He could just as well have picked Citizens United, the 2nd amendment, opposition to racial quotas, and the desire to enforce immigration laws. My guess is that these would equally be held to be “beyond the bounds or reasonable discourse”.
Racial quotas are unconstitutional by a 2003 Supreme Court decision. That decision matches legal opinion. I don’t think you’ll find a hard time finding academics who support conservative interpretations of the 2nd amendment. I also don’t think you’ll have trouble finding academics who support Citizens United. I think you’ll have relatively more trouble finding people who want to enforce immigration laws, since very few people want to.
Going beyond the progressive consensus to the right isn’t politically incorrect, it’s beyond the pale. Going beyond it to the left is being “principled” but “too extreme”.
I’m assuming you’re only talking about English departments?
That decision matches legal opinion. I don’t think you’ll find a hard time finding academics who support conservative interpretations of the 2nd amendment. I also don’t think you’ll have trouble finding academics who support Citizens United.
They certainly exist, but it’s certainly the kind of thing that would be held against an applicant. It’s hard to show what caused hiring decisions, but here are twoexamples that I happened to come across today of just how welcome right-of-center ideas can be on college campuses.
They certainly exist, but it’s certainly the kind of thing that would be held against an applicant.
I’m not talking about rare, exceptional cases for those examples. In many areas, right-wing ideas are overrepresented, e.g. libertarians in economics. But I think that has more to do with how relatively interested libertarians are in economics.
I’ve also stated somewhere else in this comment section that there are examples of unwarranted exclusion of non-left views by academic leftists. (I’m a huge Orwell nut, by the way.) If this is a huge problem, I want to see it in terms of base rates, not particular examples. I will also add that I do count being right-wing against a source. Right or wrong, I live in Tennessee and I’m surrounded by a majority of evangelical, Christian Republicans who fill the local opinion pages with letters about how they’re never represented by the press. I’ve heard these people cry “persecution” too often for it to have much effect. Again, this might best be considered damage that ought to be repaired, but you should at least know that it is there.
As with the “debate” on fossil-fuel divestment at Harvard, no student prior to that vote mounted a challenge to the fundamental premises of the movement: that fossil-fuel producers are “public enemies” every bit as contemptible as South African apartheid, that catastrophic levels of global warming are imminent, and that America’s fossil-fuel industry can be effectively shut down by government fiat without massive social harm.
I would like the author to name someone, anyone, who says all that.
Posters advertizing the lecture were promptly covered or ripped down, and widespread campus ridicule followed.
Perfectly believable. The first part is bad. The second part is not.
Hassan says that at this point, his room lock was broken. Who broke it or why is unknown, yet the timing is curious. Hassan now had legitimate concerns for his safety.
Actual break-in or not, this is not what a campus climate denialist can reasonably expect to happen to him or her.
I am far from taking the divestment campaign’s founder and leader, Bill McKibben as my guide in such matters, but if even McKibben was willing to respectfully debate Epstein at Duke University, why shouldn’t Vassar students hear from Epstein as well?
Was bringing Epstein free? I have other reasons, if you like.
And if Vassar’s Political Science, Sociology, and International Studies Departments can serve as official co-sponsors of a teach-in on behalf of the extremist and openly anti-capitalist Occupy Wall Street movement, how is inviting an libertarian defender of American industry to Vassar out of bounds?
I protested with Occupy. If you need some of the important differences between an Occupy protestor and a “libertarian defender of American industry” explained, I will be happy to do so.
In all my years of reporting on campus conflicts, this is the most appalling instance of political correctness I can recall.
My overall reaction to this most appalling thing ever is a “meh,” with a few ideas about how things might have been better. If this is about the worst we’re dealing with, I think we’re OK.
