August 5, 2020

"The faculty letter gives the impression that many Princeton professors believe their institution is rife with anti-Black racism and that the university must risk abandoning long-standing core values..."

"... to be anti-racist. But most signatories who responded to my queries hold neither of those beliefs.... Outside observers should be sophisticated enough to understand that universities are socially and politically complex communities where faculty members don’t always say what they mean, especially when asked to sign on to a group letter with hundreds of their colleagues in a moment of national crisis. 'Much as I’m averse to aspects of any letters signed by more than one person—chiefly that they represent a form of mostly benign and well-intentioned thuggery—I’m convinced we live in a moment where we have to be seen as being part of a solution to what is clearly a problem,' [humanities professor and poet Paul] Muldoon told me... in his thoughtful email. 'That means that, as in the case of the Princeton letter, some ideas may need to be overstated to be stated at all.' ... I am concerned that some faculty members are unwilling to publicly criticize a demand that they scoff at privately. Can they really be counted on to protect academic freedom in a faculty vote? And I wish more faculty members would say whatever they actually think with clarity and precision, rather than indulging in hyperbole that does more to muddy and polarize than to clarify."

Writes Conor Friedersdorf in "The Princeton Faculty’s Anti-Free-Speech Demands/Some of the signers of a controversial open letter don’t stand behind its most alarming demand" (The Atlantic).

98 comments:

Crimso said...

Nobody gives a shit what I think; but if they ask, I tell them. I don't alter my opinions to curry favor with my colleagues. What kind of weak-minded fool does such a thing?

chuck said...

The times call for lying and cowardice. The Princeton community can do that. Forward!

rcocean said...

Who cares? We all know the College Humanities have zero to do with teaching Western civilization or values. Its turned into a quasi-marxist jobs program. The entire college humanities should simply be eliminated. Will it be done? of course not. instead of people will continue to whine about how expensive college is, and dumbly paying massive amounts of money for a crap education.

Temujin said...

There's not a whole lot of courage in academia these days. These are not the people you should be looking toward for guidance, well thought out opinions, or support. They seem to be the least inclined to stand up for what is actually right, and the most inclined to move along with the current of the mob, whatever direction it's going.

In other words, if you weren't paying $60,000- $85,000 a year to be in their presence, you probably would not look for these people for anything.

Sorry, Professor Althouse, but I simply do not see enough of an argument that there are clear, independent thinkers on campus these days. While I know there are one or two courageous souls at each university, the problem is that there are only one or two, out of hundreds at each U, with hundreds of U's around the country.

The reality is Diversity is not an ideal at the university. Conformity, above all else, is the ideal.

J. D. Canals said...

How can you expect professors to express their real thoughts in this age of Cancel Culture??
Sure, if their opinions match the agenda (See Duke Lacrosse) they will be forthcoming. But if they don't, you won't hear a peep.

ga6 said...

"faculty members don’t always say what they mean"
Reason number 100 why we despise them..see Fauci...

Nonapod said...

Outside observers should be sophisticated enough to understand that universities are socially and politically complex communities where faculty members don’t always say what they mean, especially when asked to sign on to a group letter with hundreds of their colleagues in a moment of national crisis.

Basically, this is describing preference falsification. Essentially people are lying about their preferences due to some combination of peer pressure and fear. It's a common phenemonon in repressive regimes.

rcocean said...

BTW, the left is simply acting the way it always does. First, you eliminate the conservative or any center-right people. Then once you have your liberal/left echo chamber, you eliminate any "Moderate" or anyone not part of the EXTREME Left. First, its Trotsky, then its the "Rightist bloc" and then you finally have Stalinist purity.

Its impossible to stop, because the liberal/left doesn't want to fight the left. Their only interest is in fighting the Center-right. So, look for colleges, newspapers, etc. to get more and more crazy left. you can't stop a motivated minority, no matter how small, with a bunch of cowards who won't fight them.

Fernandinande said...

a moment of national crisis

National hysteria.

part of a solution to what is clearly a problem

Humanities professor and poet Paul Muldoon us going to fix BLACK people?

