Cancel culture has been denounced as a weapon of “far-left fascism.” (Maylene Yeh, with images from Wikimedia Commons, Flickr)

A Georgetown Law professor was fired last Thursday after receiving widespread backlash for racist comments about Black students typically being her “lower students.”

“I hate to say this, I end up having this angst every semester that a lot of my lower ones are Blacks. Happens almost every semester,” Sellers said in a forty-second video clip that has garnered more than one million views. “And it's like, ‘Oh, come on.’ You get some really good ones, but there are also usually some that are just plain at the bottom. It drives me crazy.”

The conversation, which was recorded on Zoom and later uploaded to Twitter by a student, was between adjunct professors Sandra Sellers and David Batson, both of whom no longer work for the university. The Dean of the Law Center, Bill Treanor, released multiple statements condemning Sellers’s clear bias and promising swift action.

“I am appalled that two members of our faculty engaged in a conversation that included reprehensible statements concerning the evaluation of Black students,” Treanor wrote, calling the contents of the video “abhorrent.”

While Batson’s termination was not demanded in the statement released by the Georgetown University Law Center Black Law Students Association, Batson was placed on administrative leave pending an investigation by the school's Office of Diversity, Equity, and Affirmative Action. He resigned the next day, apologizing for his failure to condemn Sellers’s inappropriate comments. “My heartfelt response was to point the discussion toward what I believe is our personal responsibility—to be aware of and respond to potential unconscious bias in all our undertakings,” Batson wrote in his resignation letter.

But others have spoken up in defense of Sellers and Batson, criticizing the university for what they saw as going too far, and sympathizing with the professors as victims of cancel culture. A blog post on Academe Blog was published four days ago defending the two and questioning the dean’s authority to dismiss professors so suddenly.

“Cancel culture just hit a professor for "failing to correct" a colleague,” lamented Fox News.

Sandra Sellers talks about the performance of her Black students in a recorded Zoom call. (Twitter)

What Is Cancel Culture?

Dictionary.com defines cancel culture as “the popular practice of withdrawing support for (canceling) public figures and companies after they have done or said something considered objectionable or offensive.”

On one extreme, former President Donald Trump compared it in July 2020 to totalitarianism, calling cancel culture a “political weapon” of far-left fascism, saying it was “driving people from their jobs, shaming dissenters, and demanding total submission from anyone who disagrees.”

On the other hand, Nicole Holliday, assistant professor of linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania, says, “It is used to refer to a cultural boycott. We've had the term 'boycott' forever and ever. It just means, ‘I'm not going to put my attention or money or support behind this person or organization because they've done something that I don't agree with.’ That is not new, that's very old.”

References to ‘canceling’ someone can be found as far back as the 1990s (specifically, a 1991 film called New Jack City), but the spread of the slang term is most commonly attributed to mid-2010s Black Twitter. Tweets about canceling celebrities such as Ed Sheeran and Amy Schumer cropped up in 2015, and from there the trend began spilling over into pop culture, targeting any figures dubbed “problematic.” Users of early 2010s Tumblr may remember the ‘Your Fave is Problematic’ blog, a fandom callout blog that dug up records of celebrities such as Azealia Banks and RuPaul expressing their bigotry.

With the #MeToo Movement in 2017 also came more serious consequences. Harvey Weinstein, one of the central figures of the movement, was sentenced last May to 23 years in prison for rape and sexual assault. Kevin Spacey was dropped from the popular Netflix show House of Cards, and his 2018 movie Billionaire Boys Club remains his last film.

Though most consequences have not been as severe, dozens of public figures have been subject to the same scrutiny and ‘cancellation’ since. Popular YouTuber Logan Paul was canceled in 2018 for a video depicting the body of an apparent suicide victim, as was YouTuber Shane Dawson for previously dressing in blackface and using the N-word. Popular and long-lasting YouTuber Jenna Marbles was canceled last year for racism in her past videos, and she has since quit her ten-year-long channel.

The past year alone, compounded by the pandemic and ensuing lockdown, gave the public more openings than ever to cancel celebrities. Chris Harrison, the longtime host of the shows The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, was temporarily replaced as a result of a racism controversy, though he expressed a desire to return. New York Times food critic Alison Roman was canceled after social media backlash following incendiary comments about Marie Kondo and Chrissy Teigen. Late-night talk show host Jimmy Fallon was canceled after a 2000 “Saturday Night Live” sketch of him in blackface resurfaced. Ellen DeGeneres was canceled after testimonies of her bullying guests and staff members. Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling has been canceled numerous times for her transphobic views. Actress Vanessa Hudgens was canceled at the start of the pandemic when she called the coronavirus security measures “bullshit” and the deaths “terrible but, like, inevitable.” Last week, Meyers Leonard of the NBA’s Miami Heat was canceled after saying an anti-Semitic slur on the streaming platform Twitch.