The title: Western Civilization driven off campus at Hamilton College. This one’s got to be good. The problem is that I’m having trouble understanding it. There was an “Alexander Hamilton Institute” spearheaded by a guy named Robert Paquette to focus on American history and ideals. It gets initial support, but opposition arises and the idea is shot down. Paquette goes to press blaming left-ideologues and political correctness, his complaints being picked up by outlets willing to outrageously title selected snippets and then cite the school’s diversity policy—successfully establishing that Hamilton College practices affirmative action.
We’re obviously missing big parts of the story here. It could be a real and serious example of something wrong, but I haven’t figured that out yet. But from Paquette:
Leaders of this movement had brought or attempted to bring to campus Susan Rosenberg, former member of the Weather Underground and a convicted felon, to teach writing; and Ward Churchill, the academic charlatan, to speak about prison reform. Even more bizarrely, Brigette Boisselier was brought to the campus. She is in charge of cloning for the Raelian sex cult, which believes humans are descended from aliens. She claimed to have produced a baby through cloning, though no non-Raelian has reported seeing the child. Boisselier was installed at Hamilton as a visiting assistant professor of chemistry.
Sounds like he and I might agree about some things. I don’t know Boisselier’s skill as a chemist, though she did come to Hamilton recently after being fired for being a Raelian. Rosenberg was a convicted felon, but not on any crime related to writing skills. Churchill was invited to speak.… back in 2005, before his university determined misconduct. Paquette seems to interpret all of these events and his own experience as a weird whole: “they’ll tolerate anything leftist!”
[Edit: Paquette may be referencing a later attempt at invitation, but I haven’t found it. Google is swamped by the controversy surrounding the ’05 visit]
Hamilton College provided an instructive illustration of this procedure at work. Robert Paquette attempts to have Miss Sprinkle’s performance cancelled but is told that doing so would be a violation of the First Amendment and academic freedom. He then arranges for the college’s audio-visual department to tape Miss Sprinkle’s performance, having previously obtained her signature on a waiver that, among other things, authorized “unrestricted access” to and copying of the tape. David Paris, the dean of the faculty at Hamilton, learns of the tape and intercepts it. In response to a request from Professor Paquette, Dean Paris responds that he will release the tape, but only if it is agreed that it will not be copied or made publicly available. But why? Doesn’t Professor Paquette enjoy the same freedoms that the Womyn’s Center and Annie Sprinkle enjoy? Or perhaps Dean Paris believes that Professor Paquette’s freedom of expression is less important than theirs?
I recommend reading that source. Because
Academic freedom for me
but not for thee
is the header to an article which laments Paquette’s failure to boot Sprinkle and rages at the Dean’s initial—and later reversed—refusal of Paquette’s request to make public a taping of her talk.
Rosenberg was a convicted felon, but not on any crime related to writing skills.
Is still feels strange to me that people who participate in terrorist groups, rob banks, etc. are welcome at universities; while people who suggest that maybe women have less mathematical geniuses than men are unwelcome.
Just to make sure, is it important whether the terrorism is left-wing or right-wing? Would that university be OK to hire Anders Breivik for writing lessons? I mean, he did some crazy stuff, but none of that is related to writing skills.
First, the bar for “guest speaker” is lower than for “tenured faculty.” Yes, importance comes in degrees.
Second, I will admit to flippancy, though not on the order of suggesting an equivalence with Breivik. My comment was getting too long as it was, and I sacrificed seriousness for concision and out of impatience. Mea culpa.
Regardless of leftist or rightist motives, Rosenberg was a dangerous criminal and deserved to spend time in jail, though I think her sentence was too harsh. People who suggest that there are fewer mathematical geniuses amongst women than men don’t go to prison, and in fact, I doubt that many would disagree with that statement. That was a specific example of gender differences in intelligence given in my high school psychology textbook. They’re quite welcome, actually. More controversial is the proposition that this is a result of an essential gender difference, but people on both sides of that question are (typically) quite welcome. I know some exceptions here, but correct me if I’m mistaken in the typical case.
