Stanley from Yale to Toronto
Jason Stanley, currently professor of philosophy at Yale University, will be moving to the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto (with a partial appointment in Toronto’s Department of Philosophy).
Professor Stanley is well known for his work in philosophy of language as well as his more recent work in political philosophy, particularly on topics such as propaganda and fascism. You can learn more about his writings here.
In an email, he writes that “the decision was entirely because of the political climate in the United States.” He had had an offer from Toronto, and decided to accept it last Friday night after Columbia’s capitulation to the Trump administration’s demands.
He notes that he will be joining others who left Yale for the Munk School, such historians Timothy Snyder and Marci Shore.
Stanley writes that he has been “very happy at Yale, with the department and the university,” but that he wants “to raise my kids in a country that is not tilting towards a fascist dictatorship.”
He takes up his new position at Toronto in the fall.
(via Jason Stanley)
Notwithstanding the threat of fascism in the US, we should also remember the implications of this move for the Gourmet Report. The fact that it’s only a 25% appointment in philosophy really complicates things. What will happen?
This may be the funniest comment in the history of daily nous
Given what we’re seeing every day, I cannot blame him. I hope he keeps up his fight against fascism, and wish him the best.
That’s a bit wishful. If the US does slide into a full scale ‘fascist dictatorship’, you can rest assured that Canada is likely to be its first target for annexation. Where would Stanley flee to next?
If by wishful, you mean hopeful, then I guess I agree, but it’s odd to hold anyone moving away from a country that’s tilting toward fascism to the standard that they are not to move if they can’t move to a country that cannot be taken over.
Canada is a sovereign nation that currently has political polarization away from American politics thanks to some of the idiotic messaging of American politicians.
I think that it is probably a much safer place for people that value liberal democracy currently, and I expect it to stay that way if the US drifts further into authoritarianism.
The only gripe I have with this move is that Stanley gets to leverage his fame to buy himself a life raft. It is a bit unfair
Not unfair – the Toronto job offer was already on the table for Stanley, as he notes, for the reason that Toronto simply wants stars and makes an offer for them in a way that is fair and square; Stanley’s work earned him being a star that Toronto would want to have.
You’ve invoked an interpretation of “fairness” that clearly wasn’t the type I was using.
“Unfair” as in not deserved is different from “unfair” as in “who gets to survive the shipwreck will be determined by fame and fortune”
There is nothing ‘fair’ about who survives shipwrecks. The gods hand out survival only in accordance with their caprices.
No country is entirely safe. However, some countries are much more secure than others. Moreover, certain countries do not make you complicit with an institution that threatens students, permits ICE to chase them on university grounds, and deports them. Today, Columbia professors are complicit. Yale will be targeted soon. I would also want to remove myself from that causal chain.
where flee to next? well if Canada turns, then probably the least fascist country that gives a job offer with decent quality of life — let us hope Canada does not turn. p.s. hard to fault the decision to take the Toronto job, Stnaley’s a big star, but for all we know Toronto was the only senior job offer outside the US currently on the table for him; so the relevant choice might have been between a fascistleaning country and a currently non-fascist leaning country, and choosing the latter needn’t be wishful in that framing.
I don’t think it makes sense to speculate about Canada becoming annexed or turning fascist at this point. Those are very remote possibilities, and should not be significant factors when deciding which job to take.
If anything, Canada is now growing stronger in its status as a liberal democracy, in large part because of Canada’s counterreaction to the US under Trump.
Greenland.
I won’t begrudge someone doing what they think needs doing to keep their family safe. But it strikes me that the life of a person like Stanley (educated, white, wealthy) will be little different in Toronto than in New Haven – and likewise for his children – regardless of where the US is going.
I confess to thinking it at least unseemly for people in such a position to “bail out”, so to speak.
Jason Stanley is Jewish and a very prominent critic of Israeli nationalism, Israeli military actions, etc. It is hard to agree that “regardless of where the US is going” life for him and his family would be the same in the US as it will be elsewhere. Regardless of whether these labels make any consistent sense, keep in mind that Musk and Trump have repeatedly distinguished “jews” and “whites,” placed in them in opposition to one another, and taken sides, meanwhile expressing solidarity with Israeli nationalism, Israeli military campaigns, and even Israeli/US displacement of the entire population of and annexation of Gaza.
