A blacklisted American wins in court
Bruce Gilley, formerly of Portland State University
Back in 2017 political science professor Bruce Gilley wrote a quite reasonable historical paper in the academic journal Third World Quarterly that took a look at the colonialism of the western nations in 1800s and concluded that this colonialism had not been all bad, and in fact had brought “significant social, economic and political gains” to the nations colonized.
For this sin of honest academic analysis (certainly open to debate), the academic community put together a coordinated international campaign to get his paper withdrawn and his reputation ruined. He received death threats, and later in response to these threats and this campaign — including the resignation of fifteen of its board members — the journal withdrew Gilley’s paper. It didn’t do so because of any academic flaws in the work, only because it dared state conclusions that today’s leftist, Marxist, and very bigoted academic community cannot tolerate.
Soon thereafter Gilley found himself blacklisted and censored at his university, Portland State University in Oregon. The communication manager for its Division of Equity and Inclusion, Tova Stabin, blocked him from a college X discussion group because Gilley had had the nerve in one email to quote Thomas Jefferson, noting that “all men are created equal.”
Gilley sued both Portland State as well as Stabin. Though the university quickly backed down, unblocking him and issuing a letter of apology, Gilley refused to abandon his lawsuit. At the same time, he decided to find a better place to work, and in 2024 left Portland to become a professor at New College in Florida.
This week Gilley completed his triumph in court. As part of a settlement agreement [pdf] reached in March 2025, a federal judge ruled that the University of Oregon (of which Portland State is a part) had to pay all of Gilley’s legal expenses, to the tune of $191,000.
Though this settlement also dismissed the civil charges against Tova Stabin, who had actually left the university just before Gilley’s lawsuit was filed, it also required the university to change its policies to prevent such censorship and blacklisting in the future.
Is this a victory? Yes, but only partly. The university’s insurance will apparently pay the bill, though Oregon still has to absorb its own legal fees. Its policy changes are to a great extent very shallow, and still allow it to block some speech it interprets as “creating an abusive or hostile work environment.” Furthermore, Stabin got off scot free.
And meanwhile, Gilley’s paper remains censored, merely because he was willing to recognize some obvious facts about colonialism that contradicted the leftist anti-Western “consensus” of the day. And since he has been driven out of Oregon and now teaches in Florida, Portland State has successfully purged itself of one more honest academic, making itself even less diverse intellectually.
The real solution is for this university to find itself lacking in students. Parents and high school students must consider other options after high school. If Portland State finds that it can’t attract students because of its bankrupt education culture, it just might consider rethinking that culture.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
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Bruce Gilley, formerly of Portland State University
Back in 2017 political science professor Bruce Gilley wrote a quite reasonable historical paper in the academic journal Third World Quarterly that took a look at the colonialism of the western nations in 1800s and concluded that this colonialism had not been all bad, and in fact had brought “significant social, economic and political gains” to the nations colonized.
For this sin of honest academic analysis (certainly open to debate), the academic community put together a coordinated international campaign to get his paper withdrawn and his reputation ruined. He received death threats, and later in response to these threats and this campaign — including the resignation of fifteen of its board members — the journal withdrew Gilley’s paper. It didn’t do so because of any academic flaws in the work, only because it dared state conclusions that today’s leftist, Marxist, and very bigoted academic community cannot tolerate.
Soon thereafter Gilley found himself blacklisted and censored at his university, Portland State University in Oregon. The communication manager for its Division of Equity and Inclusion, Tova Stabin, blocked him from a college X discussion group because Gilley had had the nerve in one email to quote Thomas Jefferson, noting that “all men are created equal.”
Gilley sued both Portland State as well as Stabin. Though the university quickly backed down, unblocking him and issuing a letter of apology, Gilley refused to abandon his lawsuit. At the same time, he decided to find a better place to work, and in 2024 left Portland to become a professor at New College in Florida.
This week Gilley completed his triumph in court. As part of a settlement agreement [pdf] reached in March 2025, a federal judge ruled that the University of Oregon (of which Portland State is a part) had to pay all of Gilley’s legal expenses, to the tune of $191,000.
Though this settlement also dismissed the civil charges against Tova Stabin, who had actually left the university just before Gilley’s lawsuit was filed, it also required the university to change its policies to prevent such censorship and blacklisting in the future.
Is this a victory? Yes, but only partly. The university’s insurance will apparently pay the bill, though Oregon still has to absorb its own legal fees. Its policy changes are to a great extent very shallow, and still allow it to block some speech it interprets as “creating an abusive or hostile work environment.” Furthermore, Stabin got off scot free.
And meanwhile, Gilley’s paper remains censored, merely because he was willing to recognize some obvious facts about colonialism that contradicted the leftist anti-Western “consensus” of the day. And since he has been driven out of Oregon and now teaches in Florida, Portland State has successfully purged itself of one more honest academic, making itself even less diverse intellectually.
The real solution is for this university to find itself lacking in students. Parents and high school students must consider other options after high school. If Portland State finds that it can’t attract students because of its bankrupt education culture, it just might consider rethinking that culture.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
You will think, say and do as you are instructed!
And you will not deviate!
So shameful and dishonest.
I have an old book from Harvard that came to the same conclusion he did. It was a translation of the book “The Epitome of History” and was called the Encyclopedia of History and covered the Second World War.
The books of the mid Twentieth Century I value more than those before or after.
Robert writes:
“The real solution is for this university to find itself lacking in students. Parents and high school students must consider other options after high school. If Portland State finds that it can’t attract students because of its bankrupt education culture, it just might consider rethinking that culture.”
Unhappily, most of the people / voters who live on the “left coast” of Oregon — as opposed to those in the eastern part of the state who are seeking to affiliate with Idaho — are *perfectly happy* with the present arrangements at Portland State, and they wouldn’t have it any other way.
We are now looking at a situation in which these left coast Oregon “progressives” have effectively seceded from the rest of the United States, at least in a cultural sense, and it is simply wishful thinking to believe that they will somehow see the error of their ways and give up their desire to live in an authoritarian, one party state like Cuba. They are HAPPY with their present arrangements, and this is reflected in the culture at their universities. Likewise their toleration of “peaceful protest” (aka, riots) in their major cities. Please pass the Kool-Aid.
See https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/protests/portland-ice-facility-clash-demonstrators/283-751a1fc4-6cd9-4088-b0fa-6fd0e3d9dd98
The real question, or so it seem to me, is how do we maintain a “United States” when these people now want nothing to do with it, and they would forcibly impose their toxic ideology on the rest of us if they could.
PS — With respect to Jeff’s comment on the books from mid Twentieth Century, they represent our culture at its zenith, as reflected in Max Lerner’s classic America as a Civilization. Since then, it has been mostly down hill.