In cancel culture, the public and media routinely treat an institution’s verdict as proof of wrongdoing. Disproportionate punishment is packaged as overdue accountability, disputed speech can be equated with violence, and questioning the institution’s judgment is portrayed as a lack of professionalism on the questioner’s part. In this case from what I gathered, the behavior cited in firing this tenured professor included calling his department chair something along the lines of an idiot and sending long reply-all emails to large groups of people. I believe some recipients said they felt scared after receiving his long, strange-looking but fact-based and nonthreatening emails. That may seem abrasive or eccentric, but it is not violence and does not approach the kind of gross misconduct that should justify terminating a tenured professor. Institutions take behavior that appears slightly off, amplify it into something menacing, and then use that inflated narrative to justify an extreme sanction. The severity of the punishment is then insinuated to be evidence that the underlying conduct must have been serious. The question is not whether someone is likable. It is whether specific, proven conduct justifies the punishment imposed. Eccentricity is not violence, and irritating people is not gross misconduct which is the standard that should be required to fire someone with tenure.