Could you say more why you think or believe this?:
Assuming, as the quoted email suggests, that the sole reason for the move is the political climate, and assuming further that there wouldn’t be significant changes in his or his family’s quality of life because of a change in climate – this sort of move gives off a “Here for the good times, you’re on your own for the tough times” vibe. And that there’s an “ick” factor to being American at the current time that just can’t be stomached.
I get this feeling about other “celebrities” that, say, decide to take this opportunity to move to Ireland or wherever, but more so from Stanley, since he’s written so much on this topic. They seem to want to “tut tut” with like-minded tut tutters from afar.
Maybe he feels like he can fight whatever good fight needs fighting from Toronto. Maybe this is just some latent patriotism on my part.
Thanks for the reply, but I don’t get that vibe at all, at least not from Jason’s email as reported.
And I’d say it’s much too quick to assume that white, educated, wealthy people (and esp. their children) wouldn’t be affected much by this rising fascism, even if they might be affected to a lesser degree than others.
For one thing, some already are feeling a significant impact, e.g., loss of funding for major projects, loss of opportunities to work with the federal government if that’s needed or desired, increased difficulty of international travel, fears about tariffs if they run businesses, concern for family members who are not US birthright citizens, etc.
Speaking of family, if their kids have any special needs now or in the future, their education will suffer without accommodations, never mind the lack of a real social safety-net for their future in the US, which is now seeing more holes ripped through it (e.g., in targeting social security, mental health programs, people with disabilities, etc.). And if anyone in their family tree is LGBTQ…!
So, unless we’re talking about the super-wealthy who can escape consequences (e.g., can bribe the right people) and don’t need jobs to support the lifestyles they want, including supporting at least a few generations of family—and I can’t think of a single philosopher who fits this description—it seems that everyone else has cause to worry about their future here.
Also: his kids aren’t white, since you seem to think that’s relevant
The idea that people deserve criticism for protecting themselves in this way is utterly bizarre.
I read it very differently. It’s more like ‘I am protesting this sh*t by leaving’.
People choose to move (or not) or to live in certain places for all sorts of reasons that others are are more unable to fully appreciate much less fit to judge. Life is complicated.
*that others are unable to…
I get what you are saying. But I also note that Stanley is Jewish and that the last time Fascism came around, the white, wealthy and educated ones among the Jews were certainly not spared. That aside, it’s not just about safety. Growing up in a fascist dictatorship is corrupting even if you are personally safe. Maybe he thinks he’s looking out for the virtue of his children and not just their physical safety. Finally, I think high-profile intellectuals choosing voluntary exile can withdraw legitimacy from a regime. Generally, we praise intellectuals like Oskar Maria Graf who would have been relatively safe remaining in Nazi Germany but chose exile nonetheless.
I am not quite sure that ‘fascism’ is the right description for the (extremely worrying!) things happening in the US, but if it is, I think Stanley’s choices make perfect sense.
He also mentioned that he has black children.
If much recent academic-blog commentary defending democracy had been secretly penned by MAGA conservatives, could the results be any more embarrassing for philosophers?
I don’t think Jason Stanley is “bailing out” by moving out of the US and I don’t think we need to add up all the qualifiers and defeaters for his case. But for those who do wish to add things up in this way, and I think it’s a mistake to do so, it’s surprising to me that his ongoing work in Ukraine apparently gets him no credit against this charge of “bailing out” on… what, exactly? On the US? On US academic philosophy? On the fight against authoritarianism and fascism? On democracy?
(The riff on the Anderson line requires maintaining the use of ’embarrassing’ or it won’t work as a riff, but I mean it mostly to be tongue-in-cheek even if I do bristle at the idea that Jason Stanley is just cashing in his chips.)
I dunno, restricting free speech and prosecuting people for so called “hate speech” is pretty fascist to me
No faculty member of any university in Canada has ever been prosecuted for hate speech. Likewise, free speech has not been restricted in Canada.
Arguably true, but incomplete. “James Keegstra, a former public school teacher and mayor, was charged and convicted under the Criminal Code for promoting hatred against an identifiable group (Jewish people).” (Global Freedom of Expression, Google summary.) Jordan Peterson, of course, was compelled by a court to pay for his own reeducation session.
That is unambiguously false.
