A New Reality? The Far Right's Use of Cyberharassment against Academics

A firsthand account by a targeted faculty member.
By Joshua A. Cuevas

A 2017 Pew poll regarding Americans’ views on higher education, specifically those of Republicans, should alarm educators and, indeed, all citizens. Pew found that nearly 60 percent of Republicans currently believe that colleges and universities are having a negative effect on the country. One would expect that most parents would want their children to complete some form of postsecondary education, if only out of concern for their future earning potential. But among many on the right there is a pal­pable hostility toward the basic concept of higher education, as if college attendance made one part of a liberal conspiracy, and professors have come to be viewed as the embodiment of what many resent in American culture: political correctness, diversity, willingness to look to science for answers, secularism, feminism, intellectualism, socialism, and a host of other “isms.”

This disdain toward academia can be attributed, in part, to the dissonance between certain ideologies and information derived from academic research in areas such as climate change, evolution, and gun violence. The elitism that some in the profession may project when trying to convince others that we are “right” exacer­bates the friction, and those of us in higher education increasingly find ourselves the target of hostilities.

The First Wave of Attacks

The vitriol of the 2016 presidential campaign became personal for me shortly after the election, when I joined a conversation on social media about an article I had read. The article noted that approximately 47 percent of eligible voters did not vote in 2016 and that Donald Trump won with the support of only 25 per­cent of the voting public, while Hillary Clinton won the support of a slightly larger share. As a quantitative researcher in the social sciences, I am fascinated by these types of statistics.

The conversation below the article predictably turned to the merits of the Electoral College compared with the popular vote. I noticed a surprising number of what seemed to be hostile right-wing commenters. My normal approach in such a situation is simply to block commenters who introduce themselves into the conversation with insults, cursing, and ad hominem attacks. In this instance, one individual, whom I will refer to as the OP, attempted to lay out an unconvinc­ing argument in comments interspersed with curses and insults directed at me. I dismissed the com­ments; he responded with vitriol. I let him know that I thought his attack on me reflected poor character and blocked him, soon removing myself from the conversation.

Shortly afterward, I received a personal message from the OP, who had now taken on a differ­ent identity, as a young female college student. He indicated that he had taken his grievances about me to an anonymous forum and closed with the threat, “This is going to be bad for you.” People with whom I had never had previous contact began to send me messages. One of the first said, “You’re a nigger.” Another called me a “faggott” [sic]. One attacked my preteen daughter as illegitimate. Several other indi­viduals, including a person who identified himself on his personal page as being employed as a data scientist at Facebook, used the phrase, “You must go back.” I did not initially understand what he meant by this but quickly came to realize that he was implying that, because I am Hispanic, I should be deported.

I did not respond, but I did examine each person’s page for patterns and commonalities. Some of the attacks came from dummy accounts, false profiles likely set up specifically for this type of situation—to enable anonymous attacks without the risk of expo­sure or retribution. Of the profiles that appeared to be real, most of them “liked,” or were part of, pro-Trump groups, and most were followers of former Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos.

A link to my Rate My Professors page made it clear that their attacks were expanding. Apparently some­one had Googled my name and discovered that I was a professor; the open nature of Rate My Professors provided an opportunity for more attacks. Soon, sixty new “reviews” of my teaching, all uniformly vulgar, appeared. Some referred to bestiality; one complained about my supposed use of “Mein Kamp” [sic] in the classroom.

Similarly profane and racially motivated mes­sages appeared in my university email. One was formatted like a student inquiry, asking whether one of my courses was a prerequisite to a course titled JEWS1488; another was just a string of profanity.

A Dark Corner of The Internet

Then I received a message from an actual student, who contacted me after stumbling across the source of the spam and abuse I had been receiving. He provided links to threads on a website that is know to be a cess­pool of white supremacist activity and suggested that I make screenshots to document the discussion there.

The messages I had received seemed tepid in com­parison with these threads. Protected by anonymity, the participants felt no need to conceal their bigotry.

The OP had taken one of my comments from the original article on the election and had posted it in one thread. He fabricated other comments and attributed them to me. The OP knew the kinds of information that would agitate visitors to the site—mention of my Hispanic background, reference to my liberal leanings, threats (supposedly from me) to shut down their website, and so on. The post­ers were unaware that I had written almost none of the statements the OP had posted. The depravity of their comments would have been unacceptable in any civilized environment. One commenter used an ava­tar that displayed an image of Hitler superimposed across a flag with a swastika.

