A professor’s resignation highlights pressures within academia to conform(economist.com)
economist.com
A professor’s resignation highlights pressures within academia to conform
https://www.economist.com/united-states/2021/09/25/a-professors-resignation-highlights-pressures-within-academia-to-conform
158 comments
This has been the game forever.
My wife is a professor. At her university, there is a contingent of people who insist up and down that they are simply fighting for free expression in the classroom. What they actually do is receive training from broader institutions on precisely where their writing is protected, deliberately enroll in courses taught by black, gay, and trans professors, and write hate speech in these channels. When they fail the course (because they aren't actually doing the work and obviously don't care to learn the material), they claim that they are being punished for their beliefs.
There is an organized campaign to attack institutions and create a narrative of "I've been attacked for using gendered pronouns" or whatever.
My wife is a professor. At her university, there is a contingent of people who insist up and down that they are simply fighting for free expression in the classroom. What they actually do is receive training from broader institutions on precisely where their writing is protected, deliberately enroll in courses taught by black, gay, and trans professors, and write hate speech in these channels. When they fail the course (because they aren't actually doing the work and obviously don't care to learn the material), they claim that they are being punished for their beliefs.
There is an organized campaign to attack institutions and create a narrative of "I've been attacked for using gendered pronouns" or whatever.
whats the end-game? I dont see it...
As far as I can tell, the endgame is the following:
1. Goad professors into retaliating.
2. File lawsuits alleging said retaliation.
3. Win the lawsuits.
4a. Add ammunition to the culture war where conservatives feel under threat by "elites" and reject higher education.
4b. Force universities to exercise greater administrative control over what material is taught and funded, eliminating topics that are vaguely controversial to conservatives.
1. Goad professors into retaliating.
2. File lawsuits alleging said retaliation.
3. Win the lawsuits.
4a. Add ammunition to the culture war where conservatives feel under threat by "elites" and reject higher education.
4b. Force universities to exercise greater administrative control over what material is taught and funded, eliminating topics that are vaguely controversial to conservatives.
...please continue?
unless the end-game is "make money", i don't see what the goal of 3 is
it seems like 4a and 4b might be tactics than a goal
unless the end-game is "make money", i don't see what the goal of 3 is
it seems like 4a and 4b might be tactics than a goal
I'm not a mind reader. I can only explain what I see. But I do see conservatives being mad that certain kinds of topics are taught in universities (climate science, colonialism, gender studies, etc) and would like that to change. I see these steps as an approach to building a justification for state officials to discourage or eliminate these topics from public universities under the guise of enabling free thought among the student body.
Step 3 is important because then they get to say that an impartial judge agrees that they are being treated unfairly. Without this, the broader bureaucratic institutions won't be as likely to take their whining seriously.
This aligns with other behavior like the 1776 Project or Governor DeSantis floating ideological surveys of college faculty, which clearly exists to influence curricula to match what conservatives deem more valuable.
Step 3 is important because then they get to say that an impartial judge agrees that they are being treated unfairly. Without this, the broader bureaucratic institutions won't be as likely to take their whining seriously.
This aligns with other behavior like the 1776 Project or Governor DeSantis floating ideological surveys of college faculty, which clearly exists to influence curricula to match what conservatives deem more valuable.
Just to dip in here and say that while I totally believe this, the playbook you're talking about is different than the one I'm talking about. I don't know that Boghossian is part of some organized right-wing effort to counter-program campuses (I kind of doubt it). Rather, I think he's in a low-paid, low-status academic job, and there are greener pastures in being a pedigreed culture critic with a "forced out of academia for telling like it is" calling card. Like I said, there are other examples of people very successfully executing that playbook.
That's all supposition, though. Ultimately, my complaint about Boghossian is that he's not an honest interlocutor. Why should I trust him about anything? I believe, based on what I've read, that he's colored the truth on other matters of less import than this.
That's all supposition, though. Ultimately, my complaint about Boghossian is that he's not an honest interlocutor. Why should I trust him about anything? I believe, based on what I've read, that he's colored the truth on other matters of less import than this.
I don't think that Boghossian is a leader in this space, but I do think that this is related. The reason why there is a market for "professor turned pundit after being kicked out by the over-woke universities" is because there is a demand for a narrative of universities (especially the humanities) being intellectually bankrupted in favor of left wing ideology. Boghossian sells that narrative to people who want to believe it.
The Grievance Studies hoax is of course literal trolling. But I think you’re giving these fields too much credit as a baseline. The four published articles seem plenty ridiculous to me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievance_studies_affair
The articles are ridiculous. The point is that they didn't get published anywhere meaningful, and that they were deceptive about what did and didn't get published. If they're willing to be deceptive about something as silly as this, why should I think they're unwilling to be deceptive about other stuff?
Fair point. I haven’t dug into the reporting they did on it.
I seem to remember `tptacek (and others) criticizing the Grievances affair when it first gained attention. One of the other criticisms was that the papers weren't quite as crazy as they sounded from the title alone.
I haven't done so again, but I seem to remember reading one of them when they were published, and indeed, while a bit of a funny premise, the actual report seemed to actually be interesting and actually deserved publication (assuming the data wasn't faked obviously).
I seem to remember that the more outlandish-sounding papers were the ones that weren't published, and the ones that were published were the more reasonable ones, too.
I haven't done so again, but I seem to remember reading one of them when they were published, and indeed, while a bit of a funny premise, the actual report seemed to actually be interesting and actually deserved publication (assuming the data wasn't faked obviously).
I seem to remember that the more outlandish-sounding papers were the ones that weren't published, and the ones that were published were the more reasonable ones, too.
Is it wrong to be deceptive? The anti-racists believe that the the telos of the academy is social justice not truth. Truth is a western and racist value.
On the other hand, your critique is good because it attacks the right group, despite being based on the racist notion of truth.
On the other hand, your critique is good because it attacks the right group, despite being based on the racist notion of truth.
I remember how absurd that thing was, and I always feel bad for the Sokal experiment getting lumped in with it. Proving that a journal will publish incomprehensible gibberish is a very different result than proving that some journals will publish papers that you personally think are silly, but which are otherwise coherent and meaningful and so on.
Ironically, my personal takeaway from the grievance studies thing was "it turns out that niche social science journals have higher standards than I'd have thought."
Ironically, my personal takeaway from the grievance studies thing was "it turns out that niche social science journals have higher standards than I'd have thought."
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I'm reminded of the mocking of papers with odd sounding titles.
E.g., yes, the nerve bundle of this particular snail actually is a way to easily study some reaction mechanisms.
Sometimes careers were damaged or research derailed because of this mocking.
E.g., yes, the nerve bundle of this particular snail actually is a way to easily study some reaction mechanisms.
Sometimes careers were damaged or research derailed because of this mocking.
[deleted]
The main political tool is inconsistent application of policies. When one side gets to troll as much as they want while the others side trolls gets punished then you have a problem.
> A professor at a University of California medical school was recently recorded apologising in an endocrinology lecture for using the term ‘pregnant women’.
Utterly horrific, why did he apologize?
edit: ok, I found some explanations here https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/med-schools-are-now-denying... ; only makes the matter worse
Utterly horrific, why did he apologize?
edit: ok, I found some explanations here https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/med-schools-are-now-denying... ; only makes the matter worse
This horrified me. Medicine is the only place biological sex really maters. It’s our current understanding of the biological mechanisms of human sexual characteristics that enables the very treatments transgender individuals have today!
I’m supportive of all the inclusive language stuff, we actually need more of this assertive “that is not appropriate” attitude out in the world beyond university campuses to push back against socially accepted sexism and racism. However the phrase “biological sex” must be defended, the fact we have two primary (I’m aware there are more) chromosomal types XX and XY and these drive huge swaths of human biology both sexual and otherwise is critically important. Medicine is rooted in our fundamental biology, including countless aspects affected by our genetics and basic sexual development, and denial of any of these things brings only ignorance and lower quality healthcare.
I’m still struggling to understand how this has gotten as far as the stories that article is telling. I just I don’t know how to express how furious and saddened the notion of people acting this way makes me.
I’m supportive of all the inclusive language stuff, we actually need more of this assertive “that is not appropriate” attitude out in the world beyond university campuses to push back against socially accepted sexism and racism. However the phrase “biological sex” must be defended, the fact we have two primary (I’m aware there are more) chromosomal types XX and XY and these drive huge swaths of human biology both sexual and otherwise is critically important. Medicine is rooted in our fundamental biology, including countless aspects affected by our genetics and basic sexual development, and denial of any of these things brings only ignorance and lower quality healthcare.
I’m still struggling to understand how this has gotten as far as the stories that article is telling. I just I don’t know how to express how furious and saddened the notion of people acting this way makes me.
So, ok, without attempting to justify here, what's going on is that the word 'woman' (used in OP) and the word 'female' (used by you) are taken by some folks (an increasing tranche) to mean different things.
Like, I would consider myself a woman, but not female.
I'm not really interested in debating this; in my mouth, it's descriptive linguistics and anthropology, not an ontological claim.
I do however agree that the obsession my fellow progressives have with terminology belies a deeper fecklessness. Ultimately, it's a form of procrastination that distracts from deeper cultural transformation.
I would that we evaluate every speaker by the measure of their empathy.
When I was a PhD student in philosophy, we called this the 'principle of charity', and, like climate change, I feel its progressive loss with a deep sense of dread.
An ability to put oneself in the shoes of a very-different other is the hallmark of a wise person, and wisdom is retreating faster than glaciers.
Like, I would consider myself a woman, but not female.
I'm not really interested in debating this; in my mouth, it's descriptive linguistics and anthropology, not an ontological claim.
I do however agree that the obsession my fellow progressives have with terminology belies a deeper fecklessness. Ultimately, it's a form of procrastination that distracts from deeper cultural transformation.
I would that we evaluate every speaker by the measure of their empathy.
When I was a PhD student in philosophy, we called this the 'principle of charity', and, like climate change, I feel its progressive loss with a deep sense of dread.
An ability to put oneself in the shoes of a very-different other is the hallmark of a wise person, and wisdom is retreating faster than glaciers.
> Like, I would consider myself a woman, but not female.
If you are adult and it's genetically possible for you to form oocytes (doesn't mean physiologically since you can be sterile), then by biological definition you are a woman.
edit: there's adj female which just means belonging to a girl/woman in humans
If you are adult and it's genetically possible for you to form oocytes (doesn't mean physiologically since you can be sterile), then by biological definition you are a woman.
edit: there's adj female which just means belonging to a girl/woman in humans
No need to justify at all, and thanks for such a thoughtful reply! Your point about descriptive statements vs ontological facts is exactly what to me feels like the core issue. The intersection of overloaded terminology, the broader social aspects of language dynamics, and efforts to better ourselves as a society through various progressive efforts…
I don’t like being stuck with inadequate terminology and like unnecessary imprecision even more. As a society we have reached a point where the simplistic “male”/“man” and “female”/“woman” are now clearly inadequate on several fronts. Up till now it seemed as though each field of human endeavour using these terms was making up their own meanings as was appropriate for that field, and each field was being pushed back on (rightfully so) by progressive people trying to make things better. But what scares me is this recent shift to considering such words inappropriate in of themselves.
My fear and opposition here specifically stems from the actions people appear to be taking that are preventing the education of a group of trained professionals from containing information about a fundamental aspect of the biological functioning of a human being. I’m no more attached to the current paradigm of medicine using “male”/“man” and “female”/“woman” than I am to calling the t-shirt I’m wearing “navy blue” or “dark blue”.
Your point about empathy is very important, in my mind we need to have more empathy when dealing with fields like medicine where it’s going to be hardest to separate their work from biological foundations. I also think that if the terms in use currently are inadequate then just as we have seen the growth of the term “cis-gender” we may just need new terms of a similar nature for medical professionals to talk about these important biological details. If this is necessary then let’s get it done and end the distraction over a field that has much bigger problems to focus on.
If we educate a generation of doctors with an inadequate understanding of human biology, I fear for the future. It’s a hard enough profession without being taught less (not wrong, just less) because of medical educators being concerned about offending their students. The terms used to teach a medical student will have infinitely less impact on them than what lies in the actual practice of medicine. the feel of a patients ribs breaking while performing CPR, patients that die from bleeding out, children in palliative care slowly dying of cancer. I have had the pleasure of knowing a few good doctors and I know I could never do their job, I struggle to imagine the sorts of people that might raise these complaints as students having the kind of charitable and empathetic personality that makes a good doctor.
I don’t like being stuck with inadequate terminology and like unnecessary imprecision even more. As a society we have reached a point where the simplistic “male”/“man” and “female”/“woman” are now clearly inadequate on several fronts. Up till now it seemed as though each field of human endeavour using these terms was making up their own meanings as was appropriate for that field, and each field was being pushed back on (rightfully so) by progressive people trying to make things better. But what scares me is this recent shift to considering such words inappropriate in of themselves.
My fear and opposition here specifically stems from the actions people appear to be taking that are preventing the education of a group of trained professionals from containing information about a fundamental aspect of the biological functioning of a human being. I’m no more attached to the current paradigm of medicine using “male”/“man” and “female”/“woman” than I am to calling the t-shirt I’m wearing “navy blue” or “dark blue”.
Your point about empathy is very important, in my mind we need to have more empathy when dealing with fields like medicine where it’s going to be hardest to separate their work from biological foundations. I also think that if the terms in use currently are inadequate then just as we have seen the growth of the term “cis-gender” we may just need new terms of a similar nature for medical professionals to talk about these important biological details. If this is necessary then let’s get it done and end the distraction over a field that has much bigger problems to focus on.
If we educate a generation of doctors with an inadequate understanding of human biology, I fear for the future. It’s a hard enough profession without being taught less (not wrong, just less) because of medical educators being concerned about offending their students. The terms used to teach a medical student will have infinitely less impact on them than what lies in the actual practice of medicine. the feel of a patients ribs breaking while performing CPR, patients that die from bleeding out, children in palliative care slowly dying of cancer. I have had the pleasure of knowing a few good doctors and I know I could never do their job, I struggle to imagine the sorts of people that might raise these complaints as students having the kind of charitable and empathetic personality that makes a good doctor.
Yours is a fair and reasoned response. It’s being downvoted is probably chilling; it would be for me. I’m far more worried about that in a place like this than I am about illiberalism on campus.
Society gets to live with the monster that it created. There are people who believe that a one-mother-and-one-father family structure matters, and they were shouted down years ago and told they were bigots and that the slippery slope was an obvious fallacy.
Saying "pregnant patient" instead of "pregnant woman" doesn't somehow stop us from learning about biological mechanisms related to sex. No one is denying that having XX chromosomes increases your risk of getting pregnant -- they're just saying that you shouldn't use language that incorrectly assumes than everyone in that situation is a woman. The absurd claim that people in medical schools are denying the existence of biological sex requires that you take everything said in bad faith and assume the dumbest possible interpretation. For example:
> > “Biological sex, sexual orientation, and gender are all constructs. These are all constructs that we have created.”
> In other words, some of the country’s top medical students are being taught that humans are not, like other mammals, a species comprising two sexes. The notion of sex, they are learning, is just a man-made creation.
When people say that biological sex is a construct, they're not saying that humans are actually sexless beings like angels and physical differences between men and women are just a lie made up by the patriarchy -- no one seriously believes such a thing. They're just saying that the way that we classify biological sex is based on our socially constructed ideas about gender. For example, children who are born with features of both sexes are often given surgery to make their bodies fit with the norm for one gender or the other so that they can grow up as a "normal" boy or girl. In other words, the sex someone is deemed to be is based on how we expect them to live in our society. Similarly, when trans people go through medical transition, some of their sex features change and others don't. Whether you view them as having changed their biological sex is a "is it hot in Athens" sort of question, and it's probably going to be affected by your social views on trans people. You might not view issues like this as sufficient to call biological sex a "construct," but you should be able to understand how someone might come to that view without believing outrage-driven fantasies about medical students thinking that sex is imaginary.
> > “Biological sex, sexual orientation, and gender are all constructs. These are all constructs that we have created.”
> In other words, some of the country’s top medical students are being taught that humans are not, like other mammals, a species comprising two sexes. The notion of sex, they are learning, is just a man-made creation.
When people say that biological sex is a construct, they're not saying that humans are actually sexless beings like angels and physical differences between men and women are just a lie made up by the patriarchy -- no one seriously believes such a thing. They're just saying that the way that we classify biological sex is based on our socially constructed ideas about gender. For example, children who are born with features of both sexes are often given surgery to make their bodies fit with the norm for one gender or the other so that they can grow up as a "normal" boy or girl. In other words, the sex someone is deemed to be is based on how we expect them to live in our society. Similarly, when trans people go through medical transition, some of their sex features change and others don't. Whether you view them as having changed their biological sex is a "is it hot in Athens" sort of question, and it's probably going to be affected by your social views on trans people. You might not view issues like this as sufficient to call biological sex a "construct," but you should be able to understand how someone might come to that view without believing outrage-driven fantasies about medical students thinking that sex is imaginary.
Is gravity a "construct"? Is genetics a "construct"? What exactly do you claim is the difference between a "construct" and "non-construct"? And what gives you the authority to allow certain views about said "constructs" and forbid others?
Every year i think these people found now the greatest level of stuipid, then they create a new level in the next one... i am wondering with trepidation what they are deciding next. Always it start in the university then filter out to other places, makes me very scared for the next some years when this comes to real life.
Not sure why you're downvoted. The comment is obviously angry. But, at this point you can write a book about the "greatest levels of stupid that started in university".
Across all movements and institutions, a small minority of radicals ruin it for the entire community. For some reason, Academia loves to act as if their radicals are not representative of the institution, while using the same guilt-by-association to criticize and often ostracize every other group that crosses them the wrong way.
