Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

John McWhorter: Academics Live In Fear Of The New Campus Maoism
Hotair.com ^ | 9-1-20 | John Sexton

Posted on 09/01/2020 5:40:06 PM PDT by DeweyCA

In a piece published today in The Atlantic, John McWhorter writes that he is getting as many as 50 emails a week from academics who are living in fear that their careers could end at any moment. Their fear isn’t the coronavirus it’s the creeping leftist orthodoxy which treats any disagreement as cause to hound someone out of their job. McWhorter labels it a new form of Maoism on campus, complete with struggle sessions straight out of the Cultural Revolution:

A statistics professor says:"I routinely discuss the fallacy of assuming that disparity implies discrimination, which is just a specific way of confusing correlation for causality. Frankly, I’m now somewhat afraid to broach these topics … since according to the new faith, disparity actually is conclusive evidence of discrimination."

The new mood has even reached medieval studies; an assistant professor reports having recently just survived an attack by a cadre of scholars who are “unspeakably mean and disingenuous once they have you in their sights,” regularly “mounting PR campaigns to get academics and grad students fired, removed from programs, expelled from scholarly groups, or simply to cease speaking.”…

Overall I found it alarming how many of the letters sound as if they were written from Stalinist Russia or Maoist China. A history professor reports that at his school, the administration is seriously considering setting up an anonymous reporting system for students and professors to report “bias” that they have perceived. One professor committed the sin of “privileging the white male perspective” in giving a lecture on the philosophy of one of the Founding Fathers, even though Frederick Douglass sang that Founder’s praises. The administration tried to make him sit in a “listening circle,” in which his job was to stay silent while students explained how he had hurt them—in other words, a 21st-century-American version of a struggle session straight out of the Cultural Revolution…

Especially sad is the extent to which this new Maoism can dilute the richness of a curriculum and discourage people from becoming professors at all. One professor has stopped teaching James Baldwin’s “Going to Meet the Man” after Black students claimed that it forced them to “re-live intergenerational trauma.” I have heard from not one but two philosophy doctorates who left academia. One explained that he was driven out by the “accelerating creep of what felt to me a pretty stifling orthodoxy. The hiring market was dominated by a concern for diversity statements, the ability to teach fairly ideologically-slanted courses on philosophy and critical race theory or philosophy and gender, etc.; and more generally it felt progressively less like a profession where I could opt out of those trends while still being a competitive job applicant.”

McWhorter points out that most of the people he’s hearing from are not conservatives. Most consider themselves left-of-center. But in academia today being on the left doesn’t really matter unless you hold all of the same views as the far left.

How widespread is this? It’s hard to say but McWhorter points to a poll of 445 academics carried out by the Heterodox Academy. Asked how they would feel expressing their views on a controversial issued at work, more than half said they would be “very concerned” or “extremely concerned” that it would hurt their career. That’s obviously not a great situation for having people discuss different points of view about contentious topics. With numbers like that self-censorship is guaranteed. And that only ensures that the cultural revolutionaries have de facto control of what is said and taught on campus.

I’ve said before that as bad as the situation has been on some campuses, the far left is still a minority of the student body. But reading this piece you have to wonder how much longer that will be the case. How long before the meltdown at Evergreen State College is being replicated everywhere? If I had to guess, I’d say it will happen a lot sooner than anyone expects.

As I was writing this, Rod Dreher posted this example. Professors at Northwestern law school were apparently expected to denounce themselves as racists. I wonder if anyone was brave enough to refuse?


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: academia; academicbias; censorship; college; diversity; education; faculty; maoists; pc; professors; wokeness
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-29 next last
This is a description of the madness that is currently on our college campuses. One of my best friends for the past 45 years,(a white, conservative, evangelical Christian male professor) recently took an early retirement from teaching history at the U of MN. He said that it is a "zoo" and that the petty, overpaid professors were completely divorced from the real world. Everything is now about diversity. During his entire academic career, there was only one time when another professor took the initiative in a conversation to say that she was a Christian. Christian and conservative professors are intimidated from making themselves and their views known, so this has led to self-censorship. It really is similar to the Maoist Cultural Revolution in China in the mid-1960s. The Leftist professors have created a monster that is almost totally out of control.
1 posted on 09/01/2020 5:40:06 PM PDT by DeweyCA
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: DeweyCA

They live in fear of it??? It seems more likely that the huge majority of them enthusiastically *support* it!


