Another Seuss Cancellation Thread (Summer 2023)

[Parasaurolophus]

Per the discussion in the suggestion forum, I'm going to start trying to split threads that get too long on a regular basis, to see if that makes them a little more accessible to new members and lurkers. The previous thread is here, for your reference.

Here was the opening post:

I'm know I'm taking a real risk of stirring up the hornet's nest here.  I try for the most part  to stay out of the culture war fights.  But this one hits right where I work.

Most people by now are aware (because it blew up all over social media and the "news") that six Dr. Seuss titles have been discontinued by the publisher, for reasons of a sort commonly described as "political correctness," or, more recently, "cancel culture."  The news has resulted in a mad rush by collectors and speculators to grab all remaining copies.  The suddenly scarce works are suddenly worth a lot of money.

Public libraries in my own state have had people they've never seen before suddenly wanting to check out these titles in blatant efforts to steal them for resale.  They've also had a number of honest inquiries about purchasing them.  The State Library has advised libraries to put their copies of the titles under guard to prevent theft of what have overnight become effectively irreplaceable literary antiques.  An article about the situation made the front page of the state's leading newspaper today!  My colleagues have been reporting some truly crazy stuff.

Our own library's Facebook has blown up with questions and rumors.  I've felt it necessary to address the whole business in my weekly local newspaper column.  We're assuring patrons that we haven't purged Dr. Seuss, that most titles remain available as always, but that our copies of the suddenly scarce titles (we have three of them) will now be limited to in-library use only.  Some of the titles are among Dr. Seuss' more obscure works--but they include To Think That I Saw it On Mulberry Street, which ranks right up there with The Cat in the Hat.  I'm just glad I got a personal copy of a childhood favorite, Scrambled Eggs Super a few years ago when I happened across one.  No way I'd be able to afford one now!

A couple of years ago the American Library Association "cancelled" Laura Ingalls Wilder by removing her name from one of its leading awards.  J.K. Rowling, who for years had been an absolute darling of the "right on" crowd after misguided people challenged her Harry Potter books, has been cancelled.  Now part of the Dr. Seuss corpus (And the man was a flaming lefty in his own lifetime, too!).  Where is it going to end?

A simple decision by a publisher to discontinue a few titles shouldn't be this fraught, or lead to such an instant media and social media circus.  Or create new problems for librarians just trying to do their jobs.

And here was the last post:

...

Except there is no such thing as customers in single payer or socialized medicine. Physicians already have more patients than they can see on any given day. Hence why there are often long wait times in these systems. There are only so many hours in a day that a physician can work. Whether they spend 10 hours seeing patients with diabetes or 290 hours seeing patients for gender affirming care, they are paid the exact same. There is no incentive to providing gender affirming care in such systems, since physicians are already overworked and get paid the same regardless of who they see or for what those patients are seen. There are already more than enough patients to go around (look at Canada and how many Canadian are without a family doctor). There is simply no monetary incentive in places like Canada to provide gender affirming care. It's just the right, ethical thing to do, even when physicians actually lose money on providing it, because other forms of care take less time and fewer resources. Physicians actually earn less sometimes, prove gender affirming care, so definitely no financial incentive at all in those circumstances.

I don't think those of you who haven't worked in healthcare in places like Canada or Germany realize that there is no need to find new patient groups. It's hard enough providing appropriate care to existing patients. There is no nice to find new patients at all. I realize the U.S. with its perverse health care system, is very different. But that's just not the case in most high income countries. People are actually providing gender affirming care at a loss to their income, because it can take more time and effort. You could see three sore throats in the time it might take you to provide gender affirming care. So you get paid 1/3 what you could have made if you just saw those sore throats. Wow, getting paid less is such a huge incentive!

The descriptions are nothing more than price discrimination -- if there are not enough sore throats at $1, I am better off with three gender affirmations at $0.33. It's like "financial aid"!

Political clout to get more through the government is what's at issue in Bevanian and Bismarckian systems. Many work in public bureaucracies [private one's are not immune]. Is there anyone on this discussion board who is against an expansion of higher education?

