The University of Michigan medical students who walked out of their white coat ceremony missed a transcendent lecture about staying human in an age of machines.
A rare and deeply inspiring example of the best of America--the America we grew up in or arrived in from foreign shores until recently--the University of Michigan chooses a speaker based on her qualifications and reputation and doesn't back down when activists demand she be cancelled, Dr. Kristin Collier delivers a profound speech thoughtfully addressing the greatest ethical challenges doctors face today, Dr. Vinay Prasad, who holds different positions than Dr. Collier on religion and abortion, publicly comes to her defense, and Bari Weiss, who also has different positions than Dr. Collier on religion and abortion publishes Dr. Prasad's defense!
Bravo--what a great way to start the morning by reading this--and well done to all!
The most surprising aspect of this event, is that Michigan didn't back down. I quit my UM alumni Assoc 25 years ago when they started to go seriously of the rails. I mean, they've been off the rails since the 70s when I attended, but now, it's gotten embarrassing.
The fact that Michigan did not back down and collapse in the face of students' demands is a lesson for every other academic institution in the country.
I had a five credit class, with professors from three different programs called The Rise of China under the Cultural Revolution. This was in 1977-78, while the Gang of Four was murdering millions of citizens.
The profs held the movement up as a glorious thing.
Interesting you mentioned the "self-loathing" part. How do you define "wokeness?" Is it self-loathing racially or nationally?
As a non-white person, I see a lot of "moral panic" aspects to this. As in, don't teach certain parts of history that might make little Trevor and Annabelle "feel bad" or be "distressed." No one gave a f*ck about my sensitivities, etc. when I was in school.
Wokeness is apologizing for everyone but yourself. It's a new age martyrdom, where you elevate your self esteem by talking about how awful everyone is, but not really changing your own behavior.
In the 60s/70s I was thoroughly taught of the injustice towards AAs in the US, Jews in WWII, etc. But it was in the context of what the world was like during those times. Now, we just act as though people of European descent are genetically predisposed to be assholes.
I was never taught back then that it was African tribes who had been raiding other villages and sending their brethren into slavery for centuries before the Americas were colonized. Do you think that little whoever and whoever would be too traumatized to find out they were sold into slavery by the people of their own race? I may be wrong, but I think those scarves that all those AW congress asshole wore in that photo op were from one of the most aggressive tribes, but I may be wrong. African nations benefited by selling slaves, but where is that in school curriculums.
Lol. Not "angry" at all. Just don't fall for the American mythology/exceptionalism myth. Don't believe history should be censored to protect the feelings of a certain demographic. Sad that seems "angry" to you. Sad that anyone who doesn't swallow the mythology is seen as "angry." I'm actually quite content and happy, but if some folks are angry, so what? They probably have good reason to be.
Seems the ones who are "angry" are those wound-up about some fake moral panic and seem to think white people should be the only demographic immune from demonization.
Nobody gives an f about your sensitivities now, pal. Nobody, other than guys like you who claim it so, has ever argued to avoid certain parts of history. Teach all of the history, including the existence of slavery among black africans for thousands of years before America was settled by white people. But, hey, that means africans invented slavery, right?, so ooo we don't want to go there.
Well, you are wrong, pal. Africans did not invent slavery, it has always been among the human race and there was nothing unusual about the practices in America, except for the efforts of those Americans who believed all men were created equal and set about to abolish slavery. But ooo we don't want to go there either cause that might make someone think white folk are capable of doing some good.
FYI, wokeness is premised on the assumption white is bad and all things white must be removed, i.e., decolonized. Wokeness=racism.
Yep. Criminals and war captives were enslaved. What's your point? You think you're drawing a moral equivalent?
No one, especially me, gives a f about YOUR sensibilities today, pal. Got it? You think just because you're white you should get some special pass from racial demonization. I've dealt with it. You can deal with it too, snowflake.
I just find it interesting that the only reason America improved (forced and dragged kicking and screaming every step of the way) was due to people we would define as "Social Justice Warriors" - now that seems to be a toxic term. It seems odd that so many who want to tout the "greatness" of America and all the "improvements" now loath the very ideologies and actions that brought that about.
I mean, it's not a surprise that MLK, Jr. had a 70% disapproval rating at the time of his assassination, but now everyone wants to pretend that he and people like Muhammed Ali, Medgar Evers, etc. were so "loved" during their time.
Just seems like a lot of revisionist history and memory-holing of reality.
Just curious, how do you think he would feel about the SJWs promotion of CRT, segregated campus housing/ceremonies, Promoting/hiring based on racial/gender quotas? He wanted us to look past race, but instead we just invented an equal but opposite race (and now gender) based society. Instead of MLKs vision, we created a tribal based society that has created so many 'victim' segments that I'm doubtful it can be put back together during my lifetime.
Yeah, I'm a 65 YO white male, so I guess I'm just a racist. misogynist, homophobic anti-Semite.
Todays generation of campus SJWs have given the true SJWs a bad name.
Well, I am a 55 YO WF, so I missed MLK in action, but appreciate his message. He could not have been more correct. I also agree with your assessment of the current situation and am not sure we can dig our way out of it. The media propagates the narrative, so what are the unthinking supposed to think? I watched the video of these young "doctors" walking out on a revered ceremony and felt such revulsion towards them. How dare they? Do they think they have all the answers at such young age?? You see, I am doctor myself, and attended a similar ceremony in awe and appreciation of the honor being bestowed upon me. I am entrusted to care for other humans at their most vulnerable times. I fear growing older and being taken care of by their ilk. They have so much more to learn than they realize.
Not going to assume what you are, but considering your background, statistically, you would have not been a fan of the CIvil Rights Movement....but teaching that reality would be CRT.
Comprof, it is true that society and civilization need new ideas in order to progress.
But the current SJW movement is not advancing new ideas. It is following a well-worn path to destruction.
“There is a group (****) that has excessive power and control over our economy and society. This group is the cause of your problems. They have been plotting against you for centuries. We must remove their power and privilege. That is the only route to improving the lives of the non (****) group.”
Oh yes, we're months away from Auschwitz 2.0. Lol.
It's a stupid moral panic. Other ethics groups have had to deal with demonization in America for a lot longer than this current "wokeness" - white people can deal with it, too. I survived. You'll be fine.
I have posted this before but I think it is germane to today's topic:
Some call the left, liberals. I can't bring myself to do that. A true liberal embraces free speech. John Stuart Mill one of the founders of liberalism was a staunch defender of free speech. He said in his essay on liberalism, I'm paraphrasing here, "You should listen to your adversaries because they might be right."
The left today are not liberals. If you don't agree with the left, you are pilloried by the left. I read the definition of a racist, "Is anyone who wins an argument with a liberal."
Whatever happened to, "I may not agree with you but I will defend to the death your right to say it."? In July of 1977 the American NAZI Party was going to march through Skokie, Illinois. Seven Thousand Holocaust survivors lived in Skokie. Words cannot describe how disgusted and appalled I was by this proposed vile act. Of all people who defended this atrocity was the ACLU. I was shocked until I heard why they were defended the NAZIs right to march.
They weren't defending the NAZIs. They were defending the First Amendment, freedom of expression. I am a gentile and much as I despised the NAZIs I love the First Amendment more.
I only wish the left loved the First Amendment as much as I do but they don't.
So please stop calling them liberals because they aren't. They are tyrants.
I remember that march, too, and I was appalled by the ACLU's position until I realised it was the cost of free speech and a free society. It was disgusting, but as I recall there were counter-demonstrations with people (peacefully, as I remember) exercising their rights of free speech to denounce the Nazis. The confusion today is that this isn't a national "discussion" or "conversation" we're having with the authoritarian left, it's a negotiation--a verbal test to determine who has the power in America. The absurdities of their positions don't matter because their point is to intimidate the rest of us into bending the knee and humbly subjugating ourselves to them.
But I think most of us are missing the point--Federal Civil Rights laws are Woke and these lunatics are actually protected and supported by the law of the land. Check out Richard Hanania's brilliant post about this--every voter should read this: https://richardhanania.substack.com/p/woke-institutions-is-just-civil-rights
What went right here is that that the administration didn't back down. The Medical students are within their rights to walk out. I feel they were really just hurting themselves, but it is their right and what this nation stands for. This ceremony actually worked perfectly under our civil rights and the speaker had a lot of class and grace to those who walked out. Beautiful example.
My pleasure! I'm also really enjoying Hanania's podcast with Marc Andreessen (invented the Internet browser and now runs Andreessen Horowitz) discussing whether Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul are Nietzschean or Christian morality tales . . . haha . . . Hanania is a brilliant guy
I gave to the ACLU after they defended the right of Nazi's to march in Skokie. As they explained in a letter to their donors, they were proudly defending Americans' right to free speech and expression, even though they had contempt for all the Nazi's stood for.
Today's ACLU is a shadow of what they were in the 70's. I suspect most of the ACLU woke board would have joined the walkout, had they been at the UM white coat ceremony.
Good for you! The ACLU still fought the good fight back then . . . but then they started suing NYC to prevent the cops from picking up the mentally ill homeless people sleeping on the sidewalks in freezing winter (I think the cut off was 20 degrees) and putting them in shelters for the night so they would be warm. The ACLU won that one, and I'd argue that they're not a shadow of what they were in the mid-20th century--they're something worse and awful, simultaneously authoritarian and Orwellian . . .
There is a new organization called FIRE that is stepping up to take over where ACLU left off for our freedom of speech. I gave to them last year and will do so again this year. They are the new brave.
The ACLU lawyer who did that later went on to teach law at the Ohio State University. I had him during my 3L year for a class in political and civil rights. He was brilliant.
What happened? We've become a nation of cowards. Not just the Woke, but those who cower in fear of cancellation. Stand up to it or die with the rest of the Woke scum!
I have the benefit of straddling the old medicine and the new, with physician-cousins trained in the 1940s, receiving my own M.D. degree in the late 'seventies, and working with physicians who matriculated from the 'eighties until now. Although generally pretty smart, doctors have the very same foibles as everyone else. Unfortunately for some, most having spent more than a decade of their formative years indoors, attending lectures, many have never fully socialized and learned to treat the public, their peers, or their superiors with respect.
My older cousins were wellsprings of information. Recognizing the cloistered nature of medical training, student doctors of their generation were TAUGHT "bedside manner:" politesse, humility and deference, learning how to "round" by making bedside rounds with older physicians, learning compassion for ill, frightened patients and, of course, the dying. Learning to be Gentlemen - with a capital "G."
Taught none of this by my professors, I tried to internalize the lessons of my cousins - their demeanor, their kindness and concern. Of course, summers spent working in coal mines alongside roughnecks with little patience for "pencil necks" helped quite a bit, too.
Technical skills are important. Standards - standards of behavior, deportment, presentation, how to handle oneself in public - are important, too.
My family were all in medical fields back in the day. They immigrated to this country with nothing. Maybe that made them more compassionate. They charged patients on a sliding scale and took calls from them at home. Last but not least they treated folks of all colors and religious beliefs. We were Liberals.
