Is Studying Bad for Black People?
Birmingham City University offers a Black Studies course with a provocative reason to sign up. No, it’s not a guarantee of a job or entrance to prestigious master’s program. Too bourgeois (read white). But you will learn to ‘build a radical community of practice,’ according to a report in The Conservative Woman.
The author, Ollie Wright, says, “BCU no longer sees itself limited by the old-fashioned notion that universities should simply teach. They are there to change things through ‘social activism,’ necessary in the face of an educational system that is so racist that according to Dr. Kehinde Andrews, an associate professor on the Black Studies course, universities are like ‘slave plantations.’”
The obvious is true. If education only helps white people, why should black people bother to study and therefore perpetuate the ‘white privilege’ that has stifled them? In other words, if you won’t join them, become a permanent victim instead.
Loyalty Oaths Back in a New Form
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo is the latest college to “require a diversity statement from candidates for all faculty and staff searches, “the College Fix reports.
For Cal Poly, requiring the diversity statement is one part of a larger effort school officials are engaged in to “improve diversity” via dozens of various endeavors outlined in its 30-page action plan. As part of the diversity initiatives plan, the university also has a goal of “increasing, in a Proposition 209-compliant manner, the hiring of diverse faculty utilizing cluster hires every other year.”
Critics of required diversity statements have suggested they are a tool used to weed out candidates who do not agree with the leftist notion that identity politics should be the lens through which academics is taught. What’s more, critics contend, seeking to identify and hire underrepresented conservative and libertarian scholars is not the type of “diversity” sought through the statements. Finally, they argue, the statements are used to elevate applicants of color over other qualified candidates.
Nicholas Christakis, Pilloried by Leftist Students, Wins Yale Teaching Award
A Yale professor who was abused by a mob of shrieking students in 2015 has been awarded the highest faculty honor by the university. Nicholas Christakis, along with his wife Erika, was targeted by students in 2015 after Erika sent an email urging students to not be so easily offended by Halloween costumes and chiding the administration for announcing to students which costumes were unacceptable. The administration refused to fire the Christakises, as unhappy students demanded, but otherwise spent no time or energy defending the embattled professors. Nicholas resigned his position at a residential college and Erika resigned from the faculty. This week, Christakis was awarded the title of Sterling professor, “the highest honor bestowed on Yale faculty,” said the Yale Daily News. A campus spokeswoman said that Christakis’s appointment “was the result of his body of academic work” and had nothing to do with the 2015 protests.
Brea Baker ’16, who participated in the 2015 protests, said she was not surprised by Christakis’ appointment since it falls in line with the Salovey administration’s habit of “sneak decision making and going against the will of the student body.” Still, she said, she was “shocked at the explicit cowardice” to announce the appointment, which she called “insult enough,” when students were away from campus on summer break.“Yale sells a vision of intimate residential college system led by administrators tasked with our emotional and social health above anything,” Baker said. “Based on the original email, administrative responses and now this appointment, it seems that only students of color understand this. If Yale insists on selling this narrative, then those who don’t understand their obligations to the student body should be replaced.”
50 Shades of White
Campus Reform reports that The University of Colorado-Colorado Springs is no longer offering a course that critiqued “individualism, consumerism, meritocracy,” and “productivity” as staples of “white culture.” The 3-credit "Witnessing Whiteness" course is still listed on the website for UCCS's Graduate Certificate in Diversity, Social Justice, and Inclusion, but is conspicuously absent from the school's official course catalog.
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