Neil Thin has been cleared.

[ScreamingMeMe]

www.spiked-online.com/2021/06/03/neil-thin-a-victory-for-common-sense/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

Neil Thin: a victory for common sense
The Edinburgh academic has been exonerated following an absurd campus witch-hunt.

Of all the examples of campus cancel culture, the suspension of Neil Thin was particularly alarming. Thin, an academic at Edinburgh University, was reported to his employers by his students earlier this year for expressing what were, essentially, mainstream and anti-racist views.

Thin criticised the university’s controversial decision to rename its David Hume Tower after students complained that the 18th-century philosopher’s views on race had caused them distress.

More shocking was that he was also reportedly condemned for expressing explicitly anti-racist views – for opposing racially segregated spaces on campus and for saying that the modern obsession with ‘whiteness’ risked dividing society. For challenging woke racialism, he was smeared as a racist.

All of these views are totally normal – progressive, even. Yet for woke students at Edinburgh they were beyond the pale. As spiked noted at the time, Thin was essentially hounded not for being racist, but for being anti-racist.

The good news is that, following an investigation, Thin has been cleared.

But the fact he was ever suspended and investigated in the first place is still a scandal. He says the suspension has ‘taken a very serious toll’ on him, and that his health ‘nosedived’ soon after the campaign against him began. This will also have sent a signal to other academics – urging them to self-censor or to expect similar treatment.

The Neil Thin verdict is a victory worth celebrating. But the fact that we now have to fight for the right to express mainstream, common-sense opinions on campus shows just how far there is to go.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9647733/amp/Victory-free-speech-University-Edinburgh-throws-complaints-woke-students.html?__twitter_impression=true

Victory for free speech as University of Edinburgh throws out complaints against professor branded 'racist and problematic' by woke students after he criticised move to rename tower honouring philosopher David Hume over his links to slavery

I can't find where I read it, but I believe the students who made the claims are now being investigated. Whatever the ins and outs, we do not have the full story

Tired posting earlier but was glitchy.

Yes, it's very unclear what all the details around both the event and what he had issues with and who was "being unreasonable."

But it's very clear that some young people at university lack the ability to discuss and expressing their views without being abusive.

@highame it was in the Daily Mail article - 'Some of the students responsible for the smear campaign were investigated by the university authorities but no further action was taken'. I read an article earlier (I can't remember where) in which one of his colleagues is pressing for further investigations against the students who made the accusations. A big part of the student's complaints seems to have been an accusation that those who complained had marks downgraded which was found to have no foundation by the University.

I got kicked off a board about the time of the Evergreen event for saying this but here goes:

It is perfectly fine to have private clubs, university clubs, other non-public bodies that do discriminate in their membership. However, in the public sphere that should generally not apply. In the case of the Evergreen thing, it was fine for minority groups to protest and say their mind. But to try to shut down the campus to other paying students (Evergreen is a private college, not cheap folks), all of whom had never participated in the pre 60's segregation of the deep South or anything else like that, on the basis of their race was unethical and racist.

I'm glad this guy got exonerated. Perhaps we will start to see more sanity all over.

PS: Herding everyone into their own racial groups and discouraging any non-contentious communication is a right wing racist's wet dream. It pains me to see the woke fall for it.

PS: Herding everyone into their own racial groups and discouraging any non-contentious communication is a right wing racist's wet dream. It pains me to see the woke fall for it.

Absolutely. I despise the implication that my darker skin leads me to automatically feel "unsafe" around white people and that I'm incapable of having robust or profound disagreements with them. It is infantilising and demeaning to assume that I can't do or achieve anything without white people generously gifting me some kind of segregated "safe space" away from them. What a rubbish ideology.

Thanks for the info Wait.

@JohnnyMcGrathSaysFuckOff

Surely the question is not do we agree with Thin - personally I think I do not, but should he be hounded and have his livelihood threatened for expressing those views - again I think not.

Thin criticised something. He didn't seek to ban anyone, get them fired or put them in danger.

I do think we should have female only spaces. I also think other people should be free to respectfully disagree with that idea.

Absolutely

In case anyone is interested, on the subject of working through racial prejudice through confrontation, there is a very interesting episode of the podcast 'Invisibilia' called 'The Confrontation'. It certainly shook up my cosy white middle class ideas, though I think it glossed over some difficult gender politics questions.