Duke strikes another blow against freedom of thought
Safe spaces at Duke.
Safe from thought, by way of purges:
About 100 students and alumni have asked Duke University to reinstate a professor whose teaching style encourages students to think critically about their opinions and opposing views.
They believe that the private university refused to renew a contract for Evan Charney, associate professor of the practice in the Sanford School of Public Policy, because he made some students feel uncomfortable by playing devil’s advocate on sensitive issues.
“In a time when political tribalism and divisiveness keep us from engaging fruitfully with one another, the skills Charney teach us are necessary to train the next generation of citizens,” they wrote in an open letter to The Duke Chronicle.
At least some students at Duke are interested in freedom of speech and liberty, even if the administration isn’t.
That’s not all that’s going on at Duke in the free speech (or rather, anti-free-speech) realm. There’s also this:
A Duke University Divinity School professor who called diversity training a “waste” of time has resigned after disciplinary proceedings were launched against him and he was barred by his dean from faculty meetings.
At issue is a February email in which Professor Paul Griffiths advised his colleagues not to bother with a proffered volunteer diversity training, called “Racial Equity Institute Phase I Training.” Slated for March, it would work to ensure the divinity school is “equitable and anti-racist in its practices and culture,” according to the invite.
“I exhort you not to attend this training,” Griffiths stated in his Feb. 6 listserv reply to his peers. “Don’t lay waste your time by doing so. It’ll be, I predict with confidence, intellectually flaccid: there’ll be bromides, clichés, and amen-corner rah-rahs in plenty.”
“”¦ We have neither time nor resources to waste. This training is a waste. Please, ignore it,” he added.
For that, he was accused of racism and sexism, and disciplinary proceedings against him were launched.
He resigned instead. Here’s part of a letter of explanation he wrote:
…[Born in England,] I’ve been a delighted citizen of the United States by naturalization since 1994, and have lived here much longer than that, from the bitter end of the Carter presidency to the astringent beginning of the Trump years. I’m sixty-one now, and was twenty-four when I landed at JFK Airport with a suitcase, a scholarship, and $500. My life in those years has been a university life, which has been both a privilege and an ecstasy.
Deep in me is a love for, and romanticism about, the United States that is perhaps only possible for an alien. Equally deep, the gift of class and temperament, has been a need to make my way. That’s an ordinary immigrant passion, at least for those without resources. I had none, except for words. And so words, in universities, have been what I’ve used to make my way. I’ve used them to elucidate, to explain, to understand, and to argue. The word-life, which is the same as the life of the mind, has been for me one of struggle to accentuate and sharpen intellectual differences with the goal of increasing clarity about what they come to and what’s at stake in them. I’ve been rewarded for that word-struggle with academic positions and some academic honors. For those rewards I’m grateful and, often, still, astonished. How is it possible that I’ve held professorial chairs at top-flight universities? It didn’t seem possible when I began; it scarcely seemed so even when it happened; and now that it’s over it seems like a Taoist butterfly-dream or a Buddhist sky-flower.
It’s over because I recently, and freely, resigned my chair in Catholic Theology at Duke University in response to disciplinary actions initiated by my dean and colleagues. Those disciplinary actions, in turn, were provoked by my words: critical and confrontational words spoken to colleagues in meetings; and hot words written in critique of university policies and practices, in support of particular freedoms of expression and thought, and against legal and disciplinary constraints of those freedoms.
Griffiths held the Warren Chair of Catholic Theology at Duke University.
If you want to dig deeper into the back-and-forth of the emails that led to the disciplinary actions against Griffiths and his firing, you can find them here. It makes for sobering and depressing reading. But it’s not that we don’t already know about this sort of thing happening; we do. This is precisely the sort of issue that has earned Jordan Peterson his fame—a popularity which is only growing, despite attempts at hitjobs on him in the press, such as this one appearing in the august and oh-so-objective NY Times.
Peterson speaks truth to Nature and principles that are internally, externally, and mutually consistent. A clear and present threat to progressive liberalism (i.e. monotonic divergence).
One has to wonder if the administrators and professors at these indoctrination centers realize that they are ever more forcefully declaring their hostility to liberty? And that in doing so they are demonstrating themselves to be committed internal enemies of the American Republic?
I suspect it will come as a great shock when they reap the consequences of what they have and are sowing.
Duke University?
