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My experience on Quora over the years has been little different from what other women report: random harrassing or just plain dumb inbox messages, sexual remarks along the lines of what someone would want to "do" to me posted publicly (and anonymously) in the body of an answer; direct physical threats (where the poster said that it was easy to find where I live and implied hurting me (ironically, in a comment to my answer to a question about when romantic persistence crosses the line into stalking).I've had my name included on lists outside of Quora, as part of the vast Quora Feminist troublemaker conspiracy because of my participation on The Fourth Wave 1 (I am deeply honored to have appeared on this list, btw). (With respect to the mention of The Fourth Wave blog, I had to enter into the search bar on the top of this page, because it didn't come up by using the "@ mention" - although the question Is there a "Fourth Wave" to deal with men issues on Quora?" did...).I've been downvoted and collapsed into oblivion for questions where I was an expert on the topic, but wasn't part of the boys club, so my answer relating to an industry that I have 20+ years experience in, (as well as being an attorney) got collapsed and overruled by someone fresh out of college with an undergraduate degree in economics and the words "startup founder" in his profile, who amassed upvotes like swarms of flies. (That kind of thing is not just about women on Quora, of course; although I'm sure that community attitudes towards women played a significant role in the number of downvotes I'd received.) I feel that his friends would still have upvoted his (bad and irresponsible) answer; but they would have been far less likely to downvote, challenge, and collapse mine, if I were male.Like most other women on this site, I've been dismissed, disrespected, dishonored; objectified, ogled, offended. I've been patronized and the recipient of condescending and ad hominem attacks, and unsolicited sexual advances. Most of that behavior slowed to a crawl after I changed my profile picture to one that revealed less of my face (and a few more wrinkles) and as more women, especially young women, with South Asian names became active on the site, and drew away many of the worst individual offenders like bees to better quality, fresher honey.I'm not sure if if I no longer frequent topic areas that generate the most offensive commentary as much as I once did, or if offensive content has diminished and shifted or is more restricted in distribution, and if the tools that Quora's added since I've started ("mute", "block", "report") and the admins have become more efficient at weeding it all out; but I don't feel as offended, intimidated, and harassed as I once did.I have to thank the Quora community, and specifically it's amazing vocal female minority, as well as the many supportive and vocal men, who call the crap and the crap-flingers out on their idiot behavior. I've learned a great deal about feminism and about human behavior from Quora. Quora has delivered on its promise to me of shining a light on knowledge, especially on this particular topic. US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously said: "Sunlight is the best disinfectant". For me, Quora has shown me just how much discriminatory gender filth still exists and needs disinfecting. Because of what I've seen on Quora, I've become a fiercer feminist. Thank you all, for that.Online communities like Quora that have existed for barely a decade, with their attributes like anonymity, open forum (specifically with respect to a reach beyond geographic/nation-state borders), rapid scale, and text-based communication, should consider precedent. The philosophy, structure, and body of laws, both American and international, regarding sexual discrimination and harrassment provide a good framework for inquiry and analysis.Women using Quora experience sexual discrimination and harassment in a very similar way to how they experience sexism in the real world. This article from Wikipedia is definitely problemmatic, but it does provide some helpful information on the nature of sexism, and its pervasiveness: Sexism.I group the issues that women face when writing on Quora in 2014 into 2 broad categories:"Bad Actors": Individuals who harrass and troll.Community Culture: Attitudes and mores of the global community as reflected in questions, answers, and incentives for behaviors (upvotes, downvotes, page rankings, credits & distribution (including topic-management, etc).Solutions to deal with Bad Actors are relatively easy. Consistent enforcement of the rules is critical. The tools that Quora has implemented over time to reduce the "bad actor" category (with respect to all kinds of bad behavior, not only sexual harrassment) like "mute" and "block" and "report" are great: but the problem, as I see through this thread, is the lack of education for users about those available tools.But first, get rid of the bad actors! Stop them and knock them out cold. In some cases, Quora might want to report them to law enforcement, or specifically request if victims of abusive behavior want to prosecute, and provide them with the support they might need in the form of evidence and documentation. Some individuals have recently been successfully prosecuted and sued for their bad behavior on social media in the US, the UK, and other nations; bullying, harassment, libel, intentional interference with business, intentional infliction of emotional distress may all be legitimate causes of action. People who troll and bully ought to know that their behavior won't be tolerated and will be prosecuted with Quora's support. Often, harrassment that might start or be facilitated by use of the Quora platform can spill over into other contexts, both into other sites and in real life, and there is very real harm that can result. Quora needs to make it clear and unequivocable that such behavior will not be tolerated.Quora also needs to provide more education for its users, on the tools and resources it has available to stop this behavior. This goes to a deeper challenge for the site, as it relates