"M.I.T. has behaved disgracefully in capitulating to a politically motivated campaign. This is part of a larger trend of the politicization of science."

"Can we just be honest here? This is not happening because Dr. Abbot used a bit of especially vivid language. This is a legitimate subject of debate, and the argument that it makes students unsafe is risible."

Said Robert P. George, director of Princeton’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, quoted in "M.I.T.’s Choice of Lecturer Ignited Criticism. So Did Its Decision to Cancel. Dorian Abbot is a scientist who has opposed aspects of affirmative action. He is now at the center of an argument over free speech and acceptable discourse" (NYT).

You know, back in the 1980s, at the University of Wisconsin, I heard a Critical Race Theory professor take the position that affirmative action was a manifestation of systemic racism. That was a legitimate subject of debate for people who were developing the theory. But of course, I also heard professors — mainly white professors — actively suppressing debate. Affirmative action was the chosen policy, so don't dare say anything against it. Don't test it. 

But why not test everything — especially if your hypothesis is that white privilege is hidden inside whatever white people do? If the answer is that it makes black students feel unwelcome or unsafe, you ought to have to test that answer for hidden racism. Isn't it mostly white people demanding that their policy not be questioned? 

Look at this quote from Phoebe A. Cohen, a Williams College geosciences professor and department chair: "This idea of intellectual debate and rigor as the pinnacle of intellectualism comes from a world in which white men dominated."

Yes, and? Affirmative action comes from a world in which white men dominated. Test the idea. Test the idea of testing the idea. If you won't even do that, you are circling the drain.