The ruling came out on Monday. On Tuesday I tried an experiment in a college course I teach online. I presented the exact same scenario to the class as a hypothetical case study, with two differences: the customer had ordered Confederate Flag T-shirts for a Southern Pride Festival, and the T-shirt CEO was African-American. I also didn’t tell the class what the actual ruling was. I offered them the opportunity to analyze the case study using the course material, and then state how they would rule on the case.
By the end of Wednesday, every student had posted that the company should not be forced to make the shirts, and that since the T-shirt manufacturer had also provided information on a competitor who would be willing to make the T-shirts, no one was being treated unfairly.
On Thursday, I thanked the students for their responses, and then let the cat out of the bag: this was a real-life case study, except that the T-shirts were for a Gay Pride Festival, and the manufacturer was a Christian; I also attached the actual 18-page ruling.
I asked the students whether this had any effect on their previous posts. I expected some students to say it did, and others to say it didn’t, and perhaps some discussion on the distinctions between what is considered acceptable in the prevailing culture today as opposed to the past. I didn’t expect what actually happened: not one student posted a response to the actual case study, from Thursday until the end of Sunday when the forum closed down, even though at least 60 messages were posted in the forum over those four days. The only reasonable explanation for this would be fear. I get the chance to try it again in eight weeks; we’ll see if it happens again.
That’s a brilliant approach. Logic and reason to smash through the muddled thinking.
The true liberals of yesteryear might agree but the indoctrinated leftists of today are a different sort of breed. Keep us posted on your part 2. Thumbs up.
I think there is an undercurrent of fear - people are anxious to censor themselves. Everyone knows the Commissars have taken over and they are consolidating their power, looking for people to make examples of. Now they are pretty much limited to getting you fired from your job or taking your business away from you. We are maybe a Supreme Court Justice or two away from the Commissars censoring books, the Internet, closing churches and throwing dissenters in prison - the powers that be want us to be a slightly modernized version of the U.S.S.R.