Religion is a Mental Illness

MIT Hired Six New Diversity Deans. Two of Them Are Serial Plagiarists, Complaint Alleges.

According to a 56-page complaint filed with the university on Saturday, at least two of six DEI officials that MIT hired in 2021 may not be

Washington Free Beacon

In dissertation titled 'Cite a Sista,' Tracie Jones-Barrett stole an entire passage on 'ethical considerations' from her classmate

In June 2021, a year into the cultural aftershocks of George Floyd's death, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology set out to meet the moment, as so many other schools had, by hiring more diversity officers.

MIT welcomed six new deans of diversity, equity, and inclusion, one for each of the institute's main schools, as part of a "DEI Strategic Action Plan" launched the previous year. Aimed at boosting the representation of women and minorities, in part by developing DEI criteria for staff performance reviews, the plan pledged to "make equity central" to the university "while ensuring the highest standards of excellence."

But according to a 71-page complaint filed with the university on Saturday, at least two of the six DEI officials may not be living up to those standards. The complaint alleges that Tracie Jones-Barrett and Alana Anderson are serial plagiarists, copying entire pages of text without attribution and riding roughshod over MIT's academic integrity policies.

In her 2023 dissertation titled "Cite a Sista," which explored how black women in the Ivy League "make meaning of thriving," Jones-Barrett, MIT’s deputy "equity officer," lifts a whole section on "ethical considerations" from Emmitt Wyche III, her classmate in Northeastern University's Graduate School of Education, without any sort of citation.

The section is one of several long passages taken from Wyche's 2020 thesis, "Boyz in the Hoods: (Re) Defining the Narratives of Black Male Doctoral Degree Completers," which does not appear in Jones-Barrett's bibliography. Wyche and Jones-Barrett did not respond to requests for comment.

Anderson, who served as the diversity czar for MIT's computer science college until last year, when she left to become Boston Beer Company's inclusion and belonging program manager, likewise copied copious material from other scholars. Her 2017 dissertation, "#BLACKONCAMPUS: A Critical Examination of Racial and Gender Performances of Black College Women on Social Media," lifts over a page of material from Mark Chae, a professor of counseling at Pillar College, who is not cited anywhere in her dissertation.

"It would have been nice to at least get a citation!" Chae told the Washington Free Beacon in an email. "Anderson seems quite comfortable in taking credit for large portions of another writer's scholarly work."

Anderson, who held DEI posts at Boston University and Babson College before coming to MIT, lifts another long passage from Jarvis Givens, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, without an in-text citation. The omissions appear to violate MIT's plagiarism policy, which states that scholars must cite their sources any time they "use the words, ideas, or phrasing of another person."

MIT did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

In total, the two diversity deans lifted about 10 full pages of material without attribution, according to the complaint, as well as dozens of shorter passages sprinkled throughout their theses.

Like former Harvard University president Claudine Gay, who resigned in January amid her own plagiarism scandal, Anderson even stole language from another scholar's acknowledgments, copying phrases and sentences used by Khalilah Shabazz, now a diversity official at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, to thank her dissertation advisers.

Anderson's acknowledgments contain several typos not seen in Shabbaz's, including missing words and commas and a lack of subject-verb agreement.

Givens and Shabbaz did not respond to requests for comment. Anderson, who received her Ph.D. from Boston College's school of education, did not respond to a request for comment. Boston Beer Company did not respond to a request for comment.

Saturday's complaint, which was submitted to Boston College and Northeastern University alongside MIT, is the latest in a string of plagiarism allegations against campus diversity officials. Since Gay's resignation, DEI officers at Harvard, Columbia, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the University of California, Los Angeles, have been accused of research misconduct. Some, such as Columbia medical school's Alade McKen and UCLA medical school's Natalie Perry, copied pages of material from various sources—including Wikipedia—while others passed off old studies as new work.

The accused administrators have not been publicly sanctioned by their universities, which have either declined to comment on the allegations or issued statements in support of the officials. The complaint against Anderson and Jones-Barrett may be harder for MIT to brush aside, however, given the school's high-profile efforts to distance itself from DEI in the post-October 7 era.

The institute said this month that it would no longer require diversity statements from candidates applying to faculty positions, making it the first elite university to jettison the practice. It also led the way in restoring SAT requirements after many colleges went test-optional in an effort to boost diversity.