Much of what was posted initially revolved around my Hispanic origins. Commenters suggested that I needed to be deported and called me a “spic.” As a liberal-leaning Hispanic professor, I was a perfect target for white supremacists.

Their plans became darker and more elaborate. One commenter suggested that their remote attacks on me be expanded to include my family. Another suggested that they take images they had found of my wife and Photoshop them in profane ways. They began to draft letters to send to administrators at my university and provided suggestions for editing to incriminate me. One commenter suggested they alter a screenshot they had created to make it appear as though I had used the term nigger. Another suggested that they accuse me of anti-Semitism. Their stated goal was to see that I was fired. This, apparently, was the type of opportunity they relished: find a person to harass, maybe by drawing him or her into a politi­cal argument, locate any information they could find online, and then coordinate attacks in an attempt to damage the person as much as possible.

The scheme became more sophisticated as they began to sift through my CV. One commenter sug­gested that someone contact journals in which I publish, identify himself as one of my graduate students, and claim that I had threatened him and forced him to fabricate data for a research study. Another posted the titles of several journals and email addresses of the publishers. (They were not quite sophisticated enough to realize that the work I’d pub­lished with them had been systematic review articles, not empirical studies, and thus the editors would immediately know that claims about data collection were false.)

I sent a message to my deans, letting them know that I was under attack by a network of white suprem­acists. The next morning, I printed out the screenshots I had taken—of the racist messages, the emails to my university account, and the long threads where the plot was hatched. As I did so, the white supremacists’ plan began to play out. An anonymous message was sent to seventy-seven faculty members in my college, supposedly from a student, accusing me of spreading anti-Semitic views in class. Similar messages went up on the university Twitter account and Facebook page.

I met with university administrators and infor­mation technology personnel and showed them my documentation; they were taken aback by both the malicious nature of the attack and the transparency of the plan. They suggested I file criminal charges and report the incident as a hate crime, which I did. My documentation made its way to different levels of the university just as further anonymous messages arrived, accusing me of verbally abusing a student.

The exact wording of each message sent to the university could be found in those threads—the same messages had been posted and edited by the anony­mous attackers the night before. The sources were found to have been fake Facebook and email accounts.

By the next day, the attack had deteriorated into malicious spam. Messages went out en masse to vari­ous email addresses and public accounts, but it was not difficult to identify them as fraudulent. The com­bination of racist personal messages, vulgar Rate My Professors comments, anonymous messages from fake accounts, and publicly available documentation of the plan being hatched in real time made the intentions of those involved blatantly clear. The attacks served only to convince administrators of the depravity of those who launched them.

By the next day, my Rate My Professors page had been cleaned up, with only legitimate student ratings appearing. New fabricated ratings would show up spo­radically afterward, only to be removed within hours. I discussed the possibility of deactivating my Facebook page with administrators, but I concluded that those involved in the harassment would only feel emboldened if they saw that my page was no longer active. I did not want to give the impression that their bullying was working. After several days, the messages stopped, and I went about my business for the semester.

A Second Wave of Attacks

One Sunday about five months later, I came in from mowing the lawn and answered a call from my depart­ment head. She politely asked me if I had sent out a final exam assignment to my students by email. I said that I had not done so, and she said that she had got­ten a strange message and thought it might be related to the previous attacks.

Apparently, someone had created a screenshot of an email that was meant to look like it came from me and began circulating it to students. The message described an assignment to write an essay criticizing President Trump; it warned Republicans that they would be punished for not reflecting “my” views.

Anyone who knows me or knows the classes I teach would have immediately seen that the message was a hoax. I don’t assign subjective essays as finals, and I definitely don’t send assignments out by email. My courses don’t touch on any subjects close to what the “assignment” entailed.

University administrators can see all incoming and outgoing email, and they quickly determined that the message did not come from me, did not go to any of my students, and entered the email system as a fake screenshot sent from a nonuniversity IP address. The email service in the screenshot was also not the one used by the university. In short, there was never any legitimate question about whether the message origi­nated from me.