to on-boarding of new users, and communication of changes to policy, and introduction of new product features. There's been a great deal of discussion as to how to achieve a better on-boarding and education process, and I know Quora has been considering various options within the platform architecture to alleviate some of the difficulties that new users encounter.I would urge Quora to consider providing additional information and navigation tools within site design. Maybe there should be a "report" or "admin chat" button on the left-side of the page, for instant access, actively manned by a real person who can triage and prioritize reports, and who can respond in real time and immediately to those that are most urgent and disturbing. How Quora chooses to staff those positions and roles with either paid employees/contractors or rotating volunteers is Quora's choice; however, consistency in enforcement and institutional memory is best reinforced by people who are committed and valued through financial reward. Personally, I think Quora needs to hire and provide institutionalized guidance and performance measurement for at least a few admins who do this sort of work, and can continue to supplement with volunteers. Unlike Wikipedia, Quora is a private, ultimately for-profit company; the stakes and objectives are different. (they could look to a "B Corporation" model, which is a hybrid for-profit, not-for-profit model). Quora's community is its lifeblood, and its primary asset for developing and building content; the actual text (Q&A&posts), information, and "knowledge" is its library, and hard evidence documentation and a form of account representing its primary asset. Quora is a hybrid of community and information; with community being both producer and consumer, needing constant reinforcement, building, encouragement. In order to preserve its most precious asset, Quora ought to make more of a financial commitment to that community, by showing how deeply it values its moderators and admins by creating market-value compensated roles for them.Setting community standards is a far more difficult task. Quora, as well as any international platform, has to grapple with how it wants to set its boundaries, and how it wants to deal with its international customers (or users). For a long time, online communities wanted to believe that they were apolitical; that they merely provided tools for people to use as they wanted, to express themselves and provide their opinion. Every one of us, and every online platform and community, has built-in cultural preferences and biases that reflect those of its makers and those of its most vocal community. It has to take a position with respect to how its addresses its minorities, cliques, and mini-communities, whether those are defined by geography, gender, faith, or political persuasion.Some of those minorities represent positions that are anathema to what Quora as a company might support; however, I believe people should have the freedom to express themselves, unless they rise to the level of hostility that would turn them into a "bad actor" (e.g. hostile, threatening to other or specific individuals, extremely offensive or pornographic, etc. per Quora Company standards). There are people in the world who have ideas that are offensive within Western culture; however, unless they're able to state their positions and have them challenged, those positions will not be "disinfected". Conflict is inevitable where there is a difference of opinion; we should not fear it.Quora is in English, reflecting the culture of English-speakers. Quora has a voting system, which assesses both popularity and quality of opinions and writing expressed, and complex algorithms associated with PeopleRank. It has a credit system, where people are awarded credits based on their participation and popularity within the community. The way that Quora chooses to calibrate and weigh both credits, upvotes, and downvotes can serve to incent certain behaviors.For instance, providing a downvote "rationale" with instant feedback to the writer would make a difference, and in certain cases should be fed straight into the triage line, to prevent abuses. Better metrics and readily available histories should be provided to users. A metric along the lines of downvotes/upvotes on aggregate answers in a particular topic area could perhaps be published on a user's profile page. Simple notification to people who transgress or fail to adhere to community standards would help them to learn. Perhaps upvoting could also be better calibrated, so the weight assigned might better reflect not only a person's popularity or volume of answers, but also to reflect their particular expertise in a subject. For instance, if I register as from India, the weight accorded my answer, terms of ranking and position on a question about India would be more than the weight accorded a non-Indian user. Or a man answering a question about men would be given slightly more weight than a woman answering the same question. Although it could be unwieldy and probably difficult to implement, upvotes could also have drop-downs, for why someone might be upvoting and answer: e.g. it's funny, I like the writing style, I agree with the position, I like the writer. Or perhaps upvotes should be rated on a 1-5 scale, instead of a binary upvote or no vote choice. Any kind of calibration of upvotes or downvotes could be connected to the credit system; some upvotes might receive more credits than others; similarly, downvotes could act as demerits, and take away credits. I'm not an expert on crunching data, but I know that there are better ways to capture and calibrate the information that's being collected; not just about us in order to provide better information about the population to increase the potential for Quora site monetization and advertising, but also in order to improve our experience.I don't have an issue with anonymity. I think if other processes work as they should, anonymous trolls will go away. I do think that people should be able to block certain anonymous users; and that anonymity with respect to egregious answers should be revoked and revealed. If Anon knows that if