If there is any "good" from all of this, it is the unequivocal and unambiguous proof of the depravity, immorality and worship of violence and non-reason from US universities.
Even if you are not a supporter of Israel, to not condemn the actions of Hamas is despicable.
Mark T - Unfortunately, they will simply deny. The passion and persistence of the Jew haters is fierce and unrelenting. Deny, lie, then scream the lie over and over and over until the masses adsorb through to their core. I appreciate your sentiments and I wish I were wrong but this not new. They seek the destruction of the free, capitalist, G-d-fearing America (and West).
No, a single story about a single law school at one universtity does not justify a broadside generalisation about all universities in the US. But as has been shown time and again over this past month, this is but a single example amongst many that is happening at a wide variety and number of universities across the United States. And if one takes a longer look back over the past 25 years (or more), DEI and other such nihilistic anti-reason policies and procedures have been the norm rather than the exception. Therefore, this generalisation is justified by the multitude of examples - this just happens to be one of the most recent and egregious because it is at a supposedly elite level institution that is meant to be producing the future leaders of this county within a proper moral framework.
What counts as "well-read"? I work at a large public university in the American South, and I participate in the deliberations of the faculty about academic freedom and free expression. I read the Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Education and, most usefully, the blog at Heterodox Academy. I read this site, Quillette, and sometimes After Babel.
I can see plainly where the trouble is in academia, and what forms it takes. I can also see plainly where the trouble is *not*.
I've also read FIRE's 2023 report on campus free speech. That more than anything provides a sense of the state of things on college campuses. It's notable that only Harvard - the elite of the elites - receives a rating of "Abysmal" in that report. And well deserved that rating is!
No. A genuine counterpoint. Yes, I know very well that Yale is not the only place there are problems, but I also know that the problems in academia are not evenly distributed. The Ivies may be hopeless, at this point, and many small (erstwhile) liberal-arts colleges along with them (looking at Oberlin, and the whole bakery incident.) Prominent state universities along the coasts, and a few prominent ones inland also have outbursts.
But I also know what confirmation bias is, and what availability bias is, and I see them running rampant through these comments sections. If I raise one objection, one request for clarification, offer any counterexamples, the only conclusion anyone here can come to is that I must be a troll, or simply stupid.
Bob K could simply have written that he chooses to pretend that Hillsdale College and University of Austin, for example, are the lens through which he chooses to view the rest of the occupied territory ruled by the professoriate and the teacher class in their apartheid occupation of K-12 and the Universities.
Two of my state schools, George Mason and VA Tech, have had similar protests. We better get used to the new normal, when anything that is unpatriotic is embraced, where white guilt overrides common sense.
And both of those schools came off our application list. I also used the FP report on the schools that took that undocumented money as a cross reference. I already stopped donating to my own Alma mater due to their free speech issues. It is becoming a very small list of schools that my kids can attend.
So your generalization is different how? Note the part of the story where several departments sponsored the anti Israeli hat feast where Jewish students were locked out. One might take your post as propaganda for Hamas. Reading comprehension is a complex thing many can't master.
I'm not offering a generalization, but trying to encounter an especially hasty one. My point - about which I've banged on at too great length in other comments sections on this site - is simply this: Not all is well at U.S. colleges and universities, but not all is rotten either. The question is how to save and bolster what is still sound.
Not all was "rotten" in Stalinist or Maoist or German Nazi universities either. But once you have intellectual capture of young peoples' values, you own the rest. That's what's happening, and it's happening broadly, even, as we have seen in recent years, down to the secondary and primary school level. Make no mistake - this is an anti-civilization putsch, well underway already.
Fair enough, but I ask if the rot is so deep the good cannot be salvaged. I'm of the belief the bad will eventually swallow the good. I'm certainly willing to listen to ways to go about saving and bolstering the good.
The rot isn't all that deep, at most institutions or in all regions. I'm at a large public university in the American South, for example, and the situation here is very much different from that at Yale or Stanford, or even at Michigan.
I know the trouble spots within my own institution, and I'm watching them warily, but getting on with research and teaching, wherever they may lead, tends to be the run of play, here.
I also have to be concerned about pressure from the right, through the state legislature and the state-level administration of the university system; there are rumblings of increasing political interference in what we do.
A threat to free inquiry is a threat to free inquiry, from whichever side it might present itself.
So far, though, I've heard encouraging things from the state level, and it may balance well against what pressure from the progressive side might be coming out of student affairs or the diversity office, and from the small handful of faculty who seem inclined toward left-wing dogmas.
Those converging pressures have pushed the faculty, in recent meetings, to strengthen our policies on academic freedom and free expression, earning us our institution's speech code a "green" indicator on the FIRE rating system.
[Editorial insertion: I'm grateful not to be in Florida. DeSantis may be many things, but a friend to free and fearless inquiry he is not.]
I am happy to hear that your institution isn't facing the same rot others are. I'm sorry to hear that any state, right wing or left wing, seeks to interfere in discourse. I'm a middle and high school teacher for 27 years. I've seen tremendous changes in academic freedom. I've seen professional development akin to political indoctrination. In both cases, it has been 100% directed from the far Left. I should mention I'm in southern New York, just north of NYC. I never expected right wing pressure, but I was naive when I believed I did not e left it from the Left. I had believed my state was run by liberals who value academic freedom, free speech, and the marketplace of ideas. I was wrong. As I'm not in Florida I can only judge De Santis from what I've read. I've heard complaints about the governor and I've heard praise for him. I am thinking you and I can agree on one thing: it's our duty to stand against suppression of speech when we see it. I thank you for your comments to my post.
"[Editorial insertion: I'm grateful not to be in Florida. DeSantis may be many things, but a friend to free and fearless inquiry he is not.]"
I have to take issue with this one. Gender Ideology is not science being pursued with methodical studies anywhere. It is cult material preached at children beginning in kindergarten. DeSantis is about the only one (politically speaking) trying to save the kids, families, and society from it.
CA does not exactly have free speech. Just ask the parents at schools like in Chino Valley. God help us if we get a President Newsom.
I read the Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Education, and the blog at Heterodox Academy, all to get a sense of the run of play across academia broadly, as well as accounts of flare-ups of nonsense and high-profile faculty cancellations.