There's such a tragic trajectory of cultural decline described by your multi-generational comparisons of doctors, Jim. My wife is a doctor and what you write rings true . . .
“While we support the rights of freedom of speech and religion"... The aggrieved students and staff should have stopped right there. Instead they go on to nullify that first statement. Among the aggrieved were a few true believers. The rest are just sheep. I'm not sure which would make worse doctors.
Take this and what we have seen at such places as Georgetown and Yale law schools and you quickly begin to think that our future professionals are nothing more than intellectually and spiritually weak, toddlers.
A strong person does not shy away from people with differing views but listens to them closely and measures the strength and weaknesses of their argument and then either adapts their thinking.
To me, this is just childish and it leaves me concerned about the character of our future professionals.
Wokeness conquering American universities is like Whirlpool buying out Maytag. Your washer may still say "Maytag" on the label, but it's now made in China by the lowest bidder and the Maytag repairman is in Xian. In short, Maytag just isn't what it used to be. Harvard still have ivy covered halls, but the content learned in those halls isn't what it used to be.
This strategy of using inertia and stored up brand goodwill to milk a business for profits certainly works, for a while. Our universities have done the same, admitting larger classes despite students obvious lack of academic qualifications. But just like the customer who replaces her third dishwasher in 10 years and finally gives up on Maytag... Americans are starting to give up on their universities. The goodwill has been run down and the rot is too obvious to ignore. It will be interesting to see if the number of foreign born students (F1 visas) starts declining.
I tried to like this comment, but the heart was unresponsive. Your extended analogy was concise and appropriate. Thank you. After I posted this, the heart showed up. Thanks again.
The article is, to me, further proof that we need to develop a parallel economy that is classically liberal instead of Leftist/Woke. Without such an economy, a vast swath of our population will be denied medical treatment, legal representation, and probably many other things as the Woke take over more and more companies and professions.
Celia, read The Benedict Option and Life Not By Lies by Rod Dreher. The latter is more recent, but the former is the better book. Benedict Option is all about exactly what you're suggesting (from a Christian perspective, but it could easily apply to any subculture.) Like the Soviet dissidents whose internal disagreements became lost in their shared disgust of the Communists, those of us who refuse to go woke and "live by lies" will need to be willing to accept those who disagree with us on many things but agree on that.
I absolutely love both of those books. Yesterday I watched an interview between Jordan Peterson and Rod Dreher. It inspired me to re read “Live not by Lies”. I’m also re reading “Open Letters” by Vaclav Havel. All excellent. Anyone who does not understand why so many Americans are so freaked out by the descent of socialist policies through our institutions and educational systems need to read about the lives of people who lived behind the iron curtain.
But I look at this as a big victory in that the school held firm, doubled down in the face of the 'toddlers' and allowed the speech to be held. This is what must happen in other schools across the country if the stain of progressive group think is to be halted.
Let them walk out if they have to. That is their right, after all. It's their loss. That just leaves more room for the better professionals of the future to take their place in the auditorium.
Wrung, at the beginning of Professor Collier's keynote address, she recognized the Supreme Court’s decision on abortion: “I want to acknowledge the deep wounds our community has suffered over the past several weeks, we have a great deal of work to do for healing to occur, and I hope that for day today, for this time, with we can focus on what matters the most, coming together….” you and Vinay are trying to conflate a ritual, that is only 29 years old, a merely symbolic ceremony. With the mental and ethical traits of the individuals that walked out of a mere 15 minutes or so of the ceremony to successfully protest the professor's stance on abortion. All of a sudden, the culture warriors get all snowflaky; it seems to me that the culture warriors need to get a grip on reality!
The medical system is very broken. When I was in residency(the distant 80’s) we said, “if it’s not documented it’s not done” now the belief seems to be, “if it’s documented it’s done”. Notes and charts are pristine(good for charges and legal reasons) but patients DO NOT FEEL CARED FOR OR CARED ABOUT. It is very disheartening
I'd be interested in the demographics of these sanctimonious brats. Were they affirmative action enrollees? Clearly the medical school admissions criteria needs to be examined.
There’s an article in Tablet Magazine that attempts to describe how we might have gotten here. I now have a new word for these students and others like them—“posers”. //www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/punks-vs-posers
I just read a post by Naomi that said the med students hafta fill out a DIE form to get in. I know the AMA and *all-a* them are Woke to the gills, so she's probably right.
Well, those students started early with the arrogance that so limits people serving as M.D.s. At times, it is embarrassing to be a patient witnessing a doctor dripping with superiority who knows almost nothing about the illness in front of him/her. They look absurd as they follow their computer programs while the patient sits patiently. It is often more effective to talk to the neighbour over the fence who says, "Increase fiber. You'll be fine." I heard recently of an MD diagnosing someone as Borderline Personality Disorder after a 15 minute consultation. They do not teach them the extent of their gaps. My daughter is in Med school.
This is a similar analogy to the one I use with the NeoBigots (Judaism does not work because many are unapologetically anti-Semitic). It does not work. They do not see general principles, and are not in a frame of mind to ask themselves whether they have anything to learn. Beware the person who can only instruct, never learn.
Generally they respond with heightened emotionalism, no matter how kindly my idea is introduced, and frantically demand that the subject be dropped, that only they may have their say, no one else.
Because they are Right and we are Old White Racists.
I was wondering the same thing. In the not too distant future, will a new patient be expected to fill out forms that ask for our views on abortion, assisted suicide, our political affiliations, our views on gender issues, faith, etc.
That is the logical next step after race questions. My Soviet friends were horrified at the overt racism of such questions when they gratefully immigrated here from the USSR.
It has been sadly fascinating to see how the precepts of communist totalitarianism have infiltrated our culture, rather than being imposed by conquest.
This is something I've seen over and over and over--immigrants from former communist countries in shock at the extent to which the same totalitarianism is now becoming acceptable here.
The urgent care in my area has an iPad-like form that includes all sorts of gender questions. You can't choose not to answer because it won't allow you to proceed to the next question. This is very scary.
Somebody posted yesterday that they had applied for a drivers license on line. They were asked a set of ridiculous questions which they didn’t answer but were very relieved to process the app on line without going into the license office in person to apply. However I don’t think it matters anymore our data has been captured anyway by big tech it’s very scary
Scripps actually gives you an option "prefer not to answer". But the fact that they even place patient's in that position is disgusting and invasive. They can extrapolate and distort anything about an individual based on a refusal to answer.
They'll probably already know what we believe once we adopt a Chinese-style social credit system that monitors our social media, financial transactions, health and medical info, etc. I'm still praying that's not going to happen, but it certainly seems possible.
It’s on the cards, this group of nameless faceless people want to own us my feeling is there is a pushback it maybe be small but it’s happening. Hold on he is coming!!!
Not sure they will do that, they will be isolating a large section of our population who may have the bucks for treatment. They won’t care about their politics as long as they are able to get the patients to part with their $$ these doctors will forget about their student beliefs
Kychelle Del Rosario, a medical student at Wake Forest University, tweeted about intentionally flubbing a blood draw after an older person commented negatively on her "pronoun" pin. She wasn't expelled, merely allowed to take a leave.
Shawna Harris, a nurse practitioner in Illinois, tweeted that she would refuse to prescribe Viagra for conservative men in revenge for repeal of Roe. She resigned from her position, but didn't lose her license.
I guarantee that both these women will be seeing patients again in the future.
And they have. Wokeness is a full-on secular religion, with Original Sin (being born white) and a whole list (constantly being added to) of doctrines one must believe and commandments one must follow.
Funny, but I wonder how this nurse expects to determine whether or not she's treating a "conservative" man?? Is she going to quiz them before treating them? Is she going to question every man who comes in on his opinion of Roe vs. Wade? I mean, how is this going to work in practicality? Is she going to make stereotypical assumptions based on race, age, religion, style of dress, etc.? I would think all of the aforementioned would violate some kind of law if not code of medical ethics.
Also, what is she going to do with pro-life female patients? Refuse to prescribe birth control, to force them to get pregnant and teach them a "lesson"?
I’d argue absolutely none. But it is argued by some physicians as doing their part to curb the pandemic of gun violence. Again, politics with a religious feel invading medicine. Here it brushes up against some messianic vision of one’s self and purpose.
The bigger question, though asked in a small way, is whether they would care for them the same way they care for people who agree with them. Think about that for a moment. NCMaureen (next comment) asks the sifting question, which I think is also critical.
My husband’s white coat ceremony was thirty years ago this month. He could write a book about the decline of the practice of medicine, not only the failure of medical schools, but also the degradation of medical care as a whole. I digress. He has patients from all walks of life and widely ranging opinions. His guiding principles have always been to listen to the patients’ medical problems and provide them the care and advice that he would give his own parents or his own child. It is not his place to judge them personally, socially, intellectually, or any other way. His place is to take care of their medical needs and support their health. It is disturbing that the profession is moving away from that mindset.
My medical spouse concurs. Teaching used to be the same way. Students should not have any way of knowing one's personal political or even religious beliefs in secular schools. These were not topics to be taught in the academic setting. All should feel and be welcome. No longer. The indoctrination is overt.
My husband was fortunate to have very good mentors early in his career, a bunch of "old school" doctors. He used to say that he would work until his last day on earth, but now he talks about retiring. It's kind of sad. He loves his patients, and they certainly love him. He is so discouraged by the "healthcare industry". It has shifted from patient-focus to transaction-focus.
That's what I hear from my dearest friend who is a podiatrist. She is also old school--taking care of the feet of the developmentally disabled, clergy, elderly and loads of friends and parents of friends on her own time! All of her spare time is spent recording, billing, etc.
She lost both of her parents 9 days apart in February (one expected, the other totally unexpected) and she's dialed back her full time work to part time. I'm really happy she is putting her needs first, for the first time ever!
Thanks to people like your husband and my friend, there is hope. I wish we could hear about the white coats who didn't leave that speech. Let's celebrate the brave!
I have a therapist friend who knows other therapists who don’t want to treat Trump supporters. This activist mindset is beyond destructive. It’s bigoted.
This is interesting. The "therapist" at least has enough insight to recognize that he or she or it must recuse because of bias. That at least shows some insight.
One part of me wants to write that they need help themselves, but that would constitute a deprivation of free expression. People who hate Trump are, granted, generally ill, but it's not illegal to have TDS--it's just deranged.
The even more interesting question is what would happen if, during therapy, a patient becomes rational and decides that, hey--Trump's really good for the country? Does the therapist go postal? Does it fire the patient/refer to another doctor?
My therapist friend says that she needs to help everyone, regardless of what views they hold. Good book to read is The Choice, by Dr. Edith Eger. Look her up.
Yeah you right a Trump supporter doesn’t need therapy, they know who they are, they know where they going and more importantly they know what they want!
A Wake Forest med student was suspended in April after tweeting that she intentionally missed a vein during a blood draw and had to do it again because the patient commented about her pronouns that were listed on her name badge.