he makes inappropriate comments about my body parts, I should be able to ask Quora and know who he is, so that his name can be revealed publicly, and block him. It'd be like a perp walk, or when johns arrested in prostitution stings are revealed on local television, or their names are published in the newspaper. Shame is powerful.Many of the issues that create problems with respect to everyone's experience, whatever their gender, are related to topics and topic ontologies. I believe that topic assignments require more proactive review and standards. Quora users could benefit from a Quora topic clean-up project, allowing humans to conduct a thorough quality control review. Topic assignments have a lot to do with distribution. Quora ought to survey and review the existing framework holistically, be clear on how questions fit into various categories, and publish that ontology, so people understand with clear topic descriptions just what they're tagging material with - and not be allowed to freely create new topics unless approved. This process should be systematized and formalized, and published for comment. I understand that there are millions of questions on the site; however, this is no different than a transaction analysis and clean-up, akin to a process review or audit, in other industries. It might take a while, but it would result in a system and platform that's leaner, more efficient, and more capable of spotting problems. Putting more structure around quality control with respect to the tools Quora controls and supplies for its users would improve the overall content quality and user experience, without interfering with the flexibility and freedom of expression that Quora affords its users.I don't think Quora can change the baggage we each bring with us from the real world; but I do think they can change the way it's managed on the site, through education and better tools. This requires Quora to understand that it is taking a political position through how it allocates its resources. Changing how women are treated on the site (as well as attracting and diversifying the community) and maintaining or even improving the quality of content requires a resource commitment and prioritization on content management and user experience, in the sense of the term that transcends a mere user interface.Without making that commitment, Quora risks testing Burke's admonition: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." In this case, all that is necessary for the triumph of bad behavior and the end of quality content is for Quora to fail to set standards, fail to promulgate them and fail to enforce its rules consistently, and to fail to actively set standards of acceptable behavior on the site. The best way, I think, to achieve the goals of fixing "bad" behavior, whether immature or hostile, is by focussing on increasing transparency and assigning accountability and responsibility, through better communication, cleaner, more professional organization, and better metrics.

There is a Liberal bias in American Universities, and in some places, including many of the most prominent universities in the country, an extreme Left Wing bias. If you find this hard to believe, the first thing you need to accept is that college isn’t what it used to be 5 years ago.In a few cases, there is a fair explanation for why this could naturally happen. One is the nature of the conservative motivations for education from those on the left. For most conservatives, college is a time to gain skills necessary for employment. While most professors will admit that their conservative students perform just as well as their liberal counterparts and often better, many of the fields they enter into do not require more than a four year degree. Consider Business or Law Enforcement. With many liberals, the fields they are seeking are academic and require much more study. This, I have found, to be a perfectly logical and acceptable explanation for why more students of a liberal persuasion would pursue a life in academia and thereby shift the balance.My friend Ian McCullough, a liberal, also provides a few very good reasons in his answer for why such a liberal lean could naturally and with absolutely no malice or nefarious schemes to bias the system. There are others as well, but with credit to my friends on the left who acknowledge the liberal bias, this doesn’t go far enough to explain the real numbers being reported in the system, nor do they really acknowledge the gravity of the situation current college students are experiencing because of the extreme bias in the system.Samuel Abrams, a professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College, did a study in 2014 measuring back over the last 25 years to measure the dispersion of left leaning professors to those of the right. What he found was staggering. In colleges, liberals have always been more embraced, at least since Abrams began his study. Beginning in the mid 90’s, however, conservatives and especially moderates have been replaced by more extreme liberal biases.Figure 1. Ideological Positions of Faculty in American Colleges and Universities: 1989 – 2014. Data courtesy of the Higher Education Research Institute, UCLA, plotted by Sam Abrams.For certain parts of the country, this was far more pronounced. Abrams broke down the disparity geographically and saw that while liberals outnumbered their conservative counterparts throughout the nation in representation in institutions of higher learning, in places like the New England states, the disparity was as high as 28 to 1.28 to 1… Come on. There is simply no rational explanation for a 28 to 1 disparity that is innocent or lacking some major degree of intolerance to opposing points of view. Given that we are talking about the some of the world’s leading intellectual institutions, the level of intolerance that could have created a 28 to 1 disparity. Furthermore, given the outsized influence that these particular universities have over the educational system, it should bother people that they are so repressive towards differing points of view in their hiring practices.Another study Published in Econ Journal Watch, reviewed over 7,000 where