During the years I taught college English, I had a ringside seat watching a new breed of Jacobins seize control of a university English department, then extend their reach throughout the humanities. Posing as the champions of “social justice,” they have built an empire cultivating “victims”—and silencing colleagues who oppose the new mission of the … Continue reading “Diary of a Mad Emerita”
The educational bureaucracies from the state level down to local school boards, including community college boards of trustees, are rushing to implement administrative regulations and board policies, as well as approve curricular changes, that will normalize antiracist and gender identity politics in our education systems for years and perhaps generations to come. The sudden rush … Continue reading “Institutionalizing Systemic Antiracism Racism”
The UNC School of Medicine just released an “update” to its lengthy Task Force to Integrate Social Justice into the Curriculum Report. According to the school’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion web page, “the UNC School of Medicine appreciates the Task Force’s work, its feedback, and recommendations,” and this status report “includes important context relative to … Continue reading “Diversity, Equity, and Confusion at UNC School of Medicine”
Race has arguably become the single most important defining characteristic of a person in today’s society. Rather than concerning itself with scholarship, character, personality, or work ethic, today’s universities now treat students and faculty as if their race supersedes all of their other qualities. One example of this is UNC-Chapel Hill’s Race, Racism and Racial … Continue reading “UNC Hosts a Symposium on “Race, Racism, and Racial Equity””
I have long been fond of saying that there are colleagues for whom I would be delighted to vote if they sought my support for service on a university committee, but not if they were running for political office. I’d like to think that Robert Boyers, a genuine literary intellectual who teaches at Skidmore College … Continue reading “A Frenemy on the Left: Robert Boyers on The Tyranny of Virtue“
Holden Thorp is a very clever fellow. With a PhD in chemistry from Caltech and after some business ventures and a spell teaching at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he ascended to the chancellorship of the university in 2007 at the young age of 43. He resigned in 2013 amid allegations of … Continue reading “Science Needs Honesty, Not Affirmative Action”
Law students are adults who have completed an undergraduate degree. They’re in a professional school to learn the law, procedures, and skills they’ll need in a conflict-ridden, frequently harsh world. You would expect that they would act accordingly. Sadly, that’s not always the case. As we’ll see, law students can be petty and vindictive. And … Continue reading “Law Student Complains about a Question; Professor Sentenced to Re-education Camp”
In 2019, the Society for Classical Studies, a non-profit North American scholarly organization devoted to all aspects of Greek and Roman civilization, held a rather memorable conference in San Diego. Titled “The Future of Classics,” panelists were asked for their opinions on “the diminution of our future role” in society. One of the panelists, Dan-el … Continue reading “As the US turns its Back on Western Classics, China Embraces Them”
The notion of antiracism now dominates at all levels of education, from infant to university. In a previous piece, I described how the 2017 President of American Educational Research Association (AERA) gave speeches to teachers instructing them that teaching math to kids poses a racist threat, playing a set of video clips to underline her … Continue reading “Credo Quia Absurdum: Education and the Cult of Anti-Racism”
Critical race theory (CRT) maintains that the United States is founded on racial supremacy and oppression. The US Constitution, legal system, and institutions, according to critical race theorists, are inherently racist. Unequal outcomes, they suggest, are a reflection of systemic racism. America’s material achievement and economic growth, critical race theorists argue, has only been achieved … Continue reading “What Should We Do About Critical Race Theory?”