Well, this is a new twist that I should have seen coming.
The New York Times published an Op/Ed from the President of Brown University, Christina Paxson, which argued that the fight against DEI is the modern equivalent of the censorship of Galileo.
This is bizarre, and based upon a farrago of lies regarding both DEI and the current state of academic freedom.
In other words, it is exactly what you would expect from a modern academic: gaslighting.
First the argument:
America is facing a fundamental threat, and it echoes a dark past.
In 1633, Galileo was forced to renounce the “false opinion” that the Earth circled the sun since it collided with the prevailing beliefs of the Catholic Church.
Shortly after publication in 1859, Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species” was banned from the library of Trinity College, Cambridge.
And in the early 1950s, during the McCarthy era, many university professors were subject to “loyalty hearings,” and some lost their positions because of defamation campaigns and indiscriminate allegations of Communist leanings.
Each of these episodes of censorship and repression of knowledge reflected the unique social and political tensions of its time. But the proponents of censorship and repression all had one thing in common: they were on the wrong side of history.
The first irony here is that DEI is an even more extreme version of the loyalty tests she condemns from the 1950s. In order to get hired these days most academics are in fact quizzed extensively and scored based on a specific ideological commitment to DEI. These are called “Diversity Statements,” and failing to swear allegiance to and promoted the ideals of DEI is a death knell for your career. You literally cannot get hired without pledging allegiance to DEI.
This is no joke. You can’t say something like you believe treating people equally is your goal. You must explicitly commit to expanding equity and integrating it into your teaching. DEI is the exact opposite of academic freedom, and Ms. Paxson is quite well aware of this fact. You can’t get hired as a physicist or a biologist without committing to becoming an “antiracist.”
So lie number one.
Dozens of other bills are pending in state legislatures around the country with the promise of affecting what tens of millions of students will or won’t be allowed to learn, and exerting a chilling effect on educators who fear for their jobs. The recent actions take aim at teaching about so-called “divisive concepts,” including the history of slavery in America and its legacy in modern times, structural racism, evolving concepts of gender identity, sexuality and L.G.B.T.Q. issues, and anything to do with diversity, however defined. They are just as dangerous and misguided as attempts to outlaw the teaching of evolution, or Joseph McCarthy’s persecution of people for their political beliefs.
This is lie #2. Notice how she switches to “educators,” sneaking in the idea that universities are being prevented from discussing challenging topics. That is absurd. Restrictions on what is taught in public schools aimed at children are not the same things as restricting the more complicated discussions that naturally take place at universities. The goals of public schools and the goals of universities are fundamentally different, and different standards should apply.
For instance, I think CRT doesn’t belong in public schools, and certainly shouldn’t be taught as “the truth.” However, CRT as one of many ways to interpret history is a perfectly appropriate topic for study in universities, which have a different mission than the basic education provided by public schools. Classes on sexuality are also not inappropriate for university students, but the crap being pushed to children should be banned.
It’s like drag shows. Adults, fine. Children, no.
Does anybody believe that nobody can talk about LGBTQ issues at universities? It’s about the ONLY thing they talk about today, and that is a problem. But suppression of such topics in university settings just doesn’t happen. Suppression of dissent from the alphabet ideology does, and it is being done by the universities which actually abhor freedom of thought and discussion.
Proponents of these laws attempt to justify them by repeating claims that universities are places where political correctness runs rampant and students are intolerant of alternative viewpoints. In my experience, these problems are much less pervasive than media coverage suggests, but they do exist. Students should not violate university policies and shout down speakers they don’t agree with. And peer pressure, like cancel culture in the larger world, is unfortunate and sometimes suppresses debate. Universities work hard to prevent and address these problems. We need to support open inquiry and debate both inside and outside of classrooms.
Open inquiry? That went out the window long ago. Now any time a conservative shows up within a mile of a university they are shouted down, sometimes physically attacked, and banished from discussion. Surveys of students show that vast numbers feel afraid to discuss their views for fear of offending the administration or fellow students.
There is zero academic freedom on most campuses. If you aren’t openly Leftist, you aren’t welcome. Again, Paxson knows this and is gaslighting us. She is appealing to our hope that freedom still exists and harkening back to the days when everybody agreed that free speech was a good thing. Brown is hardly the worst example of this trend by any means, but no academic actually believes that free speech is a principle that is supported in academia.
It isn’t. Censorship and suppression are. Making an anodyne comment that shouting people down and chasing them out of public spaces is unacceptable is ridiculous. These are platitudes, and simply not enforced on campuses.
College campuses are totalitarian islands in America, and like active volcanos, the islands are growing ever larger.
DEI is a mind disease that should be wiped out of academia as soon as possible.