they found that Democrats outnumber Republicans by nearly 12 to 1. Compare this to a 1968 study that put the Democrat-to-Republican contrast in history departments at 2.7 to 1. Furthermore, it broke it down by department, where economics was the most friendly to conservatives, at a ratio of only 4.5 liberal professors to every conservative. Another study resulted in only 7% to 11% of faculty members in social sciences and humanities are Republicans, according to surveys. At the extreme, the Econ Journal Watch found that History departments, where the leanings of your old High School teachers were long gone, had liberals outnumber conservatives by a 33 1/2-to-1 ratio. It was even shown within these departments that it was easier to find a Marxist than a Republican. Perhaps now it makes sense that mention of the Gulag Archipelago, Christian genocide in the Soviet Union, artificial famines in China under Mao, or why Communism killed over 100,000,000 people in the 20th century never seemed to make the syllabus, but man… those Americans with their economic imperialism and long history of oppression. Wow. Thank goodness for higher learning.This brings to mind the quote from one of the fathers of Conservative theory, something no one learns about in college, Edmund Burke.Honestly, how many people had no clue who originally said that, and honestly, how many people calling themselves educated have no clue who this man is? Chances are, you didn’t learn about him in college and if you know, you found it out on your own. That should be the first indicator that there is something wrong with this imbalance due to that bias.Some of the excuses being levied for this is that the college experience simply makes conservatives or moderates liberals, as if the institutional process civilizes them from their barbaric or neanderthal ways. Wow, is that arrogant. That certainly doesn’t explain the Burke thing, though. Others, that the filtering process for universities (their costly expense) filters out the poor and the uneducated, which is presumably where most conservatives hail from. Given how radically contradictory this is to the notion that conservatives are all rich and greedy, only interested in maintaining the status quo, I wonder how apologists can possibly rationalize the two competing views. A better (while still incorrect) explanation offered by the New York Times was that Conservatism has simply changed and that no one could bear it any longer, or at least, that it became intolerable to the academic environment.Again, this excuse fails a logical test. If such an evolution took place, then we would have seen some measurable change in the broader culture, but at the same time that the universities became stark and suddenly more left wing, the nation stayed exactly the same, as shown by this graph depicting the ideological positions of America.What the evidence shows is that while the United States has remained remarkably ideologically consistent, the universities have become extremely left/leaning, radically and disturbingly so in the New England states and particularly in the social sciences. So there really isn’t a good reason for 28 to 1. For that sort of dispearity to exist, much more powerful and far more far more complex reasons must exist for than the often levied and extraordinary condescending “because smart people are liberal,” and many of them, aren’t innocent or even accidental.Frankly, there was a few rational reasons for a left leaning influence in the universities, but that has compounded itself many times with those left leaning voices pulling more like themselves in and pushing out all the others on an institutional level. Specifically, the problem with the left wing, let’s call it what it is, radicalization of the universities is that draws from selection biases in the way professors are brought in to teach the “liberal” arts, humanities, and social sciences. Not all, but a fair enough proportion of the professors did not gain their credibility from their early academic fields, but through activism. Look, say whatever you like about activists and the need for them, but they don’t produce unbiased people willing to accept critical analysis that may invalidate the cause they’ve championed for years. Often, after whatever gains are made, they have few employment options beyond pursuing fields in politics or becoming professors of social sciences.A problem with people going into science fields who have an agenda? They don’t produce quality science. A scientist works toward discovery, with no real goal in mind other than to discover what is unknown. They aren’t there to prove a point. These activists turned professors, however, build careers around continuing their advocacy, whether intentionally or not. Rather than a simple quest for discovery and education, they are institutionally encouraged to be fixated on researching topics related to their personal connections to the issues. This has been called by one professor of Psychology, John Ruscio “me-search”. The problem here is that, rather than simply teaching what is needed to understand a fundamental course, or in discovering new relevant truths, courses become grounds for activists turned professors to continue their original work, often at the cost of the actual science in those fields.An example? Women’s studies. When you’ve built your work around decades of theory predicated on the narrative that women are institutionally repressed by society and source as proof for this evidence such as the “Wage Gap”, you really don’t want to deal with arguments that invalidate that data point central to your theory. However, when evidence turns up showing that simply taking the difference between the averages of all women and all men may not be a quality metric with which judge the entirety of American culture to be systemically sexist, we aren’t presented with that argument in the curriculum. Furthermore, saying that factors such as the number of women who choose to leave work to start families as compared to men across the society, the amount of time taken off by women, the fewer average hours worked by women, or the relative unwillingness of women to take on dangerous (and more often higher paying) jobs, or even simply the argument that men are more likely to ask for more money, aren’t taught either. Continuing on, when evidence such that the freer a society gets for women, as defined by the feminists themselves, such as we see in the nordic and other parts of Europe, we see more gender based delineation in the types of work that women choose to take on than those societies which are deemed less free for women, meaning that the freer women are to make their own choices, the more the supposed wage gap increases due to the jobs they choose. All this considered, it becomes clear that whatever wage gap that exists is due far more to the choices and freedoms these women have, than some systemic repression of a tyrannical patriarchy. In fact, when factoring for these choices, the wage gap narrows to almost nothing, and in fact, reverses in many liberal cities for young women without children. This argument really sucks if you’ve built a career proving the Patriarchy, so it’s little wonder that it isn’t thoroughly explored more by students of these professors.And it’s very difficult for professors to adapt to new information when they were not brought into the education via the pursuit of knowledge and understanding, but as activists who continue to believe they fighting for a cause. That’s why these arguments don’t appear in campuses open discussion. Instead, they are labeled “sexist” or that they are “creating a hostile environment for students” where they don’t feel “safe”, and any professor who does allows such discussion might find themselves in a punitive meeting with their school’s ethics and diversity officer.That isn’t hyperbolic, as a similar case to this example took place in Canada last month. At Wilfrid Laurier University, a teaching assistant Lindsay Shepherd was branded as “transphobic” and scolded by her supervising professor, Nathan Rambukkana, during a meeting with the Ethics and Diversity Officer of Wilfrid Laurier following the supposed complaint from a student. Her crime? Showing a video of a debate taken from Canadian public television featuring one Canadian professor of Psychology, Dr. Jordan Peterson. Her true crime, however, wasn’t in showing the video, but failing to do so “critically”, making it known that she and the university don’t support his views. That is to say, her job was specifically to not be neutral, which was what she thought her job was supposed to be. During the reprimand, which her supervising professor communicated to her as a simple meeting, the university officials informed her that the video was “problematic” because Dr. Jordan Peterson was a “key member of the Alt-Right” and that he uses the website Patreon “made by the Alt-Right to fund hate speech”, and that by showing a video representing him neutrally she was “fostering an atmosphere of transphobia on the campus.” The reprimand even compared what she did to “neutrally playing a speech by Hitler.”I can say this. I’ve followed Dr. Peterson very closely over the last year, and watched a lot of his videos. I’ve also written extensively on the Alt-Right, specifically in creating a book aimed at educating readers on understanding and dismantling their movement. That he would be compared to the Alt-Right is patently absurd. Then to say that representing one of his videos is the same as “neutrally playing a speech by Hitler,” is the sort of accusation which should see heads roll during more rational times. As an additional note, I’ve also used patreon for four years and can say that they have intentionally banned violators such as this campus tribunal has indicated, with most of their creators being creators of music videos and comics. Hardly the pipeline to hate speech described by the “campus diversity officer”. What Peterson is rather famous for is his fight against Canada’s recent Bill C-16, which mandates compelled speech for professors according to the guidelines of extreme left wing narrative board of inquiry over Canada’s education system.What seems clear is that, like at many other campuses, (see Duke LaCrosse Team) judgement was cast down based on the complaint of a single individual who was offended and when that offense met with a far left Progressive narrative of the campus,was acted upon without any investigation other than what the professor had heard through a very biased grapevine, and used to create a repressive, even fearful atmosphere for people who did nothing wrong.What seems equally questionable is the creep of the Humanities into the hard Sciences. By this, I’m referring to Feminist Biology, which isn’t the biology of women, but a program at the University of Wisconsin where the field is viewed through the lens of feminism and the female perspective. To quote one professor, it exists because “in order to do science well, we can’t ignore the ideas and research of people who just so happen to not be male,” though there doesn’t seem to be any evidence that men need to be censored from the field, given that women have far surpassed men at earning Biology degrees and saying that they aren’t respected in the field ignores how many of them are being given Nobel Prizes for their contributions. Historically, men dominate the sciences, but if any quality Biology program is teaching current Biology, then I don’t see how they would be guilty of teaching about only men. Given also that such a program would specifically filter out the “ideas and research of people who happen to be male”, are not these feminist biology student being denied the foundational work of the first scientists in the field that the world of later male or female scientists are built on? The logic of the class is what it is, but what is perhaps most troubling is that this program wasn’t governed by the Biology Department of Wisconsin University, but under the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies. To say nothing else, I should think that hard scientists would find that concerning.This creep can be felt in other ways to students, where more and more of their bloated transcripts are being filled with courses outside their chosen fields to “gain a deeper appreciation in the Humanities”, which is