Cancel culture backfires as thousands of students sign up for professor's Princeton lecture

A University of Chicago professor whose guest lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was called off amid outrage from campus activist groups is now being hosted by Princeton University, where thousands have already registered to hear the canceled speech. 

The associate geophysics professor, Dorian Abbot, said activists and MIT academics were outraged by comments he made in an August Newsweek opinion piece, wherein he criticized current diversity, equity, and inclusion standards in higher education.

In the piece, Abbot proposed an alternative framework called "Merit, Fairness, and Equality," whereby university applicants are "treated as individuals" and "evaluated through rigorous and unbiased" processes based on merit and qualifications.

The professor also characterized the current diversity standards as "treating people as members of a group rather than as individuals, repeating the mistake that made possible the atrocities of the 20th century."