Here’s how culture wars work: The right picks “provocative” people and manufactures outrage around them, then the left rallies to defend these pseudo-representatives who were appointed by their enemies. In the ensuing fracas, funding gets cut, institutional restrictions pile up, and pretty much everyone you know gets hurt for the rest of their life. Was George Ciccariello Maher a high priority before his Christmas tweet? No? Why should he be now? Because of “academic freedom”? Sorry, I don’t buy it. Academic freedom isn’t about sticking up for whatever rando attention-seeker the right picks out for promotion. Helping them to reduce that freedom to a cartoon like this is a big mistake. There are serious problems out there, but his tweet just isn’t one of them. The idea that Drexel censuring a faculty member would have a widespread chilling effect is ridiculous. But the risk that this case will become a template is very real. The way out of that cycle is for the left to be much more selective about who and what it defends and why. But being selective will mean saving slogans like “academic freedom” for when they matter instead of using them to dignify sideshows like this.