itself becoming more radicalized. Perhaps a little emphasis in economics could have explained the consequences of their rising student loan debt due to these additional classes and given them an appreciation for how hard paying it off will be if you only ever paid attention in humanities courses.Moving on, conservatives also note the problems inherent in the system by way of how professors and graduate students are promoted and advance in their careers, by means of peer-review publications. The process of peer review is fraught with controversy from scientists questioning if the system is valid for the progress of scientific discovery and acceptability, from bias to outright censorship. It can range from committees made of department heads giving the ten ton hammer to articles and manuscripts they find objectionable on any number of issues to the simple process of a journal editor sending an article to a few friends to see if they like it, where two thumbs up mean it gets published and a rejection sends the piece to the Void of Lost and Forgotten Knowledge.There are many unhappy with the system of peer review, so does this process result in censorship for or a lack of advancement for conservatives specifically? According to numerous professors, yes it does.The following was submitted by a conservative professor, Matthew Woessner, whose main work argues against the notion of that conservative views are repressed in the colleges, but here, he must contend the peer-review process, coupled with the extreme diversity problem among educators, makes it difficult for conservatives to find opportunities for advancement.The more pernicious problem occurs when right-leaning scholars submit their work for blind review with prestigious publishers or in peer-reviewed journals. Even if we presume that most journal referees are sincerely trying to judge a work based on its scholarly merits rather than its social or political implications, a jury pool dominated by left-leaning scholars will almost certainly subject right-leaning papers to greater scrutiny, highlighting their methodological shortcomings and challenging their overall conclusions. If the academic universe were evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, the unconscious tendency to challenge dissenting viewpoints would hamper the publication of conservative and liberal work at roughly the same rate. However, with a vast majority of academics falling on the left side of the political spectrum, this is an issue that, in all probability, tends to hamper the publication of conservative-leaning ideas. Thus, professors whose political instincts are right of center must either focus on non-ideological scholarly questions or endure a special degree of scrutiny as they seek to secure publication of their ideas.Richard Vatz, professor of rhetoric and communication at Towson University was less forgiving.For many decades, there has been a stunning — and manifestly appalling — general prejudice against conservatives in higher education, evidenced by curtailments on their academic freedom and freedom of speech.It is difficult for conservatives to get hired, and once hired, it is difficult for them to get promotion and tenure — particularly in the humanities and social sciences, wherein liberal orthodoxy rules.This has resulted in fewer conservatives finding their way into academe as a profession, which liberals disingenuously claim is the result of universities having limited economic attraction for those on the right, not as a result of unfair practices.He continued in a follow-up to his original piece published in The Chronicle of Higher Education - Anti-Conservative Bias in Academe is Real.Furthermore, over the past five years, outright repression of conservative views has increased to the point of direct hostility against professors and students who harbor them. A book Passing on the Right documented the growing tension and fear many conservatives have in academia. It notes that belief in campus discrimination against conservatives is widespread: 81% of conservative professors say they feel it, and even 30% of liberal professors agree that conservatives face a hostile ideological workplace. The book also lists numerous accounts brought forward to show that this radicalizing process is getting worse and having expressed impacts on the careers of conservative professors and the orthodoxy being pushed to students. Among the examples given were a professor accused of training his students to be Nazis after defending the post-9/11 War on Terror where his door was covered with swastikas, a Jewish historian calling for political diversity on a panel on reparations being called a racist and a Nazi by his colleagues, the ostracism of one professor who accepted a job in the Bush administration by colleagues, and even pro-life sentiment at a Catholic college being viewed as “shocking” and “venomous.”Continuing on, the book details requests for academics seeking to do research on topics controversial or challenging to left -wing narratives, such as reverse discrimination against whites and/or men facing rejection for explicitly political reasons with reaction such as: “The findings could set Affirmative Action back 20 years if it came out that women were asked to interview more often for managerial positions than men with a stronger vitae.” If all this weren’t enough, the book also notes one study finding sociologists were willing to give preferential treatment in offering a job to a communist over a Republican.Altogether, this process seems to have the impact of further increasing the disparity between right and left on college campuses. Most importantly, in recent year, this disparity has manifest as outright intolerance of conservative views and students by extremists allowed to rise through the academic system unchallenged. Noteworthy examples include those gathered by Sankar Srinivasan whereby A professor called students ‘future dead cops.’, another writing reports that Having 'white nuclear family' promotes white supremacy, or when Drexel was forced to suspend a professor after hateful tweets following the Las Vegas shooting. His exact words were “All I want for Christmas is