The exasperation in the tone of the above poster, is IMO, fully justified. Alarmism is always looked at badly, but alarms exist for a reason. Sometimes things are that bad and an alarmist response is commensurate. I think it is one of those times. Ofc, like every other precursor to disaster, these alarmists will be ignored. Then in a few decades time, someone will say, "How did we not see it coming?", and a few of us will roll in graves rather vigorously.
> makes me very scared for the next some years when this comes to real life
Me too mate. Me too.
Across all movements and institutions, a small minority of radicals ruin it for the entire community. For some reason, Academia loves to act as if their radicals are not representative of the institution, while using the same guilt-by-association to criticize and often ostracize every other group that crosses them the wrong way.
The exasperation in the tone of the above poster, is IMO, fully justified. Alarmism is always looked at badly, but alarms exist for a reason. Sometimes things are that bad and an alarmist response is commensurate. I think it is one of those times. Ofc, like every other precursor to disaster, these alarmists will be ignored. Then in a few decades time, someone will say, "How did we not see it coming?", and a few of us will roll in graves rather vigorously.
> makes me very scared for the next some years when this comes to real life
Me too mate. Me too.
It wont come to real life though. If one company fires tons of great engineers for SJW reasons then other companies will thank them and hire all of them instantly. And if the SJW types would infiltrate all the big companies at once those Engineers would just create a new company where they make the rules.
I think the SJWs have already infiltrated all the big software companies, if the trend in quality of the latters' output is any indication. Inconsistent UI? Bugs (sometimes catastrophic) everywhere? They're just being diverse and inclusive! </s>
> Inconsistent UI? Bugs (sometimes catastrophic) everywhere?
Can you name a time when big companies didn't have those problems? To me the problem seems to be related to being big, not SJW.
Can you name a time when big companies didn't have those problems? To me the problem seems to be related to being big, not SJW.
Around 2011-2013 is when the quality of a lot of stuff took a major nosedive, and roughly correlates with the rise of D&I ideology. I'm not saying it's a definitive causation, but it seems if you start hiring based on who people are instead of what they can do, the effects become visible pretty quickly.
Do you have any data on things taking a major nosedive 2011-2013? I didn't notice it so I'd be happy to understand why you think so.
[deleted]
> those Engineers would just create a new company where they make the rules
And if the law changes? Or the culture becomes hostile? This libertarian fantasy that you can just leave is nice, but not always possible.
And if the law changes? Or the culture becomes hostile? This libertarian fantasy that you can just leave is nice, but not always possible.
I'm assuming you're talking broadly about social justice types. I don't want to put words on anyone's mouth, but it seems to me there is some extreme group that is basically pranking everyone, intentionally escalating how silly their demands are, and people are to scared to push back, so they keep trying more outrageous things.
There was a South Park about it over 20 years ago (you may remember Lemmywinks)
I don't know what to do about it, but at the personal level you can just ignore it.
There was a South Park about it over 20 years ago (you may remember Lemmywinks)
I don't know what to do about it, but at the personal level you can just ignore it.
> at the personal level you can just ignore it
But ignoring it gets you canceled.
But ignoring it gets you canceled.
That is what they want to believe, but it is mostly not true. Even at Google they made it look like it was the case, I worked there during the Damore debacle. But tons of Engineers went against the grain and weren't cancelled, instead after that I noticed that Google started cracking down on the worst SJW types at Google and firing them. It didn't benefit Google to have these SJW types running the show when by far the most common view at the company was pro meritocracy, SJW makes a lot of noise making it seem like they have a lot of power but they only have that power if leaders believe SJW have power. When leaders calls the bluff nothing happens, the company doesn't get attacked etc, things just peter out.
Unacceptable. Once you've run a highly public witch-burning and realized that was a Rather Bad Idea, you need to do better than quietly sweep up the ashes afterwards.
“you need to do better”
that’s kind of the motto of the SJW, my interpretation of the parent is that they actually don’t have to do better, there are no consequences for ignoring such demands
that’s kind of the motto of the SJW, my interpretation of the parent is that they actually don’t have to do better, there are no consequences for ignoring such demands
That got modded down fast. I agree completely with this comment. Trying to direct internet rage against anyone is a losing formula, it only creates the fear and race to the bottom that we're seeing. Live and let live, if you dont like something, say so, or ignore it, but dont try to whip the world into a frenzy about it.
(Lol and my comment was modded down as quickly as I could submit it, keep refreshing buddy you dont want to miss anything)
(Lol and my comment was modded down as quickly as I could submit it, keep refreshing buddy you dont want to miss anything)
It's a good motto. As is "do the work".
You see articles about Google firing SJW people them now and then, but people forget those since few cares. Each time a heated discussion is created here at HN, with lots of posters condemning Google for it, but those posters doesn't seem to represent the wider views of engineers or even HN.
Pronoun battle forces you to participate. Source, lost a job because I tried to stay out of it.
I am so sorry on your behalf, this is terrible that you lose a job for it. Yes, and you are correct, if somebody tell you to use a plural pronoun it if forcing everybody to take a side. It is putting everybody in some position to either endorse or reject woke post-gender ideas.
In a tiny handful of high-profile cases yes. Realistically it's a lot less likely than e.g. getting randomly hit by a car, and so we shouldn't let it change our behaviour.
Imagine caring, and keeping a link to your real life and online personas enough to cause real life consequences.
you should listen to this song by John Lennon called "Imagine":
> Imagine all the people
> Living life in peace...
> Imagine all the people
> Living life in peace...
[deleted]
>In 2018, Mark Perry of the University of Michigan revealed that his university had nearly 80 diversity officers at a total annual payroll cost of $10.6m.
What do they even do? Why do you need multiple per department?
What do they even do? Why do you need multiple per department?
Having worked in academia as part of one of the bloated administrative staffs, they probably do little to nothing. Maybe spend 6 weeks making Powerpoints that <15 people will see, then lots of pointless meetings. Everything takes 5x longer than estimated since you have to solicit and incorporate immaterial feedback from dozens of people for the sake of inclusion. Need a 5 page WP site spun up? 4 months. Implement some simple analytics tags? Best case of 2 weeks. Custom dashboards? 2 months is the benchmark. College tuition just keeps getting more and more outlandish to feed the beast-- yet when you look at associate/non-tenured professor (those creating actual value) pay at most colleges, it is laughable relative to the admin overhead and fat salaries for senior leadership.
I'm the first to point out the absurd levels of gross bureaucracy in any large institution, but my first instinct is to question whether "Diversity Officer" is a distinct job title or just an additional committee that something like a professor can be a member of, since it sounds more like the latter, despite the quote implying the former.
its a shame that multiple generations went into debt for this
> Why do you need multiple per department?
To employ their friends who graduated with a humanities degree but couldn't find work.
To employ their friends who graduated with a humanities degree but couldn't find work.
An alarming aspect of this lack of intellectual diversity, for me, is how academia has become a major (if not the major) platform for discussion of issues relating to racial and religious minorities. Being an Asian from a Muslim country, I've been quite surprised to see how often college professors are brought onto, e.g., news programs to weigh in on issues affecting those groups. (E.g. after the Atlanta message spa shootings.)
That makes sense that people would look to academia to learn about unfamiliar minority groups. But as a result, the discourse about and within those groups is heavily distorted by the intellectual homogeneity of academia. Because, of course, you can't get tenure as a professor of Islamic Studies at an Ivy League University espousing beliefs that virtually all Muslims worldwide hold.
That makes sense that people would look to academia to learn about unfamiliar minority groups. But as a result, the discourse about and within those groups is heavily distorted by the intellectual homogeneity of academia. Because, of course, you can't get tenure as a professor of Islamic Studies at an Ivy League University espousing beliefs that virtually all Muslims worldwide hold.
Have you gone through the exercise of enumerating the beliefs of tenured Islamic studies professors at Ivy league universities, or are we just enjoying your speculation?
A few off the top of my head:
1.) Homosexuality is forbidden in Islam and is generally looked down upon.
2.) Not necessarily based off the Quran but their stance on Israel is generally not aligned with the western countries.
3.) Women's rights
Having strong views/beliefs that aren't aligned with the progressive agenda would pretty much keep you from any job at an Ivy league school no a days.
Having strong views/beliefs that aren't aligned with the progressive agenda would pretty much keep you from any job at an Ivy league school no a days.
"Enumerating" means identifying the specific beliefs of each individual in question, not waving your hands in the air and declaring what you think Ivy league professors are required to believe.
>
"Enumerating" means identifying the specific beliefs of each individual in question, not waving your hands in the air and declaring what you think Ivy league professors are required to believe.
Enumerating is specifying one after the other; creating a list. The comment you're replying to is a list of things. If that isn't what you meant, you might reword your comment so others may address it as you would like.
Enumerating is specifying one after the other; creating a list. The comment you're replying to is a list of things. If that isn't what you meant, you might reword your comment so others may address it as you would like.
