She Came to College Eager to Debate, Publish a NYT Op-Ed, and Secure a Media Job

Emma Camp — the college senior at the University of Virginia who wrote a New York Times op-ed last month titled “​​I Came to College Eager to Debate. I Found Self-Censorship Instead” — has started a Substack. From the timestamp, it seems the domain, emmacamp.substack.com, was reserved yesterday.

But there’s more: While Camp hasn’t published anything on said stack yet, she did write a column in Yascha Mounk’s Substack, “Persuasion,” this afternoon. Much like her opening shot in the culture war, Camp took this as an opportunity to mourn the rise of censorship. Consider the headline: “Why My NYT Article Inspired So Much Fury.” She answers it in the subhead: “We have lost a cultural appreciation for free speech and free expression.” I also frequently say this after appearing in the opinion pages of the paper of record.

If you read Camp’s first essay, you may find the sequel somewhat familiar. There’s a David French reference; a paragraph which first argues that we “ought to have the right to say basically whatever we choose,” and then seamlessly transitions into scolding those who exercised that right by dunking on her article; and this sentence: “Attempting to defend yourself on the internet is, as the aphorism goes, like wrestling with a pig. You both get dirty. And the pig likes it.” Uh huh.

Ultimately, the only new information Camp offered wasn’t in the piece itself, but in her bio at the end (emphasis added):

Emma Camp is a senior at the University of Virginia. After graduation, she will join Reason Magazine as an assistant editor.

Censorship sure sounds bad.