Jordan Peterson had already resigned from University teaching when the court sided with the Ontario College of Psychology (a professional guild, not a university) that the College had the right to mandate coaching on professionalism in social media within the scope of their power to regulate the profession. So completely irrelevant to Brad Carpenter’s point. Not much more relevant (if more telling) is bringing up the Keegstra trial. Jim Keegstra was charged with promotion of hatred as he constantly taught in his high school social studies class that Jews were child killers, evil and deceitful and had invented the Holocaust (among other things). It is true that this was a test case for hate speech laws and that the Supreme Court upheld their constitutionality.
Canada has hate speech laws. So do most liberal democracies. The idea that Canada, Denmark, Norway, Germany, etc are “pretty fascist” due to these laws is rather absurd (I say that as someone who has qualms about hate speech laws).
In other words, you confirm everything I said, but don’t mind free speech being restricted in Canada for those you disapprove of.
Do you think we shouldn’t even restrict shouting “fire” in a crowded theatre? How about encouraging a mob to lynch someone? In your little fantasy world of a free speech paradise, that would be OK? The only rational arguments around free speech concern what restrictions are reasonable. No hinged (think about it) person really thinks it unreasonable to outlaw some forms of speech. And no, before you smugly roll out your above quote again, it’s not about restricting the speech of those we disapprove of. It’s about preventing obvious and imminent harm. Grow up.
I would have expected someone commenting at the Daily Nous to respect the Is/Ought Distinction, if not the decencies of debate. I have not revealed my ethical beliefs about free speech, merely pointed out the undeniable falsehood of
> free speech has not been restricted in Canada.
And I would have expected someone commenting at Daily Nous to have read Grice, and be familiar with the norms of conversational implicature. Seems we’re both destined to be disappointed.
It’s curious that you and Grice are confident of my ethical beliefs on free speech, since I am not — which is why my comments have avoided the issue of whether free speech is good. But I do claim some acquaintance with logic, which sufficed to show that, given apparently-agreed upon facts and definitions, the blanket denial of the existence of restrictions was manifestly false.
Does the federal government freezing the bank accounts of over 200 people who were associated with the ‘freedom convoy’ trucker protest not count as restricting free speech?
What about the case of Amy Hamm, a nurse who has been censured by the British Columbia College of Nurses and Midwives for publicly expressing her political views, and just two days ago lost her job as a result?
Sick comment.
?? Why go to Canada when it will soon be a state of the US? May I recommend another ex-colony – Australia – which, I can say with some confidence, is extremely unlikely to become a US state.
Australia has a lot of minerals. After the US annexes all the territories it wants in the Western hemisphere and China annexes most of East Asia, these two superpowers may make a deal to split Australia 50/50 for the minerals.
We’ll build an all-American amusement park…
They got surfin’ too!
Let’s drop the big one now
How do you think Canada will “soon be a state of the US?” Military conquest? (Will Congress declare war or will Trump act without them?) Exhaustion from financial pressures and a referendum? (Canadians seem pretty united against this idea.)
From where I sit this sort of uninformed statement is pretty irresponsible.
It was a lighthearted comment.
Don’t worry, everyone with a sense of humor understood you.
Yeah but climate change, Brian.
This is front-page news on CBC today:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/yale-professor-moving-to-university-of-toronto-trump-administration-1.7494704
Finished my PhD in the US in 2021 after going through the cyclone of Trump Season 1.
Started years prior open to living and working in the States. Ended it feeling immense gratitude that I could return to Canada. Eventually left academia and am now following a very different life. But the decision to close off a much larger pool of American jobs was one of the best decisions I ever made, even if tough at the time.
The country just felt jilted, like a bomb, and living/teaching in a gerrymandered open-carry state with stacked GOP supermajorities struck me as antediluvian.
I won’t be surprised if this descent into MAGAstanian authoritarianism causes a massive brain drain. Most of these people prefer to live in open, tolerant societies. It’s really that simple.
This is frightening to hear from scholars that think that what the Trump regime is doing is something that Americans can’t defeat.
What does it matter, in 50 years we’ll all be burning anyway 🙂
Good luck to him.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5068701
Folks here may like this recent article from Kathleen Stock: https://unherd.com/2025/04/the-invasion-of-americas-cringe-academics/?=newsroomindexfrmemail
I wrote a(nother) post at BIOPOLITICAL PHILOSOPHY about these events and discussion surrounding them. You can find my post at BIOPOLITICAL PHILOSOPHY here: More on Snyder, Shore, and Stanley Go to Toronto – BIOPOLITICAL PHILOSOPHY