Agreed, she was suspended from her program, but should have been dismissed. Progressive thought that some speech and/or beliefs are violence and some violence is free speech is a slippery slope. They can justify a lot of violence after they accuse others of hate. - you don’t agree with me, then you’re a nazi, then I can punch you.
She was not suspended, merely allowed to take a leave. I guarantee she will be back. Not repentant, but perhaps more circumspect about who she boasts to.
Assuming she makes it through medical school, unless she changes her behavior, she will be defending malpractice lawsuits until she no longer practices. Exhibit #1 in each will be a copy of her post. A mediocre first-year law student would have trouble losing those cases.
Well done UM for not caving to the student demands. Well done Dr. Collier for defending the right of choice to those who chose to walk out. Shame on those who refuse to listen to someone with whom they may disagree (especially when that person is there to help you in your chosen career). There are better times and ways to convey your own convictions.
I don't agree with Dr Collier's abortion stance (even if not fully defined). But I support her right to have it and respect her professionalism, expertise and acceptance that others may have different views.
How do you know that you don’t agree with Dr Collier if you don’t know her stance? What parts of her position do you disagree with? In my opinion, abortion is not and should not be an all or nothing subject.
"She has stated that she defines herself as pro-life, though she does not state the extent of her position (i.e. whether she allows exemptions for rape or incest)."
I know because I believe it is the right of the woman alone to make a decision about her body. That belief is not in agreement with "pro-life" - even if that view may contain exemptions etc.
Students of medicine, law, engineering or any other discipline will be stunted in their education if they adhere to a myopic, rigid world view that cannot tolerate…DIVERSITY. How ironic, that so many who claim diversity is our strength, are so flagrantly bigoted against anyone who holds beliefs different from their own.
I do not want to be the patient of a doctor who is merely a technician, or one who believes the divine spark of humanity—life—is merely a disposable commodity.
They will be stunted. When these walkout events first started years ago, I resented these people for their rigidity and lack of character. But more and more, I just pity them and those that will be left in their wake. They are depriving themselves of the richness of life. There are potential relationships with incredible people they will never develop, experiences they will never get back such as fond memories of their white coat ceremony, and ultimately a myriad of opportunities to learn and grow from those different than themselves. The biggest loss is to themselves.
I’m beyond sick of the infantile, moronic left and their childish temper tantrums. If I was Dean that assembly would have been mandatory, and leaving it would result in you leaving the Medical school. To be on the left today means no accountability, no punishment for anything you do. It’s disgraceful.
I fear our society is doomed. Not because we are insufficiently teaching our children the technical skills. Oh yes, they take classes in coding and robotics, but because in the process of migrating our educational system to that, we’ve left something else behind.
When Howard University ended their classics department because of lack of representation, Cornell West wrote a powerful op-ed lamenting that decision, and wrote in part:
“Howard University is not removing its classics department in isolation. This is the result of a massive failure across the nation in “schooling,” which is now nothing more than the acquisition of skills, the acquisition of labels and the acquisition of jargon. Schooling is not education. Education draws out the uniqueness of people to be all that they can be in the light of their irreducible singularity. It is the maturation and cultivation of spiritually intact and morally equipped human beings.”
This also resonated with me because much like the Dr noted in the article I had a conversion from pro-choice to pro-life later in life. Which I wrote about here:
Dr. Collier is a lot more forgiving and generous towards them than I would be, but that likely has a lot to do with her devout Christianity. I would not be calling for their harassment but I don't know if I'd be defending them either. Knowing well ahead of time she was going to speak, they had the option not to attend at all if they find her so offensive. But they chose to go and make a big display of "walking out" to make a point. Theatrics.
What kind of people do these students expect they will be treating once they are in practice? A physician has to deal with every possible type of person, with every possible type of belief, bias, ethnicity, body shape, sexuality, etc. Your job is not to judge people on their politics, but to heal them, regardless of what they are.
If you don’t have the capacity to sit in a lecture hall and listen to an innocuous speech by someone whose beliefs you disagree with, then you don’t have what it takes to be a medical doctor and should get out of there and let someone else take your place.
I’m a pediatric nurse practitioner and BOTTOM LINE - if we said or did anything of these things to the people who the left defends we would be gone. License revoked, fired, kicked out of school. But if it’s someone who isn’t represented by the left- it doesn’t matter. Treat them how you want to. And there are no consequences. We took an oath to do no harm- it is harmful to judge and discriminate against anyone.. and they don’t see it and they don’t care:
When i saw this on the news it literally made me sick - not only these spoiled entitled children walked out but their parents were in on it to - these are out future doctors - we have seen other instances about race as well- also with law schools - what is happening to the country I once loved - I hate everything progressives /liberals these days ! I used to be one - never again
My general rule of thumb is -- if you ever meet a "medical ethicist" of any sort who is not religious, run away as fast as you can, because surely they want to kill you. Eventually non-religious logic leads to euthanasia for mental illness, and then to the elderly, and eventually to you.
While I support abortion in cases where it's "self defense" (life of the mother, pregnancy due to rape, etc), and "morning after" contraception, I have profound respect for those who are consistently pro-life--at both the beginning and end of life, and including capital punishment.
I have the same reservations about a "medical ethicist" who is not religious.
When I was in nursing school I was an older student and was shocked by the attitude of my fellow students who were half my age. They were nearly all for abortion. I suspect many of those were also for euthanasia. There is no respect for life at both ends of the spectrum. Scary. I often thought I would not want them taking care of me if I was hospitalized, or aged and infirm.
Remember how Dr Zeke Emmanuel wrote that people over 75 have served their purpose to society, and expensive medicine should not be wasted on them? Same for babies—they haven’t benefited society yet so do not deserve heroic expensive medical care.
I was especially stunned to read a Jew had these views. So callous to life.
I wasn't surprised. He's a deep blue Democrat. That means more than religion. Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden are Catholics and are promoting unrestricted abortion.
Many Catholics stand in a place where they agree personally with abortion being wrong, but in a democratic society don’t feel that they can decide for everyone else. The RC church is also against contraception. Some older folks can remember when people were worried about JFK doing more the bidding of the Pope than US citizens, but that didn’t come to pass.
There’s a great diversity of views among Catholics on almost everything.
As a Catholic (currently taking a Bioethics course as a matter of my faith), a person CAN NOT be Catholic and have a different view that the tenants of our faith. From tonight's other course I'm taking Theology 102 class, "It is not pertinent to what the culture or world thinks. Our faith does not come from the world, it comes from God." So Pelosi, Biden, etc are Catholic only by virtue of their Baptism. Of course, God is merciful and will always listen to our request for forgiveness and change in heart, mind and soul.
You can say that but after all, people believe what they believe. You can tell them “you are not really Catholic” but that doesn’t make any difference to us. Plus there are a variety of Catholics with varying views outside the Roman church.. Independent Catholics, Ango-Catholics and so on. If you are saying “Roman Catholics must adhere to everything Rome says” well, at least on birth control,it’s not happening.
I also don’t think the “you’re not a real … unless you agree”. Fill in the blank with any religion,political party, whatever gets you anywhere. People disagree. We affiliate in groups. Let’s talk about our disagreements and argue (after all in some sense we Christians are all a Jewish cult) for the sake of heaven. As Rabbi Sacks says “The Divine Presence is to be found not in this voice as against that, but in the totality of the conversation.” Perhaps we Christians lost the plot (as it were) when we determined that one centralized authority should make all the spiritual judgment calls. But saying you CAN NOT be even Roman Catholic and believe differently is not helpful.
I haven’t heard this particular speech of Zeke Emmanuel’s and have a different set of reservations about him but he has been the keynote speaker at several different conferences I’ve attended over the years and in general most of his lectures have an emphasis on reducing overutilization of medical services as a means of governmental cost savings. I’ve seen him make this point on everything from preventing military wives from using TriCare to make them attractive surrogates to advocating for end of life palliative/hospice care to limiting repeat PET scans in cancer survivors. I’ve never heard him make the connection between limiting care and utility as a person to society but it wouldn’t surprise me.
I wouldn't voluntarily listen to him but I have heard snippets. Way back he said elderly people run up the most medical care costs in their final 2 years of life. It seemed to me he was advocating not spending on them. But...here's the thing...when is someone's final 2 years of life? If you deny care then you are assuring it WILL be their final 2 years.
some don't . my father is 98 has never been in a hospital still walks every day ,guess the good Dr would have offed my father years ago just because he was old ? What would this good Dr do with children born with defects or mental problems ? Sad to think there are people like him in the world
These exiting students are ideologically brainwashed zealots. They’re in a cult. How else to describe people who need to make a public display of intolerance, a performance of dogmatic obedience?
*heavy sigh* you had me until I came to this part:
Dr. Collier has handled the whole thing with grace. She tweeted yesterday: “I’ve heard that some of the students who walked out have been harassed and targeted—please stop. Everyone has a right to stand up for what they believe in.”
What is there to say when the person who should be the most bothered by the whole thing not only buys into the lie that these students were “targeted” but also defends their right to blatantly disrespect her and her opinion? This isn’t showing grace, it’s being an apologist for abhorrent behavior and it’s the exact reason why we are where we are.
I respectfully disagree, Mel. It does show grace, and it doesn’t apologize for rudeness. Had Michigan caved into the “demands,” that would have been bad. Instead, they refused to give in to them and carried on as planned, a course of action unfortunately rare these days. If Michigan censures those students, that, too, would be a bad thing. Here’s why.
Last October, MIT disgraced itself by cancelling a lecture which was scheduled to be delivered by Professor Dorian Abbott of U. Chicago. The lecture was sponsored by the Earth and Planetary Sciences (EAPS) and the subject matter was exoplanets. Professor Abbott had earlier published an opinion that DEI (diversity equity inclusion) was not a good idea, but that MFE (merit, fairness, equality (of opportunity)) was a good idea. A twitterstorm, probably contrived, erupted and the lecture was canceled, in pretty clear violation of MIT’s published free speech policy.
This elicited a massive immune response on the parts of many alumni, myself included. And that response quickly led to the formation of the MIT Free Speech Alliance, aka MFSA (which, spoken, admittedly does not exactly roll off the tongue as a more cleverly chosen name might).
Within MFSA are people holding widely diverse views on, well, pretty much everything. What unites us all is a solid and unwavering commitment to free, uncensored speech and expression. Some think DEI is just great, but I think that most of us do not. Each is free to say what we believe or not say it. No one gets booed, scolded, or condescended to for holding contrary opinions.
Our goal is to get MIT to adopt what is now called the Chicago Principles which state (more or less) that the University of Chicago is committed to freedom of expression. They further state that if someone strongly disagrees with that position and attends or plans to attend that institution, they should do so with the understanding that interfering with someone else’s freedom of expression will not be tolerated. Should they think they would be unable to act in that manner of tolerance, perhaps another institution would be a better fit for them. Tolerance doesn’t equate with agreement, only that each person has the opportunity to say his or her opinions without interference.
We are committed to facilitating expression of all points of view on topics, however repugnant. No rule requires us or anyone else to listen to them. But knowing what your enemy is thinking is invariably priceless information.
I commend your efforts and I’m definitely rooting for your success but unfortunately I think you all are misdiagnosing the problem.
What good does an administrative pledge to honor free speech do when an entire generation of students feels entitled to only afford respect and attention to speakers with whom they agree on everything? This isn’t an administrative problem, it’s a societal one. And all the administrative solutions in the world isn’t going to fix it. These students had no right to be so disrespectful and Dr. Collier erred in giving credence to their juvenile antics.
This nonsense will only stop when it becomes socially unacceptable. Which means people will need to experience harsh criticism (perhaps even public shame) for their actions. Until then I doubt we’ll see any significant ground gained on the free speech front.
I think that most--like the overwhelming majority--of the students who are this way have never had effective negative feedback for bad attitudes and behaviors. If they get that negative feedback, that might change--it's the basis for behavioral psychology. Reprimands followed by expulsion should help provide that.
An administrative pledge will indeed have to be backed by action, and there are many possibilities for failing to follow through. For example, MIT has an enormous endowment, much or most of which comes from contributions by alums. Many of us have created trusts with Tech. If they fail to maximize gains, like by backing clearly losing causes, they become subject to lawsuits for failing in their fiduciary responsibilities. That would cause them to lose potentially huge swaths of the endowment. They can't afford that kind of thing either regarding the money they already have or future donations.
We have already created a donor directed fund to which tax-deductible contributions can be made as an alternative to direct contributions to MIT. They know this. And it's a zero-sum game: what our fund gets, MIT doesn't. We can vector those dollars toward hiring a staff that works actively against the hecklers/cancellers, etc. We don't care whether students want to listen to a lecture or talk--that's a matter for them. What we care about is that people who don't want to hear it can't prevent people who do want to hear it from being able to do so. The Michigan students didn't attempt to silence Collier; they voted with their feet about whether they listened to her. It was their loss. I don't know what fraction of students stayed and listened, but I did hear a fair amount of applause. Were the leavers rude? I'm not sure--I wasn't there to see how they did it. Were the inconsiderate and intolerant? Sure. Would I have done what they did if I didn't like Collier? No.
We're dead serious about this because we see MIT, the ultimate STEM school, as the last and best stronghold against the forces of darkness. And we explicitly see things like rampant censoring as just that: a new version of the dark ages. Which America cannot afford, especially at this time.
The fact that you have to establish this organization is absurd. The solution should be to cut off all Federal dollars to any institution that denies freedom of expression.
The reason for the “alliance” is that we’re not alone. There are quite a few groups at other universities as well and, in the Ben Franklin tradition, we all hang together—lest we all hang separately. I think we’ve been among the more vocal and are hopefully showing what a little spine looks like to others.
You’re welcome. But it’s far from over. To paraphrase Churchill, this isn’t the beginning of the end, but it is perhaps nearing the end of the beginning.
I don't know the answer to that, but I suspect most of us are. We didn't organize to promote conservatism, only freedom of speech and expression. But the threads of what we talk about--and satirize--strongly suggest that most of us are on the right side of the aisle.
This is a great initiative! I am not a MIT alumni but I did send a note expressing my disappointment with the cancellation . I am glad to see that all of us made a start of a difference
This would be entirely in keeping with the third grade mentality: stage an immature, disrespectful public stunt and then turn around and cry about being “targeted”.
As a former law student I'm not sure I agree. I remember encountering plenty of political ideologues there, which has no place in the law, and this was back when "wokeness" hadn't even taken hold like it has now. If you are politically inclined, then become a political activist or politician, don't go into law or medicine. The law is about reason and about protecting the rights of all kinds of different people, not just those you agree with. The problem is there are too many wannabe political activists who choose to go into such professions as journalism, K-12 education, law and medicine, and as we're seeing, our society is becoming the worse for it.
Recently a bunch of infantile Yale Law students shouted down and hurled profanities at a conservative speaker, who had to be escorted out by guards; I don't even remember what issue got their panties in a bunch since these things are becoming so everyday. I think it was transgender but I'm not sure. As far as I know none of them were disciplined or expelled. Like a lot of the comments do here, people were praising the faculty for not cancelling the speaker and going forward with the program, as if that in itself was enough. Lawyers are supposed to use logic above all. It's terrifying that these tyrants-in-the-making are our future lawyers, just like it's terrifying these are our future doctors.
I get what she was trying to do but she’s removing the natural consequences for acting like an asshole. Polite society has taken the high road too often and now we’re stuck with an entire generation of adult children in desperate need of a good spanking.
Allowing Dr. Collier to speak was the correct thing to do. The students have the right to walk out if they want to. Had they stayed and disrupted the speech the university should have been compelled to remove them.
Do you think they will also have the right to refuse treatment of people whose beliefs they disagree with? These students are not suited to be medical doctors, in my opinion.
I foresee them also walking out on a patient if that patient expresses an anti-abortion, anti-trans or other anti-woke opinion. In the future maybe we'll have to have separate hospitals and clinics for conservatives and liberals. Education is already going that way, with homeschooling, the University of Austin, etc.
Defuse the situation. Diffuse is "to spread out" or dispense, like an aromatherapy diffuser, as opposed to de-FUSING a volatile or incendiary situation. :-)
Agree, giving bullies a pass is absurd and no different than condoning robbery because those doing the stealing have been so victimized for never having the opportunity to own a Gucci bag. There is no longer any middle ground. We can all play this game. Maybe Dr. should be required to state their political and ideological affiliations.
I was disappointed not by the plea to stop harassing but the "stand up for what they believe in" part. She could condemn harassment without apologizing for the behavior. She's described as a converted Christian, so it likely has to do with that. It also makes her appear very liberal, something the students are not.
This is such a crucial observation. Unfortunately liberalism tends to be helpless when confronted by this kind of Marxist absolutism. The attempt by the liberal professor to be understanding and even protective of the students is not in the slightest reciprocal. The liberal has no answers which will satisfy the Marxists and often finds herself apologizing to them for the unfairness of the world, which is seen as weakness and exploited accordingly.
Unfortunately, the central weakness of classical liberal thought is its own tolerant nature. It's easy for classical liberals to reject demands for intolerance when those demands are made outright. But when ideologues start with a demand for tolerance of their views, only gradually working up to a demand for intolerance of anyone who doesn't share their views, classical liberals find that they have let the camel all the way into the tent and are themselves sitting outside in the sandstorm.
It's the grace of her faith that provides for the ability to show mercy, something that has been sorely missing from our culture for far too long. It's brave unless you know that it's what demanded of Christians.
A rare and deeply inspiring example of the best of America--the America we grew up in or arrived in from foreign shores until recently--the University of Michigan chooses a speaker based on her qualifications and reputation and doesn't back down when activists demand she be cancelled, Dr. Kristin Collier delivers a profound speech thoughtfully addressing the greatest ethical challenges doctors face today, Dr. Vinay Prasad, who holds different positions than Dr. Collier on religion and abortion, publicly comes to her defense, and Bari Weiss, who also has different positions than Dr. Collier on religion and abortion publishes Dr. Prasad's defense!
Bravo--what a great way to start the morning by reading this--and well done to all!
The most surprising aspect of this event, is that Michigan didn't back down. I quit my UM alumni Assoc 25 years ago when they started to go seriously of the rails. I mean, they've been off the rails since the 70s when I attended, but now, it's gotten embarrassing.
The fact that Michigan did not back down and collapse in the face of students' demands is a lesson for every other academic institution in the country.
You want to stop cancellations?
Then wear the big boy pants and don't cancel.
Wow....wokeism was around way back then?
I had a five credit class, with professors from three different programs called The Rise of China under the Cultural Revolution. This was in 1977-78, while the Gang of Four was murdering millions of citizens.
The profs held the movement up as a glorious thing.
The precursor to woke, self loathing.
Interesting you mentioned the "self-loathing" part. How do you define "wokeness?" Is it self-loathing racially or nationally?
As a non-white person, I see a lot of "moral panic" aspects to this. As in, don't teach certain parts of history that might make little Trevor and Annabelle "feel bad" or be "distressed." No one gave a f*ck about my sensitivities, etc. when I was in school.
Wokeness is apologizing for everyone but yourself. It's a new age martyrdom, where you elevate your self esteem by talking about how awful everyone is, but not really changing your own behavior.
In the 60s/70s I was thoroughly taught of the injustice towards AAs in the US, Jews in WWII, etc. But it was in the context of what the world was like during those times. Now, we just act as though people of European descent are genetically predisposed to be assholes.
I was never taught back then that it was African tribes who had been raiding other villages and sending their brethren into slavery for centuries before the Americas were colonized. Do you think that little whoever and whoever would be too traumatized to find out they were sold into slavery by the people of their own race? I may be wrong, but I think those scarves that all those AW congress asshole wore in that photo op were from one of the most aggressive tribes, but I may be wrong. African nations benefited by selling slaves, but where is that in school curriculums.
Ah, the old "Transatlantic slave trade" was black people's fault. What's next on your checklist? "No Irish or Dogs allowed?" Lol
Yes, captured prisoners and criminals were sold. See, those tribes made specific distinctions re: slavery....unlike others.
Just what will ease your anger? Anything?
Lol. Not "angry" at all. Just don't fall for the American mythology/exceptionalism myth. Don't believe history should be censored to protect the feelings of a certain demographic. Sad that seems "angry" to you. Sad that anyone who doesn't swallow the mythology is seen as "angry." I'm actually quite content and happy, but if some folks are angry, so what? They probably have good reason to be.
Seems the ones who are "angry" are those wound-up about some fake moral panic and seem to think white people should be the only demographic immune from demonization.
Nobody gives an f about your sensitivities now, pal. Nobody, other than guys like you who claim it so, has ever argued to avoid certain parts of history. Teach all of the history, including the existence of slavery among black africans for thousands of years before America was settled by white people. But, hey, that means africans invented slavery, right?, so ooo we don't want to go there.
Well, you are wrong, pal. Africans did not invent slavery, it has always been among the human race and there was nothing unusual about the practices in America, except for the efforts of those Americans who believed all men were created equal and set about to abolish slavery. But ooo we don't want to go there either cause that might make someone think white folk are capable of doing some good.
FYI, wokeness is premised on the assumption white is bad and all things white must be removed, i.e., decolonized. Wokeness=racism.
Yep. Criminals and war captives were enslaved. What's your point? You think you're drawing a moral equivalent?
No one, especially me, gives a f about YOUR sensibilities today, pal. Got it? You think just because you're white you should get some special pass from racial demonization. I've dealt with it. You can deal with it too, snowflake.
Don't have to abolish stuff if you don't start engage in it. Lol.
Btw, stop with the slavery stuff - I prefer to keep it modern Segregation/Jim Crow.
Exactly - and no one should give a f about little Parker and Annabelle's sensitivities either, just because they're white.
I just find it interesting that the only reason America improved (forced and dragged kicking and screaming every step of the way) was due to people we would define as "Social Justice Warriors" - now that seems to be a toxic term. It seems odd that so many who want to tout the "greatness" of America and all the "improvements" now loath the very ideologies and actions that brought that about.
