Criticizing today’s culture of political correctness can have an adverse effect on one’s career, as New York University professor Michael Rectenwald learned this past week.
Rectenwald, a clinical assistant professor of liberal studies, created a fake twitter account called “Deplorable NYU Prof” back in September so he could lambast the current campus culture of “safe spaces,” “trigger warnings” and more. But after he revealed himself to be the one behind the Twitter account, an Orwellian-sounding campus committee deemed his tweets to be an act of “incivility,” and he has now been put on paid leave.
In one tweet, Rectenwald posted a photo of an NYU flier suggesting ways students could avoid offending someone with their Halloween costumes. He included the caption: “The scariest thing about Halloween today is . . . the liberal totalitarian costume surveillance.”
Rectenwald believed “social justice warriors” engaged in a “witch hunt” to determine who was behind the Twitter account. He was approached by a student journalist and agreed to an interview, which outed him in the eventual article.
Rectenwald told the New York Post that after the article posted, he began getting “dirty looks” on campus. It turns out, the Orwellian-sounding Liberal Studies, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Working Group had written a letter to the editor over the article.
“As long as he airs his views with so little appeal to evidence and civility, we must find him guilty of illogic and incivility in a community that predicates its work in great part on rational thought and the civil exchange of ideas,” the letter said.
Rectenwald said it appears the group took his views “personally,” even though he didn’t mention them or his department. “I was talking about academia at large,” he said.
After the letter was published, Rectenwald says he was called to a meeting with the dean of his department and a Human Resources representative. He was placed on paid leave – for his health.
“They claimed they were worried about me and a couple people had expressed concern about my mental health,” he told the Post.
NYU spokesman Matt Nagel told the Post that the paid leave, which will last through the end of the semester, had “absolutely zero to do with his Twitter account or his opinions on issues of the day.”
Right. Total coincidence.
If you think paid leave doesn’t seem like the worst punishment (no work and collect a salary? Sounds pretty good), think again. Rectenwald could be under review and assigned no classes in the next semester.
“I’m afraid my academic career is over,” he told the Post. “Academic freedom: It’s great, as long as you don’t use it.”
It’s hard to imagine the leave has to do with anything other than Rectenwald’s views on PC culture, given the timing of everything. It’s a shame whenever institutions can’t stand up to social justice bullies.
Ashe Schow is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
