On Saturday, a professor at UC Berkeley did what people in the past might’ve expected a teacher from the school to never do.

On Twitter, Grace Lavery wrote what people in the present won’t be a bit surprised by.

The university, as you know, gained fame as the birthplace of the free speech movement.

But movements are sometimes like people — they die in the same place they were born.

Hence, Grace took to social media to condemn author Abigail Shrier’s Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters.

According to the post, Grace thinks no one should be defacing library books.

However, she’s keen on an alternative.

The teacher schooled the Twitterverse.

“Since some ppl have misunderstood my tone, and censorship is an important matter and as a public educator I have a duty to be precise, let me clarify: I do NOT advocate defacing library books. I DO encourage followers to steal Abigail Shrier’s book and burn it on a pyre.”

Since some ppl have misunderstood my tone, and censorship is an important matter and as a public educator I have a duty to be precise, let me clarify:

🚫 I do NOT advocate defacing library books.

✅ I DO encourage followers to steal Abigail Shrier’s book and burn it on a pyre.

— Grace Lavery 🐬 (@graceelavery) November 14, 2020

It was a bold choice, considering she works at a college — a place that exists, in part, for developing brains to be challenged by different ideas.

Then again, it seems the Big Idea in education these days is Not Too Many Ideas.

But one idea that’s not gone the way of parachute pants is safety.

Just ask the folks at Ben Shapiro’s 2016 speech at the University of Wisconsin — to protect themselves from word-sounds, a flock of frightened syllabiphobes stood to their feet and chanted that very word:

Back to Berkeley, Grace is a fan of being careful, too. She provided instruction for doing to books what some in Salem did to witches:

“Plz make sure you use a safe pyre, and that you have an extinguisher to hand. Be safe, when you are burning books.”

She also explained why book-burning is virtuous and theft is alright:

“Remember: all you’re doing is removing a commodity from circulation—much as one might destroy a contaminated crop, or take action if a distributor failed to do so.”

Plz make sure you use a safe pyre, and that you have an extinguisher to hand. Be safe, when you are burning books.

Remember: all you’re doing is removing a commodity from circulation—much as one might destroy a contaminated crop, or take action if a distributor failed to do so.

— Grace Lavery 🐬 (@graceelavery) November 14, 2020

The book at issue’s gotten quite the…heat lately.

As covered by RedState’s Jeff Charles, Target pulled it from shelves last week.

The retail giant offered gratitude to an activist:

“Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention. We have removed this book from our assortment.”

Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention. We have removed this book from our assortment.

— AskTarget (@AskTarget) November 12, 2020

The author pushed back:

“Does it bother anyone that Woke activists and spineless corporations now determine what Americans are allowed to read?”

https://t.co/NRY9T9nAfA just made my book disappear.

Does it bother anyone that Woke activists and spineless corporations now determine what Americans are allowed to read? https://t.co/dbIbjm96Ll

— Abigail Shrier (@AbigailShrier) November 13, 2020

Target later decided the ban wasn’t a bullseye:

“We want to offer a broad assortment for our guests and are adding this book back to Target.com. We apologize for any confusion.”

Yesterday, we removed a book from https://t.co/Gla4QrFOmf based on feedback we received. We want to offer a broad assortment for our guests and are adding this book back to https://t.co/Gla4QrFOmf. We apologize for any confusion.

— AskTarget (@AskTarget) November 13, 2020

As for Professor (and, perhaps, not on-the-nose-named) Grace, she made a slight about-face herself in the form of saying she was just jokin’.

The academic went on to wax upon the similarity of lighting up literature and igniting an iBook:

for example: the idea of burning a laptop doesn’t seem to elicit the same moral horror. but it’s the same principle—disposing of a copy, not the original. The horror seems to derive from the idea that a book represents unalienated labor—but of course, it doesn’t.

— Grace Lavery 🐬 (@graceelavery) November 14, 2020

Meanwhile, the LGB Alliance appears to be keeping its lighter pocketed.

People who haven’t read @AbigailShrier’s book are eager to have it banned, to ensure other people don’t read it either. Practices like that belong in a totalitarian state. There is not a syllable of hate in the book.#StopTheWitchHunt #ReadFahrenheit451 https://t.co/5x2gvNDXAe

— LGB Alliance (@ALLIANCELGB) November 15, 2020

And Chad Felix Greene, author of Without Context: Evaluating the Anti-LGBT Claims Against the Trump Administration, likes it:

I highly, highly recommend this book by @AbigailShrier and as someone who has lived through gender dysphoria, it is essential reading.@AskTarget @Target should talk to more of us before deciding to remove a book based on a few complaints.

Please buy!!https://t.co/SWa8IikYxd

— Chad Felix Greene (@chadfelixg) November 13, 2020

A user named Heather? Not so much:

Y’all her book is literally nothing but hate speech on paper, poised as an “academic response” to the existence of trans people, trans men specifically.

All she does in it is outright attack, belittle, and misgender prominent trans men in the community. pic.twitter.com/9ybHuH4aIz

— H e a t h e r (@ohnoshesalive) November 15, 2020

Will the book remain for sale? In these heavily edited times, it’s hard to say.

Meanwhile, I hope Grace writes one herself.

She’s probably holdin’ onto some intriguing tales from the sea; her Twitter bio describes her thusly:

“Cut-price Freddie Mercury, thug prof…demon, quince.”

Wait — I left one out:

“Cut-price Freddie Mercury, thug prof, octopus-f—-r, demon, quince.”

An interesting book, indeed.

Hopefully, no one will burn it.

-ALEX

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