Another Seuss Cancellation Thread (Summer 2023)

[marshwiggle]

Reason: Ashland Professor Allegedly Ousted for Allowing 'Too Much Investigative Journalism'

Lower Deck:

After the student paper pressed university officials for interviews, its faculty adviser got into trouble.

In August, Ted Daniels lost his job teaching journalism at Ashland University in Ohio. Why? According to a university official, he was encouraging student journalists to be "overly persistent." The university's paper also reported that officials told Daniels he was allowing the paper to do "too much investigative journalism."

Soon after refusing to renew Daniels' contract, administrators began demanding that students submit issues of The Collegian, the student-run outlet Daniels had advised, for prior review. However, university officials claimed this "decision was predicated on some recent, rather glaring grammatical errors." 

It's too bad that nowhere in the article does it even hint at what stories the paper was covering.

True.  It would have been better journalism.

But would the stories they are covering really make a difference?

It might. If their request to meet with admin is over some emerging scandal, that's different than if they keep trying to bring up the same things like student debt, etc., which have been discussed for a long time, probably even with those same officials.

So, a pressing issue which the administration is trying to keep hidden is different than one that is ongoing but mostly out of their hands.

[Wahoo Redux]

It might. If their request to meet with admin is over some emerging scandal, that's different than if they keep trying to bring up the same things like student debt, etc., which have been discussed for a long time, probably even with those same officials.

So, a pressing issue which the administration is trying to keep hidden is different than one that is ongoing but mostly out of their hands.

The point is freedom of the press and the university's marketing which promises expressive freedom to its studetns.

Student journalists are beginners, and they might have been beating dead horses, but as journalists that is their right.

[Wahoo Redux]

CHE: A Professor Spoke About 'Campus Illiberalism.' Students Shouted Him Down Over His Anti-LGBTQ Views.

Protesters silence renowned speaker at Washington College

[marshwiggle]

CHE: A Professor Spoke About 'Campus Illiberalism.' Students Shouted Him Down Over His Anti-LGBTQ Views.

Protesters silence renowned speaker at Washington College

From the first article:

George is a conservative legal scholar who directs Princeton's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions and serves on the board of the Heritage Foundation, a right-leaning think tank. He has written and spoken about his opposition to same-sex marriage, abortion, and expansions of transgender rights.
While George's lecture at Washington College did not address those issues, some students say that his affiliations and beliefs meant that he shouldn't have been invited to the campus.

Later:

On the Monday before the event, the college sent a campuswide email promoting the lecture. Shortly after, James Hall, an associate professor of English, emailed a student a link to George's accountability profile from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, or Glaad, which features several examples of his anti-LGBTQ remarks.
...
Noelle Punte, a junior at Washington College and president of Encouraging Respect of Sexualities, a student group supporting the LGBTQ community, emailed Sosulski and called for the college to cancel the event.

Punte, who did not attend the lecture or protest, said in an interview that regardless of the lecture's content, inviting George to campus undermines the college's commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion — at a time, she added, when anti-LGBTQ laws are on the rise.

And then

"I'm not saying freedom of speech should be restricted," Punte said. "But at the same time, in cases like this, there needs to be serious considerations about the ramifications and potential harm that inviting someone like Robert George on campus could cause."

So, she's not "saying freedom of speech should be restricted", but having someone with the wrong views on campus is a problem.

I guess as long as there's somewhere (else!) that a person can speak, not allowing them to speak here isn't restricting free speech.

[Wahoo Redux]

I guess as long as there's somewhere (else!) that a person can speak, not allowing them to speak here isn't restricting free speech.

That, and the fact that the protests were grass roots and not the government.

In theory I am absolutely opposed to shouting down speakers----let people speak their minds and feel free to argue, just don't assault with noise.

But the era of Trump Republicans has made me rethink this stance. 

Sometimes the best way to meet irrationality is with irrationality.  Shouting and flag-waving are forms of free speech, after all.

[downer]

Anthropology Conference Drops a Panel Defending Sex as Binary
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/30/us/anthropology-panel-sex-binary-gender-kathleen-lowery.html

"We looked at who was actually in it," she said, and "we began to see that this really was one of those times where people who have an alternative agenda come into professional associations, try to get into these conferences, in order to push an agenda that doesn't actually match up with the discipline."

The American Anthropological Association's executive board voted unanimously to remove the panel from the program. Monica Heller, the president of the Canadian Anthropology Society, said her board voted unanimously to support the American group's decision.

[waterboy]

Just curious...if anthropologists have moved to seeing sex as non-binary, what are biologists thinking these days? (genetic malfunctions not withstanding)

[marshwiggle]

Just curious...if anthropologists have moved to seeing sex as non-binary, what are biologists thinking these days? (genetic malfunctions not withstanding)

Life would be so much simpler if people could just bring forward these gametes that are in-between (or different from) eggs and sperm.