Johnathan Birks said...

Oh, they are clarifying all right. It's perfectly clear that free speech is dead on the modern American campus. The Jacobins have won. Now let them drown in the morass.

AMDG said...

Nobody wants to be the first person to stop applauding Stalin.

Amadeus 48 said...

I am shocked, shocked to find there is gambling going on in this establishment.

Original Mike said...

"Outside observers should be sophisticated enough to understand that universities are socially and politically complex communities where faculty members don’t always say what they mean, especially when asked to sign on to a group letter with hundreds of their colleagues in a moment of national crisis."

But this behavior is causing, or at the very least exacerbating, the crisis! It is in a public statement that you should be especially careful not to say things you don't really mean.

Tom T. said...

I haven't heard of this letter, but it must be pretty bad, if friendly media is having to work this hard to find hidden nuance in it.

The Crack Emcee said...

White people even discriminated on open areas but, somehow, they don't get what's happening - or are more comfortable taking on dumb arguments rather than addressing our obvious ones.

Hey, Ann, you ever seen "Songs From The Second Floor?" It's a little known economic collapse movie.

Fucking HILARIOUS.

Mike Sylwester said...

The universities develop intellectual justifications for the suppression of free speech and then spread those justifications throughout our society. University graduates who have mastered those justifications are hired by companies such as Twitter and YouTube to implement those justifications.

Professors with tenure are just as craven in accepting these justifications as adjunct instructors are.

The universities are the most gullible institutions in our society when hate-crime hoaxes happen. Any supposed noose hanging from a university tree is assumed to be a racist threat against the colored students. Nobody at a university voices any skepticism about such a hoax. Outside the campus, in contrast, everyone recognizes immediately that the incident is a hoax.

Birkel said...

Mostly peaceful protests.
Mostly pro-1A anti-1A demand letter.

Lewis Carroll, please call your office.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

The Left keeps writing suicide notes but never seems to get around to it 'cause the Right keeps intervening. Those days are ending, though.

RNB said...

Doubtless many professors at German universities had reservations (aired discretely with trustworthy colleagues but no one else) when the Deutsche Studentenschaft began burning 'Jewish' books in May 1933.

Fernandinande said...

350 faculty members and staff signed an open letter,

So about 600 or 900 faculty didn't sign it, depending which Princeton website you believe, which is a lot better than nothing.

Fernandinande said...

"1.) Stop violating the law if you’re a public university with speech codes that abrogate the First Amendment. There should in fact be no speech codes in colleges beyond those affirming the principles and exceptions of the First Amendment."

hawkeyedjb said...

Princeton faculty says, we're all a bunch of racists, we need more power to punish people for being racist.

Ken B said...

Rather than sign a group letter saying things you believe are wrong write your own letter, or no letter. At the very least, if all you have to say is “ditto” then only say it when you mean it.

Ken B said...

Shorter Friedersdorf: it’s not as bad as it looks, they are actually just cowards not loons.

tim maguire said...

I haven’t been able to take Conor Friedersdorf seriously ever since he pulled a Joy Reid on me on twitter, suggesting I’m dumb for not understanding that antifa is antifascist when it’s right there in the name.

That said, he’s on the right track here. The internal politics and the nuance and the blah blah blah are irrelevant. The letter says what it says and they signed what they signed and they should be judged accordingly. That they may not have meant it is not a saving grace, it makes what they did even worse.

Mike Sylwester said...

At the universities, everyone says that George Floyd was killed -- even executed -- by police officers. Nobody there expresses any skepticism of that opinion.

Since Princeton faculty members cannot even imagine any skepticism about that opinion, they reflexively sign a declaration that the faculty must organize a faculty committee to investigate and punish the many racists who infest the campus.

After all, white police officers executed George Floyd brazenly in Minneapolis. Therefore, something must be done at Princeton University.

The Crack Emcee said...


"Racism, poverty, and inequality – then Covid-19 hit" describes BLACK AMERICAN LIFE - not just the south.

