Earlier this semester, Mark Crispin Miller, who teaches media studies at New York University, got in trouble because of something he was accused of saying in his class on propaganda. The academic free speech organization FIRE explains:
In September, a class session focused on campaigns promoting mask-wearing as a means of limiting the spread of the novel coronavirus. After a student took issue with some of Miller’s in-class statements and the sources he cited, she took to Twitter calling for him to be fired. Miller’s department chair, Rodney Benson, replied to the student’s posts and indicated that the department had made her concerns a priority.
On Oct. 6, Miller responded on his personal blog, outlining the material he shared in his course, noting the criticism he received, and expressing concerns — which FIRE shares — about the threat to academic freedom posed by investigations into course content. He also shared a petition asking NYU to affirm his right to academic freedom, which has garnered more than 17,000 signatures.
Then, on Oct. 21, several faculty members of the media department penned a letter to Dean Jack H. Knott and Provost Katherine Fleming calling on them “to publicly support the NYU community and undertake an expedited review . . . of Professor Miller’s intimidation tactics, abuses of authority, aggressions and microaggressions, and explicit hate speech, none of which are excused by academic freedom and the First Amendment protections.” However, the letter itself contained no specific allegations of policy violations, focusing instead on “the way in which [Miller] engages discussion around controversial views and non-evidence based arguments”; his petition, which they characterize as an “email campaign against the department”; and others’ negative responses to the student’s criticism of Miller’s course.
On Oct. 29, Dean Knott launched an investigation into Miller based on the letter.
FIRE takes Miller’s side in the matter, and explains why; read its entire piece, and the letter it sent to the president of NYU defending Miller from this outrageous investigation.
I know about this because of this fascinating interview with Miller on the dirtbag Left podcast Red Scare. I strongly urge you to listen to it. Miller is, by his own proud admission, a man of the Left, but he lays into the Left for supporting what he calls in the interview a form of totalitarianism like we have not yet seen. Here, in Miller’s own words, is the background of what happened to him (it’s a more detailed version of what the FIRE story says).
As Miller explained on the podcast, he asked his students to think about the way Covid masking was sold, as a story about propaganda. He says he never told his students not to wear masks, and wouldn’t have done so. But he did want them to understand how propaganda works, using a contemporary example. It’s not the case that propaganda is always for a bad cause (though Miller apparently believes that masking is ineffective, or at least not as effective as we have been told). The point, Miller told the podcasters, is that he wants to encourage students not to take the word of authorities — not even himself — at face value, but to do their own research on all issues.
This prompted a single student to take to Twitter to accuse him (falsely, he says) of telling students not to mask, and thereby making her feel unsafe. Here’s a tweet in which she called for action, and a tweet in response from Miller’s department head: