University of Chicago loyalty oaths? Newsweek

[Wahoo Redux]

Looks to me like good people trying to do what they can about a national, generational, intractable sociocultural problem from within their tiny purview.  They probably think they are walking their talk or something to that effect.  And, being UofC, they probably think they will be the vanguard of a movement.   

And Dershowitz, a conservative media whore, simply found another cause with which to stroke the conservative rage machine.

At the same time, this is yet another attempt by liberal thinkers to forefront a moralistic agenda, which is their right as a private school, but will probably backfire because it is a forced change.

[mahagonny]

Looks to me like good people trying to do what they can about a national, generational, intractable sociocultural problem from within their tiny purview.  They probably think they are walking their talk or something to that effect.  And, being UofC, they probably think they will be the vanguard of a movement.   

And Dershowitz, a conservative media whore, simply found another cause with which to stroke the conservative rage machine.

At the same time, this is yet another attempt by liberal thinkers to forefront a moralistic agenda, which is their right as a private school, but will probably backfire because it is a forced change.

So according the the late William F. Buckley academic freedom and a college's moral mission (assuming a college has one, as he would have thought) are in conflict. So there shouldn't be tenure, because a school needs to identify a moral mission in order to have its full positive effect. Just to keep it interesting, I imagine this means The University of Chicago should be allowed to broadcast this message and even prefer to hire professors whose views blend with it. But that also means another school may say 'we support the right of all Americans to law and order and oppose all organizations that promote anarchy.'

Just imagine the reaction we'd get to that kind of statement from an English department.

If it's the tenured prof's and not the upper admin who make the statement, how is it not tenure suppressing difference of opinion?

This is waaaaaaaay beyond 'racism is bad' or 'what happened to Breona Taylor never should have happened, so we support changes to police policies'.

Right this is all-out salvation.

Links to the department's actual statement?  The quotes look ominous, but it would be good to see the whole context.

Here's what I found: https://english.uchicago.edu

It's almost identical to the statement by the union in my non-tenure granting institution. which has fewer PhD faculty than most colleges. So   
I had thought the intellectual level of this college would be less than that of a place like University of Chicago. Now I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

This sounds so much like the confessional we used to read together every week at the Protestant church I came up in:

'English as a discipline has a long history of providing aesthetic rationalizations for colonization, exploitation, extraction, and anti-Blackness. Our discipline is responsible for developing hierarchies of cultural production that have contributed directly to social and systemic determinations of whose lives matter and why."

Who would have thought it'd be so easy to get a bunch of scholars in such an exalted station in life to denounce their own track record?

[Caracal]

Looks to me like good people trying to do what they can about a national, generational, intractable sociocultural problem from within their tiny purview.  They probably think they are walking their talk or something to that effect.  And, being UofC, they probably think they will be the vanguard of a movement.   

And Dershowitz, a conservative media whore, simply found another cause with which to stroke the conservative rage machine.

At the same time, this is yet another attempt by liberal thinkers to forefront a moralistic agenda, which is their right as a private school, but will probably backfire because it is a forced change.

I mean... it is the English department. I have good friends in English departments. But, I wouldn't say it is a corner of academia known for sober judgement and practicality.

[Parasaurolophus]

So according the the late William F. Buckley academic freedom and a college's moral mission (assuming a college has one, as he would have thought) are in conflict.

I don't see the connection.

Cheap shot: I know he's revered, and the standards in the comparison class are low, but Buckley isn't exactly what I'd call an intellectual heavyweight. He's closer to David Duke than John Locke.

[Wahoo Redux]

Looks to me like good people trying to do what they can about a national, generational, intractable sociocultural problem from within their tiny purview.  They probably think they are walking their talk or something to that effect.  And, being UofC, they probably think they will be the vanguard of a movement.   

And Dershowitz, a conservative media whore, simply found another cause with which to stroke the conservative rage machine.

At the same time, this is yet another attempt by liberal thinkers to forefront a moralistic agenda, which is their right as a private school, but will probably backfire because it is a forced change.

I mean... it is the English department. I have good friends in English departments. But, I wouldn't say it is a corner of academia known for sober judgement and practicality.

Yeah, true to an extent.

English is always looking for a way to make itself relevant to the rest of the world.  I suspect this is an attempt at that.

[pigou]

Who would have thought it'd be so easy to get a bunch of scholars in such an exalted station in life to denounce their own track record?

Now that they have recognized the errors of their ways, maybe they can resign their positions. Or donate their salary for a year.