I also read The Free Press, Quillette and, occasionally, After Babel. I've also read through FIRE's 2023 report on campus free speech.
I also work within academia, and participate in deliberations of the faculty regarding academic freedom and freedom of expression.
I know pretty well where the problem is, and where it is not.
And I know confirmation bias and availability bias when I see them, in the comments section of any story about academia on this site.
I didn't realize they have large public universities on Mars. If one person tells you you're drunk, what do they know? If ten people tell you you're drunk you better lie down.
We could quibble about what counts as "elite", but I can see plainly that problems are worst at the ivies and at small (erstwhile) liberal-arts colleges, with some prominent public universities on the coasts joining in. In the most recent FIRE report on campus free speech, only Harvard earns a ranking of "Abysmal".
They are much less serious, or more scattered, at public colleges and universities inland in the Southeast, especially those with a high proportion of programs in the sciences or in technological fields.
Nonsense like the allegation that "getting the right answer" is a white-supremicist thing doesn't hold up well when one is, say, designing a bridge. Gravity doesn't care what color your skin is: if you get the math wrong, the bridge is going to fall.
So, I have no particular interest in debating about people leaning a little left or a little right. (And, I do not see your earlier post but I think Kant is safe. :) Our country is under a real threat. It is as if we have State Sponsored NXIVM - wormed into all of our institutions - especially the Department of Ed which should probably be shut down.
Do you not think our democracy is under threat from Trump who literally tried to steal the election and stay in power by hook or crook?! Have you ever in your lifetime seen so many people who worked with a President in their cabinet speak out against them? Generals, cabinet members? The GOP have literally handed women's healthcare and family planning decisions over to the state. Trump and the sycophants who cower to him to deny reality are the biggest threat to our country. I'm astonished that you all are more worked up about these smaller issues than the bigger ones? I'm here for change for the onslaught against free speech on campuses and all for diversity of viewpoints but you can't have an intellectually honest conversation about freedom and not talk about what is happening in the Republican party.
You stated you work at one of these public universities below. I understand now where the viewpoint might come from. I have a sister who is deep in the inflammatory bowels of a huge left coast University. Excuse making, "nothing to see here", "you are exaggerating" is her forte even as DEI takes over and history dept. comes out with a statement signed by dozens of profs making excuses for Hamas and the U. brass remain silent. Loyal $ to the rotten core.
They made it hard by deciding to bring back bigotry and racism in all its ugliness. Hiring the bigots to teach, selecting students with despicable views. Its all so obvious. Now.
I am a lifelong liberal but I am against men in women's sports so those on the far Left, likely some at Yale Law School, have said that I should die or be raped or lose my job for this point of view. The also say, and I quote, that "Misgendering is LITERAL violence."
Yet the slaughter of 1400 civilians and the kidnapping of over 220, including babies, is too "complex" for these great minds?
I have to admit, I don't get it. I've been struggling to understand this through others' point of view, but what Hamas did is so clearly a war crime that it has to be antisemitism under a thin layer of concern for injustice. Why they haven't had rallies for the 500,000 Muslims killed in Syria proves that this is more than concern for Palestinians. And I'm calling it out everywhere I can, even to the risk of my own well-being.
As Douglas Murray said, "Sometimes a flare goes up and you see exactly where everyone is."
I'm not a black and white thinker but I'm 100% sure that the pro-Palestinians, who are really pro-Hamas, are on the wrong side: the side of terror.
So you are voting for Trump even though he tried to cheat to stay in power and still is denying that he lost the election? Why is Biden responsible for the cultural climate in elite academic institutions? The elected Republican officials have succeeded in taking away a woman's right to choose . They have supplanted the state for our doctor's in our private healthcare decisions and family planning. How COULD YOU turn your back on women now, of all times? And on our democracy at all times? A vote for RFK is a vote for Trump and everyone knows it.
My concern is that Biden executed an EO day one called the "Equality Act." It puts male bodies in women's safe spaces, prisons and sports and he believes kids should be medically transitioned.
If you can't tell me who is a woman, how can you defend our rights?
And if RFK clearly can't win on Election Day, I'll vote for Biden. If he has a chance, I'm voting for him. We need a BIG change in this country.
You sound like a true liberal. I mean this as a positive. Will you pull the lever for the Dems? I'm not being critical, I'm curious. Is what you've seen if late enough for you to say you'd even vote for Trump? Again, I'm simply curious. Good for you for standing up and calling out things even if you suffer for it. Thank you for highlighting the bad done by Syria. Keep fighting.
Just DON"T LIKE HIM ? He's a threat to our democracy. The progressive culture wars are child's play distraction from what the GOP is doing. Please stand strong against the biggest threats.
100% I will vote for Biden. I am a FP subscriber nad have been following Bari's work for some time b/c I agree with here on a lot of these issues. But it's crazy to me to read these comments when you are not talking about the elephant in the room, no pun intended (ha) that Donald Trump tried to cheat to stay in power and the GOP is doing everything in their power to undermine our most prized democratic institutions. They succeeded in packing the court and taking away women's (and men's) right to choose. They have replaced personal family planning and healthcare decisions with the State making them for us and forcing women to give birth to children even at the risk of their own health. How can you care more about these (admittedly mind boggling and truly upsetting) soft cultural issues than you do the cold hard facts of our democratic institutions. Trump's speech the other day about "vermin" was directly from Hitler's playbook and everyone knows it. The fascists are at the gate. The liberals are concerning themselves with petty fly swatting activities of DEI protocol. That's NOTHING compared to the actual authoritarian rule that the GOP is trying to achieve.
#1 - there is no such thing as a "Palestinian". It is a contrived identity manufactured by the masters of propaganda in the former Soviet Union's KGB as an enemy of the Jewish state, which made the fatal mistake of aligning itself with the free West rather than the collectivist East. The PLO was a KGB construct as well. Both have outlived the ideological empire which birthed them.
