I'm not trying to complain on behalf of myself; I'm trying to paint you all a picture of "what it was like." Social and cultural spaces were different back then.

What you're doing is trying to isolate and relate what I was going through, but through your own lens and you can't much do it that way.

For example, I was fortunate to go to an Ivy League school and as a black person that felt like a huge privilege, one that I damn sure was going to stay within a certain set of behaviors to keep. You can't measure "academic freedom" without that kind of context.

Again, maybe I/we misread and perhaps had more room to speak than we thought. Probably did. But again, just painting the picture for you.

There is no way you'd had faced formal repercussions for just discussing it in the late 90s. While I can't prove this, I would be stunned if you got much more than a few eye rolls and the like, essentially all in private. It is conceivable that some faculty member may decline writing a letter of recommendation, which could be significant. I am speaking about good Canadian schools and American ivies.

The suppression today involves professionally disasterous public things like firings, censures, formal censorship, pressure to sign petitions, reputational destruction, doxing, physically threatening pressure and screaming and possibly violence, etc. If only it were eye rolls.

You are correct that it wouldn't be formal. You are WAY OFF in thinking that informal isn't just as, if not more important.

Specifically, you're missing how then, e.g. white conservative majority power didn't need formality to suppress. That's how majority power works. It can just good-ol-boy network its way to suppression. (And note how it doesn't need to be precise when it's like that. It doesn't have to "make an argument," it can, e.g. just deny tenure to the loud black lady on some random grounds.)

Formality is usually what the WEAKER side must resort to. Now I think there's a reasonable argument that that process is much stronger in a negative way today -- but context.

Even if people merely socially alienated him for placing an idea into consideration, that's a restriction on freedom of speech, particularly as academia is supposed to be a place where people can freely consider and debate ideas without worry of reprisals.

Say what? People should be allowed to disagree with you and even ignore you, that's what freedom of speech is about, be it in academia or wherever. What you imply should be the norm is a "safe space" -- which is the opposite of freedom of speech, because in a "safe space" you are only allowed to say "nice" things, "nicety" being evaluated by an authority. That's kindergarten, not academia.

There's a difference between being allowed to disagree with someone--that's not merely acceptable but desired--and facing social repercussions for making an argument.

If you are talking about being ignored as a social repercussion, you are wrong -- nobody is entitled to force opinions onto others. If they don't like you, they can ignore you as much as they want, that's freedom. What you propose is fascism.

What would your alternative be? Force me to listen to someone I disagree with? Aren't you now limiting my freedom? Freedom of speech doesn't mean you're guaranteed an audience.

In the context of a university classroom... yes?

I support government subsidies (either explicit or through beneficial taxable status) of academic institutions in the hopes that they can create a liberal culture where any and all ideas are open for consideration. If as institutions they don't want to create a place where freedom of thought is paramount, that's fine; but at that point I don't see any particular reason they should be eligible for subsidies.

As for you, you should feel free to attend or not, but I'm not interested in subsidizing you sitting in a classroom but only hearing ideas that never challenge you.

Lol. Bruh, I'm from "The Bell Curve" era. Yeah, you're gonna have to listen to people you disagree with. And I fully believe this goes both/all ways.