Academics Under Fire: Michael Rectenwald
"His guilt was the content and structure of his thinking"
It would be difficult to understand how Michael Rectenwald ended up becoming one of the initial leaders battling the sinister forces of political correctness on college and university campuses in the United States if you don’t have a feel for where he came from. The inquisitive eighth of nine children in a working-class Catholic family in Pittsburgh, his father remodeled homes while his mother raised the kids and worried about how to pay the bills. He was considered a bad fit for an upper-middle-class prep school he wanted to attend.1 Over time, he developed into an intellectual who explored the newest, most challenging ideas of his day while maintaining his working-class sensibility.
Of at least some importance in the evolution of his thinking were the Beat Generation writers, particularly Allen Ginsberg with whom he had an apprenticeship for a semester. He found the writer of “Howl” to be affable and completely sane. Generally speaking, the Beats’ poems and novels expressed their alienation from US culture in the post-World War II years. They valued non-conformity in sexual matters and experimentation in literary matters, tended to get overly involved with drugs and alcohol, suffered from mental illnesses, and had confrontations with the police. The Beats bumped up against conformity and cultural taboos at every turn. Producing what now are considered some of the greatest works of 20th-century American literature, they nonetheless paid high prices for their rebelliousness and non-conformity.2
Following his apprenticeship with Ginsberg, Rectenwald entered into graduate and post-graduate studies in English and Literary and Cultural Studies/Theory.3 Cultural studies emphasize looking at literary texts through the lenses of the cultures that produce them. It is an aspect of that larger movement known as postmodernism which has many theorists and theories. Some are more opaque than others. Among the characteristics of postmodernists, roughly speaking, is a belief that the meanings of words and texts are not stable, although their origins can be. Some of the things that tied them together were their interest in words, the variability of the meanings of words, and the relationships of words to power.
Over time, Rectenwald concluded that postmodernism as it was apprehended rather than as it was intended spawned the social justice movement on campuses. In the process, social justice on college and university campuses began to resemble China’s Cultural Revolution of the 1960s. Social justice as it evolved was not true postmodernism; it was “practical postmodernism”, said Rectenwald.
The problem with postmodernism was not the ideas per se that its theorists developed. The problem was that those ideas trickled down to people who didn’t actually read the works in question, didn’t wrestle with the ideas in question, and didn’t understand the depth of what the postmodernists were proposing. By 2016, students and faculties had built a coercive, unforgiving movement based on misunderstandings of postmodernism. In their hands, ideas about the variability of words’ meanings morphed into easy ways to define insiders and outsiders and to beat one another up emotionally. Campus populations took postmodernism and bastardized it into something that had little to do with actual postmodern thinking. In place of the concerns of the postmodernists about the difficulties involved in communication, they substituted a feckless, vicious contest. On one side were those easily identified as oppressed persons and on the other were their counterparts, equally easily identified as oppressors. Who were the oppressed and who were the oppressors were instantaneously transparent. Interest in class analysis and objective reality were all but jettisoned. Words themselves took on near-magical power. No longer was there malleability or variability. No longer was there intellectual curiousness. The universities had become bastions of anti-intellectualism. They had become characterized by bullying, censorship, and kangaroo courts. That is what Rectenwald got caught up in——bullying, censorship, and kangaroo courts.