Yet I began to receive a new wave of messages—a flood of vitriolic emails came to my university account, many of them racist in nature, attacking my wife, my daughter, and me. Another anonymous thread on the original white supremacist website contained more fabricated screenshots purporting to be from me. The person perpetrating the hoax pretended to be one of my students and said he was a Trump supporter who was fearful about retaliation if he didn’t write the essay condemning the president. Visitors to the site were outraged and called for harassment and even violence against me.

But this time the scope of the attacks was wider. The screenshot was sent to the College Republicans, who decided to call a campus meeting (until they found out they’d been tricked). I received an angry voicemail message from the father of one of them. Other profes­sors received the screenshots and bogus complaints from the perpetrators. I began to receive email mes­sages from students, parents, and alumni, almost universally hostile. Interspersed with these were more hoax messages from the perpetrators. Everyone in my department knew that the messages were part of the hoax. The emails, supposedly sent by students and their parents, described an assignment that did not exist and a classroom environment that bore no relationship to reality—they referred to a class of twenty-five students, most of whom were minorities, when in fact during that particular semester almost every student in every one of my courses was white, and the class that was supposed to have received the assignment was actually a field placement internship with only four students and no final exam. These fake messages followed the same patterns, with the same types of grammatical errors as the screenshots that were supposedly from me.

It was disappointing to see how easily so many people were duped. I was not surprised that visitors to the white supremacist website had fallen prey to the fabrications of one of their own, but I would have hoped that others would have had the evaluative skills to see through this transparent ruse.

I was also surprised to see those at high levels pulled into the fray. A state senator, John Albers, contacted me, and my representative in the US House, Doug Collins, lodged an inquiry with the univer­sity. These politicians may have no ties to the white supremacists or hate groups behind the attacks, but their lack of judgment was astonishing. It does not instill confidence when elected officials are so easily manipulated to work on behalf of hate groups.

The faculty and administrators, by contrast, were uniformly supportive. University administrators did not support me out of fear of legal reprisal; they simply responded with good judgment and arrived at reasonable conclusions. They expressed concern over whether I felt safe and voiced regret that I had to experience such an attack.

I would have preferred that they be more assertive, however. Administrators issued denials to students and parents. They informed those who inquired that the messages in question did not originate from me. But they should have clearly stated that the messages were a hoax perpetrated by white supremacists. People who might not believe a straight denial will generally feel embarrassed when they realize they have been duped. Administrators could have helped limit future attacks by stating that those who spread misinformation could be committing slander. There should also be repercus­sions for students who harass professors. Yet in my case, there were not.

As for the perpetrators, this was exactly the kind of scenario they relish—the chance to use their collective “power” to harass someone in a public position who belongs to a minority group.

Confronting the Threat

Approximately three months after the second attack, the white nationalist march took place in Charlot­tesville, Virginia. Of course, I was saddened by the march and the violence that occurred. I was not shocked, however, to find that the march was closely tied to the website that had hatched the attacks against me.

As the events in Charlottesville have made evident, white supremacists are beginning to organize in person and take part in actual violence. Several of the march­ers said that they relished the experience of meeting other white supremacists face to face. Online harass­ment is a serious problem, but public rallies now pose a physical threat.

I would not be surprised if white supremacists launch another round of attacks in response to the publication of this article. But I am not in hiding. My attackers are the ones in hiding, cowering under the cloak of anonymity, fearful that their identities might be discovered—as they should be. But they are becoming less reclusive, desiring to maintain personal anonymity while attempting to assert their collective presence more publicly.

Academia has been too timid in countering such movements. We should not have to speak in hushed tones when we condemn hate groups. We should not have to be apprehensive when we promote democratic ideals and equality.

It is essential, particularly over the next three years, that we confront the animosity and bigotry of soci­ety’s underbelly. Those in academia present an easy target—we are in public positions, open to scrutiny, and loathed by many.

As a tenured professor, I am lucky enough to have been in a position to rebuff these hate crimes and to tell my story here. Unfortunately, there are millions more, in academia and elsewhere, who do not have that advantage. We must build unity with all of those whose human rights are infringed.

I did not expect the country to be in such a perilous position in 2018. I have newfound concerns about the America in which my daughter and all other children will grow up. Now is not the time to shrink from con­fronting this threat.

Joshua A. Cuevas is an as­sociate professor and educational psychologist at the University of North Georgia, where he teaches courses in research methodol­ogy, assessment, and applied cognition. His email address is [email protected].

Comments

Thanks for sharing your story and for standing firm!