Or they can profess the "right" ideology at no economic cost to themselves and admit a different group of people who will eventually struggle to find a job after finishing the program. Bonus points if the group they end up admitting comes from low-income households that actually depend on gainful employment (not that we should equate Black with low-income, but you can always go for intersectionality in your admissions process!).

The thing with unethical behavior is that it very often feels great. Using connections to help someone land a job or a book contract is extremely rewarding, but also means one has denied the opportunity to someone who might have been better qualified and merely lacked those connections. That is, perpetuating inequities. Similarly, discriminating to benefit a disadvantaged group can be personally rewarding, because it's easy to see the joy of people who get accepted and never meeting the applicants who got rejected.

[mahagonny]

So according the the late William F. Buckley academic freedom and a college's moral mission (assuming a college has one, as he would have thought) are in conflict.

I don't see the connection.

Cheap shot: I know he's revered, and the standards in the comparison class are low, but Buckley isn't exactly what I'd call an intellectual heavyweight. He's closer to David Duke than John Locke.

OK I dropped a name. But even if Crazy Guggenheim said it it's kind of interesting. If you can identify yourself with causes and teach that way as a unit then many causes should be allowed. So if a departments or a schools made that kind of mission statement (supporting Americans' right to law and order) today then they would have to stop hiring half the people who are getting hired today, apparently. By that I mean both stating it and meaning it, not saying it in order to buy status.
Or maybe have an honest discussion about what we really think. Because this is big time bullshit:
"'English as a discipline has a long history of providing aesthetic rationalizations for colonization, exploitation, extraction, and anti-Blackness. Our discipline is responsible for developing hierarchies of cultural production that have contributed directly to social and systemic determinations of whose lives matter and why."

[Parasaurolophus]

I still don't think I see the conflict between the college's moral mission (whatever that is) and academic freedom.

(I'm shot from a day of bad allergies, however, so maybe it's just me.)

[jimbogumbo]

So according the the late William F. Buckley academic freedom and a college's moral mission (assuming a college has one, as he would have thought) are in conflict.

I don't see the connection.

Cheap shot: I know he's revered, and the standards in the comparison class are low, but Buckley isn't exactly what I'd call an intellectual heavyweight. He's closer to David Duke than John Locke.

Well. Buckley might have preferred to be compared with Edmund Burke.

And man, closer to David Duke? That is rough stuff. To quote Randy Newman:

"College men from LSU, went in dumb come out dumb too"

[mahagonny]

I still don't think I see the conflict between the college's moral mission (whatever that is) and academic freedom.

(I'm shot from a day of bad allergies, however, so maybe it's just me.)

Allergies are indeed bad. We can commiserate.

But I guess you're saying this English department could still award tenure to say for instance a Glenn Loury (he's an economist, I know)  who thinks that BLM is more mistake than valiant effort and 'antiracism' is a group mania that attempts revising history to fit their political agenda. Which would mean the statement is not sincere, it's status-buying. Because why does an English department need a statement as strong and signaling long lasting positive change, as University of Chicago thinks they do, unless every professor down to the last body is on board? Why should we not assume they are a diverse group with an assortment of views?

[writingprof]

I know he's revered, and the standards in the comparison class are low, but Buckley isn't exactly what I'd call an intellectual heavyweight. He's closer to David Duke than John Locke.

Give me a break.  If Buckley was close to David Duke, where was Ruth "Let's Abort As Many Black Babies As We Can" Ginsburg? 

[Hegemony]

Well, this sure degenerated.

[marshwiggle]

I know he's revered, and the standards in the comparison class are low, but Buckley isn't exactly what I'd call an intellectual heavyweight. He's closer to David Duke than John Locke.

Give me a break.  If Buckley was close to David Duke, where was Ruth "Let's Abort As Many Black Babies As We Can" Ginsburg?

Well, this sure degenerated.

At the risk of putting words into writingprof's mouth, it seems to me there is a legitimate question to be asked.

If higher arrest and incarceration rates in black communities are evidence of systemic racism, are higher abotion rates in those same communities also evidence of systemic racism, and is the remedy to put more legal restrictions on both?

[Hegemony]

I don't know if people are being willfully obtuse, or unwillingly obtuse. Unfortunately it seems to be the latter, in the guise of the former. I despair that people can be so smart and yet so lacking in wisdom.

[jimbogumbo]

I know he's revered, and the standards in the comparison class are low, but Buckley isn't exactly what I'd call an intellectual heavyweight. He's closer to David Duke than John Locke.

Give me a break.  If Buckley was close to David Duke, where was Ruth "Let's Abort As Many Black Babies As We Can" Ginsburg?

Just why? Not only is this offensive and disrespectful, and serves no purpose in the discussion.