Bret Weinstein

In March 2017, Weinstein wrote a letter to Evergreen faculty in which he objected to a change in the college's decades-old tradition of observing a "Day of Absence", during which ethnic minority students and faculty would voluntarily stay away from campus to highlight their contributions to the college.[11] The change to the event asked white participants to stay off campus, to attend a program on race issues, while the on-campus program was designated for people of color.[12] Weinstein wrote that the change established a dangerous precedent:

There is a huge difference between a group or coalition deciding to voluntarily absent themselves from a shared space in order to highlight their vital and underappreciated roles.... and a group encouraging another group to go away. The first is a forceful call to consciousness, which is, of course, crippling to the logic of oppression. The second is a show of force, and an act of oppression in and of itself.

— Bret Weinstein, in a message to a campus email list[13]

The event organizers responded that participation was voluntary and that the event did not imply that all white people should leave.[14]

In May 2017, student protests disrupted the campus and called for a number of changes to the college. The protests involved allegations of racism, intolerance and threats; brought national attention to Evergreen; and sparked further debate about free speech on college campuses.[15] During the protests, there was an altercation between protesters and Weinstein.[16][17]

Weinstein and his wife, Heather Heying, brought a lawsuit against the school, alleging that the college's president had not asked campus police to quell student protesters.[18][19] Weinstein also said that campus police had told him that they could not protect him, and that they had encouraged him to stay off campus. Instead, Weinstein held his biology class that day in a public park.[20][21] A settlement was reached in September 2017 in which Weinstein and Heying resigned and received $250,000 each, after having sought $3.8 million in damages.[15]

Following his resignation from Evergreen, he appeared on the podcasts of Sam Harris[22] and Joe Rogan numerous times. He moderated two debates between Harris and Jordan Peterson.[23] He appeared in the documentary No Safe Spaces, which documents the Evergreen incidents.[24] Weinstein's brother Eric coined the term "intellectual dark web" and described Weinstein as a member. The term refers to a group of academics and media personalities who publish and debate outside the mainstream media, but are criticized for using the term to avoid scientific or ethical accountability.[25][26][27][28]

In June 2019, Weinstein began the DarkHorse Podcast, which is typically co-hosted with his wife Heather.[29] Their guests have included Glenn Loury, Douglas Murray, Sam Harris, John Wood Jr., Thomas Chatterton Williams and Coleman Hughes, with topics often centered on current events, science, and culture.[30]

Weinstein was a 2019–2020 James Madison Program Visiting Fellow at Princeton University, which continued for the 2020–2021 year.[31][32]

On January 29th, 2021 Weinstein appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher along with his wife Heather Heying, an evolutionary biologist, promoting the "Lab Leak" thesis around the origins of COVID-19. The Daily Beast described Weinstein and Heying as "culture-war-obsessed" and noted that they were "not epidemiologists or virologists". Weinstein claimed he was "90 percent" certain of the theory, but Kristian Andersen, an associate professor of immunology and microbiology at Scripps University has claimed “these two features of the virus, the mutations … of the spike protein and its distinct backbone, rules out laboratory manipulation as a potential origin for SARS-CoV-2."[33]