Tucker Carlson, "Saturday Night Live," and a university president. ADVERTISEMENT [The Review Logo]( Did someone forward you this newsletter? [Sign up free]( to receive your own copy. Whatâs the difference between a âpedophileâ and a âminor-attracted personâ? âMinorâ is a legal designation, while âpedo-" (âchildâ) names a developmental phase. But beyond that the phrases are denotatively identical. They feel different, though. The word derived from Greek sounds evaluative, and has indeed become so, such that âpedo,â enunciated on its own, can illogically serve as a disgusted insult (âThat guy looks like a total pedo.â). âMinor-attracted person,â conversely, sounds studiedly neutral â clinical, technical, academic. âPedophile,â presumably, once sounded the same way but has become stigmatizing rather than merely descriptive. This difference in resonance turned out, for a former assistant professor of sociology and criminal justice at Old Dominion University, to have major consequences. As our Emma Pettit [explains]( Allyn Walker (who uses they/them pronouns) found themself under attack for their book, A Long, Dark Shadow: Minor-Attracted People and Their Pursuit of Dignity, published last summer by the University of California Press. The book focuses on nonoffending pedophiles and insists that their experiences can help the criminal-justice system learn how to reduce child sexual abuse. In this, it falls squarely within mainstream harm-reduction models of both medicine and criminology. And Walker is unambiguous: âThis book does not promote sexual contact between adults and minors.â As Pettit reports, a clip of an interview in which Walker used the phrase âminor-attracted personâ went viral after being promoted by the Twitter account Libs of TikTok. The comedian Colin Jost mentioned Walkerâs research, briefly and derisively, on Saturday Night Liveâs âWeekend Update.â Tucker Carlson [ginned]( up the controversy with his usual calculated phobia: âA self-described ânon-binaryâ assistant professor at Old Dominion University â we have no idea what that means, by the way ⦠is now teaching students to use a term called MAP. What does that mean? It means âminor-attracted persons.â At first, the Old Dominion administration behaved appropriately. It released a [statement]( defending Walkerâs academic freedom: âAn academic community plays a valuable role in the quest for knowledge. A vital part of this is being willing to consider scientific and other empirical data that may involve controversial issues and perspectives.â The university might have left it at that. Instead, apparently because of some combination of outside threats and student outrage, the administration placed Walker on administrative leave and began pressuring them to find a new job. Walker got in touch with FIRE, which helped them find lawyers to negotiate an exit. In explaining Walkerâs leave, Brian O. Hemphill, Old Dominionâs president, transmuted by administrative magic the fiery rhetoric of Tucker Carlson into the therapeutic argot of the contemporary university: Academic âfreedom,â he said, âcarries with it the obligation to speak and write with care and precision, particularly on a subject that has caused pain in so many lives.â Translation: Watch your words, or youâll get axed, especially if you get noticed on TV. SPONSOR CONTENT | Florida International University [FIU leads a team designing the worldâs most powerful windstorm simulator]( Both the Saturday Night Live bit and Carlsonâs report strike me as ludicrously unfair. But the blame doesnât lie with them. Academics arenât protected from the contempt of comics or political pundits. Sometimes such skepticism is a salutary corrective to insular academic cultures; sometimes itâs propagandistic distortion. Sometimes itâs hard to tell â and the verdict will depend on who you are. But when scholars are challenged by other cultural actors â journalists, entertainers, and so on â their administrators have a responsibility not to sacrifice them to political fashion or the perceived demands of public opinion. The struggle to hold administrators to that role defines the entire history of modern American academic freedom, from its early articulations in the second half of the 19th century to the American Association of University Professorsâ finalized [1940 statement,]( which remains normative. As Walter P. Metzger discusses in Academic Freedom in the Age of the University (1955, and still a standard reference), the AAUP, at its founding in 1915, faced fierce opposition from the Association of American Colleges â a group of college presidents. Across the century and into the present, various rapprochements have eased tensions and, with some exceptions and setbacks (patriotic fever during the First World War, McCarthyite surveillance after the Second), expanded the reach of academic freedom. But relapses are always possible, and administrative commitment to the ideal is fickle. As John Dewey wrote in 1899 of a now-forgotten controversy at Syracuse University, in which the chancellor fired the economist John R. Commons for political radicalism: âIt is bad enough when such insults to scholarship and scientific preparation come from the man in the street. It is literally appalling when they come from the head of a university, for, acted upon, they mean the death of American scholarship.â Read Pettitâs âAn Unacceptable Ideaâ [here](. And for a different take on the Walker case, read Geoff Shullenbergerâs essay from December on â[Why Academic Freedomâs Future Looks So Bleak]( ADVERTISEMENT SUBSCRIBE TO THE CHRONICLE Enjoying the newsletter? [Subscribe today]( for unlimited access to essential news, analysis, and advice. The Latest THE REVIEW | ESSAY [When Academic Life Is a Horror Show]( By Mari N. Crabtree [STORY IMAGE]( Mariama Dialloâs Master satirizes on-campus racism in sharp but uneven strokes. ADVERTISEMENT THE REVIEW | ESSAY [Digital Humanists Need to Learn How to Count]( By Mordechai Levy-Eichel and Daniel Scheinerman [STORY IMAGE]( A prominent recent book in the field suffers serious methodological pitfalls. THE REVIEW | ESSAY [No Fun for You!]( By Douglas Dowland [STORY IMAGE]( Academeâs pleasure problem. 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