Just because white people keep it hidden away from even their own eyes - which are much too precious to look upon their evil works - it's still there.

DanTheMan said...

>>The reality is Diversity is not an ideal at the university. Conformity, above all else, is the ideal.

There can be no diversity of opinions about diversity.

Mike Sylwester said...

My own comment at 9:10 AM
Any supposed noose hanging from a university tree is assumed to be a racist threat against the colored students.

I apologize.

I inadvertently wrote the expression colored students.

I meant to write Students of Color.

Please make the mental correction.

Francisco D said...

My former (Black) BIL graduated from the Wilson School at Princeton in the 70's. He loved the intellectual rigor of the place, but complained that liberal White kids thought he was an Affirmative Action admit with relatively weak SAT scores. In actuality, he scored around 1500. His later LSAT scores were the highest recorded by a Black applicant at the time.

He was politically conservative and thought that affirmative action lowered his credibility at Princeton and later when he became a lawyer. The "racism" he experienced came almost exclusively from well meaning White liberals looking out for the colored guy.

Now we would catalog those experiences as micro aggressions.

Jupiter said...

"That means that, as in the case of the Princeton letter, some ideas may need to be overstated to be stated at all."

How poetic!

Sebastian said...

Most telling part of the piece: no response to question #3, about actual racism at Princeton.

elkh1 said...

Do we have "a moment of national crisis"? Or do the sore losers make the moment a national crisis because they lost? In any case, it's a blue cities, blue states crisis, not a national crisis. It's a Seattle and Portland crisis. It's a crisis of incompetent governance in blue states, not a national crisis.

AlbertAnonymous said...

So the one item highlighted as a “demand” that was in the letter but wasn’t really support by some of the letter signatories, was a demand that there be a “committee” of faculty members that decide what statements/writings are “racist” and faculty can be pulled before the committee and chastised/tried/declared racist.

Oddly, I found this “demand” at least equally problematic:

“Pay faculty of color more and give them course relief and more time for sabbaticals than white faculty, to reward the “invisible work” they do as “spokespersons” for diversity”

AYFKM?

You want to stop racism? Stop demanding racist things.

And btw, when do I get extra pay and time off to “reward the invisible work I do as a punching bag of white privilege”? All the time now all I ever hear is white people are privileged (even from Oprah the billionaire) and racist solely on account of skin color. Since I’m not part of the solution I must be part of the problem, I can’t have an opinion on a whole bunch of issues because I’m not black, and I can’t remain silent because silence is violence.

Where’s my punching bag pay?

Jupiter said...

Princeton's faculty should have the same proportion of Blacks as New Jersey. Anything less is obviously the white supremacist legacy of Woodrow Wilson.

The Crack Emcee said...

Francisco D said...

"The "racism" he experienced came almost exclusively from well meaning White liberals looking out for the colored guy."

And you assholes still, don't grasp that any diversion from a "normal" life is an affront to the idea America is a decent place for anyone but whites to live.

Everybody else has to live a life of unending complexity - but not you: whites can go skiing and not pay any of what they've done no mind.

Fuck all y'all.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

That is heartbreaking, Mr. Crack Emcee.
Just wondering why , after 8 years of Obama-Biden, 8 years! -- poverty in black communities was not fixed.

Joe Smith said...

I've worked in 'academia.' A lot of people with a lot of fancy degrees from fancy, expensive schools. And to a man/woman, almost all of them were morons.

PM said...

Maybe I missed it here and at the link - who penned this letter?

Rick said...

In fact, some don’t support the creation of a tribunal at all.

He has this wrong. They did support creating the tribunal by signing a letter arguing for its creation. They're just admitting there is no justification for it. He's so invested in ameliorating their extremism he can't accurately state what has happened.

Apparently he believes this makes the movement more palatable, but really it shows it is far more alarming and in control than most people realize. The process described shows how institutions are controlled by the far left even when that group is vastly outnumbered, and further shows why liberal opposition to the far left is irrelevant.

Ultimately these justifications show how small groups of extremists rise to political control of first their institutions and then entire countries.

JAORE said...