I've been dealing with this for over a decade. They' contacted every place I've ever worked and have entire websites devoted to smearing me.
Like you, the administrations stood by me.

Thank you so much for this. I am a lecturer in an Irish university and recognise all of the patterns described above although I have not experienced the very worst of them. I have been targeted by trolls, my personal and professional integrity has been systematically impugned and members of my immediate family have been singled out. In many cases the perpetrators - usually anonymous trolls - went to considerable lengths to find their material.

These attacks only occur when certain themes are being discussed. One is the alt-right and related themes concerning identitarianism, migration (my particular academic field), antisemitism and ethno-nationalism. The second is any criticism of Israel's current policies.

I fear that this kind of activity is distorting any rational form of balanced, informed public discussion and debate. For many of these people it's a kind of religion. Their beliefs are more readily explained by psychologists than political scientists.

A colleague has strongly recommended The Bigot: why prejudice exists, by Stephen Eric Bronner (2016, Yale U.P.).

Piaras Mac Éinrí University College Cork

Sadly, these attacks are in fact becoming more common in general, though nearly always from the right. These haters are becoming rabid and it should surprise no one that people who think violence is legitimate are more than willing to lie and defame, foolishly thinking they are protected. Frankly, it's sad these people are so clueless and lacking in basic cognitive skills.

I would say this kind of attack comes from all sides and applies to any target. It is the easiest way a coward can win, and cowards exist in all ideologies. Resist the urge to pat yourself on the back for being on the side that seldom does it--you'll only blind yourself to human nature.

Professor Cuevas is right to say that this particular attack seems to be based on race, but it would be ill-advised to assume that that is the )_typical_ motivation. What is _typical_ is for _any_ deeply-held belief, be it political, sexual, religious, racial, etc., to be challenged and then defended through such immoral, unethical, dishonest, evil means.

The tactic of pre-emptively shutting down an adversary, rather than meeting them on even ground, is growing fast in our online, anonymous world, and don't think for a minute that some of the people who coincidentally take the same side as you won't do it just as quickly as those who take the other.

This Both-sides-are-equally-guilty defense is nonsense. It is a deflection and an excuse. At its heart, this is an abusive husband claiming "She made me hit her"
I have seen no evidence that the Left resorts to attacks on spouses and children. Especially on a site like this, asking for some kind of proof for your assertion is not out of place.

Name one instance- one instance- in which an anonymous leftist group has launched a sustained, unsubstantiated smear campaign.

leftists will try to get people fired sometimes, it is true, but...maybe some people, sometimes *should be fired* for actual, substantive actions that they've taken?

your conflation of left and right lends aid and comfort to white supremacists.

I don't believe that "maybe some people sometimes should be fired" is a valid excuse for doxing people and going after their jobs. If you would like one instance, I could name several. Evergreen College students on the far left made took it one step further and verbally assaulted and physically provoked a professor for not letting them have a day on campus without white students. Groups on the far left have killed people in violence just as groups on the far right. You can't honestly look at the state of our political sphere and not see that both sides are capable of these things.

Professor Cuevas, thanks so much for writing this article and thanks to AAUP for publishing it. I have noticed that there is a linguistic pattern for these bots and racist bigots and this cannot be tolerated or Goebbels wins posthumously.

I stand with you good sir and your university is fortunate to have you!

This is so wrong people are so stupid that they let an racist use you for there own sstupid thing I live in europe and I know how it feel so be strong dont let anybody get you breach no way I ray for you professor and I hope that people open there eyes and heart for eachother.....Aunty Pua

Such a dismaying (at least!) story. Thank you for writing your piece, and for your personal courage and fortitude.

Some very thoughtful comments in this piece. Sorry to say, however, I see it running both ways on the internet, with equal intensity from either direction. Why and how have we lost our civility? There are often divergent points of view on different issues, and it is important that understanding and tolerance upon hearing points of view on the other side of our pet issues prevail, regardless of which side we are on.

I am so saddened by what has happened to our country, particularly as reflected in your story, but I am so glad you could share it so more people can know how bad things really have become, so we can do something about it. I wish I knew exactly what the best proactive course of action would be to ensure that you and your family and the families of all minorities in this country could feel more safe.
God bless

Thank you for the article and you have my sympathy for the unprovoked attacks made against you. It's important to note however that supporters of the left make somewhat similar attacks against those on the right with whom they disagree. Sadly, it now seems to be accepted and acceptable behaviour to personally and dishonestly attack people rather than just disagree with their views and provide arguments against them. The internet and social media in particular is spawning bad behaviour right across the political spectrum.