a White Genocide” and “It’s the white supremacist patriarchy, stupid.” An important note, Drexel didn’t suspend him as a form of disciplinary action but because “he was receiving threats,” and that “his and the student’s safety was their top priority.”I’ll make an opinion statement here, Drexel would make a clearer statement that their student’s safety mattered if they fired the professor calling for a majority of them to be murdered. Again, that’s just my opinion.Then, of course, we have the professor who let her class protest Trump instead of taking the final exam and the one who offered extra credit to students who protest against President Trump. No bias here, folks. More recently, there was the masked professor in California who attacked pro-Trump protests with a bike lock (Former professor suspected in Berkeley bike-lock attack enters plea in Oakland court). Wonder what his classes were like. And just this last month, a student newspaper which published the article 'Your [white] DNA is an abomination'.“When I think of all the white people I have ever encountered - whether they’ve been professors, peers, lovers, friend, police officers, et cetera - there is perhaps only a dozen I would consider ‘decent,’” student author Rudy Martinez writes in the University Star.Without much biological explanation, Martinez informs white readers, “You were not born white. You became white… You don’t give a damn.” Later in his rant, he calls the police “fascist foot soldiers” and says a “white supremacist inhabits the White House.”How a student at a major American university, in Texas no less, could come to such conclusions as rational and acceptable to print is the real heart of the matter.Liberals in higher education are so over represented, and conservative voices so marginalized in both hiring and promotion practices, that the theories, ideas, and norms of an ever more left-leaning academia are completely and totally unchecked by dissenting arguments. It is, in fact, reaching a tipping point to the where the very idea of criticism toward these theories and ideas is itself being outlawed on campuses. With the propagation of campus speech codes, to censur both student and professor curriculum, the encouragement of campus courts falsely accusing students of all manner of criminal and non-criminal acts that destroy their future prospects of a career, the acceptance of safe-space mentalities to free students from critical thought and ideas that challenge their orthodoxy, the dogmatic enforcement of political correctness in lectures by campus “ethics and diversity” officers, the banning of conservative lecturers paid for by student donation from entering the campus, and finally the outright tolerance of hate speech such as saying that all Republicans are Nazis and that white DNA is an abomination, liberal schools have lost the right to call themselves institutions of higher learning.They have for too long accepted processes which encourage an ever present left-word shift, to the point that there was no one left to be critical of their ever more apparent radicalization.In the best case scenario, the environment of college campuses is producing a generation of students who are completely unaware of views which contradict mainline Progressive ideology, making them weaker thinkers incapable of dealing with conflicting views, having never experienced their own views challenged in the institution specifically created to do so. This hurts liberal students far more, as the conservative students must grapple with being challenged with every lecture, and those who remain steadfast are empowered with the rationale for their beliefs honest critical analysis offers them, but which is denied to their liberal students. In the worst case, the colleges are evolving into toxic grounds for free thought and becoming a bedrock of poorly vetting theory which borders now on orthodoxy, one which is taken as fact without criticism, and is being used to prop up hateful movements under the guise of their own victimhood.All that to say, well done young lady.Thank you for reading. If you liked this answer, please upvote and follow The War Elephant. If you want to help me make more content like this, please visit my Patreon Support Page to learn how. All donations greatly appreciated!

Hello.Thanks for the A2A,The JEE/NEET Exams were originally supposed in the months of April-May. However, owing to the strict lockdown to fight Covid-19, the exams had to be postponed for uncertain period of time.Thereafter, the Govermment initially decides to go for the exams in the months of July. However, we can clearly recollect that the number of cases of the pandemic in our Country had begun to escalate and following the massive protests and movements/ requests by the parents, students and teachers the HRD Ministry relented and decided to postpone the exams till September.Source : HRD Minister's tweet from July 3, 2020.As of now(30th August, 2020), the supposed date of JEE Mains is from 1 to 6 September and that of NEET is 15th September. Also, JEE Advanced, which is conducted on the basis of JEE Mains as a Qualification criterion, is supposed to be held on 27th September, 2020. Kindly read this answer for to know more: Sayan's answer to Do you think the JEE Main (September) will be postponed again?However, as every person, who is not living under a rock would know that India has already ranked 3rd in the total number of Covid cases, and we've had days with around 77K cases recorded. In such adverse situation, many educators and students protested against this decision especially on online platforms(like Twitter). Later, a plea in The Honorable Supreme Court was submitted on the same issue which was reportedly rejected in just a matter of five minutes.Source: The Hindu ArticleThe thing became much bigger issue when Shree Subramanyam Swamy Ji wrote an urgent letter to the PM in this issue. And was equally supported by renowned Lawyer Mr Ishikaran Singh Bhandari. Earlier this month, the duo was in limelight for being successful in initiating CBI Inquiry in the infamous Sushant Singh Rajput mysterious death case.Source: ABP News WebsiteFollowing this, all the Opposition