastating for academia, but in different ways.

Crispin Sartwell retired as a philosophy professor in 2023. His most recent book is “Beauty: A Quick Immersion.”

It didn’t take long for professors to point out that the right-wing wave of restrictions on expression, spurred by the Trump administration, is far worse than those characteristic of “the woke era.” After all, the woke restrictions were primarily internal, a matter of academic practice, as students, administrators and professors tried to eliminate any shred of skepticism toward diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. It was annoying — and devastating if you were fired or publicly shamed. In my view, it led to a dramatic decline in the quality of research.

But MAGA restrictions appear far more serious, as the administration threatens to withhold federal funds on ideological grounds, attempts to make colleges pledge themselves to Trumpian orthodoxy, drives university presidents from their jobs and vilifies the work of professors or students in a way that shames or even endangers them. This is direct governmental free-speech suppression, which is just what the founders of the American republic wanted to prevent: The First Amendment prohibits the government but not, say, private universities from restricting speech.

The classic picture of censorship involves a government crackdown. The Constitution’s fundamental purpose is to prevent that kind of suppression, which the founders had experienced at the hands of the British Empire. And a government crackdown is a different sort of beast than an atmosphere of social and professional pressure: The president of the United States can employ weapons, surveillance techniques and internment facilities of which (dare I say it) university vice provosts can only dream. A government’s oppressive power exceeds that of any private institution, and the dangers to...

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Education
KEYWORDS: books; crispinsartwell; crispinthecommie; dickinsoncollege; epluribusrino; waposedition; zot

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To: God luvs America

“Primarily”😎


21 posted on 10/19/2025 4:02:39 AM PDT by blitz128
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

As a Realtor, I’ve seen some stupid asses. But this boob take the cake


22 posted on 10/19/2025 4:04:03 AM PDT by albie
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

When an article starts out as “As A Professor” and published by WaPo, I’m confident it’s pure propaganda.


23 posted on 10/19/2025 4:13:55 AM PDT by redfreedom (They’re AWFUL...Affuent White Female Urban Leftists)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

MAGA Censorship? Does not pass the smell test.


24 posted on 10/19/2025 4:24:41 AM PDT by VRW Conspirator (How it started: Covfefe - - - - - How it is going: COVFAFO)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Any ‘professor’ writing for the post is a sorry-assed professor indeed.


25 posted on 10/19/2025 4:46:58 AM PDT by Da Coyote
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

“...withhold federal funds...”

Hey WaPo and retard/libtard professor, there is no such thing as “federal funds” as there are only two things that the feds feed off financially: Usurping OUR dollars off our income or piling on our soon to be $40,000,000,000,000 debt.

Well there is a third one but not real cash, printing money causing inflation.


26 posted on 10/19/2025 4:50:22 AM PDT by quantim (Victory is not relative, it is absolute.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
attempts to make colleges pledge themselves to Trumpian orthodoxy

Trumpian orthodoxy? You mean pro-American values held by normal people. Sounds like the author has retired, but is still living in his academic fishbowl.

27 posted on 10/19/2025 4:50:57 AM PDT by Bernard ("Nothing is as expensive as that which the government provides for free." - Ronald Reagan)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

the woke restrictions were primarily internal/

Utter bullshit.

Any one who said anything they didn’t like was and is endlessly bashed nationaly on LEGION network media, doxxed, debarked, de platformed, kicked off YouTube, sued and SHOT.

UTTER BULLSHIT it’s internal

SPIT.


28 posted on 10/19/2025 4:55:07 AM PDT by cuz1961
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

So,What he’s saying here is that Save The Whales (The US Government) must continue paying the Japanese whale harvest industry (the universities)? Did I get that right?


29 posted on 10/19/2025 4:57:05 AM PDT by mistfree (Fear Destroys Freedom)
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To: cuz1961

This urinalist studiously ignored the most recent declaration by the wicked queen of the Democrats Pelosi who told a reporter

SHUT UP !!!


30 posted on 10/19/2025 4:59:54 AM PDT by cuz1961
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

You can stop after the word “professor”.

L


31 posted on 10/19/2025 5:02:22 AM PDT by Lurker ( Peaceful coexistence with the Left is not possible. Stop pretending that it is.l)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
So if a college has a global warming skeptic on staff they still got all of their research grants? If they didn't celebrate homosexual pride month sufficiently the government just ignored it? If they said restrooms and locker rooms were based on genetic sex and not how you felt for the day they didn't get crushed with expanded Title IX rulings?

The difference between the two parties are that the Democrats were forcing the universities to do what most wanted to do anyway and the Democrats were more subtle about their orders.

32 posted on 10/19/2025 5:06:26 AM PDT by KarlInOhio (I pray that the sleeping giant has finally awakened and been filled with a terrible resolve.)
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To: Rockingham

Ask Jewish students about universities embracing “ free Palestine” wokists…..


33 posted on 10/19/2025 5:14:54 AM PDT by silverleaf (“Inside Every Progressive Is A Totalitarian Screaming To Get Out” —David Horowitz)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
"Whose dictator do they belong to - yours or mine?"
-- nameless idiot professor
34 posted on 10/19/2025 5:21:30 AM PDT by larrytown (A Cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do. Then they graduate...)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Imaginary censorship is always the scariest. MAGA censorship = projection


35 posted on 10/19/2025 5:25:37 AM PDT by AppyPappy (They don't call you a Nazi because they think you are one. They do it to justify violence. )
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To: Rockingham

Speak all they want, just don’t expect to live in a lavish jet set and attend meetings throughout the world.


36 posted on 10/19/2025 5:32:24 AM PDT by healy61
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
My senior year philosophy professor ripped the veneer off the mystery of philosophy. I had just received an A on my first assignment, though I said the complete opposite of what my classmates wrote.

In answering my confusion, he laughed and said, “with philosophy, it’s not what you say, but how you say it. You must understand that philosophy is nothing but a bunch of bull$hit.”

That lesson has served me well for nearly 50 years.

37 posted on 10/19/2025 5:38:32 AM PDT by Night Hides Not (Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad! Remember Gonzales! Come and Take It! I’m )
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To: Rockingham

Federal government doesn’t have to fund the sedition against it.


38 posted on 10/19/2025 5:39:59 AM PDT by virgil (The evil that men do lives after them )
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Free speech airs out
Woke suffocates


39 posted on 10/19/2025 5:41:51 AM PDT by Recompennation ( )
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To: Rockingham

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

Both sides use it way too often.


40 posted on 10/19/2025 5:45:44 AM PDT by DoodleBob (Gravity's waiting period is about 9.8 m/s²)
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