Rectenwald was a professor of Global Liberal Studies at New York University [NYU] for over a decade before calling it quits in January 2019. He became infamous among NYU administrators and “liberal” students for his critique of the “humorless, social justice warrior brand of campus culture run amok.” He had to concede, as he wrote in an article for the Washington Post, that Donald Trump, whom he dislikes intensely, was correct when he said on the 2016 campaign trail, “political correctness has transformed our institutions of higher education from ones that fostered spirited debate to a place of extreme censorship, where students are silenced for the smallest of things.”4
The immediate context of the brouhaha surrounding Rectenwald involved the NYU College Republicans’ 2016 invitation to Milo Yiannapoulos, a gay man considered by many liberals to be dangerously alt-right. He spoke, they said, anti-Muslim, anti-feminist, and anti-gay words. Nonetheless, the College Republicans wanted to hear him. He was scheduled to appear on the NYU campus on November 17, one stop on his “The Dangerous Faggot Tour.” On October 15, the Senior Vice President of Student Affairs, Marc Wais, sent out an email saying he had canceled Yiannapoulos’s appearance. He claimed the primary reason was a concern about the safety of the students. A secondary reason, he said, was that the venue, the Eisner & Lubin Auditorium, was close to the Islamic Center, the LGBTQ Center, and the Center for Multicultural Education and Programs. Someone might be offended because the proximity of people and their words to buildings can hurt people’s feelings, so Wais suggested. It was irrelevant to him that the altercations that had taken place on other campuses where Yiannapoulos appeared had been directed at him, not by him. In a statement, the College Republicans expressed their frustration saying, “It is deeply offensive to use this pretext to justify using the power of the NYU establishment to allow one group of students to silence another at will.”5
Some NYU students and members of faculties who were not conservatives as well as free speech advocates agreed with them.6 Ari Cohn of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education [the precursor to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expressions] (FIRE) cautioned, “It’s incumbent on administrators to not cut off debate and discussions because people are offended by them. Nobody is being forced to go hear the speaker.”7 Robbie Soave of the Reason Foundation wrote that NYU and other universities were “using the threat of imaginary violence as a pretext to silence a point of view it doesn’t like.”8
Rectenwald had been concerned about threats to free speech at NYU and had been actively challenging administrative decisions at least since the early fall of that year. On October 24, he gave an interview to Diamond Naga Siu of NYU’s student newspaper, the Washington Square News. The previous month, on September 12, he had created an alt-right alter ego called “Deplorable NYU Prof” with the handle @antipcnyuprof and entered the Twittersphere’s ideological battleground. His moniker, I assume, was a reference to then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s remark that Trump’s supporters were a “basket of deplorables.” Again, Rectenwald was no fan of Trump. He tweeted politically incorrect comments about the links between PC [political correctness] culture and Halloween costumes, “safe spaces,” “trigger warnings,” and university hotlines by which students could surveil and report on their professors and fellow students.
Rectenwald’s primary complaint was that what had begun as a suggestion from administrators to create “safe spaces” in their classrooms subsequently had become more sinister.
This fall, that encouragement veered toward coercion when the university implemented a bias reporting hotline by which students can anonymously report professors and classmates for any number of viewpoint transgressions related to race, gender, and [sexual] orientation, real or perceived, in the course of academic discussion. And it was suggested that the bias line phone number and email address be added to all syllabi. Which would help turn every classroom encounter into a potential infraction and figure students as Soviet-style monitors of ideological conformity. I refused.9
He told Siu that he created the alt-right persona because he wanted to bring “liberal totalitarianism” out into the open. By tweeting against “safe spaces,” “trigger warnings,” and the “politically correct” atmosphere on university campuses, he was convinced they would elicit predictable PC retorts. He was correct. For example, the scariest thing about Halloween, he tweeted, had become “the liberal totalitarian costume surveillance.” One ErichSBloodaxe replied, “Soooo. . . its ‘scary’ not to wear racist Halloween costumes?” Which was not, of course, Rectenwald’s point. His point was surveillance and coercion of a playful October tradition in which the subversion of identity or pretending was the ostensible purpose.
The creation of “safe spaces,” where students ostensibly were protected from troubling words and troubling information had become, he tweeted, “at once a hall of mirrors and a rubber room.” Students were being treated as though they were mentally ill and needed elaborate protection schemes.
In explaining his point of view about “trigger warnings” to Siu, Rectenwald drew on his understanding of trauma psychology.
One of the major problems of a trigger warning is this: according to trauma psychology, nobody has any idea what can trigger somebody. It’s completely arbitrary, and I don’t want to be indelicate, but let’s say a woman is raped while the guy happened to have this particular pack of gum on the table. So the woman would see this type of gum, and she’s going to feel triggered by this. Who could possibly anticipate such a thing?
As for university hotlines, “Bias hot-line reporting is not politically correct. It is insane,” he told Siu.
My contention is that this particular social justice warrior left is producing the alt-right by virtue of its insanity, And because it’s doing all these things that manifest to the world, the alt-right is just eating this stuff alive. That’s why I adopted Nietzsche as the icon for the @antipcnyuprof. . . . This stuff is producing a culture of hypervigilance, self-surveillance, and panopticism.10
In the interview with Siu, Rectenwald admitted to being the “Deplorable NYU Professor.” NYU administrators “are actually pushing me out the door for having a different perspective,” he said. He added, “It’s an alarming curtailment of free expression to the point where you can’t even pretend to be something without authorities coming down on you in the universities.”11
Rectenwald said that the creation of safe spaces, trigger warnings, and bias hotlines were tactics in a strategy by administrators to wrest power from faculty. Increasingly, the syllabi of faculty who had legitimate areas of expertise were being formulated by administrators who did not. The syllabi, in addition to safe spaces and trigger warnings, were means by which administrators controlled and disciplined not only the faculty, they were means by which administrators created more and more power over students.12 This was because:
identity politics on campus have made an infirmary of the whole, damn campus. Let’s face it: every room is like a hospital ward. . . . And what do hospitals require? They require certain containment. They require a certain restriction of movement. They require surveillance. . . . A cis, white, straight male like myself is guilty of something. I don’t know what. But I’m fucking sure I’m guilty of it.13
Two days later, on October 26, the student newspaper published a letter to the editor signed by members of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Working Group [DEI]. It stated the signatories had no objection to Rectenwald’s identity, i.e. cisgender, white, male, nor to his points of view or his alt-right false persona. Rather, they wrote, it was his lack of civility and appeal to logic. He was guilty, they agreed, concluding that “the cause of his guilt is the content and structure of his thinking.”14 Let me emphasize that: his thinking was his guilt.