#2 - no nation, entity, organization, or person self-described as "pro-Palestinian" has ever proposed let alone implemented action which has aided or even reduced the suffering of the Arabs who inhabit Palestine. The only "assistance" received is either direct or indirect military aid for the express purpose of murdering Jews and the complete annihilation of the state of Israel. Full stop. Any pretense otherwise is simply a shallow cloak of pure anti-Semitism. The harsh reality is that no one, Arab, Muslim, or otherwise gives a shit about the suffering which has resulted from the persistent and murderous denial of the right of a Jewish nation to exist.
American academia, or rather what poses for it, long ago surrendered its soul and integrity to this murderous initiative. Shame be upon them.
Antisemitism is usually shrouded with other issues. Rarely, if EVER, is it ever an issue by itself, except by Islamicist Arabs and their supporters. And we allow even THAT under the rubric of "free speech".
It's just ingroup vs outgroup for them, a very primitive idea, which is why I don't like calling them "progressive." They're smart enough to do the intellectual yoga necessary to hide the contradictions in what they say.
It’s never been about any of this for the left. It’s all about power and they feel this is their path to wield it. Don’t give an inch to these monsters.
It's no longer possible to deny that our most prominent institutions are captured by the kinds of DEI useful idiots that Bari Weiss describes in her "End DEI" piece. Some elderly professors surely have lost the plot, but for younger leaders there can be little excuse. As for the students, what can the admissions offices at these schools be thinking? They look to be admitting the worst sort of person. I'm re-reading John Robinson's farewell letter to the Pilgrims, in which he urges them to avoid people too "ready to take offense," and it's pretty good 400-year-old advice: "Neither have they ever proved sound and profitable members in societies, which have nourished this touchy humor." Not bad. Isn't there one adult left at Yale who's finally, at long last, sick of the churning turmoil over Halloween costumes and memorial windows? When you've abased yourselves over that nonsense but cower in the face of actual slaughter, it's hard to see what, exactly, the point of you is.
Silk replied that the center was still deciding whether to address the massacre. The situation, he said, was “complex.”
Sorry but when the people teaching our young students the law, temporize and cannot tell the difference between good and evil, what sort of lawyers do you think they'll produce? Certainly not honest or brave ones, or lawyers dedicated to our laws and Constitution. Bill Ackman was right. Don't entertain hiring any of these leftist apparatchiks in your company or law firm. In the end, all they will do is bring you dishonor and destroy you from within.
Agreed - Also, the pogrom was not complex. A bunch of barbarians (Hamas), came in and killed civilians because of their religion and/or citizenship. Killing civilians, children, babies, etc. is evil and not going to accomplish anything.
One of the most frustrating things I have witnessed over the past 20 years is how favored groups are allowed to do anything while disfavored groups are attacked for even the smallest transgression. In the case of the Jews and Israel, both are regularly condemned for any mistake or imperfection while Hamas will be defended after it rapes and murders civilians.
This reminds me of the exchange between Jesus and the Pharisees. Jesus: "The baptism of John, was it of God or of man?" The Pharisees: "We cannot tell". "They said this because they feared the people." These "Educrats" will not respond because they fear the students of whom they charge hundreds of thousand of dollars for their "education". COWARDS!
Gerken is a coward for not including the words Jewish or antisemitism. Silk is a coward for not responding. Hurst is a coward for not responding. And, it should be noted, Robert Hurst's father, Kurt Hurst, was a survivor, having been imprisoned in Auschwitz (he was my neighbor so I have personal knowledge of his story). That a law school of supposed high standing; that college administrators; that privileged American Jews will not speak is nit only sad, it's frightening! The "moral rot" goes far beyond the elite colleges. It's pervasive. It's steeped into nearly all intellectual cells throughout the West. Will these people stop supporting the alumni associations? Will they demand action from the overpaid administrators? Will they speak? No. Cowards are such because they don't face evil. It's definitional. They enjoy the freedoms that have been paid for in blood and fail to recognize their responsibility - the price we all must pay to ensure our freedoms. The reason our youth have no moral compass is because the so-called leaders have not taught them to develop a moral compass. Quite the opposite is the case. The Gerkens, Silks, and Hursts of the world have supported causes that have long sought to undermine and eventually destroy the Judeo-Christian values that undergird our society and promote an objective morality. Let's BDS colleges and universities! Cowardice does not merit our support.
Do you think a personal tragedy would change ones mind? I don’t wish it on the cowards, just exploring cognitive dissonance. What it would be “ hitting the bottom” to accept the facts and change one’s beliefs?
I have never understood the white leftists fascination with Islam. Can someone please explain it to me? I am not being sarcastic. I am generally curious. Can an upper middle class ivy educated person explain it to me?
I don’t believe it is so much a fascination with Islam as it is the progressive/Marxist compulsion to sort groups into the oppressed and the oppressor. They have bought into the narrative that Israel is a colonialist project, an apartheid state that oppresses and wants to commit genocide against Palestinians for being Muslim. The fact that it’s those dastardly Jews being all successful in their new state only sweetens the joy of labeling them the new Nazis. None of the charges are true or even make sense, but the Palestinian PR machine has been extraordinarily successful in promoting this take.
The irony, of course, is that Muslims are about a thousand times more numerous than Jews, have dozens of countries in which they are the majority, and in those countries (and especially in Gaza itself) there is absolutely nothing liberal or progressive in how they treat women, gays, religious minorities, etc.
The Three Languages of Politics: Talking Across the Political Divides describes your point - libs see it as oppressed vs oppressors and cons barbarism vs civilization the former tend to see themselves as educated in a postmodernist Marxist framework,
No, James Silk, it's not... "complicated". The global Left wants a "cease fire"? They already had one on October 6, to be followed by barbaric Hamas war crimes. The cries for a "cease fire" continue... would there be cries for a cease fire if Hamas and the Islamists were winning on the battlefield? "Cease Fire" they continue, with no mention of contingency on the release of 200+ Israeli and other citizens kidnapped and held by Hamas - why isn't there more pressure on Hamas to release all prisoners as a condition of a cease fire? The Gazan Palestinians voted for Hamas and cheer in the streets every time Israel suffers - I'm all for a cease fire where those peace-loving Gazan Palestinians out every single Hamas fighter and supporter in their ranks. If Hamas won't release all prisoners and Gazans won't reject Hamas openly and completely, what is the case for a cease fire?
