I can't marry this:

> before academia turned into the ideological warzone it is today

with this:

> and if I said such a thing, I would've probably lost my job

Weren't universities supposed to be exactly the kind of place where unorthodox ideas could be freely said out loud? To fire an educator for saying the wrong opinion about education doesn't make your university sound like the great place you suggest it was.

Education reform, including changing or ending grading, should totally be the kind of thing that people can safely discuss.