Would that happen to be the Duke University that publishes this sort of thing under its imprimatur:
https://www.algemeiner.com/2018/01/10/in-2018-duke-university-press-doubles-down-on-anti-israel-bias/
Duke is where the Group of 88 faculty members tried to railroad the innocent lacrosse players. None of the 88 ever exhibited any remorse for what they did, as far as I can tell.
https://www.mindingthecampus.org/2010/05/23/what_ever_happened_to_the/
Clearly, Duke has become a cesspit of deceit and malevolence. But then, today that applies to the great majority of “higher” indoctrination centers.
Falling on down the rabbit hole led to these two excellent articles on Griffith’s firing (aka forced resignation aka bullying).
https://www.weeklystandard.com/this-professor-resigned-rather-than-go-to-diversity-training/article/2008154
“It’s hard to figure out what’s more appalling about this episode: the ease with which powerful faculty members can strip their colleagues of their ability to do their jobs just because those colleagues exercise free speech and don’t sign on to their ideological priorities–or the increasing power of bloated university bureaucracies, especially “diversity” bureaucracies over every facet of existence at a university that is supposed to be devoted to the life of the mind.”
And more generally:
https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2017/05/the-war-on-tenure
“Of course, administrators are free to disagree with the faculty they oversee on any number of issues, just as students are free to disagree with faculty and faculty with each other. But in the midst of these disputes, we must not lose sight of the proper order of things. Our universities are supposed to be institutions dedicated to the pursuit of truth as a common good, and faculty, given their training, ought to be accorded a certain deference as leaders in that pursuit. Administrators only exist to facilitate the necessary work to secure this common good as the basis of university life; thus, to the extent that administrators impede or undermine lively intellectual exchange between faculty and students, they fail in their primary duty.
This is why tenure is so important. Tenure rights for university faculty exist for one purpose: to safeguard academic freedom. Academic freedom is simply freedom to pursue the truth in good faith, unimpeded by fear of dismissal by those who wield power. When faculty members can be fired or summarily punished for expressing their considered opinions on issues of concern to the common life of the university, this hinders their ability to execute their primary task, which is to educate their students and contribute to the collective store of human knowledge. Of course, a university education is much more than the transmission of knowledge; at its best, a university education instills the capacity for deep, rigorous, and creative thought and inquiry. But such an education cannot take place in a climate of fear, and to the extent that a climate of fear is fostered on our campuses, the mission of the university is compromised.
What the cases at Duke, the Mount, and USTH all appear to have in common is this: They are examples of the erosion of the traditional rights and privileges of tenure. This erosion coincides with a power shift that marginalizes the role of faculty within the university’s shared governance. This is a direct attack on the institution of the university itself. This is why far more is at stake at USTH than the fate of an excellent philosophy program and the lives of its students and faculty. The ideal of the university itself is on the line, and we should have the courage and the conviction to stand up to defend it.”
Gringo Says:
May 23rd, 2018 at 4:08 pm
Duke is where the Group of 88 faculty members tried to railroad the innocent lacrosse players.
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It’s a good thing Duke is (or at least was) a Christian college.
Just imagine what would have happened to them at a secular one.
How are the Mighty Fallen:
https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/uarchives/history/articles/narrative-history
“In 1903, the name of John S. Bassett, professor of history, and Trinity [now Duke] became forever associated with the history of academic freedom. The college’s trustees turned back widespread appeals for Bassett’s dismissal when editorials he wrote for a scholarly journal questioned the prevailing views on race relations. This pioneering victory for academic freedom in the United States strengthened the college’s reputation for independent thought and scholarship.”
I am assuming he wrote in favor of integration, civil rights, etc, at the time, so maybe the Admin would argue that they are upholding the legacy for academic freedom by squelching “racists” today.
The ratchet only goes one direction.
He wasn’t part of the Duke 88
Did you read the Forward hit job on Jordan Peterson? Extremely egregious. Someone at National Review dissected how badly the writer of it misled, or more correctly, lied about him.
As a former Duke (tenured) faculty member, I recall a long-ago interest in its doing away with tenure. I was not then sure one way or the other.
How times have changed. Duke has found the answer: Just do not renew the contract of the (tenured) associate professor. He has his tenured position but no income!
The Left has secured the high ground at the academies. It is the same with the administrators and the Boards, which have the real control. It is for this reason they so ardently defend tenure, from pre-k thru grad or professional school levels.
In public schools the teachers’ unions would evaporate if tenure was abrogated.
