I am entirely supportive of the author but is it not ironic that his article can only be published here by suppressing the actual censored word.

It is true that I imagine all the readers understand what the forbidden word is but that is because we are old enough to understand it’s history and context. My son as an innocent 12 year old had no such knowledge when he innocently repeated it because he had heard rappers using it on the radio. Like “Voldemort” the word has magic powers with an elaborate code around who can use it and in what context.

Nor is it the only word that is required to be suppressed here by the algorithmic censor and the human moderator. A whole raft of words are too terrible to utter. Often it can only be discovered what they are by writing them in a comment and seeing it disappear.

And yet Unherd implicitly supports this author by publishing his article about the consequences of uttering this particular magical word in a sensible context while they cling to the comfort-blanket of their own magical word suppressor. They do so I presume not because they are afraid of the magical words themselves but because they know they can only exist to publish interesting articles and comments by accepting the prevailing censorship norms. Thus is life in a censorship society where we have to metaphorically bend the knee to the prevailing gods.

It’s incredible how a single word has so much power. These people need to be emotionally toughened up.

A short while ago, I wrote a middling par referencing UnHerd’s suppression of any mention of the ‘taboo’ word in question, which it automatically Bowdlerises, despite the fact that:
a. we all know the word;
b. various homonyms could be typed with impunity;
c. no one here is actually calling anyone a – ‘oooh, N-word’!
Bizarrely, my entire comment has now been disappeared. The irony! UnHerd, giving the persecuted Professor Naden a platform to tell us about this ongoing Maoist coddling of the American mind – but itself guilty of the very offence he so rightly decries. Pathetic!

It comes down to money (as it usually does). Higher education is very big business these days, where the students are seen as consumers of educational services. As the adage has it, “the customer is always right.” So mouthy students who object to – well, whatever takes their fancy – can blacken (ahem) the institution’s name on the educational equivalent of Tripadvisor if they are not appeased.
The solution is for militant moderates amongst the students to make equally loud noises about curtailment of free speech. The $64,000 question is, is ‘militant moderate’ a contradiction in terms?

What a fine piece.

Our colleges teach White students that they are immoral and contemptible if they don’t support the White Genocide that’s being carried out by massive third-world immigration and FORCED assimilation i.e diversity for EVERY White country and ONLY White countries.
Their professors never tell them, “White self-hatred is SICK!!!“
Those professors claim to be anti-racist. What they are is anti-White.
Anti-racist is a code word for anti-White.

I haven’t finished reading this article, but I will later. Nonetheless, I believe these US universities are getting incentives from the government , and perhaps even from the health agencies e.g. CDC and also drug companies. Though it has already been announced through mainstream media that the vaccine mandates are no longer being enforced, these universities continue to enforce them. Either they are making more money than before the pandemic due to virtual classes, or they are receiving financial benefits or incentives just like hospitals and clinics and senior homes were/are given to push the vaccine agenda— or both. Vaccines that don’t work but injure and kill instead are still being pushed one way or another. Universities have sold out. There’s no free speech out in the open encouraged anymore– only silenced speech if you know where to go (definitely not google, not CNN or mainstream social platforms. That said, I guess the US is still somewhat better than China or Russia– as known in the past. Then again, where will the US end their authoritarian mindset toward its people? Will we go back to the way it was before the pandemic. I hope so, but my realistic/reptilian brain says probably not, as gov and drug companies aren’t giving up their control and power as long as they think they got us exactly where they want us. They will continue to test and push for their next undemocratic move, and for the one after, unless we unite and resist, and/or even fight for our democratic rights.It’s up to us, not the US government, whether you are a democratic or republican. Party lines must join together.

This does not seem to be so much about free speech as a lengthy enquiry into who gets the dubious pleasure of being allowed to utter the taboo “n word”. This is a topic so rife with paradox and with so little to teach us that it deserves to live up its own cul de sac. Is it bizarre that the same student can rail against old white dudes for using the word in the classroom and then blast it out from the stereo in his dorm room an hour later? Yes. Does that mean that old white dudes are racially oppressed? No. If not being allowed to say the N word is the worst thing that ever happens to you, you live a charmed existence.