If you sign something you don't believe in are you:

a virtue signalling fool,
or
a spineless fool too scared to stand by what you claim are your principles?

Plus: Fifty demands! 50 demands! It's not a coherent position paper it's a laundry list.

And most of those "anti-racist" items described are hiring/promotion and control based on skin color.

Thanks, but, no.

YoungHegelian said...

Can they really be counted on to protect academic freedom in a faculty vote?

No. Next Question.

Mark said...

Princeton IS rife with anti-Black racism -- and it is from the professors and others themselves. The answer is not to abandon long-standing core values, but the abandon the recent imposition of radical progressivism.

Krumhorn said...

Just because white people keep it hidden away from even their own eyes - which are much too precious to look upon their evil works - it's still there.

I'll take these issues seriously when I see those most affected take it seriously (aside from bitching and blaming others).

- Krumhorn

frenchy said...

Inasmuch as the very notion of "political correctness" as we know it in our culture emanated from leftists in academia to begin with, is it really fair to expect anything else from them at this point? This is a box begging to be thought outside of.

Original Mike said...

"'Much as I’m averse to aspects of any letters signed by more than one person—chiefly that they represent a form of mostly benign and well-intentioned thuggery—"

Years (decades) ago I would often sign the petitions of the earnest, clipboard-holding youngsters trolling the neighborhood to fight the worthy cause du jour. I stopped doing that as I gained an appreciation of the complexity of the world. Now, I ask them to tell me what the arguments the other side would muster in defense. They virtually never can.

n.n said...

They're right, diversity breeds adversity. They should lose their Pro-Choice quasi-religion.

tommyesq said...

i suppose if they had the courage of their convictions they wouldn't be hiding in the ivory tower in the first place...

The Crack Emcee said...

BleachBit-and-Hammers said...
That is heartbreaking, Mr. Crack Emcee.
Just wondering why , after 8 years of Obama-Biden, 8 years! -- poverty in black communities was not fixed.

Like whites would've gone along with that.

You guys shame yourselves.

Darrell Harris said...

"Outside observers should be sophisticated enough to understand that universities are socially and politically complex communities where faculty members don’t always say what they mean..."

Okay, then. So what's the point of having tenure, again?

wildswan said...

It's known fact that K-12 schools have a huge black-white educational gap which manifests itself in high school graduation rates. In big city high schools 40% of the young black men don't graduate. How then can Princeton and the other Ivy Leagues and the state universities possibly find enough educated members of the black community to hire them at a rate proportionate to the number of members of the black community? So if Princeton was serious it would be looking at the reasons for the K-12 graduation and achievement gaps and looking for ways to close those gaps. Charter schools and freedom the attend schools outside ones school district have been shown to be ways to close the gap within the public school system. But these means as well as vouchers and home schooling are opposed by the Dem party. However if the Princeton faculty wrote a letter supporting these proven ways to close the gap it would help these proven policies to prevail and that would help black school children right away. But the present Princeton faculty are cowardly. That's established by their refusal to defend academic freedom, an established principle. So the Princeton White Feathers will never say that K-12 needs to be improved before colleges can hire proportionately but more important, the Ostrich team will never stand up for the known means of such improvement. The Dems oppose those means and far be it from Princeton RunRunRunAways to oppose the Dems. Then either there will be utterly unqualified members of the black community teaching on college campuses and it won't be a good look or nothing will change. Or Trump will win and then despite hysterical screams of opposition from BLM and the Teachers Union and the Weathervanes at Princeton, he will then improve K-12 education in the black community. Much to the satisfaction of the deplorables. It's one of the things which we want and which we have been voting for. The record shows it. Join us.

Not Sure said...

The Crack Emcee links to an article observing that parks in places where blacks live are smaller than the ones in places where whites live. Conspicuously missing from the article is the word "rents," or the phrase "population density."

I can't decide which is stupider, the article or the idea that it's worth linking to.

Not Sure said...

So often when reading some piece of lefty nonsense I wonder, "stupid or dishonest?"