Two days after that, the Dean of Liberal Studies, Fred Schwarzbach, and the head of Human Relations summoned Rectenwald to Schwarzbach’s office. According to Rectenwald, they “strongly suggested” he take a paid leave of absence. They say they simply suggested it. A heated email exchange between the dean and the professor ensued. Following the meeting and the emails, Rectenwald took a paid leave of absence for the remainder of the semester.
After his leave was over, Rectenwald returned to teaching. Entering into a contract with St. Martin’s Press in the spring of 2017, he received a $75,000 advance to write a book about his experiences with campus politics. It would be titled, Springtime For Snowflakes: ‘Social Justice’ and Its Postmodern Parentage. My guess is the title was a nod to the parody musical number, “Springtime for Hitler” in The Producers.15 Other members of the Liberal Studies faculty created an email thread which was available to over 100 faculty members via the university’s listserv.16
To say Rectenwald’s colleagues, for the most part, were uncivil and lacking in logic in their assessments of him is an understatement. The emails were filled with ad hominem arguments, profanity, and derision. Terri Senft sent out a sarcastic note of “congratulations” to Rectenwald for the $75,000 advance while skewering the publisher. Jacqueline Bishop called Rectenwald a “COWARD and a BULLY and a total punk-ass,” a “sad pathetic 61-year-old desperate for relevance and notoriety,” alleged he came to meetings “high and incoherent with your tongue constantly sticking out the side of your mouth,” and “the short pants boy they call the devil.” Carley Moore accused Rectenwald of harassment, delusion, narcissism, and for having created a “drug-fueled narrative.” Amber A’Lee Frost called him a “right-wing misogynist” engaged in a “persecution complex publicity stunt.” Michael Isaacson wrote, “sounds like you need a safe space, snowflake.” Only one of the few professors on the parts of the thread I found, Patricio D. Navia, counseled restraint. He wrote to his colleagues, “I suspect that bringing the twitter [sic] aggressive behavior into our regularly polite and friendly LS environment will take us down a route of hostility and confrontation nobody wants.”17
In January of the following year, Rectenwald sued New York University and four named professors for defamation seeking monetary and punitive damages. The four named professors were Theresa Senft, Jacqueline Bishop, Carley Moore, and Amber Frost. Rectenwald claimed in the suit that NYU had done nothing to stop the “malicious” emails, the “nasty screed” that had been blasted out over 5 days. He alleged, “I’ve been universally shunned by the entire department” and called a “racist” and a “sexist.” In short, his once pleasant academic life had become a nightmare. He feared his academic life was over.
Peter Bonilla of FIRE told Melkorka Licea of the New York Post that the organization was following the case. If there were any truth to Rectenwald’s claim about being forced into taking a leave of absence, he said, it would be of great concern.
Rectenwald’s criticism should be protected by NYU’s promises of free speech and by the conventions of academic freedom, which recognize his right to voice criticisms both in his capacity as an NYU faculty member and as a private citizen. Rectenwald’s claim that NYU cited mental health concerns to justify removing him based on expression is also potentially concerning.18
Back at his teaching duties and not conceding an inch, Rectenwald invited Milo Yiannopoulos to lecture on the politics of Halloween. The professor told Al-Jezeera, that he wanted Yiannopoulos to “introduce a different perspective into the classroom, especially in connection with the issues raised by Halloween.” Among those issues were “costumes, identity, identity politics, and the left’s censorious policing of what was once a holiday for ‘misrule” and harmless play.”
Predictably, some student activists insisted the university cancel the event. Predictably, the university via the city of New York canceled the event. Predictably, it cited security concerns.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression [FIRE] objected, stating:
The city government has a non-negotiable responsibility to ensure that the threat of violence against a speaker does not result in the silencing of that speaker. . . . In asking NYU, a private institution, to postpone Yiannopoulos’ address to the class because of unspecified safety concerns, the city invites criticism for placing convenience above its duty to maintain order.19
A few weeks later, in January 2019, Michael Rectenwald retired.20
Michael Rectenwald, Springtime for Snowflakes: Social Justice and Its Postmodern Parentage, St. Martins Press, 2018.
