Those
seeking
to
consolidate
power
often
make
it
a
sport
to
pick
on
a
small
group
of
people,
claiming
that
the
small
group
wields
disproportionate
power
and
is
out
to
transform
your
children
into
something
you
don’t
want
(and
probably
don’t
understand).
In
the
1950s,
the
boogeyman
was
communism.
According
to
some,
the
communist
professor
teaching
your
“child”
(because
18-year-olds
are
not
adults
apparently,
except
for
military
service)
was
out
to
demonstrate
that
capitalism
was
bad
and
prep
your
child
for
the
revolution. Literature,
such
as
the
American
Legion
cover
shown
here,
flourished.
In
his
famous
memo,
Justice
Powell
lamented
that
teachers
seeking
to
groom
students
for
communism
were
a
minority,
but
somehow
more
powerful
than
the
majority: “Such
faculty
members
need
not
be
in
a
majority.
They
are
often
personally
attractive
and
magnetic;
they
are
stimulating
teachers
and
their
controversy
attracts
student
following;
they
are
prolific
writers
and
lecturers:
they
author
many
of
the
textbooks;
and
they
exert
enormous
influence
—
far
out
of
proportion
to
their
numbers
—
on
their
colleagues
and
in
the
academic
world.”
Sorry,
rest
of
the
faculty,
you
are
apparently
NONE
of
those
things.
Then
the
boogeyman
became
Critical
Race
Theory
and
DEI. Critical
Race
Theory
does
have
a
description
and
definition
that
exists
in
the
legal
academy. But
that
isn’t
the
boogeyman. Instead,
as
Texas
Lt.
Gov.
Dan
Patrick
proclaims,
“Last
session,
we
banned
CRT
in
kindergarten
through
12th
grade
because
no
child
should
be
taught
that
they
are
inferior
to
others
due
to
their
race,
sex,
or
ethnicity.
In
2023,
this
should
be
common
sense
but
the
radical
left’s
drive
to
divide
our
society
is
relentless.” In
other
words,
CRT,
taught
in
some
law
schools,
became
code
for
any
instance
of
taught
history
in
which
white
people
acted
badly. Teaching
about
slavery,
massacres
of
native
tribes,
the
Voting
Rights
Act,
and
the
like
were
now
“CRT.” Teaching
it
is
“woke,”
as
opposed
to
historically
accurate. Again,
Dan
Patrick
with
the
agenda:
“This
session,
there
was
no
question
that
we
would
ban
the
teaching
of
CRT
in
Texas
universities.
Liberal
professors,
determined
to
indoctrinate
our
students
with
their
woke
brand
of
revisionist
history,
have
gone
too
far.”
Now,
the
boogeyman
is
a
particularly
small
group
of
people
lacking
power: The
transgender
community. The
UCLA
School
of
Law’s
Williams
Institute
estimates
that
0.8%
of
the
population
identifies
as
trans,
while
approximately
3%
of
the
population
aged
13
to
17
do
so. As
a
total,
1%
of
the
population
identifies
as
transgender. Easy
target
for
hateful
legislation.
But
the
overblown
controversies
and
reporting
make
their
population
seem
larger
and
more
politically
powerful. You
can’t
have
a
weak
boogeyman,
after
all. YouGov’s
poll
suggested
that
the
average
American’s
uneducated
guess
was
that
the
transgender
population
hovers
around
21%. This
is
no
accident: Studies
show
that
a
group’s
perceived
size
creates
what
is
in
essence
a
bias
that
increases
fear.
This
is
nothing
new. The
media
is
quick
to
latch
on
to
the
unfounded
political
rhetoric
to
help
foster
a
bogeyman
and
feed
it
like
a
virus
to
an
undiscerning
population.
It
therefore
comes
as
no
surprise
that
transgender
people
have
come
under
attack
for
the
most
ridiculous
reasons. What
about
bathrooms? What
about
women’s
sports?
I
would
imagine
surveys
show
that
people
think
transgender
people
only
play
sports
and
live
in
bathrooms. Sigh.
