Is cancel culture democratic (with a small "d" even though it is also Democratic with a big "D")?

Regarding Kara's Post:

I want to try and tease out how Kara's blog post fits the college into Anderson's image of a private government. It seems like Kara's suggesting that the college itself is the private government. The professors are the governors and the students are the governed. The college constitutes a government because a government "exists wherever some have the authority to issue orders to others, backed by sanctions" (Anderson 42). Professors can issue orders by assigning tasks students must perform, and professors can sanction students who fail to complete these tasks or fail to do them successfully by giving them poor or failing grades in courses. The college is a private government because the "governed are kept out of decision-making" (45). The students do not, for the most part, come up with their own assignments or come up with grading rubrics for those assignments. 

I agree with Kara, based on the image of the college as a private government I sketched above, that professors grading based on ideological preference is an example of an abridgment of republican freedoms. By giving worse grades to students who do not align with her views, the professor is essentially issuing an order to align with her views and sanctioning those who do not comply. This is an exercise of "arbitrary, unaccountable will" (46).

However, Kara goes on to discuss cancel culture on college campuses. In cancel culture, the decision-makers are the students, not the professors. The students (AKA the governed) decide that one of their peers has said or done something they deem to be a "cancelable" offense. It seems to me like this is where Kara's post becomes harder to reconcile with Anderson. 

Anderson proposes workplace democracy as the solution to the problems of the private government of the firm. In workplace democracy, the workers participate in decision-making regarding orders and sanctions. If we apply Anderson's logic to the private government in the college, the solution will also be democracy. It seems like cancel culture on college campuses is an example of students democratically participating in decision-making regarding what kinds of statements and actions are or are not acceptable and which ones merit sanction (the sanction in this case being social repercussions). I think this could lead to two responses from Anderson.

#1: Anderson could say that cancel culture is not indicative of democratic participation of students in the governance of the college. She could claim that, by merely making social judgements, the students are not meaningfully affecting decisions regarding courses, etc. I'm not sure this is totally true, though, because as Kara points out cancel culture has in several instances led to students being kicked off campuses and professors losing tenure.

#2: Anderson could say that I oversimplified her solution to private government in the firm. It is not just workplace democracy that makes the firm a public government. Her solution also included a worker's bill of rights. Maybe a better application of her logic to the private government in the college would be a democracy where there is a student's bill of rights, and maybe this student's bill of rights would protect rights to free speech even when voicing an unpopular opinion.


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