I PITY THE FOOL: Naomi Shaeffer Riley is en fuego at the New York Post, penning an oped on Laura Kipnis’s sad, slow awakening to the progressive culture of which she is/was a part:
The charges against Kipnis were dropped over the weekend, but not before she submitted to what she referred to as her “Title IX Inquisition.”
A law firm hired by Northwestern to investigate at first even refused to reveal the nature of the accusations against her. Lawyers told her they wanted to ask her questions but she wasn’t entitled to have her own lawyer present.
Nor could she record the session, during which she was interrogated about her writing, her teaching and even tweets she’d sent.
It’s hard to work up too much sympathy for Kipnis, though. One wonders where she’s been for the past two decades when kangaroo courts were set up at institutions of higher education all over the country.
Has she been rushing to defend all the men convicted by campus courts of sexual assault with no lawyers present?
Kipnis learned (much to her surprise) that, as she wrote, “any Title IX charge that’s filed has to be investigated, which effectively empowers anyone on campus to individually decide, and expand, what Title IX covers. Anyone with a grudge, a political agenda, or a desire for attention can quite easily leverage the system.”
No kidding. And Title IX is only the tip of the iceberg. Anyone with a political agenda and an ax to grind can get professors reprimanded, students kicked off campus and commencement speakers disinvited.
Did self-described feminist Kipnis rush to the defense of Ayaan Hirsi Ali or Condoleezza Rice when they were told they couldn’t come to Brandeis and Rutgers? (In an essay for Slate, Kipnis referred to Condi as President George W. Bush’s “Stepford Wife.”)
Has she been defending Christina Hoff Sommers when the students at Georgetown and Oberlin tried to prevent her from giving a visiting lecture and then demanding “safe spaces” to be protected from her harsh words?
Of course she didn’t.
Do I feel sorry for Kipnis? Yes, I pity the fool, for not opening her eyes and seeing what little fascist enclaves universities have become thanks to progressive intolerance and lack of ideological “diversity.” Other than that, as a court of equity would say, Kipnis has “dirty hands,” and her involvement in the progressive cabal diminishes her entitlement to relief.