2 posted on 09/01/2020 5:43:35 PM PDT by Gay State Conservative (The Rats Just Can't Get Over The Fact That They Lost A Rigged Election!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: DeweyCA
We are here: “If there are no absolutes by which to judge society, then society is absolute.” Francis Schaeffer, How Shall We Then Live? (Old Tappan NJ: Fleming H Revell Company, 1976), p. 224.

We have become a nation of wimps. The bill of rights means nothing, all that matters is compliance with the prevailing zeitgeist. NONSENSE!!!!

3 posted on 09/01/2020 5:44:59 PM PDT by Fungi
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Gay State Conservative

They created it, that’s for sure. But I think it’s grown into a monster they can no longer control.

I work for a local government; I figure the day is coming that we’ll be expected to take some sort of training or participate in some sort of activity that will get me fired for refusing. Luckily, I’ve got enough time in to retire and they can’t touch my pension.


4 posted on 09/01/2020 5:46:36 PM PDT by Spirit of Liberty (It's morning in America again!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: DeweyCA

You academics bred this disease in your universities and ignored the warnings from conservatives.


5 posted on 09/01/2020 5:50:10 PM PDT by Lurkinanloomin (Natural Born Citizens Are Born Here of Citizen Parents|Know Islam, No Peace-No Islam, Know Peace)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Spirit of Liberty
and they can’t touch my pension.

How do you know?

In the private sector, "they" are gunning for 401K's like cats in heat.

6 posted on 09/01/2020 5:53:14 PM PDT by workerbee (==)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: DeweyCA

They need to live in fear of patriot firing squads.


7 posted on 09/01/2020 5:54:38 PM PDT by The Toll
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: The Toll

Ha. Based on what?


8 posted on 09/01/2020 5:56:29 PM PDT by workerbee (==)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: workerbee

In theory, they could. But it would require legislative approval, and the legislature participates in the same pension system. And we’re over 90% funded.


9 posted on 09/01/2020 5:56:46 PM PDT by Spirit of Liberty (It's morning in America again!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: workerbee

I say 6 months from now.


10 posted on 09/01/2020 6:00:06 PM PDT by The Toll
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Gay State Conservative

What about a poor, non woke student? That kid has no chance. Who’s going to monitor the vicious bullying of conservative, non woke students in classes from grade to grad school? There will be BLM bullying induced student suicides.


11 posted on 09/01/2020 6:00:49 PM PDT by hardspunned (MAGA, now more than ever)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: DeweyCA

How is this different from the Old Campus Maoism?


12 posted on 09/01/2020 6:01:38 PM PDT by Moonman62 (http://www.freerepublic.com/~moonman62/)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Fungi
"We have become a nation of wimps."

Yeah, well that just about sums it up... :(

13 posted on 09/01/2020 6:07:02 PM PDT by unread (A REPUBLIC..! If you can keep it....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: The Toll
I say 6 months from now

I asked "based on what?" and this is your answer? You won't even be specific here? haha

14 posted on 09/01/2020 6:08:37 PM PDT by workerbee (==)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: DeweyCA

Bfl


15 posted on 09/01/2020 6:19:44 PM PDT by RoosterRedux
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Gay State Conservative

The couple of people interviewed appear actually to be conservative. But I have a hard time feeling sorry for the many career leftists who created the monster that might now consume them.


16 posted on 09/01/2020 6:25:40 PM PDT by colorado tanker
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: workerbee

I believe American patriots will be lining academics up against the wall and blowing their brains out within six months.

Do you need a map?


17 posted on 09/01/2020 6:27:18 PM PDT by The Toll
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: DeweyCA

Academics are the ones that *started* cancel culture.


18 posted on 09/01/2020 6:28:20 PM PDT by Spktyr (Overwhelmingly superior firepower and the willingness to use it is the only proven peace solution.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: DeweyCA

It got so bad as Mao lost control of the Red Guard student monsters that he had to call on the Peoples Liberation Army to put down their “peaceful protesting” and terror. Have to be pretty horrific if Mao got creeped out by them.

Same as Robespierre’s mobs, Brown Shirts, Black Shirts, Bolsheviks, Khmer Rouge, Viet Cong, ANC, Shining Path, Isis, et al. More the norm than the rule in modern history.


19 posted on 09/01/2020 6:35:37 PM PDT by epluribus_2 (He, had the best mom - ever.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: The Toll
I believe American patriots will be lining academics up against the wall and blowing their brains out within six months.

And you'll be lining them, I assume?

20 posted on 09/01/2020 6:41:52 PM PDT by workerbee (==)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-29 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson