wenty years ago, several New York State legislators, a member of the State University of New York’s Board of Trustees, and members of the New Paltz College Council (an advisory board) publicly and privately pressured the then-president of SUNY New Paltz — me — to cancel a long-planned conference about women’s sexuality hosted by the women’s-studies program. When I demurred, the SUNY chancellor ordered an investigation, and the governor decried the waste of taxpayer dollars. The New York Post repeatedly attacked me, The Wall Street Journal published an op-ed about the conference by a right-wing ideologue, and The New York Times supported me for defending academic freedom.