Funny how this post got flagged in half an hour.
I'd choose another term, but those seem to all be used (and abused) by those kind of people when they talk about their ideological opponents.
Neoliberals downvote anything that disagrees with their superior worldview and are identity politics proponents because it's an effective way to disrupt class and labor movements.
Progressives are the ones who want things like universal healthcare, a federal voting holiday, an end to private prisons, and for their taxes to go towards safety nets for their neighbors and communities instead of corporate bailouts and forever wars.
Neolibs want global trade agreements, stable monopsonies, and to have wage workers pay for their own healthcare, benefits and retirement on top of all of their taxes out of the same paycheck. They're largely coastal elites and other class signalers that punch hard left against any platform that might benefit their idea of a "deplorable" even if it helps other people.
It is an oddity of the current crop of authoritarians that they in one breath manage to claim that there is no absolute truth but a multitude of 'lived experiences' while at the same time decrying anyone who dares to speak outside of the desired narrative. Of course the same people deny the validity of logic by calling it an example of 'white supremacy' so its application to their behaviour is a losing proposition.
Once enough people have been pushed out of those parts of academia which have been infected by critical theory it stands to reason that they will end up creating new venues for academic research structured in such a way that they can not be taken over - as to what this structure would look like is still up for grabs. Given that those new institutions can be assumed to be based on meritocracy where identity politics and 'diversity initiatives' are driving factors in their previous institutions it is likely that the former will end up producing higher-quality research than the latter - which will promptly be labelled as the result of some combination of *-isms/*-phobias by the authoritarians.
The amount of projection in this thread regarding the collective motivations of the HN Hive Mind is fascinating.
For me the desired outcome of these discussions is that those who have been supportive of the introduction of indentitarian policies in academia realise the deleterious effects these have on institutional and, lately, societal cohesion - more or less in the same way that Marxists in the 20's of the previous century started to realise that the Soviet Union did not develop into the workers and farmers paradise they were told it would. This can only happen if the subject can be discussed in those places where it matters, in other words in places frequented by people who have been part of or are still part of academia. HN is one of those places.
I do realize that politics is sometimes ok on Hn. I’m just saying I think that degrades the quality of the forum, and dilutes the topics I prefer.
Each unto their own.
Had the problem been limited to academia - and, more specifically, the humanities - I would have concurred. Now that it escaped out into the wild where it is wreaking havoc with societal institutions and commercial entities it has become something which directly concerns the areas of interest for this board and as such should be dealt with.
One of the best ways for dealing with these authoritarians is for people to just say "no, I will not be bullied into submission". As long as there are only a few people doing so they can be singled out, demonised and de-platformed by the authoritarian 'new puritans' but this becomes ineffective in the face of growing resistance. Once they can no longer scare people into submission they will lose their power, once they lose power the problems they created can be dealt with and true academic freedom can return. Once true academic freedom returns there will still be space in academia for critical theory and related 'grievance studies' [1] but they will no longer be able to force their ideologies upon the institutions.
Resistance is not futile, we will not be assimilated.
[1] ...although I suspect they will not be able to find enough funding to keep going nor will there be many employment opportunities for those with a degree in one of these fields - which will eventually lead to their demise.