political parties which were probably in dormant state till that moment, got into a full-fledged Student security mode and the emotional politics game was launched( However, as a JEE (2021) Aspirant myself, I'd thank them for their apparent concern about student health if it's genuine.) For some insight, this answer is a must read : Sayan's answer to Is the NTA finally conducting the JEE/NEET? Are there slight chances of postponement?Source: FirstPost WebsiteAs of now, this seems to be a pretty confirmed fact that the exams are bound to be held in these conditions itself and the Government is pretty adamant in this issue.Now coming to the arguments and further counter arguments on this issues :-1.Argument : The pretty obvious one. The number of Covid-19 cases are at all time high and students of the tender age of 16-17 usually don't travel long distances(some students have their centers as far as 200-300 kilometers)Counter: Government has reportedly increased the number of centers and tried to provide first choice centre to atleast 99% of the students, however there still remain many students who question the Government claims. Also, people suggest that the pandemic is going to last long and postponement is the not the solution in any way and will lead to havoc pressure on upcoming college students.2. Argument: As parents(who are mostly in the vulnerable age group) are bound to accompany their children, the crowd in proximity to the Entry and Exit Gate is supposed to be colossal, which might become the major cause of mass spreading of the deadly virus. Also, sanitisation of the desks/computer set ups is a huge challenge too.Counter : The NTA has proposed several SOP's and claims that the enforcement of these would be perfect, this claim is what makes majority of the students sceptical of the arrangements. However , both the parties are citing the examples of the already conducted exams like ComedK and UP Exams. While students bring up pictures where any form of social distancing, the NTA argues by suggesting that these exams were conducted with utmost accuracy and very less loopholes.( Here it's it important to mention that some fake and morphed screenshots have also been circulated regarding more than 5K cases after the COMEDk and death of 50+ persons solely with the intention to monger fear and have later been proved to be fake; I won't be posting those morphed articles on Quora).3. Argument: This is a heavily bypassed and ignored fact. There are many students who have difficulty in keeping the mask on for long hours and this humid rainy season weather makes things worse.Counter: There is nothing much to counter this. One personal advice would be to attend a couple of mock tests wearing the masks and keeping the spectacles on(for students who need them in the first place).4. Argument: This is a serious one too. Many parts of the Country are flood stricken and poverty-stricken families have already been through a great deal of trauma and it's next to impossible for many students to concentrate in such conditions and there are many who are not even certain whether they'd be able to make it to their centers on the D-day on not.Source: Times Now ArticleCounter: This is a bit insensitive but many people are citing earlier examples. For instance, West Benbal and Odisha were heavily hit by the cyclone Fani in Late April, 2019 but still, the entrance exams scheduled took place, reported quite smoothly on them mentioned dates itself with strong attendance of the applicants too.Edit : A point needs to be mentioned here.( Credits : Piyush Prateek) →When cyclone Fani hit Odisha, exam was held for Odisha separately. Some students from Hampi Express missed exams because the train was late. They were also allowed to sit in exams later. Some people from Assam and WB also, were affected by cyclone but since the number was low, so no heed was paid to them.Please, include this in your answer too. It wasn’t conducted very smoothly and if they had conducted a phasewise exam for flood affected regions, many problems would have been solved.(Footnotes:(1)Cyclone Fani: NEET exam to be held in Odisha on May 20 | Bhubaneswar News - Times of India(2)NEET 2019 Hampi Express incident: Re-exam for Karnataka students who missed exam | Education )However, the authorities are pretty hostile towards the slightest idea of relenting due to any natural catastrophe whatsoever.As of now, all we can hope is that students remain strong and avoid any unnecessary stress created due to this socio-political hustle-bustle.As of now, If we see people in favour of postponement: Educators(Career Councilors) like Aman Dhattarwal, Mohit Tyagi, Alakh Pandey, Shree Subramnayam Swamy Ji, Mr Ishikaran Singh Bhandari, Opposition parties and last but not the least, Greta Thumberg[sadly though : ( ]Source: Greta Thumberg's tweet ( How dare you ;)People against this notion: The Central Government(apparently), the NTA, the Gujarat Parent Association, and allegedly some coaching institutes to too( which have been alleged to act as a lobby to affect the NTA's decision making over and again, by the side of some students.)In the end , all I want to do is the repeat my tagline:Stay United with the Student Community but stay aloof from trivial distractions.All the best to all the 2020 aspirants. And, yes don't dare to forget “YOU ARE ALREADY PREPARED TO CONFRONT THE EXAM”.Similar answers answers beneficial regarding this topic of JEE and such Competitive Exams:1.Sayan's answer to Do you think the JEE Main (September) will be postponed again?2. Sayan's answer to Is the NTA finally conducting the JEE/NEET? Are there slight chances of postponement?3. Sayan's answer to To all those demanding postponement of the JEE and NEET, is their concern genuine? Don't they have high chances of getting infected in the markets, then why the fuss for examinations? (Must Read)4. Sayan's answer to Can I totally rely on question papers given in the nta app rather than refering to other papers given in references for last 5 days before the exam? Are they worth it? Do they have same level of difficulty as the actual JEE?Please Upvote the Answer if pleased and Also do Follow my account.Thank you.Signing off.