Not even food is safe. Last May, Condé Nast's monthly food and entertaining magazine Bon Appétit underwent a reckoning after 14 current and former staffers at the publication called out the hypocrisy of the magazine in preaching political correctness while operating a "toxic" workplace in which people of color were treated as second class. Bon Appétit's editor-in-chief, Adam Rapoport, eventually resigned from his ten-year-long position.

Cancel Cancel Culture?

These ‘cancellations’ sound thorough and extensive, possibly even too harsh for people to have lost their careers over. After all, ‘people make mistakes!’ is the number one defense of critics who attack cancel culture as censorship and a witch hunt-esque attack on free speech. Is cancel culture accountability taken too far by a purity-obsessed left?

Trump’s comparison to totalitarianism aside, Republicans have been criticizing cancel culture for a long time. Jim Jordan (R-OH) defended his fellow Republican, Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) against it as she was stripped of her House committee assignments following her racist social media posts and support of conspiracy theories such as QAnon. “Everyone has said things they wish they didn't say. Everyone has done things they wish they didn't do,” Jordan said. “So who's next? Who will the cancel culture attack next?”

But cancel culture is far from a left-only phenomenon. Right-wing newspapers have fought to delegitimize and cancel progressive advances for years. Republicans have canceled each other, often by moderates against more conservative members. And Trump, ironically enough, has been trying to cancel others for years. Some notable instances that come to mind are his repeated calls to boycott CNN, his call to cancel various newspapers after they endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016, and his call to cancel Republican strategist and commentator Karl Rove for not being positive enough about his victory in the Nevada caucuses.

Furthermore, the impact of cancel culture is rarely permanent. Save for a select few instances such as Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey where the allegations were too criminal to be dismissed as mere past mistakes, those who were canceled have bounced back fairly consistently.

YouTubers Logan Paul and Shane Dawson still enjoy thriving fan bases and produce content. Alison Roman’s latest cookbook was a No. 1 Amazon bestseller. Jimmy Fallon and Ellen DeGeneres both remain on their talk shows, and DeGeneres’s “The Ellen Show” was renewed through 2022. Rowling’s Harry Potter sales have shot up 27 percent during the lockdown. Hudgens has signed on to Lin-Manuel Miranda’s newest project, a Netflix film adaption of a stage musical. Leonard’s punishment only extended to a one-week suspension and a stern talking-to.

Even criminal allegations have not made cancellations permanent. After documentaries exploring decades of sexual assault allegations against them were released in 2020, both R. Kelly and the late Michael Jackson’s music saw increases in streams of their music. Though five women came forward with allegations of sexual misconduct against Louis C.K. in 2017, and though he readily admitted to these accusations being true, C.K’s career hiatus lasted only ten months before he was performing sold-out shows again. “There can’t be a permanent life sentence on someone who does something wrong,” said Comedy Cellar owner Noam Dworman, when C.K. performed to a standing ovation.

The #MeToo Movement sparked worldwide demands for change. (Flickr)

Cancel Cancelling Cancel Culture

It’s true that there’s a fine line between cancel culture and purity culture, and it’s true that often the line gets crossed. Frances Lee, a Cultural Studies scholar, likens this obsession with purity to colonialist logic. “Telling people how to live their lives is central to dogmatic religion and dogmatic activism,” Lee says. “We all have made serious mistakes and hurt other people, intentionally or not. We get a chance to learn from them when others respond to us with kindness and patience. Where is our humility when examining the mistakes of others? Who of us came into the world fully awake?”

There is absolutely a conversation to be had about purity culture and safetyism, both of which are actively harmful to the progress and betterment of society as a whole. But denouncing cancel culture as a weapon of the progressive left or as the tool of a generation obsessed with political correctness takes away from the gravity of criminal cases like Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey. Crying ‘cancel culture’ when biases are revealed leads to laxness in treating them. In a time where racism is infuriatingly and inescapably present, in a time where more and more hate crimes are being added to an ever-growing tally, cancel culture brings much needed attention to problematic behavior that may otherwise be passed over.