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Louise Perry
Free Expression, Wall Street Journal
Excerpt: I wonder how Newton would fare in the Cambridge of today. Would he be able to negotiate funding applications? HR? Student politics? Would he demonstrate social grace, prudence and a veiled but also irrepressible drive toward acquiring power within the institution? Would he use the correct pronouns, honor the correct identity groups and keep perfectly within the confines of the Overton Window at all times? Would he succeed as a 21st-century academic? Something tells me he wouldn’t.
Jason Arday was, until recently, a professor of sociology, feted as the youngest black professor ever appointed at Cambridge. He describes himself as autistic, an identity that—along with his race and class—allowed Mr. Arday to present himself as a marginalized figure, thus gaining access to certain advantages within the university system.
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When news of Iván Chaar López’s tenure denial broke last month, the scholar’s supporters pointed to what they believed was the University of Texas at Austin’s unstated reason: politics.