This is very disturbing but consistent with reports of other researchers. Your story is one of the reasons I support organizations that track hate groups.

Good for you, for exposing it. I know this sort of harrassment has shut down several feminist bloggers. We live in a war zone.

It's hard to be civil in the age of ignorance. I find it necessary to keep two windows open and available for search and vetting purposes in real time. It doesn't make much difference when you're engaging with a willful idiot. And the Net is chock full of them. They see that as their strength.

Thanks for sharing this; I also admire the way you handled it, both in defending yourself and in not being intimidated by the bad guys. Bravo!

Did anyone else wonder how this story might have evolved if not for the student who found and shared the website where the plans were being developed?

I kept wondering what might have happened if it were not for the student finding the site. It may have changed the outcome completely. For me, the disregard for humanity is the biggest threat in this increasingly polarized society. I find myself referring back to concepts of accuracy and validity when engaging in conversations with people who cite (clearly) skewed statistics with disregard for context.

You provide a long story without any evidence of what you say. While what you claim may be true, without evidence I must dismiss it entirely.

It's fairly trivial to find the leftovers from it, which validate Prof. Cuevas's account in detail. The Google query "An anon's UNG Professor Josh Cuevas makes students write an anti-Republican assignment" will find some of the websites mentioned (and screenshots thereof) immediately. Reading some of it really underscores his experience and makes me appreciate Prof. Cuevas coming forward with his story.

It is wonderful to see professors stand up to this onslaught of fascist barbarity. Thank you.

I am appalled by the experiences Prof. Cuevas has experienced. Unfortunately, I am not surprised. Well beyond the current cultural divide, is
the focused attack on the academy in particular (the Horowitz attack) and the attack on science in general. The vulnerability of those who work in public introduced by the anonymity the internet provides those whose arguments cannot bear open scrutiny is disconcerting. That any readers of Academe would argue such illegitimate tactics are as common on the left as on the right is disheartening.
Prof. Cuevas, thank you for your stand and your perseverance in the face of attack--with solidarity, truth and justice will surely prevail, but I applaud your struggle on the long road there!

A couple of commenters have suggested here that the left are as guilty as the right of making such attacks.
Is there any evidence for the left having forums to generate coordinated campaigns of lies to destroy the careers of right wingers?
During the Presidential campaign, students in the Macedonian town of Veles set up many fake pro-Trump news sites, spreading lies about Clinton. They had no political motives - they did it only to make ad revenue, because links to their sites spread like wildfire on Republican sites and facebook groups. See https://www.wired.com/2017/02/veles-macedonia-fake-news/
When the Macedonians were asked why they only targeted Clinton, not Trump, they said that it was because Trump supporters were much more willing to believe the lies, and pass them on, generating more ad revenue.

"This disdain toward academia can be attributed, in part, to the dissonance between certain ideologies and information derived from academic research.This disdain toward academia can be attributed, in part, to the dissonance between certain ideologies and information derived from academic research in areas such as climate change, evolution, and gun violence."

The Pew poll indicates there was a big jump in Republican disdain for academia from 2015 to 2017. "Academic research in areas such as climate change, evolution, and gun violence" hasn't particularly changed in the past 10 years. As such, academic research can't account for the increased Republican disdain for academia.

A more likely reason for increased Republican disdain for academia is recent conduct on campuses. I refer to such incidents as Charles Murray getting shouted down at Middlebury and the ensuing assault on the Middlebury professor who introduced Murray. I refer to what happened to the Evergreen professor who ended up resigning and getting a settlement from the administration.
There appears to be on campus an increasing intolerance for views that do now hew to the "progressive" narrative, as shown in the above examples. THAT is why Republicans have an increasing disdain for academia.

The deplorables can be mean. And some Russians may have been involved trying to tear America apart. Hang in there and keep teaching! America needs you.

This is my first post here. I would like to start by endlessly thanking Professor Cuevas. It shows great strength , courage and depth of character. Not just to have endured this. But also to have chronicled it for others to see and inform themselves with. Apologies for dangling participles gentlemen and ladies.