Let’s return to what I’ve been saying all along: I have a problem with privileging bad ideas, but bad ideas are not to be automatically criminal. Yet there should be a cost associated with espousing those non-criminal bad ideas. Rosenberg’s ideas were very seriously criminal: she faced a very serious cost. The cost of her past deeds in evaluating whether to invite her as a guest speaker has been reduced—though it still exists.
(Tangent: If holocaust denialism were to be banned here as it has been in France and Austria, I would be encouraging universities to fill Irving’s schedule.)
Returning to the context, I took Paquette’s list of “look who they’ll invite!” as insinuating that there are no standards when it comes to the left, while implying that center-right ideas are verboten. That remains false.
All of us, to some extent, though publishers, administrators, corporate boards, managers, faculty, and editors have much more say. Is there some interesting followup to the obvious here?
The evidence for their being better at this than laymen is at best mixed. Editors and media are bad at sufficiently filtering things like climate change denial and creationism, while faculty and administrators are better. I would argue that everyone on that list is likely to have a “neutrality bias”, by which I mean they are often more concerned with appearing “objective” or “centrist” than they are with saying true things. Both the left and right operate large “flak industries” to try to shift what counts as “objective” in one direction or the other.
They became better with racism, but only with the help of popular movements. Legislation made them better about persons with disabilities. We’re seeing similar shifts right now concerning sexism and homophobia.
It would be difficult to get an very accurate picture of where such elites do well and badly. The metric would have to involve a specification of what counts as “correct” or “popular” morality, as well as the epistemic merit of a huge variety of politically-charged positions. If you want to get past simple outcome-based statements concerning a specific position, it’s a hard problem. Do they do well enough to maintain a diverse, intellectually stimulating environment?
Media editors? No. Corporate boards and managers? Sometimes, but very often no. Publishers? A mix. University administrators and faculty? Mostly yes.
Are they “getting it right” when they select against racialists and Stalinists? Yes.
What standard are you using to judge whether they’re correct or not? I disagree with most of your answers. I’m guessing that if I pressed you enough, you’d wind up answering “the gate keepers (especially the ones at universities) are more-or-less doing a good job, I know this because they told me so”.
I pause to add to a different comment of mine from elsewhere in this thread, where I stated that right-wing libertarians are over-represented. I happen to think that this is a good thing, even if I think that right-wing libertarian ideology is wrong, and if consistently implemented, morally awful.
At the university level, at least, they tend to be much more interesting to talk to than people who agree with me. They also provide an excellent service: if you want to know what’s wrong with particular government policies you’ve never heard of, libertarians will happily assist you.
What standard are you using to judge whether they’re correct or not?
Several. Here’s an example: do they tend to promote true ideas over false ones, even on politicized topics? Yes. It makes a lot of movement conservatives and radical environmentalists angry, but they do. This is anecdotal, but I have an easier time finding people willing to listen to my unpopular ideas amongst students and faculty than I do with my neighbors.
I’m guessing that pressed you enough, you’d wind up answering “the gate keepers (especially the ones at universities) are more-or-less doing a good job, I know this because they told me so”.
And you’d be guessing incorrectly. See the previous response. I suppose you’re working on the response to a previous comment of mine wherein I asked you to describe what you think the political atmosphere at universities to be like. I will also refer back to my first comment, wherein I asked whether or not intellectual diversity has been improving or not—I think it has been.
Racial quotas are unconstitutional by a 2003 Supreme Court decision. That decision matches legal opinion. I don’t think you’ll find a hard time finding academics who support conservative interpretations of the 2nd amendment. I also don’t think you’ll have trouble finding academics who support Citizens United. I think you’ll have relatively more trouble finding people who want to enforce immigration laws, since very few people want to.
I’m assuming you’re only talking about English departments?
They certainly exist, but it’s certainly the kind of thing that would be held against an applicant. It’s hard to show what caused hiring decisions, but here are two examples that I happened to come across today of just how welcome right-of-center ideas can be on college campuses.
I’m not talking about rare, exceptional cases for those examples. In many areas, right-wing ideas are overrepresented, e.g. libertarians in economics. But I think that has more to do with how relatively interested libertarians are in economics.
I’ve also stated somewhere else in this comment section that there are examples of unwarranted exclusion of non-left views by academic leftists. (I’m a huge Orwell nut, by the way.) If this is a huge problem, I want to see it in terms of base rates, not particular examples. I will also add that I do count being right-wing against a source. Right or wrong, I live in Tennessee and I’m surrounded by a majority of evangelical, Christian Republicans who fill the local opinion pages with letters about how they’re never represented by the press. I’ve heard these people cry “persecution” too often for it to have much effect. Again, this might best be considered damage that ought to be repaired, but you should at least know that it is there.
From the National Review post:
I would like the author to name someone, anyone, who says all that.
Perfectly believable. The first part is bad. The second part is not.
Actual break-in or not, this is not what a campus climate denialist can reasonably expect to happen to him or her.
Was bringing Epstein free? I have other reasons, if you like.
I protested with Occupy. If you need some of the important differences between an Occupy protestor and a “libertarian defender of American industry” explained, I will be happy to do so.
My overall reaction to this most appalling thing ever is a “meh,” with a few ideas about how things might have been better. If this is about the worst we’re dealing with, I think we’re OK.
On the College Insurrection article:
The title: Western Civilization driven off campus at Hamilton College. This one’s got to be good. The problem is that I’m having trouble understanding it. There was an “Alexander Hamilton Institute” spearheaded by a guy named Robert Paquette to focus on American history and ideals. It gets initial support, but opposition arises and the idea is shot down. Paquette goes to press blaming left-ideologues and political correctness, his complaints being picked up by outlets willing to outrageously title selected snippets and then cite the school’s diversity policy—successfully establishing that Hamilton College practices affirmative action.
We’re obviously missing big parts of the story here. It could be a real and serious example of something wrong, but I haven’t figured that out yet. But from Paquette:
Sounds like he and I might agree about some things. I don’t know Boisselier’s skill as a chemist, though she did come to Hamilton recently after being fired for being a Raelian. Rosenberg was a convicted felon, but not on any crime related to writing skills. Churchill was invited to speak.… back in 2005, before his university determined misconduct. Paquette seems to interpret all of these events and his own experience as a weird whole: “they’ll tolerate anything leftist!”
[Edit: Paquette may be referencing a later attempt at invitation, but I haven’t found it. Google is swamped by the controversy surrounding the ’05 visit]
Look at their previous guest speakers. We got Condie and everything!
Paquette doesn’t mention another interesting former guest: ex-Porn Star Annie Sprinkle. Here is Paquette-friendly account of that episode:
I recommend reading that source. Because
is the header to an article which laments Paquette’s failure to boot Sprinkle and rages at the Dean’s initial—and later reversed—refusal of Paquette’s request to make public a taping of her talk.
Is still feels strange to me that people who participate in terrorist groups, rob banks, etc. are welcome at universities; while people who suggest that maybe women have less mathematical geniuses than men are unwelcome.
Just to make sure, is it important whether the terrorism is left-wing or right-wing? Would that university be OK to hire Anders Breivik for writing lessons? I mean, he did some crazy stuff, but none of that is related to writing skills.
First, the bar for “guest speaker” is lower than for “tenured faculty.” Yes, importance comes in degrees.
Second, I will admit to flippancy, though not on the order of suggesting an equivalence with Breivik. My comment was getting too long as it was, and I sacrificed seriousness for concision and out of impatience. Mea culpa.
Regardless of leftist or rightist motives, Rosenberg was a dangerous criminal and deserved to spend time in jail, though I think her sentence was too harsh. People who suggest that there are fewer mathematical geniuses amongst women than men don’t go to prison, and in fact, I doubt that many would disagree with that statement. That was a specific example of gender differences in intelligence given in my high school psychology textbook. They’re quite welcome, actually. More controversial is the proposition that this is a result of an essential gender difference, but people on both sides of that question are (typically) quite welcome. I know some exceptions here, but correct me if I’m mistaken in the typical case.