This is the reason tenure must be done away with. It has become a force against academic freedom, a force of regimentation instead. Tenured Leftists hire only new Leftists. Diversity of thought? Nah, no way. The tenured faculties are the way, the life, the truth.
Purge them all. use it or lose.
If anyone dares to question the Scientific Consensus bullsh problems in cosmology and geoscience, they are labeled as crazy or whatever people use when popping up online as part of their national shill fests.
I looked up an academic review, by academics from Chicago and the usual circle, of BYU. I have always wondered why there aren’t as many Leftists and feminists at BYU and why I keep hearing from sources that they get fired. How do tenured professors get fired?
Turns out, BYU is privately owned and as a religious private institution, they can fire a lot of people and still claim academic freedom. Catholic and Jesuit institutions do the same thing, although politically they are closer to Leftists or rather Liberation Theology.
This is all appalling, if alas predictable. (Though who would have guessed that the academic Left would actually try to implement what they’ve probably been dreaming about for ages?)
I guess all those people who rushed out to buy “1984” right after Trump was elected have finally realized just how invaluable a book it can be….
You don’t have to label some one “crazy” when you can read the “crazy” that they post.
@Ymar: Jesuits are Catholics.
GRA Says:
May 24th, 2018 at 3:32 am
Jesuit institutions are not the same as Catholic institutions. That’s because they don’t follow the same hierarchy.
In a large organization, there are going to be special groups like Opus Dei and Dominicans, that people outside the group can’t differentiate.
On another note, I’m not reading or responding to Om.
Looks like Amazon’s getting in on the act.
Ah, diversity…..
https://legalinsurrection.com/2018/05/amazon-demonitizes-conservative-website-us/
(Did I say getting?….)
Jordan Peterson keeps showing up in these kinds of discussions. An interesting recent result of the demonization of him by progressive media is the negative reaction to it by some fair-minded liberals. I tripped upon the site and article linked below, which reveals a leftist opening up to reasonable debate. The comments section, like this one, alone makes good reading.
http://quillette.com/2018/05/22/jordan-peterson-failure-left/
Neo says: ” It makes for sobering and depressing reading.”
We do not need any more Pyrrhic victories. Griffiths is the one who is leaving and the Dean and her apparatchiks will continue to control the place. Conservatives have lost the culture war and need to do something about it.
The only tactic left to us is to set up parallel institutions. But that is not enough. The Left will send their moles in to take them over. Whoever controls the new institutions has to police them and purge them of leftists as remorselessly and effectively as the Left has purged conservatives of their’s as shown by this incident.
Experience has shown that this will not happen. Conservatives stood by and allowed the Left their Gramscian march though our culture. The chances are we have not learned. We will expect the Left to be reasonable and allow them into our institutions and they will take them over as they have all the rest.
But, hope springs eternal.
The trustees could repair this, but they will do nothing.
Higher education is a kakistocracy, and Duke is among the worst.
Down-Easter Says:
May 24th, 2018 at 11:01 am
Jordan Peterson keeps showing up in these kinds of discussions.
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Thanks for the link.
I enjoy Quillette when I see an article, but I don’t “shop” there regularly.
AesopFan:
Jordan Peterson had a lengthy interview with the founder and editor of Quillette about two months ago. It is available as a podcast.
https://soundcloud.com/jordanpetersonpodcast/41-quillette-discussion-with-editor-claire-lehmann
For those classical liberals out there; for those who consider themselves moderate; for those who hew to conservative principals—no matter your Democratic or Republican affiliation:
This is a culture war.
The Totalitarian Left has won a long battle: their march through the institutions.
Yet their twisted “Utopia” [their New World] cannot tolerate actual diversity, critical thinking, or exposure to Truth.
The Totalitarian Way eschews diversity of thought. It runs from reason. It abolishes human agency and individualism, substituting state-approved GoodThink wrapped in wooly DoubleSpeak. It is as dangerous as is is wily.
The Totalitarian Left that has emerged in academia, media, entertainment, even major corporations from will fail as will all evil and untruths, when exposed to the elixirs of freedom, liberty, and human sovereignty.
The Totalitarian “Progressives” will raise Hell to protect their tyranny.
But we will win in the end.
But only if we fight…and we have not yet begun to FIGHT!
From the First Things editorial: “. Our universities are supposed to be institutions dedicated to the pursuit of truth as a common good, and faculty, given their training, ought to be accorded a certain deference as leaders in that pursuit.”
Duke is pursuing the truth, with intent to kill it and tear the carcas to pieces.