Unless we suddenly have a new baby boom, I see no need for an expansion in higher education, at least in Canada. Programs are being closed in some Canadian universities, as there is low enrolment in those programs, and while that is sad, it is reality. In Canada, at least, I think we need universities to focus on their strengths, and invest in those. Ontario has many universities, do all of them need to offer all programs? We already specialize with programs like medicine, optometry, dietetics, education, veterinary medicine, with only one to a few universities in Ontario offering those programs. Why not do that with programs like engineering, sociology, psychology, business, computer science, etc. Let universities focus on their areas of strength and the synergies that go with those strengths.

The difficulty is with the departments that provide service to lots of others. Math, for instance, is required by lots of other disciplines, so what "credit" should that give them in retaining their own major even if the enrollment is low?

That's why I said synergies. Engineering programs obviously require math, as do plenty of other disciplines, from dietetics to psychology to business and others. So if enough programs require math, keep the math department. But is it really worth hiring a math advisor (not faculty at any Canadian university I've attended) or keeping all the math-major specific courses if you only have two math majors enrolling each year? Same with things like chemistry. Obviously many programs need chemistry up to even third year. But if there are only 3 chem majors, is it viable to offer the specialized fourth year chem courses that are only open to chem majors? I'm not in charge, obviously, but I don't think every single program needs to be offered at every single university. Like I said, we already have that with professional programs, but not so much with the generic BAs, BScs, etc. I'm just looking at what has happened recently. I'd rather all Canadian universities offer many different programs, but given funding, program closures, etc., I think specialization may help more than hurt. But I'm definitely no expert.

[Wahoo Redux]

IHE: 'Preaching' in Biology Class?

Lower Deck:

St. Philip's College, despite the name, is a public college. A professor who is also a pastor says the college fired him after it allegedly received complaints of "preaching" in class.

An adjunct professor who is also an associate pastor says a Texas community college fired him after it claimed to have received complaints of "religious preaching, discriminatory comments about homosexuals and transgender individuals, anti-abortion rhetoric and misogynistic banter."

P.S.---Is there any way we can change the name of this thread if we are going to keep it going?  Something like, "More Suess Cancellation" or something.

[little bongo]

From the Chronicle of Higher Education, an account of an applicant with controversial views on the efficacy of diversity statements--brings up a number of timely questions:

https://www.chronicle.com/article/this-professor-criticized-diversity-statements-did-it-cost-him-a-job-offer

[Langue_doc]

White Professor Resigns, Alleges Reverse Discrimination
A now-former Pennsylvania State University system professor says a series of trainings and the campus's approach to grading discriminated based on race.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/diversity-equity/2023/06/26/white-professor-resigns-alleges-reverse

[Puget]

From the Chronicle of Higher Education, an account of an applicant with controversial views on the efficacy of diversity statements--brings up a number of timely questions:

https://www.chronicle.com/article/this-professor-criticized-diversity-statements-did-it-cost-him-a-job-offer

This has been lighting up psych twitter lately too. I think there was a lot of unwarranted jumping to conclusions here among anti-DEI activists. It turns out this was a spousal hire situation. It is pretty presumptuous of him to just assume that he had the job in hand because they wanted his spouse-- this is a top program, and spousal hires often fall through for all sorts of reasons. He himself admits that he has no evidence that the letter was a deciding factor.

Also, if you read the full letter from the students, they raise some serious concerns about his responses to his questions and how he then talked about them to faculty -- this isn't just a case of them disagreeing with his viewpoints, but of how he was dismissive and seemed ill prepared to engage meaningfully with their questions.

[Parasaurolophus]

P.S.---Is there any way we can change the name of this thread if we are going to keep it going?  Something like, "More Suess Cancellation" or something.

Sure, although those don't really make clear what the thread's about.


-----

Google and Facebook are cancelling news access in Canada.

[Parasaurolophus]

It's way too long, and has a strong UK focus, but Amia Srinavasan has an excellent piece in the LARB entitled "Cancelled".

A few excerpts, just for fun:

No doubt it can be painful, infuriating or upsetting to be called a racist or a bigot or a sexist or a transphobe. Most of us would find it horrible to be told that we aren't worth engaging with, that our views are socially unacceptable or merely a function of demography. But that it is painful to be on the receiving end of such remarks doesn't mean that one's own rights to 'free speech' are thereby imperilled; it might simply be a reminder that speech can wound. The failure properly to metabolise this point is what leads to the ludicrous spectacle of people with enormous speaking platforms complaining about having been 'cancelled'.

