Powerful protests for racial and social justice are leading to overdue demands for police reform, along with wider calls for greater equality and inclusion across our society, not least in higher education, journalism, philanthropy, and the arts.

We uphold the value of robust and even caustic counter-speech from all quarters. Jesse Singal at Reason, commenting on The Harper’s Letter:“Because the American left is basically a war zone at the moment—or online it is, at least—what happened next shouldn’t surprise anyone: A group of us posted the letter and celebrated it, while another much angrier group denounced it and held it up as proof of…well, whatever it is they hate about us and want to get us fired over (this crowd likes calling the manager). A Letter on Justice and Open Debate.

But this needed reckoning has also intensified a new set of moral attitudes and political commitments that tend to weaken our norms of open debate and toleration of differences in favor of ideological conformity. On Tuesday, 153 of the most prominent journalists, authors, and writers, including J. K. Rowling, Malcolm Gladwell, and David Brooks, The signatories, many of them white, wealthy, and endowed with massive platforms, argue that they are afraid of being silenced, that so-called cancel culture is out of control, and that they fear for their jobs and free exchange of ideas, even as they speak from one of the most prestigious magazines in the country. Editors are fired for running controversial pieces; books are withdrawn for alleged inauthenticity; journalists are barred from writing on certain topics; professors are investigated for quoting works of literature in class; a researcher is fired for circulating a peer-reviewed academic study; and the heads of organizations are ousted for what are sometimes just clumsy mistakes. Without actually using the term “… There is clearly a line, but where is it exactly?Any “cancellation” advocacy by an individual is clearly free speech, but the actual firing of someone in response seems to be THE issue. When Black and brown writers are hired by prominent media institutes, In fact, a number of the signatories have made a point of punishing people who have spoken out against them, including Bari Weiss (who Rowling, one of the signers, has spouted transphobic and transmisogynist rhetoric, mocking the idea that trans men could exist, and Jesse Singal, another signer, is a cis man infamous for advancing his career by writing derogatorily about trans issues. They are doing the very thing they are protesting about. Here’s the letter: A Letter on Justice and Open Debate. The way to defeat bad ideas is by exposure, argument, and persuasion, not by trying to silence or wish them away. A Letter on Justice and Open Debate. We refuse any false choice between justice and freedom, which cannot exist without each other. If we won’t defend the very thing on which our work depends, we shouldn’t expect the public or the state to defend it for us.It has become politically incorrect to state your position unless that position agrees with the protesters.

The restriction of debate, whether by a repressive government or an intolerant society, invariably hurts those who lack power and makes everyone less capable of democratic participation. "A Letter on Justice and Open Debate", also known as the Harper's Letter, is an open letter defending free speech published on the Harper's Magazine website on July 7, 2020, with 153 signatories, including J. K. Rowling, Steven Pinker, Gloria Steinem, Noam Chomsky, and Margaret Atwood. There are only so many outlets, and while these individuals have the ability to write in them, they have no intention of sharing that space or acknowledging their role in perpetuating a culture of fear and silence among writers who, for the most part, do not look like the majority of the signatories. The problem they are describing is for the most part a rare one for privileged writers, but it is constant for the voices that have been most often shut out of the room. The intellectual freedom of cis white intellectuals has never been under threat en masse, especially when compared to how writers from marginalized groups have been treated for generations. A More Specific Letter on Justice and Open Debate On Tuesday, 153 of the most prominent journalists, authors, and writers, including J. K. Rowling, Malcolm Gladwell, and David Brooks, published an open… In this article, the National Review is lending its voice in support of its long time gadfly Matthew Yglesias, who is taking fire from the Woke brigade as a result of signing the Harper’s Letter. The letter was spearheaded by Thomas Chatterton Williams, a Black writer Some of the problems they bring up are real and concerning — for example, they seem to be referencing a researcher being The content of the letter also does not deal with the problem of power: who has it and who does not. The restriction of debate, whether by a repressive government or an intolerant society, invariably hurts those who lack power and makes everyone less capable of democratic participation. Powerful protests for racial and social justice are leading to overdue demands for police reform, along with wider calls for greater equality and inclusion across our society, not least in higher education, journalism, philanthropy, and the arts.

Let’s assume that your employer doesn’t want trouble and you are an employee at will. People have been ousted for saying and doing offensive things for as long as I can remember.