Academics and liberal thought leaders are increasingly vocal about the treatment of professors who are exposed by conservative media outlets for objectionable speech and behavior. This complaint, one shared even by some usual defenders of free expression on campus, was on display in a New York Times op-ed published Monday titled "The Free Speech' Hypocrisy of Right-Wing Media."

Author Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, an assistant professor of African-American studies at Princeton University, argued that conservatives who purport to be defenders and upholders of free expression in academia also advocate for the silencing of liberals who engage in speech and behavior to which they object. "When it comes to protecting the speech of people who are most vulnerable to being intimidated into silence like people of color and gay people conservatives either are suspiciously quiet or drive further intimidation with wildly negative news coverage," Taylor wrote.

The professor cited her own experience with conservative media, recalling when Fox News clipped a portion of her commencement address to Hampshire College where she called President Trump a "racist, sexist megalomaniac."

"That a junior faculty member of Princeton was critical of Mr. Trump in a speech at a small liberal arts college should not be surprising," Taylor argued in her New York Times op-ed.

Perhaps it's not surprising, but newsworthiness is not always based on surprise value.

Taylor cited conservative media's reporting on other professors who faced consequences after conservative media reported on comments they made, including Johnny Eric Williams, who was suspended, and Lisa Durden, who was fired. In the wake of the shooting on Congressional Republicans that put House Majority Whip Steve Scalise in the ICU, Williams posted an article that argued officers who responded to the tragedy should have let the lawmakers die. "Saving the life of those that would kill you is the opposite of virtuous. Let. Them. Fucking. Die," the article said. Williams posted it to Facebook with the hashtag "#LetThemFuckingDie."

Durden beclowned herself in a bizarre and unprofessional interview with Tucker Carlson during which she defended a Black Lives Matter event where white people were not allowed to attend by exclaiming, "[B]oo hoo hoo, you white people are angry because you couldn't use your white privilege card to get invited to the Black Lives Matters [sic] all black Memorial Day celebration."

One can reasonably support free expression and academic inquiry while also questioning whether either professor is fit to teach impressionable young students.

Academics on campuses are like tortoises in the Galpagos (I think that's a Chuck Klosterman phrase) -- they've been allowed to evolve for decades without competition, morphing into hardened radicals in the lack of oversight.

I will concede two points: (1) Like the rest of the press, conservative outlets can occasionally go too far on campus reporting, making mountains out of molehills and sometimes taking quotes and behavior out of context. (2) There are certainly some conservatives who have the same reflex to censor disagreeable speech as people on the Left.

But students and taxpayers fund higher education to the tune of thousands and thousands of dollars -- it's in the public's interest to know when a professor or administrator acts unprofessionally or displays a worldview that is so radical it calls their ability to effectively educate students into question. In those cases, it's less a matter of free speech and more a matter of job qualifications.

Furthermore, a conservative media outlet's decision to expose a professor's statement or behavior does not mean that outlet, or interested readers, necessarily support the firing or targeting of a given employee.

If "democracy dies in darkness," as the Washington Post recently reminded us, darkness is also capable of killing academia as well.

Emily Jashinsky is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.

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It's not anti-free speech to expose academics in the press - Washington Examiner