A PhD student at one of the very top programs (who asked to not be named, for reasons that will become apparent) writes:
Thank you for your blog coverage of the recent open letters on Kathleen Stock's work. You have noted an asymmetry in the relative seniority and prestige of the signatories. I write to note another asymmetry. Signatures from graduate students in philosophy abound below the anti-Stock letter, but are hard to find below the academic freedom letter. I and other graduate students in my program feel we cannot publicly support the latter without risking future professional consequences. Graduate students are hardly weighty voices here, of course, but it is nonetheless indicative of the state of the discipline that its junior members perceive support for a sober and mainstream philosophical position like that expressed in the academic freedom letter as a liability.
This is unfortunate if understandable. It's important to remember that the Twitter Red Guard is loud but unrepresentative.
UPDATE: Chris "I make things up" Bertram is at it again. His response to the preceding:
The worry isn't about "grad students who may fear opening their mouths"--some should shut their mouths if all that comes out is vulgar abuse and defamation--it's about grad students who fear supporting in public the academic freedom of a controversial professor. As the student who wrote me put it absolutely clearly: "it is nonetheless indicative of the state of the discipline that its junior members perceive support for a sober and mainstream philosophical position like that expressed in the academic freedom letter as a liability." As usual, Bertram completely missed the point. In the last few years (not "for nearly two decades," a typical Bertram fabrication), with the rise of Twitter, we've seen a number of unhinged graduate students behaving like assholes, hurling vulgar insults and defaming other members of the profession. I've called out a handful of them. They plainly don't "fear opening their mouths," unfortunately for the rest of us. (Readers may find this hard to believe, but Bertram is a nominally adult man in his early 60s, an emeritus professor, who apparently has nothing better to do in his retirement years.)
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