The Princeton faculty want us all to know they're not stupid. They just think their black colleagues and students are, shall we say, a shade inferior.

Gahrie said...

Just curious... is segregation still a bad thing? Because there is a lot of segregation going on today on campus.

Brown said segregation was just fine, but Warren said it's not. I guess it depends on who is doing the segregating?

Does anybody still think Affirmative Action is going to fade away as O'Conner predicted?

Gusty Winds said...

"politically complex". Give me a break.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

Ivies are trashing their own prestige.

Drago said...

Not Sure: "The Crack Emcee links to an article observing that parks in places where blacks live are smaller than the ones in places where whites live."

Remember, logic and statistics and mathematics and reason and cause and effect are all tools of white supremacy and therefore Crack Emcee will never, ever, allow himself to fall victim to such shenanigans.

I mean, obviously.

The Crack Emcee said...

Oprah's made $2.6 billion for promoting pseudoscience, the paranormal, psychics, conspiracy theories, quacks, past lives, angels, ghosts, alternative therapies, anti-vaccination, detoxification, vitamins, and anything that will distract a person from making useful and informed decisions in life.

But conservatives want to get her on race.

Because they're so into defending science - and so not racist.

The Crack Emcee said...

Not Sure said...
The Crack Emcee links to an article observing that parks in places where blacks live are smaller than the ones in places where whites live. Conspicuously missing from the article is the word "rents," or the phrase "population density."

Or redlining.

I can't decide which is stupider, the article or the idea that it's worth linking to.

Or the person who doesn't understand how America was laid out but wants to judge me.

Francisco D said...

The Crack Emcee said...
And you assholes still, don't grasp that any diversion from a "normal" life is an affront to the idea America is a decent place for anyone but whites to live.

Everybody else has to live a life of unending complexity - but not you: whites can go skiing and not pay any of what they've done no mind.


I grasp a lot more than you realize Crack, but you make stereotypical assumptions about growing up White. If you avoided that bullshit you might go further with your argument.

The Crack Emcee said...

Not Sure said...

"The Princeton faculty want us all to know they're not stupid. They just think their black colleagues and students are, shall we say, a shade inferior."

It's odd, to live in a country that didn't want to do it's own work - but calls others lazy - and which is so ashamed of themselves they hide their history but claim others are inferior.

But this is that curious institution.

n.n said...

Progressives' diversity dogma socially justifies affirmative discrimination that selectively excludes individuals on a forward-looking basis by color, sex, gender, age, etc. to meet color quotas.

n.n said...

if Princeton was serious it would be looking at the reasons for the K-12 graduation and achievement gaps

Affirmative discrimination (e.g. diversity dogma) is evidence that affirmative action was a progressive, catastrophic failure. Also, Planned Parenthood, including human sacrificial rites and clinical cannibalism, too.

Jason said...

Meanwhile, a University of Wisconsin - Madison has a prominent role in this absolutely stupid episode of PC dumbassery that has the "worm community" up in arms.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/worm-joke-causes-science-twitter-flame-war-over-accusations-of-sexism-and-racism?fbclid=IwAR2oFQH6CfKzyWuxEB6ug1qmW0FJ9EwT9CsWhgTQvUZGTd7e1VRtFGqM4bw

If this were a Far Side cartoon, Larson would have rejected it as too absurd.

ccscientist said...

If you are a woke marxist, the only possible reason for blacks to not be as rich as whites is systemic racism and this means that every white person is a racist. QED
This is so even if every faculty member you know pledges to support BLM etc. Otherwise the narrative falls apart. This is the trap they have constructed for themselves.

Bob Smith said...

Just maybe the hyperbole and mumblewoof is what they really do think.

ccscientist said...

In both the run up to Nazi Germany and the Cultural Revolution in China, it was university profs and students who were the earliest and most enthusiastic supporters.

todd galle said...

wildswan,
They won't defend charters and alternatives to Government schools, they are now demanding the be shut down and / or defunded. Look at the ridiculous Teachers Unions demands regarding re-opening schools. The special dears are terrified of catching the Chi-Com Bat Flu that all options other than public schools should be closed, and so will the public schools unless you give us Billions and inflate our pensions and time off. I think this type of crap, along with the AFFH suburban urbanization scheme of Obama (halted by Trump but promised to return under Biden) will not play well with suburban women. If Trump and PAC's don't use these two issues as a club to beat team Dem, they're morons.

tim in vermont said...