According
to
Translegislation.com,
125
pieces
of
legislation
targeting
the
trans
community
have
passed,
with
over
a
1,000
proposed. Just
for
comparison
(in
terms
of
targeting
innocent
groups
of
people
who
have
done
nothing
to
deserve
it),
pre-World
War
II
Nazi
Germany
passed
400
decrees
and
pieces
of
legislation
related
to
Jews,
according
to
the
Holocaust
Encyclopedia. (Side
note:
I
can’t
wait
for
the
hate
mail
—
HEY,
did
you
just
call
our
legislature
Nazis? Did
you? Did
you?? No,
I
didn’t. But
you
seem
to
see
the
parallel
just
fine.)
Overamplification
of
a
group’s
power
creates
the
notion
that
the
group
is
a
“problem.” Because
they
exist. Because
they
want
inclusion. Because
they
seek
understanding.
Because
they
are
human
beings. But
the
very
real
problem
is
that
the
group
is
the
target
of
attack
and
those
attacking
spin
it
that
the
attacked
are
the
attackers.
Universities
have
been
part
of
the
problem. In
Texas,
for
example,
university
administrations
have
turned
on
their
students
and
professors. Texas
A&M
(undefeated
in
football
and
apparently
in
hostility
to
academic
freedom)
fired
a
professor
and
demoted
a
dean,
all
because
the
professor
was
teaching
a
children’s
literature
course
and
some
of
that
literature
has
notions
of
more
than
two
genders. The
University
of
Houston
Graduate
School
of
Social
Work
canceled
a
required
course,
“Confronting
Oppression
and
Injustice.”
Apparently
confronting
oppression
and
injustice
is
now
illegal
in
Texas. And
the
University
of
Texas
is
considering
adopting
President
Donald
Trump’s
University
Compact. Other
universities
have
also
canceled
courses,
scrubbed
websites,
consolidated
departments,
and
are
otherwise
cowering
in
fear
(when
they
aren’t
hiring
the
very
people
who
have
sought
to
create
hatred,
distrust,
and
confusion
in
search
of
a
boogeymen). Texas
state
legislators
are
searching
through
syllabi
looking
for
mention
of
trans,
enabled
by
university
syllabus
programs
like
“Simple
Syllabus.”
You
would
think
that
professors
would
be
allies. And
you
would
often
be
wrong. One
professor
got
rich
for
refusing
to
use
a
trans
student’s
pronouns. Others,
perhaps
emboldened
by
legislative
and
university
hostility
toward
trans
persons,
make
their
biases
clear
in
a
variety
of
ways. The
fabled
notion
that
all
academics
are
leftists
and
Marxists
enables
the
marginalization
of
groups
who
themselves
are
surprised
when
their
purported
woke
faculty
turn
out
to
be
just
like
the
rest. Studies
exist
about
the
experiences
of
transgender
students
in
the
classroom. TL;DR:
Professors
are
not
woke.
And
as
universities
bend
the
knee
towards
false
notions
of
academic
freedom,
they
do
so
without
consideration
of
its
effects
on
making
lives
for
some
of
their
students
worse. In
a
world
in
which
“institutional
neutrality”
becomes
the
norm
and
in
which
all
viewpoints
are
held
in
equal
regard,
effects
are
not
examined. “I
have
a
right
as
a
trans
person
to
freedom
and
happiness”
is
held
in
equal
regard
with
“trans
people
should
have
no
rights.” And
university
policies
are
frequently
siding
with
the
latter
sentiment,
despite
purported
“neutrality.”
All
of
these
attacks,
from
the
Red
Scare
to
the
Trans
Scare,
have
one
thing
in
common. A
myth
of
a
powerful
force
that
will
disrupt
society
and
destroy
America
somehow. In
reality,
each
myth
is
the
tool
used
for
some
group
to
leverage
their
way
into
academia
to
disrupt
education
and
empower
themselves
at
the
expense
of
society,
education,
and
the
targets
of
their
ignorant
attacks. Universities
do
not
see
that
the
attacks
on
trans
people
are
ultimately
attacks
on
the
universities
themselves.
In
short,
in
a
search
for
a
boogeyman,
there
is
a
lot
of
blame
to
go
around
as
higher
education
continues
to
get
attacked
vicariously
as
vulnerable
populations
get
attacked
directly. There
is
much
to
be
learned
from
all
of
this,
assuming
the
university
administration
doesn’t
ban
our
learning
from
it.
Even
so,
this
lesson
in
discrimination,
hate,
and
fear
falls
harder
on
some
more
than
others.
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