The pushback has come largely from MIT faculty and been driven, in part, by a sense that DEI programs excuse and even encourage anti-Semitism. An April article in MIT's faculty newsletter noted that an event on "Jewish inclusion" had whitewashed the rhetoric of the school's pro-Palestinian protesters, who have occupied campus buildings, called for "Intifada revolution," and allegedly chanted "death to Zionists."

"Jewish students," a blurb for the DEI event read, "are encountering much of the same discomfort that other minorities face on campus and in the world, in that they don't feel heard or acknowledged."

The two dissertations at issue are strikingly derivative, cobbled together from classmates, online sources, and even a book's dust jacket, and at times read like replicas of their unattributed source material.

Jones-Barrett's summary of her dissertation, for example, is nearly identical to the summary Wyche provides of his own. Both papers use "semi-structured interviews" to "gather insights" from black graduates of Ph.D. programs about their "subjective experiences" of "meaning-making," or, as Wyche misspells it, "mean-making." The primary difference is that Wyche's study deals with black men, while Jones-Barrett's deals with black women.

"This study, the first of its kind[,] uses Black Feminist Thought as a framework to explore and investigate how Black women at Ivy League graduate schools of education make meaning of thriving," reads the first sentence of Jones-Barrett's dissertation, which is missing a comma. "There are limited studies that center the voices of Black women at Ivy League graduate schools and there are no studies that look specifically at Ivy League graduate schools of education."

Jones-Barrett, who has taught courses at Harvard Extension School and was initially hired as the assistant dean of diversity, equity, and inclusion for MIT's humanities school, also poached a passage on "potential research bias" from Wyche—now a DEI consultant who describes himself on LinkedIn as a "status quo disrupter"—which asserts that "it is nearly impossible for the researcher to isolate their experiences from the investigative process."

He's not the only classmate Jones-Barrett appears to have plagiarized: On the first page of her dissertation, she lifts an entire paragraph from Scott Fitzsimmons, who earned his Ph.D. in education from Northeastern in 2021, without attribution, swapping out "rural EMS leaders" for "Black women in graduate programs." Fitzsimmons declined to comment.

Anderson, meanwhile, lifts several paragraphs from a 2016 ThinkProgress article about her alma mater, Boston College, from which some of her study's interview subjects were drawn. That plagiarism undercuts her effort to prevent the school, to which she refers with a pseudonym, from being identified—a possible violation of the study's consent form, which promised participants that no "identifying information" would be disclosed.

Boston College and Northeastern University did not to requests for comment.

Anderson—who runs her own consultancy that offers "scientifically-based" DEI programming—also borrows three sentences from the dust jacket of Ebony and Ivy, a 2013 book by MIT historian Craig Wilder, who is only cited in one of the sentences and whose words do not appear in quotation marks.

Like many of the authors plagiarized by Gay, Wilder defended Anderson's decision to copy his work, writing in an email that he didn't think a citation was necessary.

"I cannot imagine why anyone would cite a dust jacket, nor do I see the urgency of criminalizing the failure to do so," Wilder told the Free Beacon. "I'm honored," he added, when other scholars "find inspiration from my publications."

"Safety first." That’s the approach taken by university administrators these days.

On campuses across the country, "safety first" has been the rationale for silencing speech and firing professors. This practice has birthed a whole new moral framework, one that treats microaggressions as acts of violence.

"It's your job to create a place of comfort and home for the students."

But when it comes to threats and calls for genocide against the Jews...

"One solution! Intifada revolution!"

... it's a different story. Not safety first, but anything goes.

Just look at the facts. Last year, Harvard told students in a mandatory training session that using the wrong pronouns for a person constitutes abuse. "Sizeism and fatphobia," according to the session, are also attitudes that "contribute to an environment that perpetuates violence."

But when Harvard's president was asked by members of Congress this week in a hearing on campus antisemitism, if calling for the genocide of Jews constitutes bullying and harassment, here's what she said:

"It can be, depending on the context."

In 2018, the University of Pennsylvania barred law professor Amy Wax from teaching freshman after she said black students "rarely" finish in the top of their graduating class. Penn has since been trying to sanction Wax for statements the law school says violate its antidiscrimination policies.

But when Penn's president was asked if calls for genocide violate college rules, here's how she answered:

"If the speech turns into conduct, it can be harassment, yes."

