University of North Carolina Wilmington professor Mike Adams committed suicide just days before a forced retirement, brought on by the left’s cancel culture, was about to take effect.
Adams, a 55-year-old criminology professor, was found dead of a gunshot wound in his home Thursday after a friend asked New Hanover County sheriff’s deputies to do a wellness check.
This week authorities ruled the death a suicide.
Adams had just agreed to a $500,000 settlement from the university. It was essentially a payoff to Adams, and not a very big one when you learn it would be paid out over five years.
Adams had been a controversial figure on campus for years, but he was only controversial because he was open about being a conservative Republican, because he stood up for classically liberal values like free speech and due process.
In 2018, Adams testified before Congress about the growing left-wing fascism in academia:
As bad as my ordeal was, conservative and Christian students on the campuses I visit have it much worse. They are routinely confined to unconstitutional speech zones and punished under unconstitutional speech codes. Their groups are routinely denied recognition or denied funding that left-leaning groups get almost automatically. Generally speaking, these students are not well versed in constitutional law. They simply do not know the university is violating their rights. To make matters worse, administrators routinely deceive these students about the scope of their rights.
He also spoke out against the Obama-era mandate that gave universities the power to suspend due process for (mostly) male students accused of sexual assault. Instead of law enforcement handling these cases, schools were given the power to basically destroy a young man’s life based on nothing more than an accusation and a kangaroo court with the power to discipline or expel a student without that student receiving a fair hearing or legal representation.
Obviously, this made Adams’ a target on campus, made him an outcast, and things finally came to a head on May 29 when Adams called North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper “Massa Cooper” due to Cooper’s stupid and anti-science coronavirus lockdowns.
He also dared to criticize as “thugs” those using George Floyd’s death as an excuse to riot and burn.
The Internet exploded over these comments. Adams was predictably attacked as “racist,” including by a number of C-list celebrities. There was the usual-usual uproar on campus, including petitions.
The gutless school attacked its own professor as “vile” and then caved:
UNC Wilmington Chancellor Jose Sartarelli argued that the settlement agreement with Adams will enhance “campus safety” and “reduce harm” to the university.
“In addition to saving money, the settlement will prevent the continued disruption to our educational mission, reduce concerns around campus safety, and lessen the harm to the institution. Dollars are precious, but our institutional integrity is priceless,” Sartarelli said
And now, just days before this forced retirement became official, Adams is dead by his own hand.
While we can’t begin know or even guess at what this poor man was going through elsewhere in his life, only an act of willful ignorance would allow someone to dismiss the fact that the cancel culture, this heinous blacklisting movement, had a role in Adams’ suicide.
What drives another human being to take his own life is, thankfully, beyond my comprehension, but here was a good man guilty of nothing more than a silly joke and some truthful opinions facing national vilification as a racist, facing the disgrace of career and reputational ruin.
Such a thing would put anyone in a dark place.
Sadly, and I do not say this lightly, the suicide of Mike Adams will not give America’s blacklisters pause. In fact, it will only encourage them to double down on their efforts. These are monstrous people, self-righteous zealots already aware of the effects of the human toll of the cancel culture. To them, Mike Adams’ suicide is a victory, is one less vote for Trump in the swing state of North Carolina, and is — most of all — an example to the rest of us, especially those on campus, who might dare to utter out loud their “unapproved” opinions and ideas.
Remember, these monsters were not criticizing Adams. They were not fighting speech with speech. The endgame was not to get him to change his mind or point out the flaws in his thinking or his argument. This was only about destroying the man, annihilating him, intimidating him into silence, and if they could not do that, ruining his life and career.
Well, they have accomplished both.
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