I mean, it's not a surprise that MLK, Jr. had a 70% disapproval rating at the time of his assassination, but now everyone wants to pretend that he and people like Muhammed Ali, Medgar Evers, etc. were so "loved" during their time.
Just seems like a lot of revisionist history and memory-holing of reality.
I grew up when MLK was changing American thought.
Just curious, how do you think he would feel about the SJWs promotion of CRT, segregated campus housing/ceremonies, Promoting/hiring based on racial/gender quotas? He wanted us to look past race, but instead we just invented an equal but opposite race (and now gender) based society. Instead of MLKs vision, we created a tribal based society that has created so many 'victim' segments that I'm doubtful it can be put back together during my lifetime.
Yeah, I'm a 65 YO white male, so I guess I'm just a racist. misogynist, homophobic anti-Semite.
Todays generation of campus SJWs have given the true SJWs a bad name.
Well, I am a 55 YO WF, so I missed MLK in action, but appreciate his message. He could not have been more correct. I also agree with your assessment of the current situation and am not sure we can dig our way out of it. The media propagates the narrative, so what are the unthinking supposed to think? I watched the video of these young "doctors" walking out on a revered ceremony and felt such revulsion towards them. How dare they? Do they think they have all the answers at such young age?? You see, I am doctor myself, and attended a similar ceremony in awe and appreciation of the honor being bestowed upon me. I am entrusted to care for other humans at their most vulnerable times. I fear growing older and being taken care of by their ilk. They have so much more to learn than they realize.
Not going to assume what you are, but considering your background, statistically, you would have not been a fan of the CIvil Rights Movement....but teaching that reality would be CRT.
Comprof, it is true that society and civilization need new ideas in order to progress.
But the current SJW movement is not advancing new ideas. It is following a well-worn path to destruction.
“There is a group (****) that has excessive power and control over our economy and society. This group is the cause of your problems. They have been plotting against you for centuries. We must remove their power and privilege. That is the only route to improving the lives of the non (****) group.”
Ring any bells?
Oh yes, we're months away from Auschwitz 2.0. Lol.
It's a stupid moral panic. Other ethics groups have had to deal with demonization in America for a lot longer than this current "wokeness" - white people can deal with it, too. I survived. You'll be fine.
I have posted this before but I think it is germane to today's topic:
Some call the left, liberals. I can't bring myself to do that. A true liberal embraces free speech. John Stuart Mill one of the founders of liberalism was a staunch defender of free speech. He said in his essay on liberalism, I'm paraphrasing here, "You should listen to your adversaries because they might be right."
The left today are not liberals. If you don't agree with the left, you are pilloried by the left. I read the definition of a racist, "Is anyone who wins an argument with a liberal."
Whatever happened to, "I may not agree with you but I will defend to the death your right to say it."? In July of 1977 the American NAZI Party was going to march through Skokie, Illinois. Seven Thousand Holocaust survivors lived in Skokie. Words cannot describe how disgusted and appalled I was by this proposed vile act. Of all people who defended this atrocity was the ACLU. I was shocked until I heard why they were defended the NAZIs right to march.
They weren't defending the NAZIs. They were defending the First Amendment, freedom of expression. I am a gentile and much as I despised the NAZIs I love the First Amendment more.
I only wish the left loved the First Amendment as much as I do but they don't.
So please stop calling them liberals because they aren't. They are tyrants.
I remember that march, too, and I was appalled by the ACLU's position until I realised it was the cost of free speech and a free society. It was disgusting, but as I recall there were counter-demonstrations with people (peacefully, as I remember) exercising their rights of free speech to denounce the Nazis. The confusion today is that this isn't a national "discussion" or "conversation" we're having with the authoritarian left, it's a negotiation--a verbal test to determine who has the power in America. The absurdities of their positions don't matter because their point is to intimidate the rest of us into bending the knee and humbly subjugating ourselves to them.
But I think most of us are missing the point--Federal Civil Rights laws are Woke and these lunatics are actually protected and supported by the law of the land. Check out Richard Hanania's brilliant post about this--every voter should read this: https://richardhanania.substack.com/p/woke-institutions-is-just-civil-rights
What went right here is that that the administration didn't back down. The Medical students are within their rights to walk out. I feel they were really just hurting themselves, but it is their right and what this nation stands for. This ceremony actually worked perfectly under our civil rights and the speaker had a lot of class and grace to those who walked out. Beautiful example.
100% agree!
Thanks for the link. That was a good read.
My pleasure! I'm also really enjoying Hanania's podcast with Marc Andreessen (invented the Internet browser and now runs Andreessen Horowitz) discussing whether Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul are Nietzschean or Christian morality tales . . . haha . . . Hanania is a brilliant guy
Yeah, TY for link. I skimmed it. Read these a while ago (first two of the three-part series). Second was interesting. Don't remember first. TY again.
https://richardhanania.substack.com/p/why-is-everything-liberal?s=r
https://richardhanania.substack.com/p/2016-the-turning-point?s=r
I gave to the ACLU after they defended the right of Nazi's to march in Skokie. As they explained in a letter to their donors, they were proudly defending Americans' right to free speech and expression, even though they had contempt for all the Nazi's stood for.
Today's ACLU is a shadow of what they were in the 70's. I suspect most of the ACLU woke board would have joined the walkout, had they been at the UM white coat ceremony.
Good for you! The ACLU still fought the good fight back then . . . but then they started suing NYC to prevent the cops from picking up the mentally ill homeless people sleeping on the sidewalks in freezing winter (I think the cut off was 20 degrees) and putting them in shelters for the night so they would be warm. The ACLU won that one, and I'd argue that they're not a shadow of what they were in the mid-20th century--they're something worse and awful, simultaneously authoritarian and Orwellian . . .
There is a new organization called FIRE that is stepping up to take over where ACLU left off for our freedom of speech. I gave to them last year and will do so again this year. They are the new brave.
The ACLU lawyer who did that later went on to teach law at the Ohio State University. I had him during my 3L year for a class in political and civil rights. He was brilliant.
I bet he was. What a gift to have him.
David Goldberger. It was as gift. He was a lot of fun. He’s still alive; I think he is retired now.
What happened? We've become a nation of cowards. Not just the Woke, but those who cower in fear of cancellation. Stand up to it or die with the rest of the Woke scum!
Lonesome...nice cover, I too have problems with the term "Liberals".
Such a foolish state when the libs use a beautiful word without likeness.
could it be, since we see an attempt to Destroy, via woke, crt, they (libs) can not help but to try to destroy Their own Meaning...thanks
well said!
I have the benefit of straddling the old medicine and the new, with physician-cousins trained in the 1940s, receiving my own M.D. degree in the late 'seventies, and working with physicians who matriculated from the 'eighties until now. Although generally pretty smart, doctors have the very same foibles as everyone else. Unfortunately for some, most having spent more than a decade of their formative years indoors, attending lectures, many have never fully socialized and learned to treat the public, their peers, or their superiors with respect.
My older cousins were wellsprings of information. Recognizing the cloistered nature of medical training, student doctors of their generation were TAUGHT "bedside manner:" politesse, humility and deference, learning how to "round" by making bedside rounds with older physicians, learning compassion for ill, frightened patients and, of course, the dying. Learning to be Gentlemen - with a capital "G."
Taught none of this by my professors, I tried to internalize the lessons of my cousins - their demeanor, their kindness and concern. Of course, summers spent working in coal mines alongside roughnecks with little patience for "pencil necks" helped quite a bit, too.
Technical skills are important. Standards - standards of behavior, deportment, presentation, how to handle oneself in public - are important, too.
My family were all in medical fields back in the day. They immigrated to this country with nothing. Maybe that made them more compassionate. They charged patients on a sliding scale and took calls from them at home. Last but not least they treated folks of all colors and religious beliefs. We were Liberals.
Good old fashioned Liberals! Wish they were still running the Democratic Party!
The evil, as described by the left, Rush Limbaugh said, "JFK would not recognize today's Democrat Party."
That's for sure!
There's such a tragic trajectory of cultural decline described by your multi-generational comparisons of doctors, Jim. My wife is a doctor and what you write rings true . . .
“While we support the rights of freedom of speech and religion"... The aggrieved students and staff should have stopped right there. Instead they go on to nullify that first statement. Among the aggrieved were a few true believers. The rest are just sheep. I'm not sure which would make worse doctors.
I made the same point before reading your post. As soon as they make that statement I can’t hear anything else they say.
Totally agree!
It's a start.
Totally agree with Chris Coffman! This is a great response that reflects how many of us think.
👏 👏 👏 👏 So well said, sir.
For me, t’s nice to again have a moment of pride in my husband’s alma mater.
It’s an all-too-rare occasion for all of us these days!
Yes....those "qualifications" are the bugaboo....wouldn't want any AA hires.
Thank you!
Take this and what we have seen at such places as Georgetown and Yale law schools and you quickly begin to think that our future professionals are nothing more than intellectually and spiritually weak, toddlers.
A strong person does not shy away from people with differing views but listens to them closely and measures the strength and weaknesses of their argument and then either adapts their thinking.
To me, this is just childish and it leaves me concerned about the character of our future professionals.
Wokeness conquering American universities is like Whirlpool buying out Maytag. Your washer may still say "Maytag" on the label, but it's now made in China by the lowest bidder and the Maytag repairman is in Xian. In short, Maytag just isn't what it used to be. Harvard still have ivy covered halls, but the content learned in those halls isn't what it used to be.
This strategy of using inertia and stored up brand goodwill to milk a business for profits certainly works, for a while. Our universities have done the same, admitting larger classes despite students obvious lack of academic qualifications. But just like the customer who replaces her third dishwasher in 10 years and finally gives up on Maytag... Americans are starting to give up on their universities. The goodwill has been run down and the rot is too obvious to ignore. It will be interesting to see if the number of foreign born students (F1 visas) starts declining.
I manage an appliance repair company for a living. The Maytag analogy is fantastic.
I tried to like this comment, but the heart was unresponsive. Your extended analogy was concise and appropriate. Thank you. After I posted this, the heart showed up. Thanks again.
Yeah, it's a constant bug in Substack. I always still heart it because I know eventually it will appear. I do wish they'd fix it though.
If You refresh Your screen, then it will show up. Yeah, unfortunate bug, madaboutmd.
The article is, to me, further proof that we need to develop a parallel economy that is classically liberal instead of Leftist/Woke. Without such an economy, a vast swath of our population will be denied medical treatment, legal representation, and probably many other things as the Woke take over more and more companies and professions.
Celia, read The Benedict Option and Life Not By Lies by Rod Dreher. The latter is more recent, but the former is the better book. Benedict Option is all about exactly what you're suggesting (from a Christian perspective, but it could easily apply to any subculture.) Like the Soviet dissidents whose internal disagreements became lost in their shared disgust of the Communists, those of us who refuse to go woke and "live by lies" will need to be willing to accept those who disagree with us on many things but agree on that.