"I am asking specifically calling for the genocide of Jews. Does that constitute bullying or harassment?"

"If it is directed and severe or pervasive, it is harassment."

"So the answer is yes."

"It is a context-dependent decision."

And when she was asked this:

"So is your testimony that you will not answer yes?"

This is what she said:

"If the speech becomes conduct, it can be harassment, yes."

"Conduct meaning committing the act of genocide? The speech is not harassment? This is unacceptable, Ms. Magill. I'm going to give you one more opportunity for the world to see your answer. Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Penn's code of conduct when it comes to bullying and harassment? Yes or no?"

"It can be harassment."

In 2021, MIT canceled a major lecture about climate change by scientist Dorian Abbott because a group of graduate students disagreed with his belief that hiring should be based on a person's merit, rather than their identity. If MIT won’t tolerate unacceptable views, surely the college president would shut down chants of "Long live the intifada" on her campus...

"Long live the intifada!"

... right?

"At MIT, does calling for the genocide of Jews violate MIT‘s code of conduct or rules regarding bullying and harassment? Yes or no?"

"If targeted at individuals, not making public statements --"

"Yes or no? Calling for the genocide of Jews does not constitute bullying harassment?"

"I have not heard calling for the genocide for Jews on our campus."

"But you’ve heard chants for intifada?"

"I’ve heard chants, which can be antisemitic depending on the context when calling for the elimination of the Jewish people.

"So those would not be, according to the MIT's code of conduct or rules."

"That would be investigated as harassment, if pervasive and severe."

But antisemitic speech on campus has already escalated into physical violence.

Students at these campuses have been assaulted, targeted and harassed.

"Safety first." But when it comes to the Jews, it all depends on the "context."

In 2020, Harvard ranked 46 out of 55 schools. In 2021, it ranked 130 out of 154 schools. Last year, it ranked 170 out of 203 schools. And this year, Harvard completed its downward spiral in dramatic fashion, coming in dead last with the worst score ever: 0.00 out of a possible 100.00. This earns it the notorious distinction of being the only school ranked this year with an “Abysmal” speech climate.

What’s more, granting Harvard a score of 0.00 is generous. Its actual score is -10.69, more than six standard deviations below the average and more than two standard deviations below the second-to-last school in the rankings, its Ivy League counterpart, the University of Pennsylvania. (Penn obtained an overall score of 11.13.) 

"You should attack every Jew possible in all the world and kill them." -- Fathi Hamad, political leader of Hamas.

"Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it." -- Hamas Covenant, 1988

Narrated Anas bin Malik: Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said, "I have been ordered to fight the people till they say: 'None has the right to be worshipped but Allah.' And if they say so, pray like our prayers, face our Qibla and slaughter as we slaughter, then their blood and property will be sacred to us and we will not interfere with them except legally and their reckoning will be with Allah."

LGBTQ slurs found at MIT done by students protesting school’s new pro-free speech efforts | The College Fix

The point they seem to be making was that they should not have the right to say it.'

The College Fix

‘The point they seem to be making was that they should not have the right to say it’

Massachusetts Institute of Technology students behind flyers and chalkings recently found at the school that included slurs against LGBTQ people were protesting the university’s emerging policies in support of free speech.

The incident came in the wake of a two-month-old MIT faculty resolution that defends freedom of speech and expression — even speech some find “offensive or injurious.”

A Feb. 23 memo from MIT administrators stated flyers posted across campus and some chalking outside a school entrance “contained slurs directly targeting the LBGTQ+ community.”

MIT’s bias response team investigated, the memo added, and determined “the messages were put up by students choosing to use extreme speech to call attention to and protest what they see as the implications of” several new pro-free speech policies and efforts at the school.

“The chalking and flyers that carried slurs were put up as part of a much larger set of flyers, expressing a wide range of views, many framed in provocative terms. We have been told that these flyers were intended to probe the boundaries of MIT’s commitment to freedom of expression and to determine how this commitment comports with MIT policies, including those on harassment,” stated the memo, written by Dean for Student Life Suzy Nelson and Institute Community and Equity Officer John Dozier.

Peter Bonilla, executive director of the MIT Free Speech Alliance, said he couldn’t say for sure whether the students who posted the messages are left-leaning progressives, but added “whatever the content of the messages, whatever was being said, the point they seem to be making was that they should not have the right to say it.”

