> When invited speeches from people such as Christine Lagarde, then head of the International Monetary Fund, were cancelled after student activists accused her of complicity in “imperialist and patriarchal systems”, the response was a collective shrug.

This is a straw man. People have been protesting the IMF nonstop since the 90s and I guarantee patriarchy is not the main thing they complain about.

Arguably the entire article is a straw man. Also where is the byline? Who wrote this?

The piece is too dumbed down to really touch on the most interesting aspect of academic identity politics, which is the quite intricate system of post-structuralist theory from which it emerged. The question of why this form of theory osmosed into the public sphere but not some of its competitors did not is more interesting.

Funny how as soon as an idea critical of the US and the mostly white mostly male people who have held power here gains prominence the Economist and its ilk seem to change their tune about the “marketplace of ideas”.