BY HANK REICHMAN

The tendency of right-wing “free speech warriors” to apply one standard to speech they agree with and vow to defend, and another less liberal standard to speech they don’t like is well-documented, even old news.  In April John Wilson reported here how even as Republicans rallied behind President Trump’s phony executive order that would allegedly protect campus free speech, in Massachusetts the party joined with certain pro-Israel groups in an effort to shut down an event calling for the defense of free speech against those who want to silence criticism of Israel.  In 2018, when a high school student called the office of Rep. Mark Amodei (R-NV) calling on lawmakers to “get off their f‑‑‑— asses” and pass gun-control laws, Amodei’s office reported the student to his principal, resulting in a two-day suspension and a prohibition on participation in student government.

Now another Republican member of Congress has taken to Twitter to demand the firing of a professor whose views he doesn’t like.  On Sunday, Allen Frances, former chair of the Duke University department of psychiatry, went on CNN to argue against efforts to explain Trump’s behavior by reference to mental illness.  But Frances also declared that “Trump is as destructive a person in this century as Hitler, Stalin and Mao were in the last century.”  In response Alabama Republican Rep. Mo Brooks, who himself earlier this year compared Democrats and the media to Hitler, posted this tweet:

#Duke #Trump #FakeNews

Duke psych prof Dr. Allen Frances lies on CNN that "Trump is as destructive a person in this century as Hitler, Stalin and Mao were in the last century." These socialists killed TENS OF MILLIONS!

Duke: Fire Allen or have his own dept treat him! Mo

— Mo Brooks (@RepMoBrooks) August 25, 2019

This, of course, is the same Mo Brooks who in an April press release declared, “I support freedom and free enterprise.  I oppose free speech suppression and Socialism.”  Yeah, right.

But so far the week’s biggest free speech hypocrite is a journalist, not a politician.  I’m referring here to New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, notorious climate change denier, “safe space” critic, and “free speech” champion.  In a 2017 commencement address Stephens declared, “if a college or university should accept the principle of a ‘safe space’ in a single designated room, why should that same principle not extend to the classroom, the lecture hall, dormitories, college newspapers, chat rooms, social media and so on?”  (No, this was not a conscious effort to illustrate the fallacy of the continuum, also known as the fallacy of the beard or the slippery slope fallacy, although it does that quite well.)  Moreover, Stephens added, “And if it is not O.K. to say certain things, anywhere, should we even think them?”

Here are two examples of Stephens’s unwavering dedication to free speech:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now flash forward to a story about bedbugs infesting the offices of the Times that was published yesterday on Slate.  It prompted David Karpf, associate professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University, to take a dig at Stephens via Twitter.  “The bedbugs are a metaphor,” Karpf wrote. “The bedbugs are Bret Stephens.”

Then this happened:

Alright fine… here is the email: pic.twitter.com/A4E5I6CoB6

— davekarpf (@davekarpf) August 27, 2019

The response on Twitter was overwhelming.  Here are a few samples:

UPDATE: You may sometimes be referred to instead as "Bretbug," @BretStephensNYT. Again, I apologize, I do not make the rules.https://t.co/kUviIsH7pm

— Jamison Foser (@jamisonfoser) August 27, 2019

Not sure where the line between hypocrisy and nuance is, but pretty sure its not: "Free speech – even offensive speech – is important enough that we should resist calls to punish white supremacists, but should punish those who call me a bedbug" pic.twitter.com/iqoBvHznZ4

— Don Moynihan (@donmoyn) August 27, 2019

you know who would argue for “the necessity of discomfort”? a freakin bedbug pic.twitter.com/DMxpTUcIk2

— Talia Lavin (@chick_in_kiev) August 27, 2019

University of Virginia professor Siva Vaidhyanathan caught the irony well: “In fairness, it’s inaccurate to call @BretStephensNYT a bedbug. Bedbugs have THICK skin.“

Karpf told the Washington Post that Stephens’s decision to email his provost with his complaints was an inappropriate attack from a writer with one of the highest-profile platforms in journalism.  “He not only thinks I should be ashamed of what I wrote, he thinks that I should also get in trouble for it,” Karpf told the Post. “That’s an abuse of his power.”  And indeed it is.  I doubt the provost will take any action — but if he does, I’m certain the AAUP will not stand idle — but it is the chilling effect of the action that is so very troublesome.

(One person on Twitter sought to defend the inclusion by surmising that Stephens was simply seeking a “witness” to the exchange, although that explanation collapsed when it was pointed out that Stephens could have chosen one of his own editors as such a “witness.”)

This morning Stephens went on MSNBC to defend his response, calling the tweet “dehumanizing and totally unacceptable.”  He said he invited Karpf to his home to see if the professor would call him a bedbug to his face — because, Stephens said, “a lot of things people say on social media aren’t the things they’re really prepared to say in one-on-one interactions.”  As for why he included the provost on his response, Stephens explained that “managers should be aware of the way in which their people, their professors or journalists interact with the rest of the world.”  Stephens also deactivated his Twitter account, calling the platform “a sewer.”

Earlier this month, the Times demoted another writer, Jonathan Weisman of its Washington Bureau, who had edited the paper’s congressional coverage, after he wrote tweets criticized as racist and then emailed author and Times contributor Roxane Gay to demand an “enormous apology” after she criticized them.  It remains to be seen if Stephens will face similar disciplinary action.

Gay, however, didn’t hesitate to make her opinion clear:

And I just cannot get over how mild an insult “bedbug” is. Stephens and his ilk would simply drop dead after being a woman, black, queer, or some combination thereof online. My day started with being called a rancid cunt and it’s just Monday.

— roxane gay (@rgay) August 27, 2019

In conclusion, I think journalist Julia Ioffe gets it about right:

If I had a dollar for every free-speech-on-campus, liberal-snowflake-safe-space-mocking crusader who melted on contact with an opinion contrary to their own, I would have so so many dollars.

— Julia Ioffe (@juliaioffe) August 27, 2019

UPDATE: In case you missed it, the Chronicle of Higher Education today published a terrific interview with Professor Karpf, which offers an extremely persuasive analysis of Stephens’s behavior and motivations.  One interesting new fact is revealed: not only did Stephens copy Karpf’s provost, he also apparently emailed the director of GW’s School of Media and Public Affairs separately.