I must have missed the notice, but apparently it was “check your privilege” week at The Tribune.

Mary Jane Taylor, (Public Forum, Aug. 9) assails Garrison Keillor (a true liberal) for encouraging people to think about the blessings of life without bearing witness to the suffering of minorities. Apparently, white men must not speak of happiness because others are less fortunate. Who knew? In another letter, Annie Montague berates Robert Kirby for interpreting Salt Lake City’s homeless situation through the lens of his own secure, male world.

As a white male, I would like to ask these women: Is there somewhere I should go to get flogged in penance for my own privileged, white male existence? The Tribune is hardly the only institution that is shamelessly unbalanced in favor of minority and female victimhood. The internet giant Google fired an employee named James Damore for authoring a memo that argues that biology plays a role in the proportional differences among the sexes in managerial and technical jobs. I won’t argue the merits of Damore’s memo, although some serious scholars, including women, are defending it.

Rather, my gripe is that political correctness has reached Orwellian levels where certain topics have been ruthlessly driven from the marketplace of ideas, especially at our nation’s universities.When someone’s job depends on adherence to politically correct dogma, we are getting very near to the Catholic church’s despicable treatment of Galileo. I’m hoping the Damore incident will represent a turning of the pendulum back toward a more balanced, robust public dialogue on a broad range of social issues. I won’t bet my life on it. However, if The Tribune had an ounce of intellectual integrity, it would print the Damore memo and let the public debate take its course. We would all be wiser for it.

Darrell Mensel