In the comment they replied to there's a clear phrase describing my meaning. You are being ridiculous.
enumerating the beliefs of tenured Islamic studies professors at Ivy league universities
If they are tenured Ivy league professors and have cartoon Muslim beliefs, then I win the argument…
enumerating the beliefs of tenured Islamic studies professors at Ivy league universities
If they are tenured Ivy league professors and have cartoon Muslim beliefs, then I win the argument…
>In the comment they replied to there's a clear phrase describing my meaning. You are being ridiculous.
What's ridiculous is asking for a thing, receiving that thing, then proceeding to lament the thing you asked for isn't what you wanted.
>I win the argument…
You win nothing.
What's ridiculous is asking for a thing, receiving that thing, then proceeding to lament the thing you asked for isn't what you wanted.
>I win the argument…
You win nothing.
You don't seem to understand what a phrase is.
No abortion after 120 days for the most part.
Parents post is about what the majority of Muslims believe, not tenured professors of Islamic studies. Other wise, in parents opinion, they would not get tenure.
And if there is a tenured Muslim professor of Islamic studies, what does that do to their argument?
Well, the first thing that I'd point out is the Yale Islamic studies departments diversity and equal opportunity statements. This will fly heavily against much of the Islamic world's views on homosexuality.
It’s not just what gets said it’s what doesn’t get said. Islam, more so than Protestant Christianity, views the teachings of the prophet as guidance and a model for how to live. One can imagine scholarly work that analyzes how Islamic beliefs—including traditional ones—provide social benefits. For example, there is a strong negative correlation between AIDs prevalence and percentage Muslim population in African countries, likely due to rigid Islamic sexual standards.
Of course being a professor is different than being an imam. But the political climate in American universities—under which you have to take many of the beliefs of most of the world’s 1.8 billion Muslims as per se bigotry—means you get a lot of articles focused on how Americans are racist against Muslims and relatively little work delving into Islam itself on its own merits.
In the context of racial minorities, you see a huge distortion as well. The religiosity and social conservatism of Black people tends to be totally excluded from academic conversations about structural racism. Raj Chetty (a British Indian economist) has been doing studies showing that the two factors that most strongly affect upward mobility for Black kids is rates of single parenthood in the community as a whole, and levels of white racism. The latter is covered at length in academic treatments, but the former is virtually ignored.
These distortions exist with respect to other groups, but have less impact there because academia has far less impact. Harvard’s new lead chaplain is an atheist, but who care because academia has very little influence on the public discourse surrounding Christianity. Nobody looks to academia to explain what Irish Americans are thinking.
Of course being a professor is different than being an imam. But the political climate in American universities—under which you have to take many of the beliefs of most of the world’s 1.8 billion Muslims as per se bigotry—means you get a lot of articles focused on how Americans are racist against Muslims and relatively little work delving into Islam itself on its own merits.
In the context of racial minorities, you see a huge distortion as well. The religiosity and social conservatism of Black people tends to be totally excluded from academic conversations about structural racism. Raj Chetty (a British Indian economist) has been doing studies showing that the two factors that most strongly affect upward mobility for Black kids is rates of single parenthood in the community as a whole, and levels of white racism. The latter is covered at length in academic treatments, but the former is virtually ignored.
These distortions exist with respect to other groups, but have less impact there because academia has far less impact. Harvard’s new lead chaplain is an atheist, but who care because academia has very little influence on the public discourse surrounding Christianity. Nobody looks to academia to explain what Irish Americans are thinking.
Nothing? Parents point is that Muslim professors of Islamic studies do not represent the views of “most” Muslims.
Do you actually think it's at all plausible that such an exercise would have a different result to what GP is claiming, or are you just using this as a way to suppress their position?
I think it's likely!
Burden of proof is on the one making the claim, not the one asking for evidence in support of the claim.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but the converse is that mundane common-sense claims do not. https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/14/beware-isolated-demand...
Nope, mundane claims still require evidence, and it should be even easier to find and present.
Lots of things which are "common sense" are not at all true.
Lots of things which are "common sense" are not at all true.
> In 2020 Norman Wang, a cardiologist at the University of Pittsburgh, was demoted for publishing a paper in the Journal of the American Heart Association that analysed and criticised diversity initiatives. The journal issued an apology and retracted it.
The Economist really under-described this article in a way that seems deceptive. In the retraction notice[1], two examples of misrepresented quotations from Dr. Wang's article are displayed next to the primary source. Misrepresenting sources is not 'analysis'.
1 = https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/JAHA.119.014602
1 = https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/JAHA.119.014602
Universities have always been hotbeds of activism (and sources of an occasional revolution). Compared to the 20th century, the current level of activism is still pretty mild. No major faction, for example, is advocating for a violent revolution or recruiting for an enemy state.
What is different today is that one of the major political factions is absent. If your message is often anti-university and anti-education, your supporters will have a hard time maintaining credibility if they try to spread your message as students or employees of the university. At best, they can align with the student-as-such camp that claims that political and social issues have no place on campus. Because they have to remain silent, other factions appear stronger than they are.
What is different today is that one of the major political factions is absent. If your message is often anti-university and anti-education, your supporters will have a hard time maintaining credibility if they try to spread your message as students or employees of the university. At best, they can align with the student-as-such camp that claims that political and social issues have no place on campus. Because they have to remain silent, other factions appear stronger than they are.
I would like to call this man’s bluff: he was not fired or censured by the university. He found it uncomfy and left. His crusade to publish 20 fake papers to prove a point about what journals will accept shows a pre-existing contempt. His prominent media tour, and subsequent complaints about lack of coverage by ‘liberal media’ continues that provocateur ethos. Let him make his points, but I refuse to believe in the stereotype that ideological homogeneity is some kind of crisis in academia. I’ll pay attention when they start purging the Keynesian economics professors and disallowing Christians from matriculation without denouncing their faith. I’ll fight back when those professors who disagree with Inclusion culture are fired for their beliefs. Until then this feels much like the rest of the conservative persecution tropes and I’m just not biting.
You've twisted it all up:
>> I would like to call this man’s bluff: he was not fired or censured by the university. He found it uncomfy and left. His crusade to publish 20 fake papers to prove a point about what journals will accept shows a pre-existing contempt.
That's right, he never claimed he was fired - he quit. He does find it uncomfy and absolutely seems to have contempt for what "education" has become. That's not a bluff - you're trying to call him out on something, but there's nothing to call out. You're claim of what's really going on is pretty much what he said.
>> I would like to call this man’s bluff: he was not fired or censured by the university. He found it uncomfy and left. His crusade to publish 20 fake papers to prove a point about what journals will accept shows a pre-existing contempt.
That's right, he never claimed he was fired - he quit. He does find it uncomfy and absolutely seems to have contempt for what "education" has become. That's not a bluff - you're trying to call him out on something, but there's nothing to call out. You're claim of what's really going on is pretty much what he said.
I know a tenured, well-published economics professor struggling to keep his job for not towing the party line at a major state university.
Which party line is that, exactly?
(Economics is rather noted for hostility to heterodoxy, though more typically enforced by right-establishment rather than left-opposition.)
(Economics is rather noted for hostility to heterodoxy, though more typically enforced by right-establishment rather than left-opposition.)
98% of professors who register a party register democrat. Which party do you think given that data?
ahahahahah(2)
The Democratic party doesn't have a single party line and includes political left and right ideologies. Socialists and progressives are a minority, and much of the party still supports right-wing neoliberalism.
If your point is that professional truth-seekers (what scientists and academics are supposed to be) avoid the Republican party in its current state, I'd say it should be pretty obvious why that is.
If your point is that professional truth-seekers (what scientists and academics are supposed to be) avoid the Republican party in its current state, I'd say it should be pretty obvious why that is.
I would like to point out the underlying thought behind your comment - that truth is more on the left then right. If a professor doesn't tow the line, they will lose their funding, reputation, and job.
As someone who was a chemistry professor with great reviews for the majority of a decade, and left after being told by the dean of science that "it's not advantageous that you are a white scientist" and "you came from a well educated family right?" (I didn't). This came after years of increasing discomfort with the state of college education.
I wasn't and still am not a republican - I see myself much more comfortable as critical of the left. The political left in college environments is now super unhealthy since it's the vast majority of the professorate - to the point that ideas that can be associated with the right are simply wrong if not morally repugnant.
Do you agree that any disparity is evidence of racism, and that policies either increase disparity (and are racist) or decrease disparity (and therefore anti-racist)? That was the current discussion when I left the field. For example I'll pull from the nytimes discussion (not a right leaning news source) https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/12/nyregion/covid-vaccine-bl... https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/05/world/boston-mayor-janey-... Are new york vaccine mandates racist since they disproportionately effect BIPOC? This type of discussion was so far removed from science and so deeply held that anything other than full acceptance of that was career suicide.
At the college I worked at, the 80%+ of the faculty I worked at was female, 80%+ of the department heads were female, 80%+ of the deans were female, 80%+ of the VPs were female, the college president was female, and the majority of the students were female. Female was considered diverse in hiring and diversity was considered very important.
To your comment, I was trying to be a truth-seeker as a scientist and academic, and I left the academia because it stopped seeking truth in an honest way.