Rutgers has taken the position that a belief in clarity of speech is white supremacism. Who said “the soft. bigotry of low expectations”? That guy might have been a dunderheaded fool and a tool of the tiny elite that believes it is their divine right to run this country, and a major fuckup besides, but he was right about that.

JML said...

Me and my wife were listening to some covid, "I'm too afraid to return to work" non-sense on the radio while coming back from a meeting with our finance guy yesterday. We both, almost at the same time remarked, "I am so thankful I don't have to work any longer." Between COVID and BLM kowtowing, there is no way we could have remained sane. And for me, far less tolerant than my wife about speaking out, I'd have been forced out by now for sure anyway.

JML said...

Me and my wife were listening to some covid, "I'm too afraid to return to work" non-sense on the radio while coming back from a meeting with our finance guy yesterday. We both, almost at the same time remarked, "I am so thankful I don't have to work any longer." Between COVID and BLM kowtowing, there is no way we could have remained sane. And for me, far less tolerant than my wife about speaking out, I'd have been forced out by now for sure anyway.

Josephbleau said...

I think the regents of Princeton should give the university to a committee of minority academics and fire all the white faculty. Then a true non racist university can emerge by hiring only minorities. But I bet they could no longer charge kids $70,000 per year.

As Iowahawk says, pick an institution, kill and flay it, wear it like a skin suit, and demand respect.

Birkel said...

I wish I could blame my failures on third parties.
What privilege some people have.

Get off my continent.

Joe Smith said...

"whites can go skiing and not pay any of what they've done no mind."

So much ignorance in one sentence. I first skied when I was 25. Wore jeans, rented skis and had to borrow a jacket. Tickets were maybe $20 and it was very expensive to me. Same with golf...didn't play until my 20s, and even then it was crappy muni courses.

We white folks weren't all born rich, but some of us were born smart. I don't ski, but now I could do so whenever I wanted. The lift tickets, cabin rental, and $300 dinners aren't an issue.

Same with golf...quit my old club because I wasn't using it much. Now that I'm retired I am thinking about joining a club down the street...about $100k initiation...and they'll even let black people join if they have the cash...nobody cares what color you are.

I have no patience for people who complain...unless you have a physical or mental handicap, there is no excuse other than laziness to not live a decent life in this country.

Joe Smith said...

"It's odd, to live in a country that didn't want to do it's own work..."

It's called working smarter not harder...you should try it sometime...except for the slavery part : )

RigelDog said...

I've been reading (cited from liberal/progressive sources) about the frantic search for women and especially minority women to fill professorships in academia for decades now. Let's take it as a given that a large percentage of minorities don't even graduate high school due to being subjected to so many disadvantages. Therefore, just how many BIPOC women graduate college in STEM fields to begin with? Of those who do graduate, how many want to go into academia as opposed to private industry or non-profit work? That's a TINY number of candidates, and the universities are fighting each other to recruit them. Yet we are supposed to believe that in 2020, IVY universities still haven't hired "enough" BIPOC because the members of the search and hiring committees are deeply racist??

About ten years ago I read an article about minority law school admissions that focused on efforts by Michigan State (a top-tier law school) to recruit a minimum percentage of minorities. The author investigated LSAT and GPA scores for that year, broken down by race, and discovered that there were fewer than 100 black college grads whose scores matched the average scores of those admitted to MSU in the prior year. In the entire US. MSU would have had to recruit every single one of that elite group (and gladly would have) in order to fill it's minimum goals for minority placement.

Paul Zrimsek said...

This is "defund the police" all over again, isn't it? No fair holding us to it just because we said it!

Not Sure said...

The Crack Emcee said...