From the little MIT administration has released about the content of the flyers and chalkings, “that kind of protest should be protected under MIT’s policies,” Bonilla told The Fix in a telephone interview Thursday. 

He said meeting the legal threshold of unprotected speech categories like incitement, targeted harassment and unlawful threats probably could not be met with flyers and chalkings, that “it’s hard for a message posted in that kind of medium to meet that threshold on its own.” 

Campus leaders “are working on creating a range of different opportunities to engage and inspire individuals across campus to learn about, practice and model the skills to confidently, constructively, respectfully express ourselves – and listen to each other – across differences,” Allen stated.

Asked for details on the content of the flyers and chalkings, Allen stated the university’s full statement on that matter is encompassed in Nelson’s and Dozier’s memo.

The new pro-free speech policies that have upset MIT students and prompted the false flag campaign include the free speech faculty resolution approved in December as well as a final report of the faculty Ad Hoc Working Group on Free Expression.

In the wake of these developments, Kornbluth — who took the helm of MIT on Jan. 1 — stated in a Feb. 16 announcement plans to review the school’s existing policies on academic freedom and free expression and determine “what changes if any may be necessary to bring them in line with” the faculty’s final report.

She also called for creating “a range of different opportunities to engage and inspire all of us, across our community, to learn about, practice and model the skills to confidently, constructively, respectfully express ourselves – and listen to each other – across differences.”

MIT was engulfed in controversy in 2021 for canceling a guest lecture to be given by University of Chicago geophysicist Dorian Abbot.

A report released in mid-January by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression also found that “Large portions of MIT faculty and students are afraid to express their views in various academic settings. Faculty and students are at least as afraid of each other as they are of the administration.”

In response to the flyers and chalkings, the MIT Free Speech Alliance stated in a news release that “protesting against the scope of the free speech protections offered by MIT’s new free expression statement is itself protected expression, and students are well within their rights to engage in such protest.”

“…Assuming the speech at issue is protected, disciplinary investigations or charges against students over the content of this expression are unwarranted.”

MIT Abandons Its Mission. And Me.

Let’s make sure my cancellation is the last. That begins by standing up and saying no to the mob.

bariweiss.substack.com

I am a professor who just had a prestigious public science lecture at MIT cancelled because of an outrage mob on Twitter. My crime? Arguing for academic evaluations based on academic merit. This is the story of how a cancellation is carried out, why it should worry all of us, and what we can do to stop this dangerous trend.

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I have been a professor in the Department of the Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago for the past 10 years. I work on topics ranging from climate change to the possibility of life on extrasolar planets using mathematics, physics, and computer simulation.

I have never considered myself a political person. For example, a few days before an election I go to ISideWith.com and answer the policy questions, then I assign my vote using a weighted draw based on my overlap with the candidates. It’s an efficient algorithm that works perfectly for a nerd like me.

But I started to get alarmed about five years ago as I noticed an increasing number of issues and viewpoints become impossible to discuss on campus. I mostly just wanted to do my science and not have anyone yell at me, and I thought that if I kept my mouth shut the problem would eventually go away. I knew that speaking out would likely bring serious reputational and professional consequences. And for a number of years I just didn’t think it was worth it.

But the street violence of the summer of 2020, some of which I witnessed personally in Chicago, and the justifications and dishonesty that accompanied it, convinced me that I could no longer remain silent in good conscience.

In the fall of 2020 I started advocating openly for academic freedom and merit-based evaluations. I recorded some short YouTube videos in which I argued for the importance of treating each person as an individual worthy of dignity and respect. In an academic context, that means giving everyone a fair and equal opportunity when they apply for a position as well as allowing them to express their opinions openly, even if you disagree with them.

As a result, I was immediately targeted for cancellation, primarily by a group of graduate students in my department. Whistleblowers later revealed that the attack was partially planned and coordinated on the Ford Foundation Fellowship Program listserv by a graduate student in my department. (Please do not attack this person or any of the people who attacked me.)

That group of graduate students organized a letter of denunciation. It claimed that I threatened the “safety and belonging of all underrepresented groups within the department,” and it was presented to my department chair. The letter demanded that my teaching and research be restricted in a way that would cripple my ability to function as a scientist. A strong statement in support of faculty free expression by University of Chicago President Robert Zimmer put an end to that, and that is where things stood until the summer of 2021.