[...]

The Telegraph once called my book, The Right to Sex, a 'Soviet-style' 'Orwellian tract'. I thought it was an idiotic take but it didn't occur to me to complain I was being cancelled, just as it didn't on the occasions I have been subject to Twitter pile-ons. It's not that I'm especially psychically robust. It's just that these events, however unpleasant, do not imperil my right to speak or my access to platforms from which to do so.

There's something more here. It would sound plain weird to say that someone has been 'cancelled' by the right. If I said to you 'Owen Jones has been cancelled,' you would immediately infer that he was being lambasted by fellow leftists, not – as he routinely is – by conservatives. In this way, the notion of 'cancellation' is an exemplary bit of ideology. It appears to be content-neutral – a purely procedural complaint about 'intolerance' and the failures of the 'free marketplace of ideas' – but in fact is substantively political. Cancellation is something the left does; when the right does it, it's an exercise of free speech ('triggering libs').

[...]

When such people are accused by those on the political margins of being racist or sexist or transphobic, this is a violation of a tacit social agreement, which we call the 'right to free speech' but in fact is something else, what we might call the right to a respectful public hearing.

[Wahoo Redux]

IHE: Racial Comment Inflames Berkshire Conference of Women Historians

What did Banner say?

She did not respond to email requests to discuss the incident. Comments on multiple Twitter accounts of people who were in attendance recounted that she said she wished she were Black (she's white) so her career would have been easier.

[Wahoo Redux]

IHE: Faculty Opposes Penn State Reverse Discrimination Lawsuit

[waterboy]

If you read the actual complaint...and assume any of it is true...he has a legitimate case.

[Wahoo Redux]

Texas A&M recruited a UT professor to revive its journalism program, then backtracked after "DEI hysteria"

The situation comes at a fraught time at Texas public universities. Schools are preparing for a new state law to go into effect in January that bans offices, programs and training that promote diversity, equity and inclusion. Recently, the Texas A&M System started a systemwide audit of all DEI offices in response to the new law.

[Wahoo Redux]

IHE: When Discrimination Attends Your Conference

The policy references both a joint Society for Classical Studies–Archaeological Institute of America "rapid response" team and a Joint AIA-SCS Harassment and Discrimination Committee. That committee looks into formal complaints that require postconference investigation, invites written responses from the accused and recommends possible sanctions to the AIA and SCS governing boards.

[marshwiggle]

IHE: When Discrimination Attends Your Conference

The policy references both a joint Society for Classical Studies–Archaeological Institute of America "rapid response" team and a Joint AIA-SCS Harassment and Discrimination Committee. That committee looks into formal complaints that require postconference investigation, invites written responses from the accused and recommends possible sanctions to the AIA and SCS governing boards.

Maybe the "solution" is to have segregated conferences.

[Wahoo Redux]

IHE: When Discrimination Attends Your Conference

The policy references both a joint Society for Classical Studies–Archaeological Institute of America "rapid response" team and a Joint AIA-SCS Harassment and Discrimination Committee. That committee looks into formal complaints that require postconference investigation, invites written responses from the accused and recommends possible sanctions to the AIA and SCS governing boards.

Maybe the "solution" is to have segregated conferences.

Huh.  It's sad, very sad, and not the way I would have it...but that's not the worst idea.

[Wahoo Redux]

Usually I try to focus my posts on this thread to academic institutions, but I found this little nugget right on point:

NBC News: Arizona Republican refers to Black Americans as 'colored people' in House floor debate

Immediately after Crane finished his remarks, Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, asked that the derogatory phrase he used be stricken from the record.

"I find it offensive and very inappropriate," said Beatty, who was the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus in the previous Congress. "I am asking for unanimous consent to take down the words of referring to me or any of my colleagues as colored people."

Of course, had Crane used "people of color," there would not have been any problems.  Semantics.  And yes, I (and probably Crane) know the history and context of the term "colored people."