And while we're at it what is the case for continued immigration of Muslims into Europe? Humanitarian reasons? Give me a break.
Over 1000 years of Islamic teaching has embedded into the Muslim mind that eliminating Jews in their midst is required for the final judgment. Can this millennial teaching be driven from their beings? Probably not. As a result, they will experience the wages for such beliefs unless, that is, Islamic rule covers the earth.
And let me also add that this type of nonsense went on at the Stanford Law School as I am sure most readers know. The poison is being delivered not by IV but by rocket at these schools. Every Jewish alum and anyone who has given money should immediately withdraw all funds and Jewish students at Yale ought to find somewhere else to study law.
Voices crying in the wilderness. You cannot compromise with someone who wants you dead. A successful compromise for them would be for you to commit suicide.
This is the conflict. Hamas doesn't want A state. It wants the Jewish state and for the Jews to disappear. A two state solution is not acceptable to Hamas. I suppose this means the only logical conclusion is for one side to be eliminated. It's regrettable, but it might be the case.
"I suppose this means the only logical conclusion is for one side to be eliminated. It's regrettable, but it might be the case."
This has been my conclusion for quite some time. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that thousands of Palestinians will die in the process. It is not with joy that I say this, and it is not without compassion either. But the fact of the matter is that, by and large, Palestinians assent to the slaughter of Jews. They may claim to the contrary, but hundreds of years of Islamic teaching has imbued them with Jew hatred, especially those who have been "educated" in Hamas schools where kids are taught games such as "Kill the Jew". They may not CONSIDER it to be so, but it IS, none the less.
If you have graduated from any of these antisemitic institutions, please sign the $1 pledge and write them out of your wills/trusts. "Never Again" is a comment I put on my $1 check.
Yale has been a bastion of fanatical intolerance for some time now. The students who harangued Nicholas Christakis were actually given awards for their misconduct. Yale actually had a speech titled 'The Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind'. It gets worse, in that speech, the speaker fantasized about killing white people.
US universities ran by DEI presidents are now indoctrination/Jihad centers. From discriminating Asians to vilifying white males and now Jewish students.
Notice how none of these DEI Presidents have a strong pulse...
If there is any "good" from all of this, it is the unequivocal and unambiguous proof of the depravity, immorality and worship of violence and non-reason from US universities.
Even if you are not a supporter of Israel, to not condemn the actions of Hamas is despicable.
Mark T - Unfortunately, they will simply deny. The passion and persistence of the Jew haters is fierce and unrelenting. Deny, lie, then scream the lie over and over and over until the masses adsorb through to their core. I appreciate your sentiments and I wish I were wrong but this not new. They seek the destruction of the free, capitalist, G-d-fearing America (and West).
So a story about one unit - the law school - at one university - Yale - justifies a broadside generalization about all universities in the U.S.?
Where have we seen that kind of logic before?
No, a single story about a single law school at one universtity does not justify a broadside generalisation about all universities in the US. But as has been shown time and again over this past month, this is but a single example amongst many that is happening at a wide variety and number of universities across the United States. And if one takes a longer look back over the past 25 years (or more), DEI and other such nihilistic anti-reason policies and procedures have been the norm rather than the exception. Therefore, this generalisation is justified by the multitude of examples - this just happens to be one of the most recent and egregious because it is at a supposedly elite level institution that is meant to be producing the future leaders of this county within a proper moral framework.
Bob K asks a fair question and you give him the correct answer. The examples seem almost infinite. This is just the latest one, as you state.
Was it a fair question: a naive question or a deliberately obtuse question?
More like an ignorant question! Any well-read person has seen the issue, writ large by Yale Law School.
What counts as "well-read"? I work at a large public university in the American South, and I participate in the deliberations of the faculty about academic freedom and free expression. I read the Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Education and, most usefully, the blog at Heterodox Academy. I read this site, Quillette, and sometimes After Babel.
I can see plainly where the trouble is in academia, and what forms it takes. I can also see plainly where the trouble is *not*.
I've also read FIRE's 2023 report on campus free speech. That more than anything provides a sense of the state of things on college campuses. It's notable that only Harvard - the elite of the elites - receives a rating of "Abysmal" in that report. And well deserved that rating is!
Deliberately obtuse. Willfully ignorant.
It's so much easier to insult than to understand.
Deliberately obtuse, a pure trolling maneuver.
No. A genuine counterpoint. Yes, I know very well that Yale is not the only place there are problems, but I also know that the problems in academia are not evenly distributed. The Ivies may be hopeless, at this point, and many small (erstwhile) liberal-arts colleges along with them (looking at Oberlin, and the whole bakery incident.) Prominent state universities along the coasts, and a few prominent ones inland also have outbursts.
But I also know what confirmation bias is, and what availability bias is, and I see them running rampant through these comments sections. If I raise one objection, one request for clarification, offer any counterexamples, the only conclusion anyone here can come to is that I must be a troll, or simply stupid.
Pat, Nancy - fully agree. Not good faith. Pure troll, albeit a verbose one
Bob K could simply have written that he chooses to pretend that Hillsdale College and University of Austin, for example, are the lens through which he chooses to view the rest of the occupied territory ruled by the professoriate and the teacher class in their apartheid occupation of K-12 and the Universities.
Two of my state schools, George Mason and VA Tech, have had similar protests. We better get used to the new normal, when anything that is unpatriotic is embraced, where white guilt overrides common sense.
And both of those schools came off our application list. I also used the FP report on the schools that took that undocumented money as a cross reference. I already stopped donating to my own Alma mater due to their free speech issues. It is becoming a very small list of schools that my kids can attend.
So your generalization is different how? Note the part of the story where several departments sponsored the anti Israeli hat feast where Jewish students were locked out. One might take your post as propaganda for Hamas. Reading comprehension is a complex thing many can't master.
I'm not offering a generalization, but trying to encounter an especially hasty one. My point - about which I've banged on at too great length in other comments sections on this site - is simply this: Not all is well at U.S. colleges and universities, but not all is rotten either. The question is how to save and bolster what is still sound.
