What a powerful sequel, Karen. If the first cancellation exposed the fault lines, this follow-up shows just how quickly silencing one syllabus can echo across the entire learning landscape. Your willingness to document every twist—emails, “risk assessments,” shifting explanations—transforms disappointment into an evidentiary archive.
Three resonances I’m carrying forward:
1 | Gatekeeping by “Safety”
When an institution re-brands rigorous discourse as a security hazard, it trains students to fear complexity itself. The safest classroom is the one that equips us to navigate conflict, not avoid it.
2 | The Streisand Syllabus Effect
By trying to make the course disappear, Columbia has amplified it. Each screenshot you share is now an open-air lecture on power, narrative, and who gets to name reality.
3 | Pedagogy Without Permission
Your decision to publish the readings and host public sessions reframes education as a commons rather than a commodity. It invites us all to become co-learners—and co-defenders—of intellectual freedom.
Count me in for the next discussion. Let’s prove, together, that ideas meant to illuminate cannot be buried—they simply sprout in more places. Onward to classrooms without ceilings.
I signed up on your waiting list. I am a certified sign language interpreter and would be happy to offer my services if you were to have a Deaf person interested in taking the course. Of course I would need to have at least one other Interpreter do it with me as is standard practice for such an assignment.
Thank you for being so willing to offer the course outside of an institution!
What a powerful sequel, Karen. If the first cancellation exposed the fault lines, this follow-up shows just how quickly silencing one syllabus can echo across the entire learning landscape. Your willingness to document every twist—emails, “risk assessments,” shifting explanations—transforms disappointment into an evidentiary archive.
Three resonances I’m carrying forward:
1 | Gatekeeping by “Safety”
When an institution re-brands rigorous discourse as a security hazard, it trains students to fear complexity itself. The safest classroom is the one that equips us to navigate conflict, not avoid it.
2 | The Streisand Syllabus Effect
By trying to make the course disappear, Columbia has amplified it. Each screenshot you share is now an open-air lecture on power, narrative, and who gets to name reality.
3 | Pedagogy Without Permission
Your decision to publish the readings and host public sessions reframes education as a commons rather than a commodity. It invites us all to become co-learners—and co-defenders—of intellectual freedom.
Count me in for the next discussion. Let’s prove, together, that ideas meant to illuminate cannot be buried—they simply sprout in more places. Onward to classrooms without ceilings.
I signed up on your waiting list. I am a certified sign language interpreter and would be happy to offer my services if you were to have a Deaf person interested in taking the course. Of course I would need to have at least one other Interpreter do it with me as is standard practice for such an assignment.
Thankful for you!! Such good news that you’re stepping into such an important role and offering!!