It's odd, to live in a country that didn't want to do it's own work - but calls others lazy - and which is so ashamed of themselves they hide their history but claim others are inferior.

Yes, it is. It's even odder to live in a country where a white woman who identifies "objective, rational linear thinking" and "self-reliance" as key features of White Culture is cited approvingly by woke folk, including students and faculty of Color at a major university.

Not Sure said...

Or the person who doesn't understand how America was laid out but wants to judge me.

1) "Redlining" consisted (or consists, if you prefer) of basing mortgage lending decisions on estimated creditworthines. Under Clinton and (especially) Bush II banks were encouraged to reduce their reliance on that. You may remember how that worked out.
If banks were systematically denying loans to creditworthy applicants because of their color, it would be profitable for some other banks to swoop in. There was one bank that was famous for doing just that on the south side of Chicago a few decades ago. It did ok for a while, but guess how it ended up

2) Critiquing people's arguments isn't a matter of judging them. Some of my best friends are socialists.

Narr said...

A former colleague, now at Princeton, informs me that the Institute for Advanced Study is about to announce that Space-Time is racist.

Narr
As long suspected!

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

Temujin said...
There's not a whole lot of courage in academia these days. These are not the people you should be looking toward for guidance, well thought out opinions, or support."

That's nothing new. German universities were considered the best in the world in the 1920's. How many German gentile professors objected when their Jewish colleagues and students were booted off campus? How many of them protested against the fashionable race theories of their day? I am fond of pointing out to people who are overawed by the credentials of "experts" that Mengele was not only an MD but a PhD, who received his doctorate in Anthropology from the University of Munich. You couldn't ask for a better credentialed butcher.

I'm also struck by how blind historians who have written perceptively about the past can be when it comes to judging the present. Simon Schama wrote a great book about the French Revolution, but mocks those concerned about the flood of Muslim refugees into Europe. (He made light of the Muslim rape gangs in his own country while debating Mark Steyn and Steym jumped on that like a bulldog grabbing a steak.) Annie Applebaum is the author of a harrowing work about the Soviet gulags, but is more worried about Trump than she is about leftist censorship. They do not apply the lessons of history to themselves or their elite friends.

Michael K said...

It's odd, to live in a country that didn't want to do it's own work - but calls others lazy - and which is so ashamed of themselves they hide their history but claim others are inferior.

More of Crack's inner city stuff.

Fernandinande said...

Charter schools and freedom the attend schools outside ones school district have been shown to be ways to close the gap within the public school system.

No, those schools and choices don't "close the gap".

They just think their black colleagues and students are, shall we say, a shade inferior.

In sum and on average, they are inferior, intellectually at least, since they were admitted with lower qualifications.

John McWhorter, a BLACK man, says -

"For example, if that Philly story a generation past the Great Society is just a fluke, what about what was happening in Kansas City around the same time? Twelve new schools were built to replace crummy ones black students had been mired in for decades. The effort cost 1.4 billion dollars. The new schools included broadcast studios, planetariums, big swimming pools, and fencing lessons. Per-pupil spending was doubled, while class size was halved to about 25 students a class. Elementary school students all got their own computers, and there were now 53 counselors for them when before there had been none.

Fade out, fade in: dropout rates doubled, the achievement gap between white and black students sat frozen, and the schools ended up needing security guards to combat theft and violence."


Then he plays the fool:

The reason for this was nothing pathological about the kids: the story of how black inner cities got to the state they were in by the 1980s is complex and has nothing to do with blame.

Original Mike said...

Blogger Jason said..."Meanwhile, a University of Wisconsin - Madison has a prominent role in this absolutely stupid episode of PC dumbassery that has the "worm community" up in arms."

https://www.thedailybeast.com/worm-joke-causes-science-twitter-flame-war-over-accusations-of-sexism-and-racism?fbclid=IwAR2oFQH6CfKzyWuxEB6ug1qmW0FJ9EwT9CsWhgTQvUZGTd7e1VRtFGqM4bw



Good God.

Francisco D said...

Michael K said...
More of Crack's inner city stuff.