Not all was "rotten" in Stalinist or Maoist or German Nazi universities either. But once you have intellectual capture of young peoples' values, you own the rest. That's what's happening, and it's happening broadly, even, as we have seen in recent years, down to the secondary and primary school level. Make no mistake - this is an anti-civilization putsch, well underway already.
Fair enough, but I ask if the rot is so deep the good cannot be salvaged. I'm of the belief the bad will eventually swallow the good. I'm certainly willing to listen to ways to go about saving and bolstering the good.
The rot isn't all that deep, at most institutions or in all regions. I'm at a large public university in the American South, for example, and the situation here is very much different from that at Yale or Stanford, or even at Michigan.
I know the trouble spots within my own institution, and I'm watching them warily, but getting on with research and teaching, wherever they may lead, tends to be the run of play, here.
I also have to be concerned about pressure from the right, through the state legislature and the state-level administration of the university system; there are rumblings of increasing political interference in what we do.
A threat to free inquiry is a threat to free inquiry, from whichever side it might present itself.
So far, though, I've heard encouraging things from the state level, and it may balance well against what pressure from the progressive side might be coming out of student affairs or the diversity office, and from the small handful of faculty who seem inclined toward left-wing dogmas.
Those converging pressures have pushed the faculty, in recent meetings, to strengthen our policies on academic freedom and free expression, earning us our institution's speech code a "green" indicator on the FIRE rating system.
[Editorial insertion: I'm grateful not to be in Florida. DeSantis may be many things, but a friend to free and fearless inquiry he is not.]
I am happy to hear that your institution isn't facing the same rot others are. I'm sorry to hear that any state, right wing or left wing, seeks to interfere in discourse. I'm a middle and high school teacher for 27 years. I've seen tremendous changes in academic freedom. I've seen professional development akin to political indoctrination. In both cases, it has been 100% directed from the far Left. I should mention I'm in southern New York, just north of NYC. I never expected right wing pressure, but I was naive when I believed I did not e left it from the Left. I had believed my state was run by liberals who value academic freedom, free speech, and the marketplace of ideas. I was wrong. As I'm not in Florida I can only judge De Santis from what I've read. I've heard complaints about the governor and I've heard praise for him. I am thinking you and I can agree on one thing: it's our duty to stand against suppression of speech when we see it. I thank you for your comments to my post.
"[Editorial insertion: I'm grateful not to be in Florida. DeSantis may be many things, but a friend to free and fearless inquiry he is not.]"
I have to take issue with this one. Gender Ideology is not science being pursued with methodical studies anywhere. It is cult material preached at children beginning in kindergarten. DeSantis is about the only one (politically speaking) trying to save the kids, families, and society from it.
CA does not exactly have free speech. Just ask the parents at schools like in Chino Valley. God help us if we get a President Newsom.
https://pitt.substack.com/p/eugenics-in-california-never-again
Wake up, Bob. Read other sources that what you have been used to. This is going on across the country, not just at Yale.
I read the Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Education, and the blog at Heterodox Academy, all to get a sense of the run of play across academia broadly, as well as accounts of flare-ups of nonsense and high-profile faculty cancellations.
I also read The Free Press, Quillette and, occasionally, After Babel. I've also read through FIRE's 2023 report on campus free speech.
I also work within academia, and participate in deliberations of the faculty regarding academic freedom and freedom of expression.
I know pretty well where the problem is, and where it is not.
And I know confirmation bias and availability bias when I see them, in the comments section of any story about academia on this site.
Bob, I have taught at two 'elite' universities and now teach high school. It's more pervasive now.
I teach at a large public university, and the problem is not all that pervasive here.
I didn't realize they have large public universities on Mars. If one person tells you you're drunk, what do they know? If ten people tell you you're drunk you better lie down.
I'm in CA. At Berkeley, it's pervasive. Maybe it's just in some universities-- at least I hope so.
Every elite university in the US is now doing the same damn thing. It stuns me that you haven't realized that.
We could quibble about what counts as "elite", but I can see plainly that problems are worst at the ivies and at small (erstwhile) liberal-arts colleges, with some prominent public universities on the coasts joining in. In the most recent FIRE report on campus free speech, only Harvard earns a ranking of "Abysmal".
They are much less serious, or more scattered, at public colleges and universities inland in the Southeast, especially those with a high proportion of programs in the sciences or in technological fields.
Nonsense like the allegation that "getting the right answer" is a white-supremicist thing doesn't hold up well when one is, say, designing a bridge. Gravity doesn't care what color your skin is: if you get the math wrong, the bridge is going to fall.
Let's hope DEI does not impact our bridge builders... It is pervasive in Medical Schools:
"Med schools are even more woke than you think — and your care is at risk"
https://nypost.com/2022/11/16/med-schools-are-even-more-woke-than-you-think-and-your-care-is-at-risk/
"Medical Education Goes Woke
Future doctors will be obliged to learn how health relates to ‘systems of oppression.’"
https://www.wsj.com/articles/medical-training-goes-woke-association-of-american-medical-colleges-doctors-11658871789
"Woke medical schools are a threat to your health"
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/equality-not-elitism/woke-medical-schools-are-a-threat-to-your-health
Plus, American medical societies are controlled by Gender Ideologues. At least there is finally a lawsuit against the AAP:
https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/10/Ayala-v-AAP-Complaint_stamped.pdf
https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-american-academy-of-pediatrics-named-in-bombshell-detransitioner-lawsuit
So, I have no particular interest in debating about people leaning a little left or a little right. (And, I do not see your earlier post but I think Kant is safe. :) Our country is under a real threat. It is as if we have State Sponsored NXIVM - wormed into all of our institutions - especially the Department of Ed which should probably be shut down.
Do you not think our democracy is under threat from Trump who literally tried to steal the election and stay in power by hook or crook?! Have you ever in your lifetime seen so many people who worked with a President in their cabinet speak out against them? Generals, cabinet members? The GOP have literally handed women's healthcare and family planning decisions over to the state. Trump and the sycophants who cower to him to deny reality are the biggest threat to our country. I'm astonished that you all are more worked up about these smaller issues than the bigger ones? I'm here for change for the onslaught against free speech on campuses and all for diversity of viewpoints but you can't have an intellectually honest conversation about freedom and not talk about what is happening in the Republican party.