I absolutely love both of those books. Yesterday I watched an interview between Jordan Peterson and Rod Dreher. It inspired me to re read “Live not by Lies”. I’m also re reading “Open Letters” by Vaclav Havel. All excellent. Anyone who does not understand why so many Americans are so freaked out by the descent of socialist policies through our institutions and educational systems need to read about the lives of people who lived behind the iron curtain.
Ooh, I'll have to look for that interview! Love both of those guys.
I understand what you're saying..
But I look at this as a big victory in that the school held firm, doubled down in the face of the 'toddlers' and allowed the speech to be held. This is what must happen in other schools across the country if the stain of progressive group think is to be halted.
Let them walk out if they have to. That is their right, after all. It's their loss. That just leaves more room for the better professionals of the future to take their place in the auditorium.
But it could be our loss one day, not just theirs. For me, I'm going to choose a foreign or older doc whenever and wherever I can!
Wrung, at the beginning of Professor Collier's keynote address, she recognized the Supreme Court’s decision on abortion: “I want to acknowledge the deep wounds our community has suffered over the past several weeks, we have a great deal of work to do for healing to occur, and I hope that for day today, for this time, with we can focus on what matters the most, coming together….” you and Vinay are trying to conflate a ritual, that is only 29 years old, a merely symbolic ceremony. With the mental and ethical traits of the individuals that walked out of a mere 15 minutes or so of the ceremony to successfully protest the professor's stance on abortion. All of a sudden, the culture warriors get all snowflaky; it seems to me that the culture warriors need to get a grip on reality!
There’s a term for people who hold others in contempt because of their personal beliefs: it’s called being bigoted.
The erosion of public health officials and health professionals in general will have many long lasting and deleterious effects on our society.
The medical system is very broken. When I was in residency(the distant 80’s) we said, “if it’s not documented it’s not done” now the belief seems to be, “if it’s documented it’s done”. Notes and charts are pristine(good for charges and legal reasons) but patients DO NOT FEEL CARED FOR OR CARED ABOUT. It is very disheartening
That’s because it’s all about billing now (and to a certain extent, compliance, which is also about billing).
“While we support the rights of freedom of speech and religion, ...” they wrote. “We demand ...”
That these idjits can't see their own hypocrisy is astounding, to me anyway.
I'd be interested in the demographics of these sanctimonious brats. Were they affirmative action enrollees? Clearly the medical school admissions criteria needs to be examined.
Performative wokeness is almost entirely well-to-do white thing from certain area codes. They are most likely legacy enrollees.
There’s an article in Tablet Magazine that attempts to describe how we might have gotten here. I now have a new word for these students and others like them—“posers”. //www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/punks-vs-posers
Nice one. Ah, the whirling dervish of wokeness, self-flagelating all the way from Brooklyn to St Moritz.
My word for them is a little different and more straight forward- assholes!
I just read a post by Naomi that said the med students hafta fill out a DIE form to get in. I know the AMA and *all-a* them are Woke to the gills, so she's probably right.
Absolutely right..
The contradiction in their statement is just stunning.
bingo...
Well, those students started early with the arrogance that so limits people serving as M.D.s. At times, it is embarrassing to be a patient witnessing a doctor dripping with superiority who knows almost nothing about the illness in front of him/her. They look absurd as they follow their computer programs while the patient sits patiently. It is often more effective to talk to the neighbour over the fence who says, "Increase fiber. You'll be fine." I heard recently of an MD diagnosing someone as Borderline Personality Disorder after a 15 minute consultation. They do not teach them the extent of their gaps. My daughter is in Med school.
Ignorance plus arrogance is a dangerous stew
My boss used to say,
I can tolerate arrogance from a genius, and ignorance from a humble person. But not arrogance and ignorance together!
I can think of a politician or two with those combined qualities..
Dunning - Kruger effect
These students are too smart to occupy mount stupid but apparently have become squatters on the very peak.
You get told you’re the smartest often enough and you start to believe it applies to everything. Until we reject that we inhabit the graphs mt stupid.
Less related…does the “replace the word with Jewish” test apply here? Students walk out because speaker was… Jewish or pro-Israel.
This is a similar analogy to the one I use with the NeoBigots (Judaism does not work because many are unapologetically anti-Semitic). It does not work. They do not see general principles, and are not in a frame of mind to ask themselves whether they have anything to learn. Beware the person who can only instruct, never learn.
Generally they respond with heightened emotionalism, no matter how kindly my idea is introduced, and frantically demand that the subject be dropped, that only they may have their say, no one else.
Because they are Right and we are Old White Racists.
Great analogy!
Will these same doctors refuse to care for pro-life patients?
Some have mused that the unvaccinated should be denied transplants or other life saving therapies. So the answer appears clear.
Mused? It has become policy with several hospitals.
Yes, thank you. I recall reading that with horror.
That is not Woke. Different issue.
I was wondering the same thing. In the not too distant future, will a new patient be expected to fill out forms that ask for our views on abortion, assisted suicide, our political affiliations, our views on gender issues, faith, etc.
That is the logical next step after race questions. My Soviet friends were horrified at the overt racism of such questions when they gratefully immigrated here from the USSR.
It has been sadly fascinating to see how the precepts of communist totalitarianism have infiltrated our culture, rather than being imposed by conquest.
This is something I've seen over and over and over--immigrants from former communist countries in shock at the extent to which the same totalitarianism is now becoming acceptable here.
Its already here in some part. Scripps in CA now asks, "what was your assigned sex at birth" and "are you a homosexual".
The urgent care in my area has an iPad-like form that includes all sorts of gender questions. You can't choose not to answer because it won't allow you to proceed to the next question. This is very scary.
Somebody posted yesterday that they had applied for a drivers license on line. They were asked a set of ridiculous questions which they didn’t answer but were very relieved to process the app on line without going into the license office in person to apply. However I don’t think it matters anymore our data has been captured anyway by big tech it’s very scary
It does matter and if able (job not in jeopardy) we should all push back a little.
Scripps actually gives you an option "prefer not to answer". But the fact that they even place patient's in that position is disgusting and invasive. They can extrapolate and distort anything about an individual based on a refusal to answer.
Oh No...say it aint
my answers will be "same as yours"
They'll probably already know what we believe once we adopt a Chinese-style social credit system that monitors our social media, financial transactions, health and medical info, etc. I'm still praying that's not going to happen, but it certainly seems possible.
It’s on the cards, this group of nameless faceless people want to own us my feeling is there is a pushback it maybe be small but it’s happening. Hold on he is coming!!!
I am astonished we have not already gone to a digital currency that can be completely monitored. It is coming.
I'm afraid you're right!
Not sure they will do that, they will be isolating a large section of our population who may have the bucks for treatment. They won’t care about their politics as long as they are able to get the patients to part with their $$ these doctors will forget about their student beliefs
I hope Your right, M Skinny.
I am - it’s written in the stars jt they starting line up now things are happening!!!🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸God bless have a good weekend
Doctors infusing their duty of care with a political yes/no threshold need their licenses pulled.
And yet they won't lose their licenses.
Kychelle Del Rosario, a medical student at Wake Forest University, tweeted about intentionally flubbing a blood draw after an older person commented negatively on her "pronoun" pin. She wasn't expelled, merely allowed to take a leave.
Shawna Harris, a nurse practitioner in Illinois, tweeted that she would refuse to prescribe Viagra for conservative men in revenge for repeal of Roe. She resigned from her position, but didn't lose her license.
I guarantee that both these women will be seeing patients again in the future.
Everything is political when one makes it a religion.
And they have. Wokeness is a full-on secular religion, with Original Sin (being born white) and a whole list (constantly being added to) of doctrines one must believe and commandments one must follow.
Funny, but I wonder how this nurse expects to determine whether or not she's treating a "conservative" man?? Is she going to quiz them before treating them? Is she going to question every man who comes in on his opinion of Roe vs. Wade? I mean, how is this going to work in practicality? Is she going to make stereotypical assumptions based on race, age, religion, style of dress, etc.? I would think all of the aforementioned would violate some kind of law if not code of medical ethics.
Also, what is she going to do with pro-life female patients? Refuse to prescribe birth control, to force them to get pregnant and teach them a "lesson"?
Scary stuff.
Doctors encouraged to inquire about guns in patients’ homes.
https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M16-0968?articleid=2523533
If the patients don't have suicidal ideations, what business is it of theirs?
I’d argue absolutely none. But it is argued by some physicians as doing their part to curb the pandemic of gun violence. Again, politics with a religious feel invading medicine. Here it brushes up against some messianic vision of one’s self and purpose.
This has been a question at the well baby check appointments since my now 21 and 20 year olds were babies.
The bigger question, though asked in a small way, is whether they would care for them the same way they care for people who agree with them. Think about that for a moment. NCMaureen (next comment) asks the sifting question, which I think is also critical.
My husband’s white coat ceremony was thirty years ago this month. He could write a book about the decline of the practice of medicine, not only the failure of medical schools, but also the degradation of medical care as a whole. I digress. He has patients from all walks of life and widely ranging opinions. His guiding principles have always been to listen to the patients’ medical problems and provide them the care and advice that he would give his own parents or his own child. It is not his place to judge them personally, socially, intellectually, or any other way. His place is to take care of their medical needs and support their health. It is disturbing that the profession is moving away from that mindset.
My medical spouse concurs. Teaching used to be the same way. Students should not have any way of knowing one's personal political or even religious beliefs in secular schools. These were not topics to be taught in the academic setting. All should feel and be welcome. No longer. The indoctrination is overt.
He sounds like a super human being, I thank God he took up medicine even if he is the last of the old school
I'm not a proponent of cloning, but might have to change that opinion to get more M Palmer spouse docs!
My husband was fortunate to have very good mentors early in his career, a bunch of "old school" doctors. He used to say that he would work until his last day on earth, but now he talks about retiring. It's kind of sad. He loves his patients, and they certainly love him. He is so discouraged by the "healthcare industry". It has shifted from patient-focus to transaction-focus.
That's what I hear from my dearest friend who is a podiatrist. She is also old school--taking care of the feet of the developmentally disabled, clergy, elderly and loads of friends and parents of friends on her own time! All of her spare time is spent recording, billing, etc.
She lost both of her parents 9 days apart in February (one expected, the other totally unexpected) and she's dialed back her full time work to part time. I'm really happy she is putting her needs first, for the first time ever!
Thanks to people like your husband and my friend, there is hope. I wish we could hear about the white coats who didn't leave that speech. Let's celebrate the brave!
I have a therapist friend who knows other therapists who don’t want to treat Trump supporters. This activist mindset is beyond destructive. It’s bigoted.
This is interesting. The "therapist" at least has enough insight to recognize that he or she or it must recuse because of bias. That at least shows some insight.
One part of me wants to write that they need help themselves, but that would constitute a deprivation of free expression. People who hate Trump are, granted, generally ill, but it's not illegal to have TDS--it's just deranged.