On August 12, a colleague and I wrote an op-ed in Newsweek in which we argued that Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) as it currently is implemented on campus “violates the ethical and legal principle of equal treatment” and “treats persons as merely means to an end, giving primacy to a statistic over the individuality of a human being.” We proposed instead “an alternative framework called Merit, Fairness, and Equality (MFE) whereby university applicants are treated as individuals and evaluated through a rigorous and unbiased process based on their merit and qualifications alone.” We noted that this would mean an end to legacy and athletic admission advantages, which significantly favor white applicants.

Shortly thereafter, my detractors developed a new strategy to try to isolate me and intimidate everyone else into silence: They argued on Twitter that I should not be invited to give science seminars at other universities and coordinated replacement speakers. This is an effective and increasingly common way to ratchet up the cost of dissenting because disseminating new work to colleagues is an important part of the scientific endeavor.

Sure enough, this strategy was employed when I was chosen to give the Carlson Lecture at MIT — a major honor in my field. It is an annual public talk given to a large audience and my topic was “climate and the potential for life on other planets.” On September 22, a new Twitter mob, composed of a group of MIT students, postdocs, and recent alumni, demanded that I be uninvited.

It worked. And quickly.

On September 30 the department chair at MIT called to tell me that they would be cancelling the Carlson lecture this year in order to avoid controversy.

It’s worth stating what happened again: a small group of ideologues mounted a Twitter campaign to cancel a distinguished science lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology because they disagreed with some of the political positions the speaker had taken. And they were successful within eight days.

The fact that such stories have become an everyday feature of American life should do nothing to diminish how shocking they are, and how damaging they are to a free society. The fact that MIT, one of the greatest universities in the world, caved in so quickly will only encourage others to deploy this same tactic.

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It has become fashionable in some circles to claim that “cancel culture is just holding people accountable.” I challenge you to read the material that led to the attacks against me and find anything that would require me being held “accountable.” What you will find instead is the writing of a man who takes his moral duty seriously and is trying to express his concerns strongly, but respectfully. You may agree with some of my positions and disagree with others, but in a free society they cannot be considered beyond the pale.

I view this episode as an example as well as a striking illustration of the threat woke ideology poses to our culture, our institutions and to our freedoms. I have consistently maintained that woke ideology is essentially totalitarian in nature: it attempts to corral the entirety of human existence into one narrow ideological viewpoint and to silence anyone who disagrees. I believe that these features ultimately derive from the ideology’s abandonment of the principle of the inherent dignity of each human being. It is only possible to instrumentalize the individual in order to engineer group-based outcomes within a philosophical framework that has rejected this principle. Similarly, it is easy to justify silencing a dissenter if your ideology denies her individual dignity. Clearly, wokeism has not reached a terrible nadir of destruction yet, but the lesson of history is that we need to name and confront totalitarianisms before they cause disaster, while it is still possible to do so.

This issue is especially important to me because my wife and I are expecting our first child in January. We all need to decide what type of country we want our children to grow up in. Do we want a culture of fear and repression in which a small number of ideologues exert their power and cultural dominance to silence anyone who disagrees with them? Or do we want our children to enjoy truth-seeking discourse consisting of good-natured exchanges that are ultimately grounded in a spirit of epistemic humility?

If you want the latter, it’s time to stand up and so say. It’s time to say no to the mob, no to the cancellations. And it’s time to be forthright about your true opinions.

This is not a partisan issue. Anyone who is interested in the pursuit of truth and in promoting a healthy and functioning society has a stake in this debate. Speaking out now may seem risky. But the cost of remaining silent is far steeper.

By now we have run many pieces about the epidemic of groupthink and cowardice in higher education. Many of you are rightly wondering: What can I do? I asked Dorian for his advice. Here’s what he recommended:

Administrators: Never give in to a mob. Rewarding bad behavior encourages more of it. You, more than anyone else, have the power to put an end to cancel culture by simply ignoring demands made by a mob. Be aware that it’s easy to gather a large number of signatures for just about anything by revving up a Twitter mob, and that many of the signatories of letters of denunciation may have felt intimidated into signing.