You stated you work at one of these public universities below. I understand now where the viewpoint might come from. I have a sister who is deep in the inflammatory bowels of a huge left coast University. Excuse making, "nothing to see here", "you are exaggerating" is her forte even as DEI takes over and history dept. comes out with a statement signed by dozens of profs making excuses for Hamas and the U. brass remain silent. Loyal $ to the rotten core.
Have you been asleep? Hamas apologies are rampant in Ivy League schools.
Oh, I get it.
The Yale Law School Center for International Human Rights cannot deal with situations that it deems to be "complex." That's too hard.
Yale University can't be expected to address problems that it thinks are hard. That's no fair. Give it something easier.
Sadly, this isn't a hard problem.
They made it hard by deciding to bring back bigotry and racism in all its ugliness. Hiring the bigots to teach, selecting students with despicable views. Its all so obvious. Now.
"Will this be on the final?"
The final exam, or the Final Solution?
Within the ivory towers of American academia, a distinction without a difference.
Corruption brings with it moral blindness
I am a lifelong liberal but I am against men in women's sports so those on the far Left, likely some at Yale Law School, have said that I should die or be raped or lose my job for this point of view. The also say, and I quote, that "Misgendering is LITERAL violence."
Yet the slaughter of 1400 civilians and the kidnapping of over 220, including babies, is too "complex" for these great minds?
I have to admit, I don't get it. I've been struggling to understand this through others' point of view, but what Hamas did is so clearly a war crime that it has to be antisemitism under a thin layer of concern for injustice. Why they haven't had rallies for the 500,000 Muslims killed in Syria proves that this is more than concern for Palestinians. And I'm calling it out everywhere I can, even to the risk of my own well-being.
As Douglas Murray said, "Sometimes a flare goes up and you see exactly where everyone is."
I'm not a black and white thinker but I'm 100% sure that the pro-Palestinians, who are really pro-Hamas, are on the wrong side: the side of terror.
That's why we call it the Demoralized DIEvy League: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/how-to-get-into-harvard-open-letter-to-trustees
Are you still going to vote for the people who enable this?
No. I'm voting for RFK Jr.
So you are voting for Trump even though he tried to cheat to stay in power and still is denying that he lost the election? Why is Biden responsible for the cultural climate in elite academic institutions? The elected Republican officials have succeeded in taking away a woman's right to choose . They have supplanted the state for our doctor's in our private healthcare decisions and family planning. How COULD YOU turn your back on women now, of all times? And on our democracy at all times? A vote for RFK is a vote for Trump and everyone knows it.
Please don't do this. It's mad.
My concern is that Biden executed an EO day one called the "Equality Act." It puts male bodies in women's safe spaces, prisons and sports and he believes kids should be medically transitioned.
If you can't tell me who is a woman, how can you defend our rights?
And if RFK clearly can't win on Election Day, I'll vote for Biden. If he has a chance, I'm voting for him. We need a BIG change in this country.
You sound like a true liberal. I mean this as a positive. Will you pull the lever for the Dems? I'm not being critical, I'm curious. Is what you've seen if late enough for you to say you'd even vote for Trump? Again, I'm simply curious. Good for you for standing up and calling out things even if you suffer for it. Thank you for highlighting the bad done by Syria. Keep fighting.
I can't stand Trump. I've been familiar with him for decades and just don't like him. I'm voting for RFK Jr.
Just DON"T LIKE HIM ? He's a threat to our democracy. The progressive culture wars are child's play distraction from what the GOP is doing. Please stand strong against the biggest threats.
100% I will vote for Biden. I am a FP subscriber nad have been following Bari's work for some time b/c I agree with here on a lot of these issues. But it's crazy to me to read these comments when you are not talking about the elephant in the room, no pun intended (ha) that Donald Trump tried to cheat to stay in power and the GOP is doing everything in their power to undermine our most prized democratic institutions. They succeeded in packing the court and taking away women's (and men's) right to choose. They have replaced personal family planning and healthcare decisions with the State making them for us and forcing women to give birth to children even at the risk of their own health. How can you care more about these (admittedly mind boggling and truly upsetting) soft cultural issues than you do the cold hard facts of our democratic institutions. Trump's speech the other day about "vermin" was directly from Hitler's playbook and everyone knows it. The fascists are at the gate. The liberals are concerning themselves with petty fly swatting activities of DEI protocol. That's NOTHING compared to the actual authoritarian rule that the GOP is trying to achieve.
There is no such thing as a pro-Palestinian.
#1 - there is no such thing as a "Palestinian". It is a contrived identity manufactured by the masters of propaganda in the former Soviet Union's KGB as an enemy of the Jewish state, which made the fatal mistake of aligning itself with the free West rather than the collectivist East. The PLO was a KGB construct as well. Both have outlived the ideological empire which birthed them.
#2 - no nation, entity, organization, or person self-described as "pro-Palestinian" has ever proposed let alone implemented action which has aided or even reduced the suffering of the Arabs who inhabit Palestine. The only "assistance" received is either direct or indirect military aid for the express purpose of murdering Jews and the complete annihilation of the state of Israel. Full stop. Any pretense otherwise is simply a shallow cloak of pure anti-Semitism. The harsh reality is that no one, Arab, Muslim, or otherwise gives a shit about the suffering which has resulted from the persistent and murderous denial of the right of a Jewish nation to exist.
American academia, or rather what poses for it, long ago surrendered its soul and integrity to this murderous initiative. Shame be upon them.
Antisemitism is usually shrouded with other issues. Rarely, if EVER, is it ever an issue by itself, except by Islamicist Arabs and their supporters. And we allow even THAT under the rubric of "free speech".
It's just ingroup vs outgroup for them, a very primitive idea, which is why I don't like calling them "progressive." They're smart enough to do the intellectual yoga necessary to hide the contradictions in what they say.
It’s never been about any of this for the left. It’s all about power and they feel this is their path to wield it. Don’t give an inch to these monsters.
