Regular addicts may recall my encounter with NOTL Museum.

It was a fine summer day. A heritage festival was in full swing out on the street. Perfect for a town that rose from the smoky rubble of a Yankee attack two centuries ago.

But feting our past was not on the agenda. A musical group sang loudly of “genocide” and the “murder of women and children.”

So I asked the boss, Sarah Kaufman, why such an inappropriate, regret-laden and historically dodgy act was picked for a street party to celebrate our ancestors.

Her response: “The NOTL Museum is committed to diversity, equity and inclusion. As part of that, we have decided to address tough topics of Black history and enslavement … as well as the uncomfortable Indigenous history of Canada. Every country has positive history as well as negative history.”

Hmm. DEI, Sarah said. That’s why local pride should be sacrificed on the alter of societal guilt.

But here’s what the policy actually means: “Diversity, equity, and inclusion are organizational frameworks that seek to promote the fair treatment and full participation of all people, particularly groups who have historically been underrepresented or subject to discrimination based on identity or disability.”

DEI, in other words, is about workplace fairness. Seems like a reasonable goal. It’s not about rewriting history to make NOTLers culpable for social mores or the sins of our ancestors. But it sure helps get government funding, which our busy-bee museum excels at.

Well, since I raised the issue with Sarah, the world has changed. The new American president wiped out the entire DEI program permeating the U.S. civil service. Within days major corporations followed suit, from Meta to Walmart, Amazon, JPMorgan, Disney and Deloitte.

It’s a serious shot in the culture war now gripping society as conservatives fight back against progressives and Donald Trump daily expands and extends his executive power to refashion the way Americans think.

Where once it was unforgivable to express an alternative point of view, in the days of X, JD Vance, Elon and the orange guy it’s now mainstream.

At least down there. But what’s the state of so-called “intellectual freedom” in our town?

I sought out Cathy Simpson. A year ago she wrote a column about it in this very paper, as an ode to Freedom to Read week.

At the time she was our chief librarian. Now she’s unemployed after being dumped in a high-profile dismissal by the library board. Her crime? That article. And specifically referencing an American outfit called FAIR (Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism).

Founded in 2021, FAIR campaigns against diversity programs, ethnic studies curricula and antiracism initiatives, which it calls “critical race theory.” It’s conservative, rightist, controversial and has been a leading voice in the dump-DEI movement. 

Simpson’s argument that all viewpoints should be heard — especially in a library — was logical, but the FAIR reference opened her up for an attack that she could not survive.

“I don’t regret what’s happened, even though it’s been horrible,” she told me. “I could not live with myself if I did not stand for those principles. It’s just being a decent human being.”

Simpson has been lionized on the political right. She gained international attention. Media galore. Her stance was referenced in the U.S. Congress. Yet she remains a woman traumatized by her treatment. She wrote about freedom and got canned for it. A few months before everything seemed to change.

“Extremism has trickled down from universities to our schools. Instead of silencing people, however, we need to engage those who may not agree with you. Bad ideas are best confronted, not suppressed.”

“I just want us to get back to the middle.”

Amen.