{"id":12612,"date":"2023-10-14T01:05:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-14T07:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=12612"},"modified":"2023-10-13T07:28:24","modified_gmt":"2023-10-13T13:28:24","slug":"colleges-used-to-encourage-the-exchange-of-challenging-ideas-now-faculty-members-who-challenge-students-beliefs-are-being-forced-to-leave-the-profession","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=12612","title":{"rendered":"Colleges used to encourage the exchange of challenging ideas. Now faculty members who challenge students\u2019 beliefs are being forced to leave the profession."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thefp.com\/p\/exodus-of-wrongthinker-university-professors\">Francesca Block:<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One sentence in a blog post almost ruined Thomas Smith\u2019s career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIf you believe that the coronavirus did not escape from the lab in Wuhan, you have to at least consider that you are an idiot who is swallowing whole a lot of Chinese cock swaddle,\u201d commented Smith, 65, a law professor at the University of San Diego.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He wrote it back in 2021, in a piece&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/rightcoast.typepad.com\/rightcoast\/2021\/03\/wuhan-lab-theory-a-dark-cloud-on-china-wsj.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">questioning the origins<\/a>&nbsp;of the Covid-19 pandemic on his personal legal blog, which usually received only a few hundred visitors per day.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the backlash was swift. Smith estimates 60 students submitted a formal complaint to the administration and accused him of being&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sandiegouniontribune.com\/news\/education\/story\/2021-03-19\/usd-law-professor-chinese-post\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">racist<\/a>, using derogatory language, and promoting conspiracy theories with \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/taxprof.typepad.com\/files\/apalsa-letter-to-tom-smith.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">detrimental consequences.<\/a>\u201d Smith later updated his post to clarify that his ire was directed at the Chinese government, not its people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A week later, Robert Schapiro, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sandiego.edu\/law\/faculty\/biography.php?profile_id=10394\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">dean<\/a> of San Diego\u2019s law school, announced an investigation into Smith in an <a href=\"https:\/\/reason.com\/volokh\/2021\/05\/04\/univ-of-san-diego-provost-rejects-complaints-against-prof-tom-smith-over-his-criticism-of-china\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">email<\/a> to the student body, stressing that \u201cUniversity policies specifically prohibit harassment, including the use of epithets, derogatory comments, or slurs based on race or national origin.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Francesca Block: One sentence in a blog post almost ruined Thomas Smith\u2019s career. \u201cIf you believe that the coronavirus did not escape from the lab in Wuhan, you have to at least consider that you are an idiot who is swallowing whole a lot of Chinese cock swaddle,\u201d commented Smith, 65, a law professor at [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12612"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12612"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12613,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12612\/revisions\/12613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}