[downer]

Just curious...if anthropologists have moved to seeing sex as non-binary, what are biologists thinking these days? (genetic malfunctions not withstanding)

One point the article makes is that anthropologists have not stopped taking account of biological differences between the sexes. It seems unlikely that all anthropologists buy into the idea that sex is culturally constructed. Some may think that sex is binary. Obviously the people who were trying to organize the symposium probably think that.

It does seem extraordinary to me that a symposium in anthropology could be cancelled because it advocates for unpopular views and politicizes issues. The talk of anthropology as a unified discipline is patently absurd.

How long will it take for some group of anthropologists to write a letter condemning the American Anthropological Association for its actions?

[Puget]

Just curious...if anthropologists have moved to seeing sex as non-binary, what are biologists thinking these days? (genetic malfunctions not withstanding)

Life would be so much simpler if people could just bring forward these gametes that are in-between (or different from) eggs and sperm.

Oh boy, this is so far off on the biology that I don't know where to begin. The fact that biological sex is complex and not entirely binary is very well established and not controversial in biology, and has nothing to do with in-between gametes. Even if we set aside sex chromosome assortments other than XX and XY (which do indeed happen), primary and secondary sex characteristics arise through a complex cascade of developmental events that don't play out in the same way in everyone. If you actually want to learn about this (which I seriously doubt, but I try to think the best of people), I'd highly recommend this as a starting point: https://radiolab.org/series/radiolab-presents-gonads/

[Wahoo Redux]

Just curious...if anthropologists have moved to seeing sex as non-binary, what are biologists thinking these days? (genetic malfunctions not withstanding)

One point the article makes is that anthropologists have not stopped taking account of biological differences between the sexes. It seems unlikely that all anthropologists buy into the idea that sex is culturally constructed. Some may think that sex is binary. Obviously the people who were trying to organize the symposium probably think that.

It does seem extraordinary to me that a symposium in anthropology could be cancelled because it advocates for unpopular views and politicizes issues. The talk of anthropology as a unified discipline is patently absurd.

How long will it take for some group of anthropologists to write a letter condemning the American Anthropological Association for its actions?

In theory, sure.  But you do not have faith that the proposed panel was acting in good faith.  Not all but many conservatives are flat bastards when it comes to fairness and balance.  The time to be always reasonable is past.

[downer]

What does it take to be acting in good faith in arranging a conference panel? Is it bad faith to want to make a political or moral point or to want to cause a stir? My impression is that this is frequent in a lot of the humanities and social sciences. Then are the panels that are basic self-promotion. Are they in bad faith? If we required that all panels were all only motivated by a desire to advance knowledge, conferences might well be much smaller occasions.

[Wahoo Redux]

What does it take to be acting in good faith in arranging a conference panel? Is it bad faith to want to make a political or moral point or to want to cause a stir? My impression is that this is frequent in a lot of the humanities and social sciences. Then are the panels that are basic self-promotion. Are they in bad faith? If we required that all panels were all only motivated by a desire to advance knowledge, conferences might well be much smaller occasions.

There is no point in playing the fairness and openness game any more; too many people are cheating.  Yes, people act in bad faith.  Their point is not to further the discipline or reinvigorate the status quo with bold new thinking, but to vomit their personal bigotries and hatemongering over anyone they can while ironically waving the flags of tolerance, inclusion, and free speech.

Again, the era of Trump has changed my thinking, and it has obviously changed other peep's thought processes too. 

[downer]

What does it take to be acting in good faith in arranging a conference panel? Is it bad faith to want to make a political or moral point or to want to cause a stir? My impression is that this is frequent in a lot of the humanities and social sciences. Then are the panels that are basic self-promotion. Are they in bad faith? If we required that all panels were all only motivated by a desire to advance knowledge, conferences might well be much smaller occasions.

There is no point in playing the fairness and openness game any more; too many people are cheating.  Yes, people act in bad faith.  Their point is not to further the discipline or reinvigorate the status quo with bold new thinking, but to vomit their personal bigotries and hatemongering over anyone they can while ironically waving the flags of tolerance, inclusion, and free speech.

Again, the era of Trump has changed my thinking, and it has obviously changed other peep's thought processes too. 

Who knows, you might be right. It creates a dilemma to go that way because organizations need to be open that they are cancelling views they don't like, which will go against most of their affirmations of academic freedom. Or else they give some bullshit explanation, which will be as transparent bullshit as anything that De Santis says, and that will reduce their credibility among academics.

I'm all for a pragmatic approach on occasion. Go with what works. But I'll be surprised if this cancelling doesn't backfire.

[Wahoo Redux]

It has to backfire to a degree, because sure, we all believe in academic freedom.

But we know from history that concepts like "academic freedom" and "freedom of expression" are abstractions and ideals, fragile things in the face of propaganda for angry, manipulatable, frustrated, power-hungry ideologs created by angry, manipulated, frustrated, power-hungry ideologs.  The Nazis, or their embryonic equivalents, do not deserve a place at the table.  They just don't.

At some point good people simply need to say, "I don't care.  I'm going to be as hard-minded as the crazies in order to save society."

Maybe we can get back to normal and have good faith discussions...when we again have good faith disputers.