Let’s return to what I’ve been saying all along: I have a problem with privileging bad ideas, but bad ideas are not to be automatically criminal. Yet there should be a cost associated with espousing those non-criminal bad ideas. Rosenberg’s ideas were very seriously criminal: she faced a very serious cost. The cost of her past deeds in evaluating whether to invite her as a guest speaker has been reduced—though it still exists.
(Tangent: If holocaust denialism were to be banned here as it has been in France and Austria, I would be encouraging universities to fill Irving’s schedule.)
Returning to the context, I took Paquette’s list of “look who they’ll invite!” as insinuating that there are no standards when it comes to the left, while implying that center-right ideas are verboten. That remains false.
Ok, what about Kathy Boudin or Bill Ayers?
The question is who determine which ideas are bad.
A high burden of proof for both.
The answer is that about everybody makes this determination whether you want them to or not.
Specifically, my question was “who determines which ideas are officially considered ‘bad’ for purposes of not being institutionally privileged?”
All of us, to some extent, though publishers, administrators, corporate boards, managers, faculty, and editors have much more say. Is there some interesting followup to the obvious here?
Is there any evidence that these gatekeepers are particularly good at making this judgement?
The evidence for their being better at this than laymen is at best mixed. Editors and media are bad at sufficiently filtering things like climate change denial and creationism, while faculty and administrators are better. I would argue that everyone on that list is likely to have a “neutrality bias”, by which I mean they are often more concerned with appearing “objective” or “centrist” than they are with saying true things. Both the left and right operate large “flak industries” to try to shift what counts as “objective” in one direction or the other.
They became better with racism, but only with the help of popular movements. Legislation made them better about persons with disabilities. We’re seeing similar shifts right now concerning sexism and homophobia.
It would be difficult to get an very accurate picture of where such elites do well and badly. The metric would have to involve a specification of what counts as “correct” or “popular” morality, as well as the epistemic merit of a huge variety of politically-charged positions. If you want to get past simple outcome-based statements concerning a specific position, it’s a hard problem. Do they do well enough to maintain a diverse, intellectually stimulating environment?
Media editors? No. Corporate boards and managers? Sometimes, but very often no. Publishers? A mix. University administrators and faculty? Mostly yes.
Are they “getting it right” when they select against racialists and Stalinists? Yes.
What standard are you using to judge whether they’re correct or not? I disagree with most of your answers. I’m guessing that if I pressed you enough, you’d wind up answering “the gate keepers (especially the ones at universities) are more-or-less doing a good job, I know this because they told me so”.
I pause to add to a different comment of mine from elsewhere in this thread, where I stated that right-wing libertarians are over-represented. I happen to think that this is a good thing, even if I think that right-wing libertarian ideology is wrong, and if consistently implemented, morally awful.
At the university level, at least, they tend to be much more interesting to talk to than people who agree with me. They also provide an excellent service: if you want to know what’s wrong with particular government policies you’ve never heard of, libertarians will happily assist you.
This may be true in economic departments, this is most definitely not true in universities in general.
Several. Here’s an example: do they tend to promote true ideas over false ones, even on politicized topics? Yes. It makes a lot of movement conservatives and radical environmentalists angry, but they do. This is anecdotal, but I have an easier time finding people willing to listen to my unpopular ideas amongst students and faculty than I do with my neighbors.
And you’d be guessing incorrectly. See the previous response. I suppose you’re working on the response to a previous comment of mine wherein I asked you to describe what you think the political atmosphere at universities to be like. I will also refer back to my first comment, wherein I asked whether or not intellectual diversity has been improving or not—I think it has been.
This is what is known as circular reasoning.