Philip Carl Salzman is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at McGill University, Senior Fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, Fellow at the Middle East Forum, and Past President of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East.
Betraying the premises and ethics of anthropology, the American Anthropological Association (AAA) has thrown its weight behind the anti-Israel, antisemitic Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. This is the final act in transforming a field of honest academic study into a program of far-left ideology and propaganda. For most of the 20th century, anthropology defined its purpose […]
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Justifying one form of racism justifies all forms of racism, both historical and invented. All racists claim that vilifying and persecuting certain categories of people is justified. The German National Socialists claimed that Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, and the disabled polluted their pure Aryan blood. The Ku Klux Klan argued that blacks were quasi-human and that […]
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Leftists specialize in pejorative labeling of anyone who disagrees with them, calling them racist, sexist, homophobe, transphobe, Islamophobe, deplorable, etc. But they save their ultimate insults for their most important targets; they are labeled “fascists,” “Nazis,” and “literally Hitler.” These childish insults take the place of serious debate, of presenting arguments substantiated by evidence, and […]
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Even being attacked can be educational and enlightening. In November 2020, eight official student groups published a public letter demanding that the McGill Administration rescind my Emeritus status. This was allegedly necessary in order to honor “the right of Muslims and People of Colour have to feel safe. [sic]” The groups endorsing this demand were […]
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Almost every university in North America has committed to what is called “social justice,” which is the implementation of identity politics through the mechanisms of “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” Identity politics divides everyone into one of two categories: evil oppressor or innocent victim. Through official mandatory policies, universities have transformed academic culture from a quest […]
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It’s true that children are our future, for good or ill, depending on their education. Ill-educate children, as we are doing in the United States and Canada, and the result will be cultural decay, social breakdown, and political decline. We now teach our children that our country is illegitimate, based on genocide and racism, and […]
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The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) earlier this year courageously took a stand against “threats to academic freedom.” The AAUP statement identifies the most serious threats to academic freedom today. No, the threat to academic freedom, according to the AAUP, is not the “social justice” political ideology that has become mandatory for all university […]
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In response to a question about the Minneapolis policy to first fire white teachers before BIPOC teachers, the Democrat-affiliated panelist replies, “Diversity is our strength!” She would have actually answered the question if she had said, “Racism is our strength!” This panelist was in good company with her assertion that “Diversity is our strength!” Many […]
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Once a field of serious academic research and study, anthropology has devolved into a virtue-signaling celebration of identity politics. The original goal of evidence-based understanding of mankind, its evolution, society, language, and culture, has long since been jettisoned in favor of advocacy for preferred populations and their particular sectoral interests. This devolution was launched at […]
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The “woke” haven’t only adopted the ideology of “social justice” and “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) and assertions such as “diversity is our strength” (Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau), but they adhere to these ideas not so much as preferred guidelines or scientific hypotheses, but as religious truths that aren’t to be questioned. Any misguided […]
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The Middle East Studies Association (MESA), the world’s major organization devoted to studying this region, has jettisoned academic impartiality and the quest for truth in favor of political partisanship and extremist activism. In 2017, MESA dropped its self-designation as a “non-political learned society” so that it could pursue an anti-Israel agenda. MESA has not yet […]
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When discussing academic freedom with university administrators, there arises the question of how to distinguish political attacks from academic criticism. Certainly, there is no simple answer to this question, and the practical use of such a distinction would likely draw resistance from those who wish to impose their political views. Yet universities often make such […]
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The Enlightenment ideal of the university is a community of scholars seeking the truth. The methodology of this ideal is a multiplicity of voices and views engaged in discussion and debate, in seeking and adducing evidence, and in drawing and challenging conclusions. Western universities have gradually but decisively moved away from the Enlightenment ideal. Many […]
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When you are looking for a scientist, an engineer, a designer, or an artist, if the most brilliant, accomplished, and talented candidate is a white male, reject him! White males are not “diverse,” are “privileged oppressors,” and “overrepresented,” so instead hire a member of a “marginalized. underserved minority,” such as a person of color, a […]
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Academics and activists (if there is any difference between them today) claim that racism is a unidirectional relationship through which whites oppress blacks. For example, the leftist Anti-Defamation League defines racism as “A combination of systems, institutions and factors that advantage white people and for people of color, cause widespread harm and disadvantages in access […]
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The quest for knowledge at our universities has ended because knowledge is “settled”: science, philosophy, sociology, ethics, and politics are all settled. The time for questions is over; now is the time for action, for activism, for transforming society and culture. As John M. Ellis puts it in The Breakdown of Higher Education, “academia now […]
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The cancellation of professors is overdetermined, that is, caused by multiple influences all contributing to the end result. Anne Applebaum reviews some prominent cancellations in her lengthy account in The Atlantic, entitled “The New Puritans.” Here are some of the contributing circumstances: One is that the targets tend to be successful, high-ranking, and often popular, […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by The Epoch Times on September 8, 2021 and is crossposted here with permission. All “anti-racism” and “social justice” writings and campaigns are predicated on the claim that certain races and sexes are being treated unfairly. The only evidence presented to support this assertion is statistical disparities between different […]
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As a result of government and university policies in both the U.S. and Canada, university students are not seen as individuals with records of educational achievement and the potential for both success in higher education and for contributions beyond in the wider society. Instead, they are reduced to no more than members of census categories […]
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Editor’s Note: The following is a brief submitted by Philip Carl Salzman, emeritus professor of anthropology at McGill University, to the Commission scientifique et technique indépendante sur la reconnaissance de la liberté académique dans le milieu universitaire, Organismes liés, Ministère de l’Enseignement supérieur, Gouvernement du Québec. Salzman addresses various issues related to academic freedom both in […]
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Editor’s Note: This article originally stated that the Six-Day War occurred in 1968, and that the Yom Kippur war occurred in 1972. These dates have been corrected to 1967 and 1973, respectively. When I began studying cultural anthropology in 1960, anthropologists still aspired to be scientific. Leaders in the discipline wrote books with titles like […]
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These days, theories are formulated, conclusions drawn, and policies shaped not by the accumulation of relevant evidence, but by redefining words, which determines the desired outcome. Let us begin with examples from the discourse surrounding the Palestine-Arab-Iran-Israel conflict. The “Science for Peace” letter, titled “Canada must condemn the violence in Gaza and the West Bank […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by The Epoch Times on May 17, 2021, and is crossposted here with permission. Like “black criminality,” “Jewish shrewdness,” “Italian mafiosity,” and “Irish drunkenness,” “white fragility” is a racist concept. Identifying a particular derogatory characteristic, or even a positive characteristic, with a racial or ethnic group, as if it accurately […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by The Epoch Times on May 8, 2021 and is crossposted here with permission. The internationalization of labor has been a longstanding policy of government and business. The main reason is the low cost of labor in developing countries such as China, compared to the cost of labor in modern […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by The Epoch Times on May 5, 2021 and is crossposted here with permission. Our universities have been uniformly corrupted by neo-Marxist political ideology. They no longer teach the great wealth of knowledge of Western Civilization, or engage in research to advance that knowledge. Instead, they indoctrinate their students […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by The Epoch Times on April 30, 2021 and is crossposted here with permission. Universities as a community of autonomous scholars delving into knowledge and seeking to expand it is a model long out of date. With the explosive growth of university, scientific, and granting agency bureaucracies, coercive oversight and […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by The Epoch Times on April 19, 2021 and is crossposted here with permission. Liberal arts education, as I experienced it at Antioch College in the late 1950s and early 1960s, was aimed at opening students’ minds to the intellectual life of Western culture. Students were asked to consider […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by The Epoch Times on March 27, 2021 and is crossposted here with permission. The foremost advocates of racism and sexism in Canada are our universities. No longer are individuals treated as individuals according to their achievements, potential, and merits. Rather, under the label “diversity, inclusion, and equity,” students, […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by The Epoch Times on March 22, 2021 and is crossposted here with permission. Did you know that all of the evil in the world was brought about by Western imperialism and colonialism? That is the message of “postcolonial theory,” the dominant narrative in university social sciences, humanities, and […]
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Editor’s Note: A shorter version of this essay was originally published by The Epoch Times on March 16, 2021. The purpose of the woke “antiracism” movement launched by some members of the educational, media, and political elite, together with race activists, has always been to elevate its proclaimers above other members of the elite. In other […]
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