The even more interesting question is what would happen if, during therapy, a patient becomes rational and decides that, hey--Trump's really good for the country? Does the therapist go postal? Does it fire the patient/refer to another doctor?
My therapist friend says that she needs to help everyone, regardless of what views they hold. Good book to read is The Choice, by Dr. Edith Eger. Look her up.
Just ordered it. It looks like it will deprive me of a lot of sleep, so I'll cut to the chase and curse you now.
It will. Let me know what you think of it.
Thanks for the recommendation.
🤣🤣🤣🤣classic
How would the therapists know they were Trump supporters was it a question on the form. God this America for heaven sake!
You tell your therapist what's on your mind. it might be that you thought that Trump did yet another great thing today. "Therapist" goes bananas.
Hey Bull, I bet that any therapist has very few Trump supporters as patients.
There are more than a couple studies that show Liberals are much more likely to have depression and other mental illnesses.
Yeah you right a Trump supporter doesn’t need therapy, they know who they are, they know where they going and more importantly they know what they want!
A Wake Forest med student was suspended in April after tweeting that she intentionally missed a vein during a blood draw and had to do it again because the patient commented about her pronouns that were listed on her name badge.
There’s a term for that action: assault and battery. It’s not a tort; it’s a crime.
Agreed, she was suspended from her program, but should have been dismissed. Progressive thought that some speech and/or beliefs are violence and some violence is free speech is a slippery slope. They can justify a lot of violence after they accuse others of hate. - you don’t agree with me, then you’re a nazi, then I can punch you.
She wasn't actually suspended, just allowed to take a leave of absence.
She was not suspended, merely allowed to take a leave. I guarantee she will be back. Not repentant, but perhaps more circumspect about who she boasts to.
Assuming she makes it through medical school, unless she changes her behavior, she will be defending malpractice lawsuits until she no longer practices. Exhibit #1 in each will be a copy of her post. A mediocre first-year law student would have trouble losing those cases.
I doubt it leopards never change there spots
How shocking she should have been suspended from Med school. And then to tweet it she has no shame
Well done UM for not caving to the student demands. Well done Dr. Collier for defending the right of choice to those who chose to walk out. Shame on those who refuse to listen to someone with whom they may disagree (especially when that person is there to help you in your chosen career). There are better times and ways to convey your own convictions.
I don't agree with Dr Collier's abortion stance (even if not fully defined). But I support her right to have it and respect her professionalism, expertise and acceptance that others may have different views.
How do you know that you don’t agree with Dr Collier if you don’t know her stance? What parts of her position do you disagree with? In my opinion, abortion is not and should not be an all or nothing subject.
"She has stated that she defines herself as pro-life, though she does not state the extent of her position (i.e. whether she allows exemptions for rape or incest)."
I know because I believe it is the right of the woman alone to make a decision about her body. That belief is not in agreement with "pro-life" - even if that view may contain exemptions etc.
Slave owners had the same view about their slaves for 1,000’s of years.
I thought You wrote "In my opinion, abortion is not and should not be an all or nothing subject."
God someone with common sense today! Thank you
Students of medicine, law, engineering or any other discipline will be stunted in their education if they adhere to a myopic, rigid world view that cannot tolerate…DIVERSITY. How ironic, that so many who claim diversity is our strength, are so flagrantly bigoted against anyone who holds beliefs different from their own.
I do not want to be the patient of a doctor who is merely a technician, or one who believes the divine spark of humanity—life—is merely a disposable commodity.
The most important diversity is intellectual diversity, the one diversity the left tries to destroy
They will be stunted. When these walkout events first started years ago, I resented these people for their rigidity and lack of character. But more and more, I just pity them and those that will be left in their wake. They are depriving themselves of the richness of life. There are potential relationships with incredible people they will never develop, experiences they will never get back such as fond memories of their white coat ceremony, and ultimately a myriad of opportunities to learn and grow from those different than themselves. The biggest loss is to themselves.
Nope they don’t care it’s all about themselves
True, they only care about themselves. I wish their parents were actually more embarrassed than I imagine they are!
I’m beyond sick of the infantile, moronic left and their childish temper tantrums. If I was Dean that assembly would have been mandatory, and leaving it would result in you leaving the Medical school. To be on the left today means no accountability, no punishment for anything you do. It’s disgraceful.
after all, that speech was a part of their education...f
They don't *need* any education, Sir Jim. They *already* know everything. Just need to develop a little technique, right?
They'll be glorified auto mechanics, is what they'll end up to be.
I fear our society is doomed. Not because we are insufficiently teaching our children the technical skills. Oh yes, they take classes in coding and robotics, but because in the process of migrating our educational system to that, we’ve left something else behind.
When Howard University ended their classics department because of lack of representation, Cornell West wrote a powerful op-ed lamenting that decision, and wrote in part:
“Howard University is not removing its classics department in isolation. This is the result of a massive failure across the nation in “schooling,” which is now nothing more than the acquisition of skills, the acquisition of labels and the acquisition of jargon. Schooling is not education. Education draws out the uniqueness of people to be all that they can be in the light of their irreducible singularity. It is the maturation and cultivation of spiritually intact and morally equipped human beings.”
This also resonated with me because much like the Dr noted in the article I had a conversion from pro-choice to pro-life later in life. Which I wrote about here:
https://gordoncomstock.substack.com/p/the-abortion-cave
Sad days.
Singularity? The hive-mind abhors singularity. But really great comment.
I don’t know, the students that walked out seem like little more than cowards to me, and deserving of some vilification.
They should have kept on walking, and left medical school entirely. Medical school, and the medical profession, are not for the faint of heart.
Dr. Collier is a lot more forgiving and generous towards them than I would be, but that likely has a lot to do with her devout Christianity. I would not be calling for their harassment but I don't know if I'd be defending them either. Knowing well ahead of time she was going to speak, they had the option not to attend at all if they find her so offensive. But they chose to go and make a big display of "walking out" to make a point. Theatrics.
Yes. It seems junior high now lasts approximately 20 years.
Oh my gosh....so true!
What kind of people do these students expect they will be treating once they are in practice? A physician has to deal with every possible type of person, with every possible type of belief, bias, ethnicity, body shape, sexuality, etc. Your job is not to judge people on their politics, but to heal them, regardless of what they are.
If you don’t have the capacity to sit in a lecture hall and listen to an innocuous speech by someone whose beliefs you disagree with, then you don’t have what it takes to be a medical doctor and should get out of there and let someone else take your place.
I’m a pediatric nurse practitioner and BOTTOM LINE - if we said or did anything of these things to the people who the left defends we would be gone. License revoked, fired, kicked out of school. But if it’s someone who isn’t represented by the left- it doesn’t matter. Treat them how you want to. And there are no consequences. We took an oath to do no harm- it is harmful to judge and discriminate against anyone.. and they don’t see it and they don’t care:
Madjack had the best response once they walked out they should have kept on walking!
When i saw this on the news it literally made me sick - not only these spoiled entitled children walked out but their parents were in on it to - these are out future doctors - we have seen other instances about race as well- also with law schools - what is happening to the country I once loved - I hate everything progressives /liberals these days ! I used to be one - never again
So funny to me, unless this was a re-run from years back, those leaving the speech, were wearing Mask...da!
My general rule of thumb is -- if you ever meet a "medical ethicist" of any sort who is not religious, run away as fast as you can, because surely they want to kill you. Eventually non-religious logic leads to euthanasia for mental illness, and then to the elderly, and eventually to you.
While I support abortion in cases where it's "self defense" (life of the mother, pregnancy due to rape, etc), and "morning after" contraception, I have profound respect for those who are consistently pro-life--at both the beginning and end of life, and including capital punishment.
I have the same reservations about a "medical ethicist" who is not religious.
When I was in nursing school I was an older student and was shocked by the attitude of my fellow students who were half my age. They were nearly all for abortion. I suspect many of those were also for euthanasia. There is no respect for life at both ends of the spectrum. Scary. I often thought I would not want them taking care of me if I was hospitalized, or aged and infirm.
Remember how Dr Zeke Emmanuel wrote that people over 75 have served their purpose to society, and expensive medicine should not be wasted on them? Same for babies—they haven’t benefited society yet so do not deserve heroic expensive medical care.
I was especially stunned to read a Jew had these views. So callous to life.
I wasn't surprised. He's a deep blue Democrat. That means more than religion. Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden are Catholics and are promoting unrestricted abortion.
Many Catholics stand in a place where they agree personally with abortion being wrong, but in a democratic society don’t feel that they can decide for everyone else. The RC church is also against contraception. Some older folks can remember when people were worried about JFK doing more the bidding of the Pope than US citizens, but that didn’t come to pass.
There’s a great diversity of views among Catholics on almost everything.
As a Catholic (currently taking a Bioethics course as a matter of my faith), a person CAN NOT be Catholic and have a different view that the tenants of our faith. From tonight's other course I'm taking Theology 102 class, "It is not pertinent to what the culture or world thinks. Our faith does not come from the world, it comes from God." So Pelosi, Biden, etc are Catholic only by virtue of their Baptism. Of course, God is merciful and will always listen to our request for forgiveness and change in heart, mind and soul.
You can say that but after all, people believe what they believe. You can tell them “you are not really Catholic” but that doesn’t make any difference to us. Plus there are a variety of Catholics with varying views outside the Roman church.. Independent Catholics, Ango-Catholics and so on. If you are saying “Roman Catholics must adhere to everything Rome says” well, at least on birth control,it’s not happening.
I also don’t think the “you’re not a real … unless you agree”. Fill in the blank with any religion,political party, whatever gets you anywhere. People disagree. We affiliate in groups. Let’s talk about our disagreements and argue (after all in some sense we Christians are all a Jewish cult) for the sake of heaven. As Rabbi Sacks says “The Divine Presence is to be found not in this voice as against that, but in the totality of the conversation.” Perhaps we Christians lost the plot (as it were) when we determined that one centralized authority should make all the spiritual judgment calls. But saying you CAN NOT be even Roman Catholic and believe differently is not helpful.
Gotta hand it to Cuomos, he didn't care about their Religion etc. , he just sent them to the care=not Center.
I haven’t heard this particular speech of Zeke Emmanuel’s and have a different set of reservations about him but he has been the keynote speaker at several different conferences I’ve attended over the years and in general most of his lectures have an emphasis on reducing overutilization of medical services as a means of governmental cost savings. I’ve seen him make this point on everything from preventing military wives from using TriCare to make them attractive surrogates to advocating for end of life palliative/hospice care to limiting repeat PET scans in cancer survivors. I’ve never heard him make the connection between limiting care and utility as a person to society but it wouldn’t surprise me.
I wouldn't voluntarily listen to him but I have heard snippets. Way back he said elderly people run up the most medical care costs in their final 2 years of life. It seemed to me he was advocating not spending on them. But...here's the thing...when is someone's final 2 years of life? If you deny care then you are assuring it WILL be their final 2 years.
some don't . my father is 98 has never been in a hospital still walks every day ,guess the good Dr would have offed my father years ago just because he was old ? What would this good Dr do with children born with defects or mental problems ? Sad to think there are people like him in the world
That's what abortion is for to eliminate babies you don't want. Sounds a lot like the eugenics programs the Nazis instituted in the early 1930's.
