Cancelled By A thousand Cuts

Professor Eric Kaufmann

"I was cancelled by 1,000 cuts. Academia should be about the advancement of knowledge but you're not allowed to advance theories which go against the progressive narrative. If you have a different viewpoint, you're in the crosshairs."

"The climate at British universities has worsened because morally absolutist, often younger, illiberal progressives are using pressure, public reputational attacks and social media to limit academic freedom.

'It's a target rich environment. The woke left can make your life hell and they know it. You worry about saying the wrong thing in class so you make it vanilla. You worry about getting your research grant so you self-censor."

"You've got to be in line with the orthodoxy, you can't deviate from dogma. It's an Orwellian threat to the enlightenment - free speech, equal treatment, due process, objective scientific truth."

"I believe this new woke ideology threatens the foundations of our civilization. Every parent in the UK - and around the world - should be concerned at how far it has penetrated into our universities, schools and elite institutions."

Eric Kaufmann, 53, launching Centre for Heterodox Social Science

Among the thousand cuts Dr. Kaufman faced were the following:

• Social media pile-ons, on Twitter, now X, organized by hostile students;
• An open letter to the Master of Birkbeck denouncing him and calling for him to be fired 'for his defence of white identity politics and his countless attacks against Black Lives Matter and other activists and scholars of colour on social media;
• Denunciations from a junior colleague who resigned because of the 'impact on Birkbeck staff and students of being in such close proximity to his [Professor Kaufmann's] far right followers' dragging him into an embarrassing media storm;
• A number of hostile student course evaluations and letters, which he believes were a coordinated attack, resulting in three damaging internal inquiries;
• Being avoided by some of his colleagues who were desperate to avoid being cancelled by association.



A London-based Masters course is planned to be implemented by 2024/25 on the Politics of Culture to explore "the interplay between the woke left and populist right". Picture: Alamy, Getty, Wikimedia Commons

 After a career spanning two decades as head of Politics at Birkbeck, University of London, 53-year-old Professor Kaufmann decided to leave his university post citing irreconcilable differences between the university's academic culture and  politics and his personal view based in academic/scientific rigour. He plans to launch a first-of-its-kind course at another university, widely recognized for its dedication to freedom of speech, an anomaly in the current atmosphere at most institutes of higher learning in the West.

The course he is preparing to launch at the University of Buckingham where he is slated to lead the Centre for Heterodox Social Science, is named -- Woke: the Origins Dynamics and Implications of an Elite Ideology. A course believed to represent a first, its aim, to assess woke "in an empirical and analytical manner rather than from a particular political or normative position".

"Progressive conformity and cancel culture are distorting the teaching and research mission of universities."

"Between the extremely controversial and the progressive-controlled monoculture of academia is a vast and growing zone of unspoken truth."

Dr. Eric Kaufman

Dr. Kaufman was born in Hong Kong, but grew up in Vancouver. The Canadian, a resident of the UK since the 1990s, is the offspring of a former Canadian diplomat, gifted in languages. He is of mixed lineage; Jewish, Chinese, and Puerto Rican.The five-year campaign to discredit his academic fitness and social conscience, along with his colleagues' decision to isolate him because of social pressure, convinced him he should move on from Birkbeck.

Alienation, isolation, constant slander and verbal assaults do have that effect on an individual, undermining their sense of belonging, shaking their convictions, leaving them psychologically bloodied -- and in Dr. Kaufmann's instance -- unbowed. Assailed by student letters to the university's management and board of governors calling for his dismissal, being targeted for censure on social media convinced him it was time to leave.

At August's closure, he did just that. He was inspired by what he viewed as an opportunity "to help build Buckingham as the only 'free speech university' in Britain". Nothing if this kind exists in Britain". His goal, he clarified, is "to promote objectivity and viewpoint diversity, not indoctrination or narrow limits on the pursuit of knowledge".

So with that in mind, in the next year, Dr. Kaufmann plans to establish a London-based Masters course on the Politics of Culture, "exploring the interplay between the woke left and populist right". The centre for research will investigate woke attitudes and controversial subjects such as trans rights and critical race theory.

"The climate at British universities has worsened because morally absolutist, often younger, illiberal progressives are using pressure, public reputational attacks and social media to limit academic freedom."

"You've got to be in line with the orthodoxy; you can't deviate from dogma."

Dr. Eric Kaufman

Mr Kaufmann wants Buckingham University to become the center for research into 'woke' DailyMail.com