It's a schtick. He figures to get over on the White folks because the brothers don't buy it.

I suspect he was bullied a lot.

Michael K said...

All those white Princeton professors live in all white suburbs, like the ones Howard and Inga live in.

Narr said...

I spent my career in the belly of the beast--at the same institution from freshman and student worker through two graduate programs, and as library staff and finally faculty. In 1971 the history faculty included WWII combat vets (or their little brothers). Most of them--white and male--had at least been in the service.

They were mostly left, some pretty far left, but they also had real life experiences and had gotten PhDs when the old school hardasses were still in charge. Few bullies, and those easily avoided for the most part.

Over the decades the age, sex, complexion, and experience of the faculty changed profoundly. Too many fresh, 30 y.o. know-it-alls whose life experience is in getting A's and PC sloganeering.

Women and minorities were desirable commodities and the mismatch and bidding wars were in full swing by the mid-90s. Very mediocre scholars and administrators of the correct skin color, gender, and orientation commanded a premium, and now the practice is . . . systemic.

That's bad enough, but they are almost always mediocre scholars only of their own group's grievances and sufferings.

Narr
We.Are.Dumbed


Owen said...

If I understand correctly the words of Famous Poet Paul Muldoon as reported by Conor Friedersdorf as further reported here by Ann Althouse, he —acclaimed expert of language, master of every velleity and pregnant pause— is encouraging us to talk racist shit in order to avoid a tsunami of doxxing and disapprobation. Muldoon expresses this as needing the statement to be overstated in order for it to be heard at all. We need to shout loudly a message of racist shit because the background noise level of White Supremacy is so oppressively high.

Maybe I misunderstand. Please correct me. Please. Because he’s an OK poet.

Michael said...

Anyone who has read Havel's, "The Power Of The Powerless" knows exactly what's going on with the letter. There are three types of signatories:

1) The True Believers. Nuff said about them.
2) The entrenched who are secure in the tenure and signed just to avoid getting hassled by their peers. They just want to be left alone. These are Greengrocers.
3) The last group are the low rungs on the vicious Academic job Ladder who know that to get to the upper rungs requires being seen as one fully on the team...this includes any current fads. Let's just tag them as Neutered Carrerists.

I left academic life 20 years ago because of petty deal such as this.

PB said...

The madness of crowds.

Known Unknown said...

"Fuck all y'all."

Love you, buddy.

Anonymous said...

“Constitute a committee composed entirely of faculty that would oversee the investigation and discipline of racist behaviors, incidents, research, and publication on the part of faculty.”

It's a Communist witch hunt.

In 1938 the House of Representatives formed the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA). This is the Princeton version of that. What you say, what you teach, what you believe will be investigated. It's the very definition of "thought police."

Strong response here.

tim in vermont said...

“What’s the opposite of diversity? University.” - Kate at SmallDeadAnimals.com

Linda Fox said...

Crimso, you ask

What kind of a person does that?

Someone who has been trained to fear losing, not just a job, but everything he values in life. Who, if he stands up, will likely never work again in a field that he poured time and money into.

Someone who knows that his precious degree has little to no value in the Real World. Who is terrified of being identified as a Kulak.

How the hell did this happen?

A little at a time. Kind of like how teen boys, back in the day, used to persuade nice girls to lie down and do the horizontal mambo. Lots of soft talk and "Oh, I completely agree with you! You're so perceptive!"

Lots of begging and strategic crying in faux-sensitivity.

And persistence - long, long marches to the final goal.

The Crack Emcee said...

Watching you idiots make excuses for your racism is more fun than you can imagine.

A dream come true.

T said...

Given the epidemic of toxic Il conformista on campus today, I put exactly zero credit towards any such contrariness from Marxist media. Zero for zeros.

The Crack Emcee said...

4 in 5 Black Americans Want Same or More Police Presence

5 in 5 White Americans Still Say Blacks Hate The Police Because Whites Are Racist And Crazy

The Crack Emcee said...

Michael K said...

More of Crack's inner city stuff.

It beats that African Bwana bullshit you be talkin'.