“Michael Rectenwald,” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Rectenwald. Accessed January 8, 2024.
Rectenwald, “Preface,” Springtime for Snowflakes.
Michael Rectenwald, “Here’s What Happened When I Challenged the PC Culture at NYU: I’m on Leave After a Misunderstood Twitter Experiment,” Washington Post, November 3, 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/11/03/campus-pc-culture-is-so-rampant-that-nyu-is-paying-to-silence-me/. Accessed November 5, 2024.
Diamond Naga Siu, “Milo Yiannapoulos Talk Canceled Due to Security Concerns,” Washington Square News, October 16, 2016. https://nyunews.com/2016/10/16/milo-yiannapoulos-talk-canceled-due-to-security-concerns/. Accessed January 12, 2024.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs, “Some Students Frustrated After NYU Cancels Milo Yiannopoulos Speech: University Cites Security Concerns; some students say decision hinders exchange of ideas,” Wall Street Journal, October 21, 2016. https://www.wsj.com/articles/some-students-frustrated-after-nyu-cancels-milo-yiannopoulos-speech/. Accessed January 12, 2024.
Robbie Soave, “NYU Cancels Milo Yiannapoulos, Feared ‘Attacks’ on Islamic and Gay Students: not a justification for campus censorship,” Reason, October 23, 2024. https://2016/10/23/nyu-cancels-milo-yiannapoulos-feared/. Accessed January 12, 2024.
Soave, ibid.
Rectenwald, Washington Post.
Diamond Naga Siu, “Q&A With a Deplorable NYU Professor,” Washington Square News, October 24, 2016. https://www.nyunews.com/2016/10/24/qa-with-a-deplorable-nyu-professor/. Accessed January 8, 2024.
Siu, ibid.
Siu, ibid.
Siu, ibid.
Members of the Liberal Studies Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Working Group, “Letter to the Editor: Liberal Studies Rejects @antipcnyuprof’s Faulty Claims,” Washington Square News, October 26, 2016.
The Producers, 1967, written and directed by Mel Brooks.
Re: “Congrats to M. Rechtenwald on his advance from St. Martin’s Press!,” New York University Mail, May 12, 2017. https://www.nyunews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/20-New-York-University-Mail-Re_-Congrats-to-M.-Rechtenwald-on-his-75K-advance-from-St.-Martins-Press.pdf. Accessed January 12, 2024.
Melkorka Licea, “‘Deplorable’ NYU Professor Sues Colleagues For Defamation,” New York Post, January 13, 2018. https://nypost.com/2018/01/13/deplorable-nyu-professor-sues-colleagues-for-defamation/. Accessed January 21, 2024.
Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, “At city’s request, NYU postpones Milo Yiannopoulos classroom discussion,” October 31, 2018.
Téa Kvetenadze, “‘Anti-PC’ Liberal Studies Professor Michael Rectenwald Has Retired: Professor Michael Rectenwald has courted online and legal controversy for several years,” NYU Local, January 25, 2019.
Much to be dissected in this well written piece! One thread woven into this is the notion of "intellectual appropriation" - the assimilation (or attempted assimilation) of a thought, idea, or even system of thoughts and ideas, into one's existing intellectual framework. The article mentions the appropriation of "post-modern" notions by those who failed to read, challenge, and deeply understand them. True. I was in seminary at the time when this language was heatedly reshaping the process and language of theology. And while I could attempt to grasp that intellectual framework, I too often depended on derivative interpretations of it in grafting any of the components to my own way of thinking. But USING the phrase "post-modern" seemed to immediately lend some air of intellectual credibility to the speaker (or writer), regardless of whether or not said speaker (or writer) really understood the concept.
A similar, parallel trend happened with the tenets of liberation theologies as they were being formed in other parts of the world (Latin America, of note). Those of us who were already emotionally and intellectually predisposed to "social justice" latched onto the writings of Gutierrez, Freire, et. al., as if we understood the cultural and contextual milieux out of which they arose. We didn't. But it didn't stop us from speaking and writing as if we did. And this also led to an infusion of "liberation theology" (as if it were a monolithic thing) into our practical notions of "social justice".
It's not that appropriation isn't necessary - indeed, it's quite relevant and adds powerfully to any authentic expression of "social justice". However, when one is merely consuming the derivative thoughts of those who are often themselves not doing the intellectual heavy lifting truly required to understand, then there is a bastardization of the ideas that renders them easy weapons against "opponents".