Elsewhere, Wilson criticizes the idea that a focus on text is a kind of “white supremacy.” That may sound bizarre, but at a conference about “white supremacy culture” in education convened by the New York City schools chancellor Richard Carranza, attendees were shown a slide explaining that white-supremacist thinking includes “worship of the written word” and even “objectivity.” The petition quotes Wilson’s concern and then, with no argumentation whatsoever, flags him as “protecting white supremacy culture and a paternalistic orientation toward the work of social justice reform.”

The petition makes nothing approaching a meaningful case against Wilson’s blog post, much less his fitness as CEO of Ascend. The writers aim to persuade not through argument, but through aura; the petition bristles with terms such as white supremacy and culturally responsive, in response to which educated whites today are trained to nod on the pain of being tarred as bigots. The language typified by this petition doesn’t sit you down; it shoves you against the wall.

Readers ought not suppose that this lingo constitutes a kind of higher wisdom. The $10 words and long sentences give an impression of reflection and authority, but quite often they are the vehicle of flabby reasoning.

For example, the writers of the petition seem oddly unfamiliar with how to construct a point. Follow, if you can, this passage accusing Wilson of being a white supremacist: “The article later reinforces the importance of this liberal education by stating such an education ‘empowers them to escape poverty and dependency.’” Um, just how is that hope offensive from the CEO of a charter school? The petitioners fail to make it clear in their composition that they consider this very liberal education to be a sham.

John McWhorter: The idea that whites can’t refer to the N-word

Or the petition claims that Wilson “dismisses certain ‘damaging characteristics of white supremacy culture’ such as ‘worship of the written word’ as means of justifying reduced intellectual expectations of students.” In English, the petitioners are suggesting that Wilson dismisses “worship of the written word,” one of the “damaging characteristics of white supremacy,” in order to reduce intellectual expectations. But what the petitioners intend to say, through the clunky use of scare quotes, is that Wilson dismisses the claim that worship of the written word is white supremacist. Again, the petitioners reveal an almost mysterious lack of concern with precision of expression and organization of thought—as if the terminology alone constitutes suasion. I doubt that people of this orientation are the ones who should be deciding who runs a network of educational institutions.

Overall, the document is redolent of the star chamber. The idea that Wilson’s socially concerned blog post contains “oppressive content that perpetuates white supremacist ideology” is as absurd as the idea that Galileo was immoral for espousing heliocentrism. And yet this shoddy, performative document, which history will judge as a peculiar and regrettable token of its era, apparently led to Wilson’s ejection from an organization that improves the lives of underserved black children, and that he himself founded.