Since some people seem to still think I’m exaggerating this stuff

From an essay by Robert Weissberg, professor emeritus of political science at UIUC:

My experience is probably typical and thus the fear of giving “offense” consigns thousands of graduates to incomplete educations. Sort of like proper Victorian sex education. A vicious cycle is created—“safe lectures” beget boredom and this only encourages yet more sleeping and more garbling. This censoring can also have more tragic consequences for those oblivious to awaiting minefields. I had a distinguished colleague—Stuart Nagel—whose tale is worth telling. He taught public policy and one day explained that black businesses in Kenya were uncompetitive against Indian-run enterprises since blacks where too generous in granting credit to friends and family. He had been invited by the government of Kenya to study the situation and suggested better business training for black Kenyans. The topic was indisputably part of the course and thus totally protected by AAUP academic speech guidelines. Stuart was also extremely liberal on all racial issues.

Nevertheless, to condense a long story, an anonymous letter from irritated black students complained of Nagel’s “racism” and included the preposterous change of “workplace violence.” After a protracted and bungled internal university investigation, two federal trials (I testified at one), he was stripped of his teaching responsibilities and coerced into retirement. Interestingly, having been charged as “racist,” his departmental colleagues, save two conservatives, abandoned him. A few years later, partially as a result of this emotionally and financially draining incident ($100,000 out-of-pocket for legal fees), he committed suicide. I can only speculate that he believed that years spent being a “good liberal” (including service in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division) would insulate him from being denounced as a “racist.” Nor would he have anticipated that the university would spend the hundreds of thousands in legal fees to punish a famous tenured faculty member who “offended” two students. Nagel’s sad saga undoubtedly provided useful lessons to many others. Stupidity can really be dangerous, even in a university. Better keep quiet.

We now return you to the menace of “global warming.”