CANCELMANIA!
"Sweep away all monsters and demons."
--Mao Zedong, 1966
The following list of "monsters and demons" is hardly comprehensive -- there are many others.
Heyoka does not necessarily share their views. We only think they should be totally free to express them.
1979
French professor Robert Faurisson publishes letters in the newspaper Le Monde arguing that the gas chambers of the Holocaust did not exist. Faurisson is given a three-month suspended prison term and a $900.00 fine. (Years later, in 1989, he is beaten by three members of the Sons of the Memory of the Holocuast. )
American intellectual Noam Chomsky defends Faurisson, saying freedom of speech must be extended to all viewpoints, no matter how unpopular or fallacious they are. Chomsky, too, is widely attacked.
1984
Ray Honeyford, a headmaster in Yorkshire, England, writes a paper published in Salisbury Review (edited at the time by Roger Scruton) calling for “Integration” – immigrant children from Asia and elsewhere should, says Honeyford, be taught English from an early age, and English teachers should make sure these children adopt the customs (e.g. sexual equality) of the English society that has taken them in.
A hundred or so protesters gather outside the school waving banners and calling Honeyford a racist. Honeyford is suspended from teaching in 1985. Soon thereafter, he is reinstated. However, protesters congregate outside Honeyford's house, making his life difficult. Honeyford is forced to go into early retirement.
2015
Nikolas Kristakis is harangued on campus by Yale students after his wife, Erika Kristakis, sends a mass email to the entire Yale community taking a nuanced position on "offensive" Halloween costumes.
2017
Bret Weinstein, biology professor at Evergreen State College, is castigated for his objection to Evergreen’s “Day of Absence,” in which white people stay home for one day, leaving only people of color, who make up about 25% of the Evergreen community, on campus. Weinstein’s objection to the "Day of Absence" prompts accusations of racism and days-long demonstrations. Students spraypaint "Fire Bret" on the sides of buildings. They march across campus and even conduct impromptu searches for Weinstein. Police advise Weinstein to stay off campus out of concern for his safety.
2017
James Damore is fired from Google after he argues that men are more likely than women to go into tech (and therefore tend to make more money than women) because they're more psychologically suited to tech.
2017
Helen Zille, former premier for the Western Cape province of South Africa, is castigated for tweeting that the legacy of colonialism is not all bad. Several individuals and organizations call for her removal. The South Africa Human Rights Commission conducts an investigation into Zille's tweets as a potential "violation of human dignity."
2017
University of Toronto professor, Dr. Jordan Peterson, sets off an international firestorm after he refuses to use transgender pronouns.
2017
Lindsay Shepherd, a communications professor at Wilford-Laurier University in Canada, shows a clip of Jordan Peterson to one of her classes. The clip is about gender-neutral pronouns. Talking about the clip with her students, Shepherd does not take a negative or affirmative stance.
Shepherd is brought before a committee of two professors and one administrator and is questioned for forty-five minutes. She is told they will have to sit in on her classes. She is told to refrain from showing Jordan Peterson clips to her students.
Wilford-Laurier University later apologizes for their mistreatment of Shepherd.
2018
16,000 people sign a petition demanding that Portland State University professor, Dr. Bruce Gilley, be fired for his essay, “The Case for Colonialism.”
2019
JK Rowling is castigated for her controversial tweets on transgender issues. Gillian Phillips, children’s author, is sacked by her publisher for tweeting, “#IStandWithJKRowling."
2019
In 2016, a white employee at a small bakery called Gibson's near Oberlin College apprehends a black shoplifter. Oberlin College students print flyers using campus photocopiers and organize a protest. At the protest, students call Gibson's racist. The Vice President and Dean of Students at Oberlin College attend the protests.
2020
June
UCLA students call for the firing of Professor Gordon Klein, who refuses to go easy on black students as they struggle in the wake of the George Floyd murder. Klein's dean denounces an email Klein sent to a student and places Klein on leave, indicating that punishment will follow.
Klein is later reinstated.
June
Stu Peters, an Isle of Mann radio show host, is suspended for questioning the idea of white privilege.
June
Martin Shipton, editor for Western Mail, is forced to step down after criticizing the George Floyd protests because they’re not in line with social distancing recommendations.
June
Stan Wischnowski, editor for the Philadelphia Inquirer, is forced to resign after publishing an article called “Buildings Matter, Too.”
June
On June 3, the Poetry Foundation releases a statement saying they "stand in solidarity with the Black community and denounce injustice and systemic racism." Thousands of contributors to Poetry Magazine sign a letter making various demands of the Poetry Foundation and denouncing the Foundation’s June 3 letter, saying the statement is “too brief” and it does not meet the “urgency of the times.”
June
New York Times editor, James Bennet, steps down after publishing an op-ed piece by United States Senator Tom Cotton that advocates sending in the military to quell the protesting, rioting, and looting in cities like Portland, Minneapolis, and New York.
June
UCLA teacher, William Peris, is investigated for saying the n-word as he’s reading Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” to his students.
June
Timothy Gordon, a theology teacher, is fired at his Catholic school for calling Black Lives Matter a terrorist organization.
June
Don Share, the editor for Poetry Magazine, steps aside after a Michael Dickman poem that is insensitive to the African American community is published.
June
David Shor is fired from Civis Analytics for suggesting the George Floyd protests will hurt democrats’ chances in the upcoming election.
July
Gary Garrells, curator at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, is forced to resign after he vows not to exclude white male artists. A group of former employees at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art put together a petition to get Garrells fired. The petition quickly attracts more than 180 signatories.
July
A Mexican-American man, Emmanuel Cafferty, is fired from his job at San Diego Gas and Electric for doing "the okay sign" while sitting in traffic one day. Cafferty claims he was simply cracking his knuckles.
September
Greg Patton, a communications professor at USC, is castigated and placed on administrative leave for using a Chinese word that sounds vaguely like the n-word.
2021
February
Richard Taylor, a cop-turned-professor at St. John’s University, claims he was fired for asking his students about the positive outcomes of the Colombian Exchange.
The university has contested this.
February
The Head of Tokyo Olympics, Yoshiro Mori, is forced to resign after he makes a remark about women talking too much during meetings.
February
Mandalorian actor, Gina Carano, is fired from LucasFilm after she compares the current climate of hostility toward conservatives in Hollywood to the early days of Nazi Germany.
LucasFilm claims this is not the first time they’ve had to talk to Carano about her "inflammatory" social media posts.
February
David McNeil of The New York Times resigns after it is revealed he once said the n-word in a non-derogatory way to a group of students during a trip to Peru.
March
The editor of Teen Vogue, twenty-seven-year-old Alexi McCammond, is forced to resign after it is revealed she tweeted some offensive things in 2011 when she was seventeen.
May
An Alaska teacher, "Ms. Gardner," is placed on paid administrative leave after questioning the Black Lives Matter narrative, using the word thug during a discussion with her students.
May
Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier is fired from the United States Military after questioning some of the military’s practices, specifically the military’s adoption of what Lohmeier refers to as “neo-Marxist-based” diversity programs.
May
A Christian gym teacher, Byron "Tanner" Cross, is placed on leave after refusing to use his students’ preferred pronouns because it goes against his faith.
July
Maud Maron, a lawyer for the Legal Aid Society in New York, which is dedicated to defending poor people of color, claims she has been fired because she's white and holds different views than her colleagues.
July
The director of the Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony, Kentaro Kobayashi, is fired for Holocaust jokes he made in 1998.
July
A New Jersey judge orders a woman, Andrea Dick, to remove a banner from her backyard that says, “Fuck Joe Biden."
August
ESPN cancels sports broadcaster Rachel Nichols's show, The Jump, after she suggests Maria Taylor, a fellow sports broadcaster, was hired because she’s black.
September
At Arizona State University, a group of BIPOC students approach two white male students and ask them to leave their multicultural space because they’re white and one of them has a “Police Lives Matter” sticker on his laptop. The interaction develops into a heated exchange, with the students hectoring the two white males, calling them racists, telling them they have no culture, and demanding they leave because they’re offensive.
September
Dorian Abbot, a professor of geophysical science at MIT who argues openly for meritocracy in all fields, is disinvited from giving an annual lecture (known as the Carlson Lecture) because the department wants to avoid controversy. A group of roughly 150 students sign a letter denunciating Professor Abbott and making a list of demands. Students who are uncomfortable with Professor Abbott demand, among other things, that they be given an alternative option that will allow them to complete their course and receive credit for it without having to be under the instruction of Professor Abbott.
October
Bright Sheng, a University of Michigan professor who lived through the Cultural Revolution of Maoist China, is castigated by students at U of M after showing a clip from the 1965 film adaptation of Othello, wherein Laurence Oliver wears blackface. The students want Professor Sheng fired. Sheng decides to step away from the class and let another professor take over.
Sheng is still employed at the University of Michigan.
October
Dave Chappelle releases a standup special on Netflix called The Closer. In it, he makes crude jokes about transgender people. Transgender employees at Netflix demand the special be taken down and even stage a walkout.
A documentary about Chapelle’s 2020 comedy tour is cancelled by various film festivals.
2022
January
Jennie Nguyen is fired from Real Housewives of Salt Lake City for her “offensive” 2020 social media posts.
February
Several entertainers, including Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, call for Spotify to cancel Joe Rogan claiming Rogan is spreading misinformation about COVID-19 and vaccines.
April
Mount Royal University in Canada fires professor Frances Widdowson for saying Black Lives Matter has ruined the university and that indigenous children would have benefitted from the Canadian Indian residential school system.
Six-thousands people sign a petition calling for the removal of Widdowson.
April
Linfield University, in Oregon, fires Daniel Pollack-Pelzner after he accuses some administrators of antisemitism.
May
Princeton University fires longtime professor Joshua Katz after he criticizes the school’s anti-racism initiatives. The school claims Katz has been fired for having consensual sexual relationships with female students. However, Katz’s allies maintain this misconduct was not the real reason for the firing. Katz wrote a Quillette article in 2020 calling the Black Justice League, a student group, a terrorist organization and comparing them to the Red Guards of the 1966 Cultural Revolution in China.
2023
January
The Ontario College of Psychologists, a governing body for psychological practitioners, requires Jordan Peterson to undergo political "re-education" on pain of losing his license. The order comes after years of hurtful comments Peterson has made on twitter and on podcasts like The Joe Rogan Experience.
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