My professor got disinvited because of a 12 year old article nobody bothered to read

I had a sociology prof scheduled to speak at my school last fall about urban policy. Turns out someone dug up a piece he wrote in 2012 (when he was like 25) that had a slightly controversial take on gentrification. The student group cancelled him after 3 days of online drama, and I was the only one who actually tracked down the original article. It took me about 45 minutes of scrolling through old blog archives to find it, and honestly it was pretty mild. Has anyone else ever gone and read the actual source material behind a campus speaker getting banned, or am I just weirdly persistent?

3 comments

3 Comments

henrygrant19d ago

This whole thing misses what the actual problem is. Nobody disputes what was in the article, the real issue is why we expect a 25 year old grad student to have fully formed political opinions that hold up a decade later. I was a total idiot in my twenties writing stuff I'd cringe at today. We're basically punishing people for growing up and changing their minds. The student group could have just had a discussion with him about how his views evolved instead of acting like one old blog post defines his entire career. Makes you wonder how many other speakers get cancelled over things they probably don't even agree with anymore.

gavins4319d ago

The 2012 article had clear quotes supporting displacement that you're leaving out.

spencer_moore3917d ago

Right there with you, Gavin. I dug that article up after you mentioned it and those quotes are pretty damning, honestly (I couldn't believe how direct they were). It's not like people are pulling stuff out of thin air here, the words are right there in black and white. I had a similar thing happen with an old blog post of mine from like 2013 where I said some pretty dumb stuff about urban planning, and people still bring it up even though I completely disagree with it now. This whole "he was young so give him a pass" thing just feels like an excuse to ignore what he actually wrote at the time.