As someone who was a chemistry professor with great reviews for the majority of a decade, and left after being told by the dean of science that "it's not advantageous that you are a white scientist" and "you came from a well educated family right?" (I didn't). This came after years of increasing discomfort with the state of college education.
I wasn't and still am not a republican - I see myself much more comfortable as critical of the left. The political left in college environments is now super unhealthy since it's the vast majority of the professorate - to the point that ideas that can be associated with the right are simply wrong if not morally repugnant.
Do you agree that any disparity is evidence of racism, and that policies either increase disparity (and are racist) or decrease disparity (and therefore anti-racist)? That was the current discussion when I left the field. For example I'll pull from the nytimes discussion (not a right leaning news source) https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/12/nyregion/covid-vaccine-bl... https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/05/world/boston-mayor-janey-... Are new york vaccine mandates racist since they disproportionately effect BIPOC? This type of discussion was so far removed from science and so deeply held that anything other than full acceptance of that was career suicide.
At the college I worked at, the 80%+ of the faculty I worked at was female, 80%+ of the department heads were female, 80%+ of the deans were female, 80%+ of the VPs were female, the college president was female, and the majority of the students were female. Female was considered diverse in hiring and diversity was considered very important.
To your comment, I was trying to be a truth-seeker as a scientist and academic, and I left the academia because it stopped seeking truth in an honest way.
> I would like to point out the underlying thought behind your comment - that truth is more on the left then right.
At the moment, in the US? Absolutely. Have you seen the kind of things that people on the right are saying? And not just some nutjobs (they always exist as part of any group), but their political leadership and political commentators. They have completely embraced lies as a point of policy.
That is of course a completely different issue from what's going on in American universities, and I'm not arguing that there's nothing wrong is wrong there. I'm just saying that this:
> it's not advantageous that you are a white scientist"
Is not a party line of the Democratic Party, it's not a traditionally left-wing position either. And excluding people for their skin colour is also not exactly a left-wing thing. Many, many people on the left will disagree with silencing professors for any reason, especially merely for being white.
> to the point that ideas that can be associated with the right are simply wrong if not morally repugnant.
It depends on what those ideas are. Racism? Yes, that is absolutely morally repugnant. Low taxes? Well, I think extreme economic inequality is harmful, but it's not something I'd call "morally repugnant".
> Do you agree that any disparity is evidence of racism
Obviously not. Though racism can obviously be an important cause of disparity, but it's one of many.
> and that policies either increase disparity (and are racist) or decrease disparity (and therefore anti-racist)?
If we're talking racial disparity, then knowingly enacting policies that increase that disparity would be racist. The policies themselves might be totally fine in a different context. Context matters a lot.
> Are new york vaccine mandates racist since they disproportionately effect BIPOC?
Not as long as vaccines are easily available to them. (What does "BIPOC" mean? I know PoC means people of colour.)
> Female was considered diverse in hiring and diversity was considered very important.
Not if 80% of the people are women. Then focusing on hiring more women is anti-diversity. Again, there's nothing left-wing about intentionally trying to exclude entire demographic groups, and I don't think trying to exclude men completely has ever been the party line of the Democratic Party, which is the specific claim I was addressing.
> To your comment, I was trying to be a truth-seeker as a scientist and academic, and I left the academia because it stopped seeking truth in an honest way.
And I applaud you for doing so. I'd probably have done the same in your situation. I'm just arguing that there's nothing traditionally left-wing about this. It's just archconservatism with the roles swapped.
I guess it's a form of extremism hijacking what were originally good ideas and taking them to unhealthy extremes. It's like the difference between real feminism that wants equality for men and women, versus the man-hating parody of feminism that wants to replace the patriarchy with an identical matriarchy and not actually solve anything (and I know those people exist, and they might well be a big part of the problem at your university).
At the moment, in the US? Absolutely. Have you seen the kind of things that people on the right are saying? And not just some nutjobs (they always exist as part of any group), but their political leadership and political commentators. They have completely embraced lies as a point of policy.
That is of course a completely different issue from what's going on in American universities, and I'm not arguing that there's nothing wrong is wrong there. I'm just saying that this:
> it's not advantageous that you are a white scientist"
Is not a party line of the Democratic Party, it's not a traditionally left-wing position either. And excluding people for their skin colour is also not exactly a left-wing thing. Many, many people on the left will disagree with silencing professors for any reason, especially merely for being white.
> to the point that ideas that can be associated with the right are simply wrong if not morally repugnant.
It depends on what those ideas are. Racism? Yes, that is absolutely morally repugnant. Low taxes? Well, I think extreme economic inequality is harmful, but it's not something I'd call "morally repugnant".
> Do you agree that any disparity is evidence of racism
Obviously not. Though racism can obviously be an important cause of disparity, but it's one of many.
> and that policies either increase disparity (and are racist) or decrease disparity (and therefore anti-racist)?
If we're talking racial disparity, then knowingly enacting policies that increase that disparity would be racist. The policies themselves might be totally fine in a different context. Context matters a lot.
> Are new york vaccine mandates racist since they disproportionately effect BIPOC?
Not as long as vaccines are easily available to them. (What does "BIPOC" mean? I know PoC means people of colour.)
> Female was considered diverse in hiring and diversity was considered very important.
Not if 80% of the people are women. Then focusing on hiring more women is anti-diversity. Again, there's nothing left-wing about intentionally trying to exclude entire demographic groups, and I don't think trying to exclude men completely has ever been the party line of the Democratic Party, which is the specific claim I was addressing.
> To your comment, I was trying to be a truth-seeker as a scientist and academic, and I left the academia because it stopped seeking truth in an honest way.
And I applaud you for doing so. I'd probably have done the same in your situation. I'm just arguing that there's nothing traditionally left-wing about this. It's just archconservatism with the roles swapped.
I guess it's a form of extremism hijacking what were originally good ideas and taking them to unhealthy extremes. It's like the difference between real feminism that wants equality for men and women, versus the man-hating parody of feminism that wants to replace the patriarchy with an identical matriarchy and not actually solve anything (and I know those people exist, and they might well be a big part of the problem at your university).
thanks for the polite and engaging discussion
BIPOC = Black, Indigenous, People of Color
Anyways, one final thought. What I presented above isn't a fringe and extremist thought on college campuses anymore. It's what has to be openly accepted as full truth. It's hard to communicate to people who aren't in the thick of it how crazy it has become. Admittedly, I'm in a more "progressive" city, but this is almost unbelievably pervasive at this point. The "good" liberals are often not aware the extent of how crazy this is and how much capture there is to this mindset in colleges.
If you have 1.5 minutes at 2x speed and are interested in some shock and awe around this discussion at harvard discussing the moral choses of whites, check out https://youtu.be/Ei-d83i5PNg?t=3433
BIPOC = Black, Indigenous, People of Color
Anyways, one final thought. What I presented above isn't a fringe and extremist thought on college campuses anymore. It's what has to be openly accepted as full truth. It's hard to communicate to people who aren't in the thick of it how crazy it has become. Admittedly, I'm in a more "progressive" city, but this is almost unbelievably pervasive at this point. The "good" liberals are often not aware the extent of how crazy this is and how much capture there is to this mindset in colleges.
If you have 1.5 minutes at 2x speed and are interested in some shock and awe around this discussion at harvard discussing the moral choses of whites, check out https://youtu.be/Ei-d83i5PNg?t=3433
To answer your question it is the leftist party line he is refusing to tow.
Thanks.
> Let him make his points, but I refuse to believe in the stereotype that ideological homogeneity is some kind of crisis in academia. I’ll pay attention when they start purging the Keynesian economics professors and disallowing Christians from matriculation without denouncing their faith.
Liberal faculty outnumber conservatives on average 10 to 1, and are openly hostile to them [1]. UC-Berkeley has an official requirement for job candidates to have specific plans on how to increase diversity [2], and won't hire anyone that won't champion diversity. But neither of that is purging Keynesians or making Christians denounce their faith, so you're safe in continuing to not pay attention.
[1] https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/02/study_liberalto...
[2] "eight different departments affiliated with the life sciences used a diversity rubric to weed out applicants for positions. This was the first step: In one example, of a pool of 894 candidates was narrowed down to 214 based solely on how convincing their plans to spread diversity were." - https://reason.com/2020/02/03/university-of-california-diver...
Liberal faculty outnumber conservatives on average 10 to 1, and are openly hostile to them [1]. UC-Berkeley has an official requirement for job candidates to have specific plans on how to increase diversity [2], and won't hire anyone that won't champion diversity. But neither of that is purging Keynesians or making Christians denounce their faith, so you're safe in continuing to not pay attention.
[1] https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/02/study_liberalto...
[2] "eight different departments affiliated with the life sciences used a diversity rubric to weed out applicants for positions. This was the first step: In one example, of a pool of 894 candidates was narrowed down to 214 based solely on how convincing their plans to spread diversity were." - https://reason.com/2020/02/03/university-of-california-diver...
what is the adage... that once something becomes a performance metric (or something like that) it is no longer useful?
Okay you’ve piqued my attention.
