SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT:

ONE SMALL STEP – FROM COLLEGE FIX:   The University of Michigan said it will not formally investigate Professor Bright Sheng for showing a 1965 movie that contained a white actor wearing makeup to have a darker skin tone.  University officials were “considering opening a formal investigation into Professor Sheng for his classroom showing of Othello,” but they have “determined that it will not do so after reviewing the complaints against him,” according to a free-speech group.  “While it remains discouraging that Sheng has ‘stepped away’ from teaching this semester, Michigan’s decision not to launch a formal investigation into a professor’s course content was the right one to make,” the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education said in an October 19 update.  It spoke to Sheng’s attorney who confirmed there would not be a formal investigation.  “Such investigations produce profound chilling effects inimical to a university’s role as a marketplace of ideas,” the civil liberties nonprofit said. “FIRE hopes that this controversy over Sheng’s protected expression will signal to Michigan faculty and administrators that it’s time for the university to make a serious effort to protect and defend faculty members’ First Amendment rights and academic freedom.”  See post below.  We hope this action, by the prestigious University of Michigan, will be another step toward destroying woke-ism in the academy.  But the fight will be long and hard.

October 20, 2021