\n<\/p>\n
My column about gaslighting has drawn some criticism that I want to address. Noam Schimmel argues in his letter that \u201cgaslighting\u201d is a correct term to use when people face \u201chostile claims that their reported experiences are fabricated, exaggerated or made with malicious intent.\u201d But we must always have debates about whether general claims of bigotry are exaggerated or understated, and we shouldn\u2019t presume malicious intent from anyone.<\/p>\n
Schimmel claims that \u201cit is inimical to the respect and fulfillment of civil rights and human rights to focus on debating whether terms such as \u2018gaslighting\u2019 or \u2018institutional discrimination\u2019 are appropriate to describe real and widespread experiences of exclusion and abuse.\u201d Actually, it\u2019s never inimical to human rights to discuss the extent of forms of discrimination or to debate how we should describe bigotry. Free speech is essential to human rights, and that includes allowing people to deny that human rights are being violated, even if they are wrong.<\/p>\n
In fact, gaslighting and institutional discrimination are radically different concepts. The latter describes an institutional failure to prevent discrimination by a legal standard, but gaslighting describes a kind of conspiracy theory that suggests everyone who questions these demands for censorship is plotting against recognition of an obvious truth about antisemitism.<\/p>\n
Another letter in response to my column comes from William Mills IV, which I will post here in its entirety:<\/p>\n
Yes, gaslighting is real even if it doesn\u2019t involve turning down gas lights to drive someone crazy.<\/p>\n
By William T. Mills IV, Ph.D.<\/p>\n
In his opinion column on Wednesday, author John Wilson derides the author of an email he received accusing him of gaslighting when he referred to antisemitism at Harvard as a \u201cmyth.\u201d In his rebuttal to a private email, Mr. Wilson says that he is not gaslighting because he is not literally turning down gas lights to drive his wife crazy, as the husband in the 1944 film Gaslight<\/em> did. Interestingly, Mr. Wilson defends of his use of the word \u201cmyth\u201d to describe antisemitism at Harvard, even though he is not literally referring to antisemitism at Harvard as, for example, a historic tale about a creator sending birds to retrieve mud from the bottom of a primordial ocean to form the earth. Of course, the use of the word \u201cmyth\u201d does not denote the literal origin of the word but rather the meaning we all understand today.<\/p>\n So yes, in fact, claiming that antisemitism at Harvard is a \u201cmyth\u201d is gaslighting readers, as it tells them a lie and denies that they are being told one. There is no other reason I can conceive of, at least not a charitable one, to tell people who watched antisemitism\u2014that Harvard admitted to\u2014with their own eyes that antisemitism is a \u201cmyth,\u201d than to drive them insane.<\/p>\n Mr. Wilson says that \u201cuniversities are not guilty of antisemitic discrimination if they allow free expression of hateful ideas.\u201d And herein lies the problem. Yes, of course, free expression does not equal antisemitism. But having a stated policy against \u201cbullying, harassment, intimidation\u201d and not enforcing that policy when death is openly called for against Jewish students is antisemitism in its truest form. Protecting everyone except Jewish students from \u201cbullying, harassment, intimidation\u201d is the definition of antisemitic discrimination. The entire country watched this fact be highlighted by Rep. Elise Stefanik in her takedown of Harvard president Claudine Gay, but I suppose we are also expected to believe that the thing we watched with our own eyes wasn\u2019t really happening. But it did happen, and Mrs. Gay [sic<\/em>] is no longer the president because of it.<\/p>\n In his conclusion, Mr. Wilson laments the negative impact that using the term \u201cgaslight\u201d will have on intellectual discussion. But in reality, nothing could do more harm to \u201cintellectual discussion\u201d than telling people lies, then telling them they are not being lied to, and then telling them that they are not being lied to about not being lied to. The way to protect \u201cintellectual discussion\u201d is not to bar the use of the word \u201cgaslight,\u201d but rather to stop lying. Antisemitism is present at Harvard. Antisemitism is allowed by the administration at Harvard. Antisemitism at Harvard is not a myth.<\/p>\n William T. Mills IV, Ph.D.<\/p>\n Assistant Professor of Biology<\/p>\n Mount St. Mary\u2019s University<\/p>\n The existence of antisemitism and other forms of bigoted beliefs is deplorable, but it is not evidence of antisemitic discrimination by a college if a college allows hateful beliefs on campus.<\/p>\n Mills may believe that Harvard is \u201cprotecting everyone except Jewish students,\u201d but I see no evidence to support that claim, and a great deal of evidence that contradicts it. <\/p>\n One reason why we must have free speech in the fight against antisemitism and other isms is that it\u2019s dangerous to allow presumptions of bigotry to dictate repression. Mills claims that \u201cwhen death is openly called for against Jewish students is antisemitism in its truest form\u201d which I think is true when it happens, but not necessarily true whenever the phrase \u201cfrom the river to the sea\u201d is uttered. Mills claims that my defense of free speech is gaslighting him, which is precisely my problem with the term.<\/p>\n Just like Mills and Schimmel, I think my critics are getting the facts wrong and have a false view of the world. I think they are in error, but unlike them, I don\u2019t think they\u2019re gaslighting me. I don\u2019t think they\u2019re intentionally telling lies or downplaying discrimination they know is real against other groups. I\u00a0like they\u2019re simply making mistakes, in their facts and values, concerning an issue they care about deeply. We can debate ideas and have strongly worded arguments without presuming that the people on the other side are bigoted and evil.<\/p>\n When people claim that denying bigotry or failing to silence bigotry is itself a form of bigotry, then we run the risk of creating a growing cycle of censorship\u2014first the alleged bigots are to be punished, then anyone who defends the bigots and then any college that fails to silence the bigots. And that\u2019s precisely the crisis of censorship we face in America today, where accusations of bigotry happening on campuses without proof of systematic discrimination are being used to punish colleges and seek suppression of free speech.<\/p>\n John K. Wilson was a 2019\u201320 fellow with the University of California National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement and is the author of eight books, including <\/em>Patriotic Correctness: Academic Freedom and Its Enemies (Routledge, 2008), and his forthcoming book <\/em>The Attack on Academia. He can be reached at collegefreedom@yahoo.com, or letters to the editor can be sent to letters@insidehighered.com.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My column about gaslighting has drawn some criticism that I want to address. Noam Schimmel argues in his letter that \u201cgaslighting\u201d is a correct term to use when people face \u201chostile claims that their reported experiences are fabricated, exaggerated or made with malicious intent.\u201d But we must always have debates about whether general claims of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18434,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[11003,11249],"class_list":{"0":"post-18433","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-debating","9":"tag-gaslighting"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}