Posted on 04/02/2002 4:18:13 PM PST by Pharmboy
BOSTON (AP) - A prominent Harvard University black studies professor will soon decide whether to return to Princeton University over a feud with Harvard's administration, a colleague said Tuesday. Cornel West has not yet decided whether to make the move, said Harvard Law School professor Charles Ogletree, who has been representing West.
"He's a very close colleague and friend and a client, so I'm hoping - my personal and professional hope - is that Cornel West and Harvard find a mutual way to solve their differences," Ogletree said.
Several members of Harvard's department have been at odds with Harvard President Lawrence Summers, who took over the post last year.
Summers reportedly rebuked West for recording a rap CD and leading a political committee for the Rev. Al Sharpton's possible presidential campaign. He also reportedly accused West of allowing grade inflation in his introductory black studies course.
West, who has cancer and is currently on leave from Harvard, has said he was "dishonored," and threatened to leave for Princeton, where he taught religion and led the African-American studies department until 1994.
On Tuesday, Princeton's Program in African American Studies inadvertently released a statement congratulating West for deciding to return.
"We salute Prof. West on his wise decision to return to Princeton," the statement said. Princeton spokesman Robert Durkee said Tuesday that West had not acted upon the offer, and that the statement, issued in error, had been prepared in case West accepted. West did not return a call for comment.
This week, Harvard students circulated a petition urging West to remain a part of Harvard's prestigious group of black scholars, led by Henry Louis Gates Jr.
In January, K. Anthony Appiah accepted an offer from Princeton, becoming the first member of Harvard's prominent circle of black scholars to leave. He cited personal reasons, not differences with Summers.
This Princeton alumnus has long ago abandoned any thought that the university might be motivated by something like patriotism. But I thought it was intensely aware of self-preservation.
West's is obviously not only a wrong -- but a losing -- cause.
Wonder if that was on purpose? The guy's name might as well be Cornball for his posturing, histrionic delivery.
Cornel West is a bigot, a liar, a race hustler and a poverty pimp. But then, let's look at his scholarship. After all, this black blowhard is one of only 12 "University Professors," the highest designation that the Harvard Faculty has.
If and only if you have a strong stomach and have not eaten recently, I recommend that you look up "Cornel West" on the Net, and click over to his website. The self-praise will be enough to make you puke. But even worse is his "scholarship." He writes prose which is so bad it would make Bulwer-Lyton wince. He bloviates with big words that have zero meaning other than "black is beautiful and everyone else is against us."
West ought to be "teaching" at La Salle Extension University, you know, the one that advertises on matchbooks? When you squeeze out all the lies and claptrap from his "writings," what is left of his "philosophy" would easily fit on a matchbook cover.
Harvard would be well to get rid of this miserable excuse for a "Professor." Princeton is insane if they think he would be a "good addition." The only difference between Cornel West and David Duke is that Duke actually speaks and writes in English.
Congressman Billybob
Click here to fight Shays-Meehan.
Click here for latest column: "When Billie Came Marching Home Again."
Article here. Or, I wonder if he is part of the group doing the suing?
Best,
PB
INTERESTING HOW EVERYBODY ON THE BOARD HAS AN OPINION ON SOMEBODY THEY DON'T KNOW AND HAVE NEVER READ. CORNELL WEST WHETHER YOU LIKE HIM OR NOT IS A TOP INTELLECTUAL. WITH TONS OF PAPERS PUBLISHED (IN THE TOP JOURNALS OF THE FIELD) AND DOZENS OF BOOKS. HIS CREDENTIALS ARE IMPECABLE. SO WHY DON'T WE ALL DROP THE RACIST OFFENSIVE TONE AND ATTACK HIS IDEAS WITHOUT THE AD HOMINEMS. I DOUBT ANYBODY WILL BECAUSE NOBODY HERE IS IN GRADUATE SCHOOL, OR STUDYING TO BE A RABBI OR A MINISTER. YES BECAUSE THAT'S WHERE HIS BOOKS ARE WIDELY READ. SO LET'S ATTACK HIS IDEAS, NOT THE MAN.
>>Perhaps he can teach Air Conditioning Repair at APEX Technical School
Bite your tongue! A/C repair has measurable outcomes (it works or it doesn't) that provide net benefits for society. Tell me where the nonsense this pseudo-"intellectual" spews, does any of that.
You owe an apology to A/C repair technicians everywhere.
Please ping me on any response you might have to Mr. Maimonides all-caps screed.
This ought to be good.
;-)
No wonder the Ivy League has lost it's prestige.
roflol! here - scratched my head at his post, didn't get it until I read your reply.
My opinion, from what I have read of West's work: He has an engaging, energetic and very creative mind. Alas, that brain power is muddled by what I see as his wholehearted embrace of Marxism in thought, act and deed. It is difficult to elevate the meretricious, no matter how pretty the props. Put more simply, you can't polish shit. As for the professional standards in his work: He is slipshod, lazy, and not much of a writer. He is very undisciplined as a communicator. He is heavily weighted down, ironically by his incredibly lofty opinions...of himself. And he truly needs an editor. Yes, he publishes a lot. So does Sidney Sheldon. It's guys like these who make me feel sorry even for trees raised for pulp.
And there's another reason for West's success: Traditional academic rigors are not applied to him because he is a ... Black Liberal. Academe went south about 30 years ago, and took Common Sense and professional standards with it, and most of it hasn't recovered. In the humanities, at any rate. The loonier the premise, the more prolix the impenetrable prose to explicate it. Liberals writing for liberals edited by liberals. Yeah, tough standards. Libs get a pass. Black libs get a bigger one. Every campus wanted at least one Black star. West became a superstar in the Ivies.
Before you misread me: I think he's brilliant. But fatally infected, thus useless.
I truly don't know why you brought up something two-and-a-half years old, when we're all busy stoking this hurtling train of a presidential election express, but something tells me you're looking to provoke...and be provoked.
Let me oblige, by dissing another Black writer. Toni Morrison won the Nobel Prize for literature, one of the biggest jokes in the history of the printed word.
But as long as he doesn't go anywhere near Yale, I have no opinion as to whether he should defraud Princeton or Harvard in the next semester. LOL.
Congressman Billybob
I am yet to figure out pinging (didn't they used to do that in WWII submarine movies?), but do please check out my #34.
"Harvard's prestigious group of black scholars, led by Henry Louis Gates Jr."
Yeah. Gates is so illustrious that he is the only scholar to have testified before Congress, in prepared remarks, that Shakespeare wrote "My Luv is Like a Red Red Rose."
Bunch of campus hot-house affirmative action mutants. Not one could make a living in the cold world of reality.
Bravo, sir. Excellent post.
Yes, a ping is indeed a term used in active ASDIC and SONAR systems.
But in modern Internet terminology, pinging refers to the act of using the ping utility (Packer Internet GRoper, believe it or not), which is used to test and verify basic network communications between two computers. On a WinXP or Win2K machine, