In response to Loyalty Oaths, Diversity Mandates, Faculty ‘Training’ at San Diego State
The school doesn’t care what the diversity statement says. They care less as to whether the candidate believes what she just wrote. What they care about is that the Faculty-Member-To-Be does what she is told to do. It is the academic equivalent of, “When I tell you to jump…all I want to hear in return is “How High?”.
Of course, it’s a pro forma exercise. It can be nothing else. It is a loyalty oath. And like every loyalty oath, it doesn’t matter what is said, what matters is that you say it (even better if you can memorize it and repeat it at will, as needed or prompted). “Diversity! Sir! Yes, Sir!” It is a profession of subservience, a vow of obedience.
The entire Diversity Mantra is anti-thought, anti-education, anti-truth, for if thought, education, and truth truly mattered, then the color of the booties of the authors of the work we must consider wouldn’t matter at all. Is the magic of Shakespeare somehow less magical (or more!) if we know his skin tone or his sexual predilections? Is DaVinci somehow less a genius (or more) if we know the degree of fluidity associated with his chosen gender-identities? Or should we, in the name of diversity, abandon Shakespeare, abandon Da Vinci, and Rodin, and Dickens, and Einstein entirely and replace them with a much more diverse (but intellectually bereft) Tom, Dick, Harry, and the T-G’d Sally Smith-Jones?
It’s a billion-dollar farce played with life-changing implications. Diversity, Mein Herr? Diversity Sieg Heil! Here is my statement; listen to my heels click!
We would be ashamed if we weren’t so scared.
Tom Horrell, Kansas City, Missouri
I wonder if Professor Treadgold is talking about his own St. Louis University, where the tuition and fees are at least nominally not much short of those at Harvard, maybe 93%.
Anyhow, I wasn’t able to read John Leo’s piece behind the WSJ paywall (I let my subscription lapse some time ago). So I went to the Amazon site, found this:
“he proposes federal legislation to monitor the quality and honesty of professors and to limit spending on administration to no more than 20 percent of university budgets (Harvard now spends 40 percent).”
This strikes me as a horrid idea for too many reasons to list. And his further idea to start a new elite university that would be different from what we already have, that would welcome moderates and conservatives along with liberals and leftists, strikes me as rather naive. First of all, don’t places like the University of Chicago, Caltech sort of fit the bill already? Both those places could use the dough it would take to start a new university from scratch. Second, I am doubtful that the new university would be more successful than most of the old in resisting what seem like almost unstoppable forces. (I know, that sort of contradicts what I just said about a couple of distinguished schools that also are something of outliers. But that sort of supports my point that the money might be better placed at schools that already exist and seem to have a track record.)
The limiting of administrative positions, in universities and K-12 schools, is a good idea. Less administrators means less wacky programs and less internal agendas, more plain old teaching and research overseen only by professional peers.
Thank you for an interesting review of “The University We Need.” I completely agree with Warren Treadgold’s thesis–founding a “new university” may be the only solution. It is unalterably clear that America’s universities have been co-opted by the far left and a college “education” is no longer worth the expense. However, I was surprised Treadgold did not mention Hillsdale College as a template for the university he proposes. Hillsdale is the polar opposite of today’s typical university and (as of now) the sole beacon of hope.(I have no connection to Hillsdale College, having graduated from the University of Redlands, a small, private college that has also been corrupted by leftist ideology. But I admire Hillsdale’s unswerving belief in America’s ideals–since 1844!)
I’m wondering how the debate teams function in the postmodern university. Remember in the old days, a topic would be presented, such as, “Resolved: Capital punishment should be ended.” One team would take the affirmative and the competing team would take the negative. But now there is only one side permitted in controversial ideas–which are now no longer controversial at the university. The team that in former days would have argued the now politically incorrect side would today be charged as thought criminals and subjected to disciplinary proceedings and rehabilitation–even though they might protest that they didn’t really hold that viewpoint. One of the foundational ideas underpinning the old debate structure was that to have an informed and reasonable commitment to an idea, one must know and understand the arguments against it as well as for it.
I got a glimpse of how “debate” teams now function, and it came as quite a shock, since I once participated on a team myself. My faculty office is next to classrooms where a debate meet was being held one weekend several weeks ago. I was surprised to hear a guy screaming, his rant peppered with F-bombs, so I went and peered into the classroom to see what was going on. The room was filled with young people in very prim attire, and the young man “debating” was standing in front, the veins on his face bulging as he rendered his social justice “oratory.” And his presentation–of you could call it that–was typical of the entire morning. It seems that what we used to call “forensics teams” back in my day are now just theater; the participants do not reason, just emote. Perhaps they are judged on how impassioned their emoting is. Are these our future attorneys?
The real old-style debate is called “Parliamentary Debate”. There are other ones “XYZ Debate” that range from limp to ridiculous.
Nowadays I expect the teams take turns denouncing anyone opposing the correct political line, and the most fervent denunciation wins. Either that or they all start clapping once the topic is announced, and whoever stops clapping first gets sent to the gulag.