It's no longer possible to deny that our most prominent institutions are captured by the kinds of DEI useful idiots that Bari Weiss describes in her "End DEI" piece. Some elderly professors surely have lost the plot, but for younger leaders there can be little excuse. As for the students, what can the admissions offices at these schools be thinking? They look to be admitting the worst sort of person. I'm re-reading John Robinson's farewell letter to the Pilgrims, in which he urges them to avoid people too "ready to take offense," and it's pretty good 400-year-old advice: "Neither have they ever proved sound and profitable members in societies, which have nourished this touchy humor." Not bad. Isn't there one adult left at Yale who's finally, at long last, sick of the churning turmoil over Halloween costumes and memorial windows? When you've abased yourselves over that nonsense but cower in the face of actual slaughter, it's hard to see what, exactly, the point of you is.
You said it better than I could have. Thank you!
Exactly. Replace the admission officers with people who don’t buy the bullshit.
Silk replied that the center was still deciding whether to address the massacre. The situation, he said, was “complex.”
Sorry but when the people teaching our young students the law, temporize and cannot tell the difference between good and evil, what sort of lawyers do you think they'll produce? Certainly not honest or brave ones, or lawyers dedicated to our laws and Constitution. Bill Ackman was right. Don't entertain hiring any of these leftist apparatchiks in your company or law firm. In the end, all they will do is bring you dishonor and destroy you from within.
Agreed - Also, the pogrom was not complex. A bunch of barbarians (Hamas), came in and killed civilians because of their religion and/or citizenship. Killing civilians, children, babies, etc. is evil and not going to accomplish anything.
One of the most frustrating things I have witnessed over the past 20 years is how favored groups are allowed to do anything while disfavored groups are attacked for even the smallest transgression. In the case of the Jews and Israel, both are regularly condemned for any mistake or imperfection while Hamas will be defended after it rapes and murders civilians.
This reminds me of the exchange between Jesus and the Pharisees. Jesus: "The baptism of John, was it of God or of man?" The Pharisees: "We cannot tell". "They said this because they feared the people." These "Educrats" will not respond because they fear the students of whom they charge hundreds of thousand of dollars for their "education". COWARDS!
Gerken is a coward for not including the words Jewish or antisemitism. Silk is a coward for not responding. Hurst is a coward for not responding. And, it should be noted, Robert Hurst's father, Kurt Hurst, was a survivor, having been imprisoned in Auschwitz (he was my neighbor so I have personal knowledge of his story). That a law school of supposed high standing; that college administrators; that privileged American Jews will not speak is nit only sad, it's frightening! The "moral rot" goes far beyond the elite colleges. It's pervasive. It's steeped into nearly all intellectual cells throughout the West. Will these people stop supporting the alumni associations? Will they demand action from the overpaid administrators? Will they speak? No. Cowards are such because they don't face evil. It's definitional. They enjoy the freedoms that have been paid for in blood and fail to recognize their responsibility - the price we all must pay to ensure our freedoms. The reason our youth have no moral compass is because the so-called leaders have not taught them to develop a moral compass. Quite the opposite is the case. The Gerkens, Silks, and Hursts of the world have supported causes that have long sought to undermine and eventually destroy the Judeo-Christian values that undergird our society and promote an objective morality. Let's BDS colleges and universities! Cowardice does not merit our support.
Do you think a personal tragedy would change ones mind? I don’t wish it on the cowards, just exploring cognitive dissonance. What it would be “ hitting the bottom” to accept the facts and change one’s beliefs?
It would be an eye-opening experience for them and a gift to the Western world.
You might be right. I don't know. I don't wish tragedy on anyone. I pray for the guilty to be punished, but that's not the sane thing.
I hope the dozens of white shoe law firms who said they will not hire from schools that condone or ignore antisemitism stick to their word
Dear Deans,
Everyone at our law firms is entitled to be treated with respect and be free of any conduct that
targets their identity and is offensive, hostile, intimidating or inconsistent with their personal
dignity and rights. We prohibit any form of harassment, whether verbal, visual or physical.
Over the last several weeks, we have been alarmed at reports of anti-Semitic harassment,
vandalism and assaults on college campuses, including rallies calling for the death of Jews and
the elimination of the State of Israel. Such anti-Semitic activities would not be tolerated at any of
our firms. We also would not tolerate outside groups engaging in acts of harassment and threats
of violence, as has also been occurring on many of your campuses.
As educators at institutions of higher learning, it is imperative that you provide your students
with the tools and guidance to engage in the free exchange of ideas, even on emotionally charged
issues, in a manner that affirms the values we all hold dear and rejects unreservedly that which is
antithetical to those values. There is no room for anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, racism or any
other form of violence, hatred or bigotry on your campuses, in our workplaces or our
communities.
As employers who recruit from each of your law schools, we look to you to ensure your students
who hope to join our firms after graduation are prepared to be an active part of workplace
communities that have zero tolerance policies for any form of discrimination or harassment,
much less the kind that has been taking place on some law school campuses.
We trust you will take the same unequivocal stance against such activities as we do, and we look
forward to a respectful dialogue with you to understand how you are addressing with urgency
this serious situation at your law schools.
Very truly yours,
Akerman LLP
Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP
Alston & Bird LLP
Baker Botts L.L.P.
Baker & Hostetler LLP
Benesch, Friedland Coplan & Aronoff LLP
Blank Rome LLP
Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP
Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP
Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP
Clifford Chance US LLP
Cooley LLP
Covington & Burling LLP
Cozen O'Connor
Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP
Davis + Gilbert LLP
Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP
Debevoise & Plimpton LLP
Dechert LLP
Dentons US LLP
DLA Piper LLP (US)
Fenwick & West LLP
Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
Goodwin Procter LLP
Greenberg Traurig, LLP
Haynes and Boone LLP
Hogan Lovells US LLP
Holland & Knight LLP
Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP
Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP
Irell & Manella LLP
Jenner & Block LLP
Jones Day
Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP
Kelley Drye & Warren LLP
Kirkland & Ellis LLP
Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP
Latham & Watkins LLP
Littler Mendelson P.C.
Locke Lord LLP
Lowenstein Sandler LLP
Mayer Brown LLP
McDermott Will & Emery LLP
Meland Budwick, P.A.