I like that I disagree with this. The thing about conservatives is they have an inbuilt notion of individual dignity that often precludes letting it get to the point where they are fired, or more plausibly, set up for some title IX slander campaign and a purge. (Sometimes I think Quillette doesn't publish anything else) The whole progressive ontology is centered on the continuity of a narrative and avoiding personal accountability, so nobody would actually fire him, they would contrive circumstances where they "had no choice," and that like them, he is merely subject to the inevitable forces of history and progress.
I can't defend all reactionaries, but there is no doubt that the logic of the idea behind inclusion is predicated on the very victim identity that an education is supposed to liberate students from. It's not intended to improve the lives of people in our respective nations, it's designed to subvert and dissolve our civilization and subordinate it to directed chaos, the same way it did to Cambodia, China, and Russia, among others. These countries did not have rules for denouncing faith before graduation, instead, people were "free" to visit churches that were watched by secret police, and they would be added to a list so that the bureaucracy could get back at them invisibly. Keynesians won't be purged because they are used to justify MMT, and so they are necessary to sustain the current narrative. They can be replaced with party members in the next purge anyway.
The mistake I think he made was believing the system he came out of still had any integrity or was rules based. The universities have been converted into a single party system of rule without accountability, and they have diminishingly little to do with education at all. This is what he didn't get, and what everyone tacitly acknowledges, and it appears he thought they still sent memos about when the rules were nullified.
I can't defend all reactionaries, but there is no doubt that the logic of the idea behind inclusion is predicated on the very victim identity that an education is supposed to liberate students from. It's not intended to improve the lives of people in our respective nations, it's designed to subvert and dissolve our civilization and subordinate it to directed chaos, the same way it did to Cambodia, China, and Russia, among others. These countries did not have rules for denouncing faith before graduation, instead, people were "free" to visit churches that were watched by secret police, and they would be added to a list so that the bureaucracy could get back at them invisibly. Keynesians won't be purged because they are used to justify MMT, and so they are necessary to sustain the current narrative. They can be replaced with party members in the next purge anyway.
The mistake I think he made was believing the system he came out of still had any integrity or was rules based. The universities have been converted into a single party system of rule without accountability, and they have diminishingly little to do with education at all. This is what he didn't get, and what everyone tacitly acknowledges, and it appears he thought they still sent memos about when the rules were nullified.
it's designed to subvert and dissolve our civilization and subordinate it to directed chaos
I don't know if calling it a foreign-initiated conspiracy theory is going too far, but I'm sure China and friends are laughing at the slow wokeness-driven self-destruction of the West. It's sad to see for sure.
I don't know if calling it a foreign-initiated conspiracy theory is going too far, but I'm sure China and friends are laughing at the slow wokeness-driven self-destruction of the West. It's sad to see for sure.
The resigning professor, Peter Boghossian, was one of the architects of the Grievance Studies Affair. [1]
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievance_studies_affair
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievance_studies_affair
This is simple game theory, when some professors do science and other professors do politics the professors who do politics will win and push the others out. Ultimately we will end up with mostly professors doing politics except in the fields where facts are hard enough to resist opinions (ie hard fields).
Even the hard fields are falling. Your racist if your grad students diversity isn't as diverse as the surrounding population, which is pretty much every grad school given factors of history and current distribution of capital.
The leftists in Germany had a hotly debate about this kind of politics. I remember the term coined by the ex-president of the German Linke party: lifestyle leftist. I find it poignantly accurate.
Is there anyone on here for which the headline holds true? Most of us are likely degree-holders here.
Major-specific classes (at least for engineering) didn’t have time for any sort of indoctrination and non-major classes were jokes that you put as little effort into as possible in order to focus on the major courses.
Major-specific classes (at least for engineering) didn’t have time for any sort of indoctrination and non-major classes were jokes that you put as little effort into as possible in order to focus on the major courses.
As a fairly recent grad I can share some anecdata.
How much this applies to you pretty much relies on two things. 1. Where you went to school and 2. What your major was.
I went to an engineering focused school and in my major classes most if not all of the profs had a neutral POV on these kinds of issues, and the class content was pretty much only CS stuff.
Some non-major classes, particularly in the humanities like COM had this kind of focus where the prof/grad student had a liking to modern progressive topic and would bring them into the class one way or another. (Think sex vs gender, toxic masculinity etc in a COM class.) Generally speaking these would be filler classes taught by grad students/younger profs.
Outside in extra curricular like clubs and fraternities DNI stuff mostly comes up in the context of some activity the university wants you to do to show you're not racist or will engage in sexual assault. I got the vibe that it was more of a BS metric for insurance or marketing an not actually meant to do anything.
(There's a whole cottage industry of speakers who get paid way too much money for giving these trainings I should write a blog post about one day. ;)
I had friends who went to a small liberal arts college where this was much more common, both in class and culturally. The students there were less HR DNI type stuff and more the "woke" side of things. Most if not all people there are true believers.
Overall for students + faculty it's a cultural thing, where you go to school more or less determines the level and type of politics that come into your classes. For University admins it's an HR checkbox, similar to corporate diversity training. In more left leaning disciplines it's usually populated by true believers.
How much this applies to you pretty much relies on two things. 1. Where you went to school and 2. What your major was.
I went to an engineering focused school and in my major classes most if not all of the profs had a neutral POV on these kinds of issues, and the class content was pretty much only CS stuff.
Some non-major classes, particularly in the humanities like COM had this kind of focus where the prof/grad student had a liking to modern progressive topic and would bring them into the class one way or another. (Think sex vs gender, toxic masculinity etc in a COM class.) Generally speaking these would be filler classes taught by grad students/younger profs.
Outside in extra curricular like clubs and fraternities DNI stuff mostly comes up in the context of some activity the university wants you to do to show you're not racist or will engage in sexual assault. I got the vibe that it was more of a BS metric for insurance or marketing an not actually meant to do anything.
(There's a whole cottage industry of speakers who get paid way too much money for giving these trainings I should write a blog post about one day. ;)
I had friends who went to a small liberal arts college where this was much more common, both in class and culturally. The students there were less HR DNI type stuff and more the "woke" side of things. Most if not all people there are true believers.
Overall for students + faculty it's a cultural thing, where you go to school more or less determines the level and type of politics that come into your classes. For University admins it's an HR checkbox, similar to corporate diversity training. In more left leaning disciplines it's usually populated by true believers.
There's likely a lot of us with some college that took a gig before graduation during or immediately after the dotcom boon. I wasn't exposed to this in the late 90s / early 2000s when I was in school for a CompSci degree. I took all kinds of sociology, English comp, and psych fillers and can't recall any kind of the post-modernist progressivism cited. They were interesting, fairly neutral courses.
Schools of thought are pronounced throughout engineering. Just look at metric vs imperial systems for a quick example. The difference is often that there are more objective measures for "correctness". But even still, context, history, and situational awareness matter immensely. A 2" screw might be just what you need.
This of course all starts to break down at the language level itself. Complexity simply refuses to be wrangled.
This of course all starts to break down at the language level itself. Complexity simply refuses to be wrangled.
I met with a family member recently who is a college student and mentioned they had a mandatory DNI class. I didn’t press for more details (not sure if it was webinar or for credits)
I recall about 10 years ago in college we had these required 'core' classes, and the very first course, on writing I think, included mandatory readings from Edward Said*, a well known academic whose entire career was built around pushing anti-Western ideology and "Western guilt", I think it was framed as "cultural criticism".
When I hear the woke talk about "cultural appropriation", "colonialism","white privilege", etc., it all sounds very familiar. Only now cultural criticism turned into full-blown cultural indoctrination.
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orientalism_(book)
When I hear the woke talk about "cultural appropriation", "colonialism","white privilege", etc., it all sounds very familiar. Only now cultural criticism turned into full-blown cultural indoctrination.
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orientalism_(book)
There is arguably too much ideological astronauting going on in much of higher education. We need to come back down to earth.
I think we've reached terminal velocity with a lot of ideas and thought processes the world now considers toxic, but normal. It's a damn shame too since it replaced all the good-on-the-outside, toxic-on-the-inside stuff too. Now it's just toxic throughout.
Turning? This has been happening for awhile.
Regardless of where you are on the US political spectrum. Universities have been held strongly on one side of that spectrum for awhile now.
If that’s good news or bad depends on where you stand on said political spectrum.
Regardless of where you are on the US political spectrum. Universities have been held strongly on one side of that spectrum for awhile now.
If that’s good news or bad depends on where you stand on said political spectrum.
The submitted title ("Universities Turning into Social Justice Factory?") broke the site guidelines about titles: "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize.". We've reverted it now.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Thanks Dang!
> If that’s good news or bad depends on where you stand on said political spectrum.
I think objectively it’s bad for everyone when free inquiry is hobbled by dogma.
I think people should have the right to be wrong in academia. I can think of no safer place to be wrong - there are real consequences when you are wrong in practice (e.g. as a politician) compared to being wrong in theory (e.g. as a professor not really in charge of anything)
I think objectively it’s bad for everyone when free inquiry is hobbled by dogma.