That's me, consistently pro-life, from conception to natural death. What happened to the hypocritical oath?
Hippocratic, Hippocratic. They are all hypocrites now it seems.
These exiting students are ideologically brainwashed zealots. They’re in a cult. How else to describe people who need to make a public display of intolerance, a performance of dogmatic obedience?
*heavy sigh* you had me until I came to this part:
Dr. Collier has handled the whole thing with grace. She tweeted yesterday: “I’ve heard that some of the students who walked out have been harassed and targeted—please stop. Everyone has a right to stand up for what they believe in.”
What is there to say when the person who should be the most bothered by the whole thing not only buys into the lie that these students were “targeted” but also defends their right to blatantly disrespect her and her opinion? This isn’t showing grace, it’s being an apologist for abhorrent behavior and it’s the exact reason why we are where we are.
I respectfully disagree, Mel. It does show grace, and it doesn’t apologize for rudeness. Had Michigan caved into the “demands,” that would have been bad. Instead, they refused to give in to them and carried on as planned, a course of action unfortunately rare these days. If Michigan censures those students, that, too, would be a bad thing. Here’s why.
Last October, MIT disgraced itself by cancelling a lecture which was scheduled to be delivered by Professor Dorian Abbott of U. Chicago. The lecture was sponsored by the Earth and Planetary Sciences (EAPS) and the subject matter was exoplanets. Professor Abbott had earlier published an opinion that DEI (diversity equity inclusion) was not a good idea, but that MFE (merit, fairness, equality (of opportunity)) was a good idea. A twitterstorm, probably contrived, erupted and the lecture was canceled, in pretty clear violation of MIT’s published free speech policy.
This elicited a massive immune response on the parts of many alumni, myself included. And that response quickly led to the formation of the MIT Free Speech Alliance, aka MFSA (which, spoken, admittedly does not exactly roll off the tongue as a more cleverly chosen name might).
Within MFSA are people holding widely diverse views on, well, pretty much everything. What unites us all is a solid and unwavering commitment to free, uncensored speech and expression. Some think DEI is just great, but I think that most of us do not. Each is free to say what we believe or not say it. No one gets booed, scolded, or condescended to for holding contrary opinions.
Our goal is to get MIT to adopt what is now called the Chicago Principles which state (more or less) that the University of Chicago is committed to freedom of expression. They further state that if someone strongly disagrees with that position and attends or plans to attend that institution, they should do so with the understanding that interfering with someone else’s freedom of expression will not be tolerated. Should they think they would be unable to act in that manner of tolerance, perhaps another institution would be a better fit for them. Tolerance doesn’t equate with agreement, only that each person has the opportunity to say his or her opinions without interference.
We are committed to facilitating expression of all points of view on topics, however repugnant. No rule requires us or anyone else to listen to them. But knowing what your enemy is thinking is invariably priceless information.
I commend your efforts and I’m definitely rooting for your success but unfortunately I think you all are misdiagnosing the problem.
What good does an administrative pledge to honor free speech do when an entire generation of students feels entitled to only afford respect and attention to speakers with whom they agree on everything? This isn’t an administrative problem, it’s a societal one. And all the administrative solutions in the world isn’t going to fix it. These students had no right to be so disrespectful and Dr. Collier erred in giving credence to their juvenile antics.
This nonsense will only stop when it becomes socially unacceptable. Which means people will need to experience harsh criticism (perhaps even public shame) for their actions. Until then I doubt we’ll see any significant ground gained on the free speech front.
Yes and no.
I think that most--like the overwhelming majority--of the students who are this way have never had effective negative feedback for bad attitudes and behaviors. If they get that negative feedback, that might change--it's the basis for behavioral psychology. Reprimands followed by expulsion should help provide that.
An administrative pledge will indeed have to be backed by action, and there are many possibilities for failing to follow through. For example, MIT has an enormous endowment, much or most of which comes from contributions by alums. Many of us have created trusts with Tech. If they fail to maximize gains, like by backing clearly losing causes, they become subject to lawsuits for failing in their fiduciary responsibilities. That would cause them to lose potentially huge swaths of the endowment. They can't afford that kind of thing either regarding the money they already have or future donations.
We have already created a donor directed fund to which tax-deductible contributions can be made as an alternative to direct contributions to MIT. They know this. And it's a zero-sum game: what our fund gets, MIT doesn't. We can vector those dollars toward hiring a staff that works actively against the hecklers/cancellers, etc. We don't care whether students want to listen to a lecture or talk--that's a matter for them. What we care about is that people who don't want to hear it can't prevent people who do want to hear it from being able to do so. The Michigan students didn't attempt to silence Collier; they voted with their feet about whether they listened to her. It was their loss. I don't know what fraction of students stayed and listened, but I did hear a fair amount of applause. Were the leavers rude? I'm not sure--I wasn't there to see how they did it. Were the inconsiderate and intolerant? Sure. Would I have done what they did if I didn't like Collier? No.
We're dead serious about this because we see MIT, the ultimate STEM school, as the last and best stronghold against the forces of darkness. And we explicitly see things like rampant censoring as just that: a new version of the dark ages. Which America cannot afford, especially at this time.
All that's great to "hear." More power to You all.
You're right, AFAIK. Unfortunately for society.
The fact that you have to establish this organization is absurd. The solution should be to cut off all Federal dollars to any institution that denies freedom of expression.
That is the answer stop federal dollars! You will see very quickly an about turn
This is excellent. If more alumni did this we might see a change.
We’re nearing 1000 members and growing fast. Check it out:
Mitfreespeech.org
The reason for the “alliance” is that we’re not alone. There are quite a few groups at other universities as well and, in the Ben Franklin tradition, we all hang together—lest we all hang separately. I think we’ve been among the more vocal and are hopefully showing what a little spine looks like to others.
Thank you for this work, you give me hope for the future.
You’re welcome. But it’s far from over. To paraphrase Churchill, this isn’t the beginning of the end, but it is perhaps nearing the end of the beginning.
How many of you members are conservatives?
I don't know the answer to that, but I suspect most of us are. We didn't organize to promote conservatism, only freedom of speech and expression. But the threads of what we talk about--and satirize--strongly suggest that most of us are on the right side of the aisle.
Why do you ask?
This is a great initiative! I am not a MIT alumni but I did send a note expressing my disappointment with the cancellation . I am glad to see that all of us made a start of a difference
Is it important?
Great timing that You should mention this, M. Joe. Today's Common Sense speaks right to the topic.
This would be entirely in keeping with the third grade mentality: stage an immature, disrespectful public stunt and then turn around and cry about being “targeted”.
She’s a far better person than they are. That’s all this is about.
She’s not a better person, she’s just learned how to be an adult, a major part of which is self-restraint.
Yes. These malcontents should be punished. I’d give them the boot. If you are so political and activated try law school
As a former law student I'm not sure I agree. I remember encountering plenty of political ideologues there, which has no place in the law, and this was back when "wokeness" hadn't even taken hold like it has now. If you are politically inclined, then become a political activist or politician, don't go into law or medicine. The law is about reason and about protecting the rights of all kinds of different people, not just those you agree with. The problem is there are too many wannabe political activists who choose to go into such professions as journalism, K-12 education, law and medicine, and as we're seeing, our society is becoming the worse for it.
Recently a bunch of infantile Yale Law students shouted down and hurled profanities at a conservative speaker, who had to be escorted out by guards; I don't even remember what issue got their panties in a bunch since these things are becoming so everyday. I think it was transgender but I'm not sure. As far as I know none of them were disciplined or expelled. Like a lot of the comments do here, people were praising the faculty for not cancelling the speaker and going forward with the program, as if that in itself was enough. Lawyers are supposed to use logic above all. It's terrifying that these tyrants-in-the-making are our future lawyers, just like it's terrifying these are our future doctors.
Excellent point!! That was an unmerited “swipe” at the legal profession. My apologies!!😎
I think it was a way to diffuse the situation and end it rather than call them out for their infantile behavior and go another round.
I get what she was trying to do but she’s removing the natural consequences for acting like an asshole. Polite society has taken the high road too often and now we’re stuck with an entire generation of adult children in desperate need of a good spanking.
sometimes folks just need a punch to the throat
sometimes you have to take a step back before you can take two steps forward
Allowing Dr. Collier to speak was the correct thing to do. The students have the right to walk out if they want to. Had they stayed and disrupted the speech the university should have been compelled to remove them.
Do you think they will also have the right to refuse treatment of people whose beliefs they disagree with? These students are not suited to be medical doctors, in my opinion.
I foresee them also walking out on a patient if that patient expresses an anti-abortion, anti-trans or other anti-woke opinion. In the future maybe we'll have to have separate hospitals and clinics for conservatives and liberals. Education is already going that way, with homeschooling, the University of Austin, etc.
that would be perfect I'd know which hospitals to avoid
Defuse the situation. Diffuse is "to spread out" or dispense, like an aromatherapy diffuser, as opposed to de-FUSING a volatile or incendiary situation. :-)
Dr. Collier was the one "targeted."
Agree, giving bullies a pass is absurd and no different than condoning robbery because those doing the stealing have been so victimized for never having the opportunity to own a Gucci bag. There is no longer any middle ground. We can all play this game. Maybe Dr. should be required to state their political and ideological affiliations.
Unfortunately in order to get accepted into medical school, an applicant must state their DIE position. If it is not woke they don't get in.
If anyone knows any different please tell us.
what is a DIE position?
I should have written it as "DEI." It stands for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion.
https://diversity.social/what-is-diversity-and-inclusion/
you are forgiven due to your other wonderful posts. LOL
I am blushing. (and complimented)
I was disappointed not by the plea to stop harassing but the "stand up for what they believe in" part. She could condemn harassment without apologizing for the behavior. She's described as a converted Christian, so it likely has to do with that. It also makes her appear very liberal, something the students are not.
This is such a crucial observation. Unfortunately liberalism tends to be helpless when confronted by this kind of Marxist absolutism. The attempt by the liberal professor to be understanding and even protective of the students is not in the slightest reciprocal. The liberal has no answers which will satisfy the Marxists and often finds herself apologizing to them for the unfairness of the world, which is seen as weakness and exploited accordingly.
Unfortunately, the central weakness of classical liberal thought is its own tolerant nature. It's easy for classical liberals to reject demands for intolerance when those demands are made outright. But when ideologues start with a demand for tolerance of their views, only gradually working up to a demand for intolerance of anyone who doesn't share their views, classical liberals find that they have let the camel all the way into the tent and are themselves sitting outside in the sandstorm.
It's the grace of her faith that provides for the ability to show mercy, something that has been sorely missing from our culture for far too long. It's brave unless you know that it's what demanded of Christians.
It's still brave.
It's always brave to follow your faith especially in this current culture, but it's what's expected.
It's the only true compass these days. There is far too much insanity currently accepted.