Jimspeak

Another article on the matter.

I don't know what's going on. Is Duke the only university to have a politically unbalanced staff? Are they the only institution of higher learning having these issues? I highly doubt it. So why are they the only one in the spotlight? Maybe it's because their staff hasn't figured out what not to say. For example:

“If, as John Stuart Mill said, stupid people are generally conservative, Editorial then there are lots of conservatives we will never hire. Mill’s analysis may go some way towards explaining the power of the Republican party in our society and the relative scarcity of Republicans in academia. Players in the NBA tend to be taller than average. There is a good reason for this. Members of academia tend to be a bit smarter than average. There is a good reason for this too.”

Here is a passage that slays me:

"Let’s pretend for a moment that entire programs like Women’s Studies and African and African-American Studies were not established specifically to propagate left-wing social and historical theories in the classroom. If we are to believe that professors never politicize the classroom, then we can expect to find a general agreement among professors that this is the case. It is illuminating, then, to read the January 24 New York Times editorial column by Connecticut College Professor Rhonda Garelick in which the author bemoans her students’ resistance to her repeated attempts to instill in them “‘wakeful’ political literacy,” “feminist awareness,” and “literacy in sexual politics.” She finds it inexplicable that her introduction of “contemporary politics into classroom discussions,” such as the Iraq war, only provokes “paralysis and anxiety, plus some disgruntlement over my deviation from the syllabus.” This is indeed a real headscratcher, but perhaps the problem lies in the fact that Professor Garelick teaches French literature, and her recalcitrant students may, for some bizarre reason, have failed to grasp the colossal impact the Iraq war has had on the allegories underlying Les Miserables.

Professor Garelick’s solution, incidentally, is increasingly to “look beyond my syllabuses” and devote more classroom time to contemporary politics. She evidently missed the memo explaining that professors never do this. I suppose it is possible that the New York Times printed her column in order to highlight the rare exception to academia’s iron-clad rule that professors don’t politicize the classroom. Maybe President Keohane will convene a small, relaxed group of students to study Professor Garelick’s position."

And one more:

"So let’s compare the overall arguments put forward by both sides. The DCU claims the overwhelming imbalance in political party affiliation among faculty members and deans is evidence of a lack of intellectual diversity that needs to be addressed. The other side claims this is not true because:

A. Professors never bring their politics into the classroom, even though they admit that they do.

B. Political party affiliation is not a meaningful indicator of a person’s politics.

C. The American political spectrum is more narrow than Canada’s.

D. In its survey of 163 registered voters, the DCU failed to include three or four foreign citizens who are not registered voters.

E. Conservatives are too stupid and uncreative to be widely successful in academia."


I think Duke staff needs to get their collective act together and regroup and realize the idiocy of not only their actions, but their comments to the media. They are repeatedly stabbing themselves in the foot.