Milbank LLP
Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C.
Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP
Morrison & Foerster LLP
Norton Rose Fulbright
O'Melveny & Myers LLP
Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP
Paul Hastings LLP
Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP
Pearl Cohen Zedek Latzer Baratz
Perkins Coie LLP
Proskauer Rose LLP
Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP
Ropes & Gray LLP
Rosenberg & Estis, P.C.
Schulte Roth + Zabel LLP
Seiden Law LLP
Seward & Kissel LLP
Seyfarth Shaw LLP
Shearman & Sterling LLP
Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP
Sidley Austin LLP
Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP
Sullivan & Cromwell LLP
Susman Godfrey L.L.P.
Thompson Coburn LLP
Vedder Price
Vinson & Elkins LLP
Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen, and Katz
Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP
White & Case LLP
Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP
WilmerHale
Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati P.C.
Winston & Strawn LLP
These budding antisemite lawyers should be denied the bar on character and fitness alone.
You left out Dewey, Cheetim, and Howe.
So law firms actually taking a stand against antisemitism elicits a joke? Don’t give up your day job
I put a 99.9% chance on his not having actually read the post. 🤦♂️
I've also been kind grumpy the last few weeks. My chi is so not very calm....
I can empathize with that!
I have never understood the white leftists fascination with Islam. Can someone please explain it to me? I am not being sarcastic. I am generally curious. Can an upper middle class ivy educated person explain it to me?
I don’t believe it is so much a fascination with Islam as it is the progressive/Marxist compulsion to sort groups into the oppressed and the oppressor. They have bought into the narrative that Israel is a colonialist project, an apartheid state that oppresses and wants to commit genocide against Palestinians for being Muslim. The fact that it’s those dastardly Jews being all successful in their new state only sweetens the joy of labeling them the new Nazis. None of the charges are true or even make sense, but the Palestinian PR machine has been extraordinarily successful in promoting this take.
The irony, of course, is that Muslims are about a thousand times more numerous than Jews, have dozens of countries in which they are the majority, and in those countries (and especially in Gaza itself) there is absolutely nothing liberal or progressive in how they treat women, gays, religious minorities, etc.
The cognitive dissonance is astounding.
Not to mention the Arab Muslims literally colonized the vast majority of those territories.
Arnold Kling
The Three Languages of Politics: Talking Across the Political Divides describes your point - libs see it as oppressed vs oppressors and cons barbarism vs civilization the former tend to see themselves as educated in a postmodernist Marxist framework,
No, James Silk, it's not... "complicated". The global Left wants a "cease fire"? They already had one on October 6, to be followed by barbaric Hamas war crimes. The cries for a "cease fire" continue... would there be cries for a cease fire if Hamas and the Islamists were winning on the battlefield? "Cease Fire" they continue, with no mention of contingency on the release of 200+ Israeli and other citizens kidnapped and held by Hamas - why isn't there more pressure on Hamas to release all prisoners as a condition of a cease fire? The Gazan Palestinians voted for Hamas and cheer in the streets every time Israel suffers - I'm all for a cease fire where those peace-loving Gazan Palestinians out every single Hamas fighter and supporter in their ranks. If Hamas won't release all prisoners and Gazans won't reject Hamas openly and completely, what is the case for a cease fire?
And while we're at it what is the case for continued immigration of Muslims into Europe? Humanitarian reasons? Give me a break.
Over 1000 years of Islamic teaching has embedded into the Muslim mind that eliminating Jews in their midst is required for the final judgment. Can this millennial teaching be driven from their beings? Probably not. As a result, they will experience the wages for such beliefs unless, that is, Islamic rule covers the earth.
And let me also add that this type of nonsense went on at the Stanford Law School as I am sure most readers know. The poison is being delivered not by IV but by rocket at these schools. Every Jewish alum and anyone who has given money should immediately withdraw all funds and Jewish students at Yale ought to find somewhere else to study law.
Not just Jews, but everyone should find another law school.
100% correct. This is a morality issue.
Yes. It's not just for the good of the Jewish people. It's for the good of the whole society.
It certainly appears that Yale, and the rest of the Ivy League, has become like Mos Eisley (from Star Wars) a wretched hive of scum and villainy.
Wow! This is a great reference. Oh, by the way, the Empire did nothing wrong.
Alderaan was asking for it. They were wearing short skirts, you know. Made Vader hard.
Voices crying in the wilderness. You cannot compromise with someone who wants you dead. A successful compromise for them would be for you to commit suicide.
This is the conflict. Hamas doesn't want A state. It wants the Jewish state and for the Jews to disappear. A two state solution is not acceptable to Hamas. I suppose this means the only logical conclusion is for one side to be eliminated. It's regrettable, but it might be the case.
"I suppose this means the only logical conclusion is for one side to be eliminated. It's regrettable, but it might be the case."
This has been my conclusion for quite some time. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that thousands of Palestinians will die in the process. It is not with joy that I say this, and it is not without compassion either. But the fact of the matter is that, by and large, Palestinians assent to the slaughter of Jews. They may claim to the contrary, but hundreds of years of Islamic teaching has imbued them with Jew hatred, especially those who have been "educated" in Hamas schools where kids are taught games such as "Kill the Jew". They may not CONSIDER it to be so, but it IS, none the less.
Or perhaps taught at Ivy League schools?
Not too many Palestinians enrolled at Ivy League schools. At least not many who also RETURNED to Gaza!
Why isn't Mr. Hurst standing up and telling Ms. Kimura, " We are pulling your scholarship." ?
Expel her.
Along with the other Jew hating bitch Iesha Phillips
If you have graduated from any of these antisemitic institutions, please sign the $1 pledge and write them out of your wills/trusts. "Never Again" is a comment I put on my $1 check.
Yale has been a bastion of fanatical intolerance for some time now. The students who harangued Nicholas Christakis were actually given awards for their misconduct. Yale actually had a speech titled 'The Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind'. It gets worse, in that speech, the speaker fantasized about killing white people.
US universities ran by DEI presidents are now indoctrination/Jihad centers. From discriminating Asians to vilifying white males and now Jewish students.
Notice how none of these DEI Presidents have a strong pulse...