I think people should have the right to be wrong in academia. I can think of no safer place to be wrong - there are real consequences when you are wrong in practice (e.g. as a politician) compared to being wrong in theory (e.g. as a professor not really in charge of anything)
Independent of political affiliation, silencing diversity of thought is not a good thing for the society
Haven't universities been like this for ages? I seem to remember stuff about the hippies and vietnam protests and so on. To my understanding, social progress has been the province of the young for decades if not longer, as it has been the province of the not so young to wring their hands about it.
>Haven't universities been like this for ages?
I can honestly say that when I went to college people were essentially apolitical. I don't remember anything you might view as a campus protest and the biggest fuss on the main mall were students arguing with a rather obnoxious Pentecostal preacher who showed up every year.
(in case you all aren't familiar with him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_Jed )
I can honestly say that when I went to college people were essentially apolitical. I don't remember anything you might view as a campus protest and the biggest fuss on the main mall were students arguing with a rather obnoxious Pentecostal preacher who showed up every year.
(in case you all aren't familiar with him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_Jed )
I think you'll find if you spend time on universities today, they are essentially apolitical. And I strongly suspect that if you looked for articles written when you attended school, you'd find people complaining in various directions.
The difference is whether you are just going to class or getting your news through articles filtered through social media and link aggregators.
The difference is whether you are just going to class or getting your news through articles filtered through social media and link aggregators.
>I think you'll find if you spend time on universities today, they are essentially apolitical.
An interesting experiment would be to compare English Department reading lists in the 1970's vs. now.
My bet is that you'd see quite a difference.
It's not that the College Marxist Club had it's meetings in the basement at any particular time, but that politicization and social movements of the day have been normalized into daily life.
I will stick to my guns in saying that there were 0 (zero) demonstrations of a political nature during my stay. For all I know, it was a low point in such activities (which likely gives me a short temper on the modern world). Frank Zappa played there every year though.
...hah, now that's an interesting angle I hadn't thought of. I went hunting for reading lists for the graduate students. A course on the '19th century English novel' has, wait for it, 7 female authors and 2 male. And one of the two men wrote 'Portrait of a Lady'. That's a pretty interesting way to shift the conversation.
An interesting experiment would be to compare English Department reading lists in the 1970's vs. now.
My bet is that you'd see quite a difference.
It's not that the College Marxist Club had it's meetings in the basement at any particular time, but that politicization and social movements of the day have been normalized into daily life.
I will stick to my guns in saying that there were 0 (zero) demonstrations of a political nature during my stay. For all I know, it was a low point in such activities (which likely gives me a short temper on the modern world). Frank Zappa played there every year though.
...hah, now that's an interesting angle I hadn't thought of. I went hunting for reading lists for the graduate students. A course on the '19th century English novel' has, wait for it, 7 female authors and 2 male. And one of the two men wrote 'Portrait of a Lady'. That's a pretty interesting way to shift the conversation.
> ...hah, now that's an interesting angle I hadn't thought of. I went hunting for reading lists for the graduate students. A course on the '19th century English novel' has, wait for it, 7 female authors and 2 male. And one of the two men wrote 'Portrait of a Lady'. That's a pretty interesting way to shift the conversation.
Do you find yourself being just as concerned when the reading list is 7 male authors and 2 female authors? Or only in this direction?
If this counts as political, then boy howdy were curricula in the humanities political in the 1970s when there was basically zero time spent on the voices of women.
Do you find yourself being just as concerned when the reading list is 7 male authors and 2 female authors? Or only in this direction?
If this counts as political, then boy howdy were curricula in the humanities political in the 1970s when there was basically zero time spent on the voices of women.
>Do you find yourself being just as concerned when the reading list is 7 male authors and 2 female authors? Or only in this direction?
Not at all, it just stuck out at me while I was browsing through their program. Women represent barely a blip in the world of the 19th C. novel, you might as well teach military history as a series of female leaders. Novels of that era represent a core teaching (or should) in English departments, not an opportunity to boost underserved demographics. Save that for a specialty class.
I don't give a damn about fairness so much as teaching the truth, and the truth includes relative values of things.
Not at all, it just stuck out at me while I was browsing through their program. Women represent barely a blip in the world of the 19th C. novel, you might as well teach military history as a series of female leaders. Novels of that era represent a core teaching (or should) in English departments, not an opportunity to boost underserved demographics. Save that for a specialty class.
I don't give a damn about fairness so much as teaching the truth, and the truth includes relative values of things.
It is a graduate class, well past any level where you'd expect reading lists to be a representative slice of anything. I'd generally expect a graduate class on "the 19th century novel" to be roughly built around whatever books the PhD student or professor teaching the class personally loves and knows very deeply.
And military history should involve the voices of women. There is more to the subject than just who marched where and who gave orders when.
And military history should involve the voices of women. There is more to the subject than just who marched where and who gave orders when.
Why are you lying?
> An alarming 25.5 percent of survey respondents said it would be appropriate to “create an obstruction, such that a campus speaker endorsing this idea could not address an audience.” This authoritarian view was held by about 19 percent of self-identifying liberals, 3 percent of moderates, and 3 percent of conservatives.
> Among students who self-identify as liberals, some 10 percent said they hear “disrespectful, inappropriate, or offensive comments” about foreign students at least several times a semester, 14 percent said they hear disparaging comments about Muslims, 20 percent said they hear such comments about African Americans, 20 percent said they hear such comments about Christians, 21 percent said they hear such comments about LGBTQ individuals, and 57 percent said they hear such comments about conservatives. Among moderates, 68 percent said that they hear “disrespectful, inappropriate, or offensive comments” about conservatives at least several times a semester.
> Roughly 92 percent of conservatives said they would be friends with a liberal, and just 3 percent said that they would not have a liberal friend. Among liberals, however, almost a quarter said they would not have a conservative friend.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/evidence-c...
> In Compromising Scholarship, a 2011 book by sociologist George Yancey, some 30% of sociologists acknowledged that they would be less likely to hire a job applicant if they knew he was a Republican. Yancey further discovered that 15% of political scientists and 24% of philosophy professors would discriminate against Republican job applicants, and at least 30% of professors in all disciplines surveyed would discriminate against members of the NRA.
> Other research suggests that liberal professors sometimes act on these biases. Stanley Rothman and Robert Lichter found in 2009's The Politically Correct University that socially conservative professors tend to work at lower-ranked institutions than their publication records would suggest. More recently, a 2016 study of elite law schools in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy found that libertarian and conservative professors publish more than their peers, which suggests that right-leaning law professors must outshine liberals to reach the summits of their profession.
> These findings are especially striking given that other research shows it is more difficult for scholars to publish work that reflects conservative interests and perspectives. A 1985 study in the American Psychologist, for example, assessed the outcomes of research proposals submitted to human subject committees... The study found that the proposals on reverse discrimination were the hardest to get approved, often because their research designs were scrutinized more thoroughly. In some cases, though, the reviewers raised explicitly political concerns.
https://nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-disappea...
> An alarming 25.5 percent of survey respondents said it would be appropriate to “create an obstruction, such that a campus speaker endorsing this idea could not address an audience.” This authoritarian view was held by about 19 percent of self-identifying liberals, 3 percent of moderates, and 3 percent of conservatives.
> Among students who self-identify as liberals, some 10 percent said they hear “disrespectful, inappropriate, or offensive comments” about foreign students at least several times a semester, 14 percent said they hear disparaging comments about Muslims, 20 percent said they hear such comments about African Americans, 20 percent said they hear such comments about Christians, 21 percent said they hear such comments about LGBTQ individuals, and 57 percent said they hear such comments about conservatives. Among moderates, 68 percent said that they hear “disrespectful, inappropriate, or offensive comments” about conservatives at least several times a semester.
> Roughly 92 percent of conservatives said they would be friends with a liberal, and just 3 percent said that they would not have a liberal friend. Among liberals, however, almost a quarter said they would not have a conservative friend.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/evidence-c...
> In Compromising Scholarship, a 2011 book by sociologist George Yancey, some 30% of sociologists acknowledged that they would be less likely to hire a job applicant if they knew he was a Republican. Yancey further discovered that 15% of political scientists and 24% of philosophy professors would discriminate against Republican job applicants, and at least 30% of professors in all disciplines surveyed would discriminate against members of the NRA.
> Other research suggests that liberal professors sometimes act on these biases. Stanley Rothman and Robert Lichter found in 2009's The Politically Correct University that socially conservative professors tend to work at lower-ranked institutions than their publication records would suggest. More recently, a 2016 study of elite law schools in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy found that libertarian and conservative professors publish more than their peers, which suggests that right-leaning law professors must outshine liberals to reach the summits of their profession.
> These findings are especially striking given that other research shows it is more difficult for scholars to publish work that reflects conservative interests and perspectives. A 1985 study in the American Psychologist, for example, assessed the outcomes of research proposals submitted to human subject committees... The study found that the proposals on reverse discrimination were the hardest to get approved, often because their research designs were scrutinized more thoroughly. In some cases, though, the reviewers raised explicitly political concerns.
https://nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-disappea...
