Daniella Greenbaum left her job for defending Scarlett Johansson's.
Earlier this week, Business Insider pulled a column Greenbaum wrote in defense of Johansson being cast as a transgender man in "Rub and Tug." The outlet claimed Greenbaum had violated its "editorial standards," though a Daily Beast report said "staff complained internally" about the column before it was pulled.
Greenbaum's defense of Johansson came as LGBT activists slammed the actress for taking a role they felt should have been awarded to a transgender performer. This is hardly the first controversy of its kind.
Greenbaum resigned from Business Insider on Thursday, announcing the news on Twitter along with an image of her resignation letter. “Unfortunately, what happened with my piece — the tarring of a commonsensical view as somehow bigoted or not thought out; the capitulation on the part of those who are supposed to be the adults to the mob — is a pattern happening all over the country within institutions that pride themselves on open-mindedness and liberalism,” Greenbaum wrote.
I believe female actors can play men and trans men. That is the apparently controversial view that inspired BI to take down my piece. I have resigned from @businessinsider and explain why in my letter to EIC @nichcarlson pic.twitter.com/5G2UZggXi9
— Daniella Greenbaum (@DGreenbaum)
July 12, 2018
The full column Business Insider foolishly pulled has been republished over at The Weekly Standard. It's perfectly fair and reasonable, and well-within the boundaries of acceptable speech.
People sometimes wonder what will become of this generation's radical campus activists when they enter the so-called "real world." Look no further than Google, or the New York Times, or Business Insider (and perhaps even The Atlantic), where management has seemed increasingly inclined to cave to those who share the attitudes of the ultra-sensitive, would-be censors we train and enable in academia. For now, the surrender appears to have been relegated to coastal newsrooms and Silicon Valley, where well-educated millennials congregate.
If this pattern repeats, major media outlets will soon be erasing fair and reasonable expressions of any belief that happens to fall somewhere to the right of your average Oberlin student's. And we know monopolies never end well.
Here, Greenbaum made the right move. Let's hope her erstwhile employer recognizes that too.