Faculty: Cancellation tactics work by isolating the target and fostering an atmosphere of fear. You can help by joining together with others committed to academic freedom. I recommend organizations like AFA, FIRE, Heterodox Academy, and ACTA. If you are ever tempted to join a cancellation mob, remember that you could be the next one on the chopping block. Finally, get the Chicago Principles, the gold standard for academic freedom, and a statement insisting on political neutrality of the university, like the Kalven report, adopted on your campus.

Students: Don’t participate in social media mobbings or sign letters of denunciation. Publicly encourage friends with dissenting viewpoints to speak out, whether you agree with them or not.

Parents: Take into consideration a university’s commitment to academic freedom when you are helping your child decide which school to attend. Ask if the university has adopted the Chicago Principles. Consider the FIRE free speech rankings. Tell university officials that this is something that is important to you.

Alumni Donors: Tell your alma mater that freedom of conscience, freedom of expression and academic freedom are supremely important to you. Ask what protections for free speech are in place and whether the school has endorsed the Chicago Principles. Make your gifts conditional. Stop giving if administrators do not robustly defend these principles.

Trustees: Hold the administrators you appoint responsible for upholding academic freedom. If they refuse, replace them.

Lawmakers: Add stipulations to funding for both public and private universities that require that academic freedom and political neutrality be strictly observed.

Citizens: Make sure your lawmakers know that you want the research you pay for to be untainted by ideology.

Opinion | The Views That Made Me Persona Non Grata at MIT

I believe academic hiring should be based on merit and that hurt feelings are no reason to ban opinions.

WSJ

I am a professor at the University of Chicago. I was recently invited to give an honorary lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The lecture was canceled because I have openly advocated moral and philosophical views that are unpopular on university campuses.

Here are those views:

I believe that every human being should be treated as an individual worthy of dignity and respect. In an academic context, that means evaluating people for positions based on their individual qualities, not on membership in favored or disfavored groups. It also means allowing them to present their ideas and perspectives freely, even when we disagree with them.

I care for all of my students equally. None of them are overrepresented or underrepresented to me: They represent themselves. Their grades are based on a process that I define at the beginning of the quarter. That process treats each student fairly and equally. I hold office hours for students who would like extra help so that everyone has the opportunity to improve his or her grade through hard work and discipline. Similarly, I believe that admissions and faculty hiring at universities are best focused on academic merit, with the goal of producing intellectual excellence. We should not penalize hard-working students and faculty applicants simply because they have been classified as belonging to the wrong group. It is true that not everyone has had the same educational opportunities. The solution is improving K-12 education, not introducing discrimination at late stages. I believe we are obliged to reduce bias where it exists, where we can. That includes honest reflection on whether we are treating everyone equally. But you cannot infer bias based only on the ratios of different groups after a selection. A multitude of factors, including interest and culture, influence these ratios. I disagree with the idea that there is a right ratio of groups to aim for. Instead, the goal should be fair selection processes that give every candidate an equal opportunity.

I run a large course on the politically charged topic of climate change. But I refuse to indoctrinate students. The course presents the basic scientific evidence and encourages students to think for themselves about the best solutions to the problem. I correct my students when they make scientifically unsound arguments, but I encourage the full range of political perspectives as students work out their preferred societal response. These practices reflect an understanding that the pursuit of truth is the highest purpose of a university and an acknowledgment that I myself could be wrong.

More broadly, the university has a duty to encourage students and faculty to offer their opinions and insight on the widest possible range of topics. That is best done in a respectful atmosphere, but disagreement with an argument is no excuse to prevent a person from speaking or writing. It is normal to feel discomfort when someone contends against your strongly held beliefs. But in a truth-seeking atmosphere, you must master this discomfort and either confront opposing arguments rationally or accept their validity.

It is true that someone will occasionally say something that hurts your feelings. But hurt feelings are no reason to ban certain topics. We are all responsible for our own feelings. We cannot control things that are external to us, such as the comments of others, but we can control how we respond to them. The ancient Stoics developed practices to discipline emotions and pursue rational thought. These techniques have been refined in modern times in logotherapy and cognitive behavioral therapy.

Instead of cultivating grievances and encouraging resentment, schools and universities can teach these practices and promote the principle that no one can truly harm us but ourselves. That principle allows for the expression of hurt feelings that does not involve restrictions on speech. This will have the added benefit of preparing students for a world in which anything can hurt their feelings—if they let it.

Mr. Abbot is an associate professor of geophysical sciences at the University of Chicago.