Difference is that those hippies now grew up and run the universities.
The difference is that now we have people looking for any excuse to be offended rather than protesting legitimate wrongs. "You won't use my self-imposed variety of Newspeak? How dare you!"
Universities (Western ones at least) have always been like this since the foundation of the University of Bologna in 1988 whose curriculum included a certain amount of "saracenic education" in a very anti-saracenic environment!!
Err.. that’d be 1088. Saracenic education in 1988 would’ve been quite something, I’ll wager!
Social progress is the opposite of censorship; that about-face is what the article is about.
Yes, younger generations are more progressive, and is a good thing. However, silencing diversity of thought is really not a good scientific attitude
Nothing is safe, nothing is sacred.
Welcome to the desert.
Welcome to the desert.
It's so sad that HN is becoming more and more part of the right-wing outrage amplification media network. When Nikole Hannah-Jones got cancelled at UNC by right-wing donors the story was blacklisted on HN.
>It's so sad that HN is becoming more and more part of the right-wing outrage amplification media network.
What do you mean by this?
What do you mean by this?
Been seeing a lot of the right-wing media's daily outrage and victimization stories showing up on HN.
Edit: I don't want to answer the question below because then I'll get another -4 hit on the karma from the outraged crowd here.
Edit: I don't want to answer the question below because then I'll get another -4 hit on the karma from the outraged crowd here.
This seems to be a case of the left being attacked by the further left. I am pretty damned far left, and this article resonates with me, so I wouldn't call it 'right wing outrage.'
I'm also pretty far left I guess, and I'm absolutely horrified by what the right has turned into in the US (and to a lesser extent also in Europe). But that doesn't mean I support such nonsense articles in academia; quite the contrary!
Diversity is of course important, but not the primary goal of universities. Diversity is important because it serves the primary goal: combining inputs from all different perspectives, analysing then rationally, and making the results available to everybody. People who want to exclude people based on their race, gender, religion, cultural background or whatever should not be allowed to succeed at doing so, because that would hurt the university. But obviously this goes both ways: you can't tolerate racists who want to marginalise black students, but you also can't tolerate groups who want to push out people who don't toe their specific ideology.
In any case, it's certainly not true that HN is mostly right-wing; many people here support basic income, universal health care, equality of various kinds, etc. Diversity is supported by many, it just shouldn't be weaponised to exclude people, unless they are actively hurting others. There are of course many different viewpoints here, and there are absolutely people on the right, but if I'd have to guess, I'd say most here tend towards the libertarian left.
Diversity is of course important, but not the primary goal of universities. Diversity is important because it serves the primary goal: combining inputs from all different perspectives, analysing then rationally, and making the results available to everybody. People who want to exclude people based on their race, gender, religion, cultural background or whatever should not be allowed to succeed at doing so, because that would hurt the university. But obviously this goes both ways: you can't tolerate racists who want to marginalise black students, but you also can't tolerate groups who want to push out people who don't toe their specific ideology.
In any case, it's certainly not true that HN is mostly right-wing; many people here support basic income, universal health care, equality of various kinds, etc. Diversity is supported by many, it just shouldn't be weaponised to exclude people, unless they are actively hurting others. There are of course many different viewpoints here, and there are absolutely people on the right, but if I'd have to guess, I'd say most here tend towards the libertarian left.
I've considered myself center-left and left in oscillations. I am pretty upset by what these people are upto on both sides. The extreme right is incoherent in scientific truths and the extreme left has been in a self-inflicting journey to destroy themselves. So none of this non-sense makes any sense to me on the media these days.
I've talked to a bunch of people and apparently this is everyone's experience. I recently started watching for the giggles, Fox News (oh my, which I would have never ever done it before) and surprisingly, lot of it makes sense for the first time ever. Some of it is still dubious but it's hilarious what's going on in the world at the moment.
I've talked to a bunch of people and apparently this is everyone's experience. I recently started watching for the giggles, Fox News (oh my, which I would have never ever done it before) and surprisingly, lot of it makes sense for the first time ever. Some of it is still dubious but it's hilarious what's going on in the world at the moment.
why accumulate karma if you’re not going to spend it here and there?
>Been seeing a lot of the right-wing media's daily outrage and victimization stories showing up on HN.
What in this article do you disagree with?
What in this article do you disagree with?
tptacek's take is pretty good: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28689323
I haven't read much by Boghossian but from the bits that are floating on the internet he seemed to hold a decently balanced perspective on things.
Somehow reducing him and his decade of activity as a critical thinking professor as just "a troll" based on a half-failed publicity stunt seems a little drastic.
Somehow reducing him and his decade of activity as a critical thinking professor as just "a troll" based on a half-failed publicity stunt seems a little drastic.
https://web.archive.org/web/20210927014950/https://www.econo... - link to internet archive
Every week there’s a new article about this same guy, and it’s never any more compelling than it was the week before.
We shouldn't be hurling ad-hominem attacks at the author, there is more to it in the article.
This isn't an attack on the author, it's the fact that we're seeing a lot of this kind of article on HN, but it's almost always about the exact same person.
Ever read "The History Man"? He starts a false university rumor that a controversial speaker has been banned so everyone then feels obliged to invite him causing protests and chaos. This was set in the early 1970's. We have not invented fuss and perhaps could do with more of a sense of history before getting upset. It was ever thus.
It was better decades ago when I was a student. We were all white middle- or high-income straight white Judeo-Christian (mostly) able-bodied men. There was absolutely no pressure to conform.
This is bait, but I'll bite.
A bunch of my uncles and senior team members are Indians who went to grad school in the US. All of them found it to be an amazing, welcoming and energizing experience.
They have many stories of committing social faux-pas of levels that you'd imagine christians would crucify you for. Contrary to expectation, their mistakes were quickly forgotten after everyone had a hearty laugh.
The left loves to pretend that the US an utmost racist place that suddenly got better once the proto-woke took over. However, demographic changes of such levels do not happen overnight or over decades.
The people of the US have issues, but they are orders of magnitude more multicultural than most other nations, developed or otherwise. (Govt/Policy level bias is a whole nother issue, I'm talking more about the day-2-day)
A bunch of my uncles and senior team members are Indians who went to grad school in the US. All of them found it to be an amazing, welcoming and energizing experience.
They have many stories of committing social faux-pas of levels that you'd imagine christians would crucify you for. Contrary to expectation, their mistakes were quickly forgotten after everyone had a hearty laugh.
The left loves to pretend that the US an utmost racist place that suddenly got better once the proto-woke took over. However, demographic changes of such levels do not happen overnight or over decades.
The people of the US have issues, but they are orders of magnitude more multicultural than most other nations, developed or otherwise. (Govt/Policy level bias is a whole nother issue, I'm talking more about the day-2-day)
I'll add this in. I don't have to watch my language around the right associated sacred cows. I can talk shit about religion, attack anti abortion activism and still be fine. But man, do anything with the left's cows and you'd eat a ban or worse.
Decades ago, as an earnest freshman in college I participated in the 'multicultural awareness group' ... during one of the meetings I recall one young woman taking the floor and complaining, in a rather exasperated tone, about how she was sick and tired of people making all kinds of stereotypical assumptions about her background and interests due to her being Jewish, and finished by saying that what made this even more outrageous for her was that she wasn't Jewish.
Decades later, two points that I'd like to make are that 2) teaching people about the perspectives of others is important and valuable to the people being taught and 1) while privileged groups do exist not everyone that could be sloppily assigned to that group is in fact privileged (there are many people that have been and will be disadvantaged despite being born 'white').
Decades later, two points that I'd like to make are that 2) teaching people about the perspectives of others is important and valuable to the people being taught and 1) while privileged groups do exist not everyone that could be sloppily assigned to that group is in fact privileged (there are many people that have been and will be disadvantaged despite being born 'white').
Boghossian is well known for his involvement in the "Grievance Studies Hoax", in which bogus papers (like a "dog park" study that claimed field researchers monitored the sexual habits of dogs in dog parks for 1000 hours) were ostensibly accepted for publication, Sokal-style.
The Hoaxers were incredibly deceptive in their presentation of what they accomplished. They wrote up lurid descriptions of insane papers, but didn't talk about how those papers were often rejected, and, when they were accepted, that acceptance was often in vanity journals. When they got papers accepted in real (albeit low-impact) journals, they weren't the ludicrous papers they'd written about. To boot, they faked field data, and coasted off the public's lack of understanding of the difference between refereeing papers and replicating them. One of their 7 accepted papers was published in "The Journal of Poetry Therapy", which isn't even an academic journal. Among their "in play" papers at the end of the hoax were several "reject-and-resubmits", which is journalese for "nice try but no", not journalese for "make a couple edits and we'll run it".
What makes me especially wary about all of this is that there's a playbook to follow, pivoting out of non-remunerative nth-tier academic positions (Boghossian was an assistant professor of philosophy at PSU) into social media stardom. We can probably come up with more than one example.