I have been told that I write books so I will try to be brief and concise here.
On one hand we are dealing with the "dumbing down" of America . America no longer competes on the same intellectual level as it did 10 to 15 years ago. I believe Professor Cuevas can correct that if I am wrong. Unfortunately this brings us to the first point. Those who are not on the same intellectual level as college graduates feel like they are less than. And as such , in my opinion, they are threatened and they feel that they must put those who have applied themselves and have more knowledge and information " in their place". In an attempt to equal the playing field.

Professor Cuevas has given us an excellent example of the way that the Russian Bots work. Do not misunderstand this is not just from our last election. Russia has spied on us since before World War 1. We have had times of better diplomatic health with them and worse.

However at this point, over the internet, these people are faceless and we do not know unless we have a way of following the internet to see where the post originated from. We can also be referring here to posts as mundane as don't buy a car from this person because they charged me three times as much as they should have. All the way up to threatening loss of life and property.

Thank you , Professor Cuevas , for making us aware and for giving us the tools or at least the beginnings to protect ourselves if something like this happens to us.

Thank you also for being conscientious and caring about your students. Making sure that you get out the correct information period and making sure that your students are the best that they can possibly be. To all that read this comment, safe , happy , joyous and prosperous days to you and your loved ones.

I would like to also thank Professor Cuevas' administrators for their intelligence and insight. The signs that you saw could have easily been overlooked and the professor could easily have been victimized in a much worse way. Thank you. You give others much hope.

Allow me to express my deepest respect and admiration for Professor Cuevas for standing strong in this onslaught of ignorance and hatred. I also send my gratitude to him for sharing his experience so the rest of us will have a point of reference in understanding and exposing the despicable and illegal behavior of these hate groups.

To those who came here to diminish the impact of, deflect attention from, and otherwise excuse the depravity and brutality of what happened to Professor Cuevas by claiming that “everyone does it…,” your claim would benefit from formal instruction in statistics, logic, research methodology, data analysis, and most importantly, ethics.

TL/DR: No, not everyone does it. A student-driven public incident in no way equates to the widespread, long-term, underground, hardcore, organized harassment demonstrated in this case and others like it noted herein. Furthermore, there are no “academic hate groups” of professors who organize to plot and execute personal attacks on people who hold opinions that differ from their own. There just aren’t. So speak to the merits of the case before you, and stop excusing criminal behavior.

the goyim are very intolerant
we must re-educate them

Hi Professor Cuevas,

I'm sorry to hear about your experience of being targeting with racist comments and misinformation.

I just wanted to take issue with something you mentioned in the first paragraph regarding how academics are resented for looking to science for answers. Unfortunately there are some fields of academia which are themselves quite hostile towards science and in particular evolutionary explanations for human behaviour. Whilst the religious right wing types are hostile to science and evolution for challenging their religious world view, there are many reasonable skeptical people across the political spectrum who value truth and objectivity and are deeply concerned with what seems like a new lysenkoism taking over some of the humanities and social sciences and starting to creep out into other fields and into the general discourse. I'm sure you're aware of the work of people such as Sandra Harding who claim that science is a tool of patriarchal oppression and said that Isaac Newtons Principa is a rape manual. There are no shortage of academics which she has influenced who claim that objective science is no better at discovering truth than peoples subjective experiences. People see that gender studies 'scholars' will deny evolutionary biology and psychology if it contradicts their social constructivist and blank slate ideology. There is also the recent sokal hoax squared which exposed the madness and corruption of several peer reviewed journals in what they called the grievance studies fields.

I am absolutely not accusing you of perpetuating any of this, i just thought i'd make a comment about it because it seems to be the leading cause of mistrust of the scientific and objective credentials of the academy in the last few years. Having subjects which are openly hostile to science and reason does not do the reputation of academia any favours amongst the general populace, especially when they see the irrational mob like mentality of students shouting down, de-platforming and assaulting professors such as Charles Murray, Brett Weinstein, Christina Hoff Sommers, Nicholas Christakis, etc. People see this intolerance towards opposing viewpoints and uncivil behaviour coming out of universities along with increased and unwarranted use of labels such as 'fascist' instead of reasoned counter-arguments. I hope the universities will realise that these things are partly responsible for the negative image academia is acquiring even among liberals and centrists.

This is very disturbing but consistent with reports of other researchers. Your story is one of the reasons I support organizations that track hate groups.

The use of the internet for ideology purposes is scary

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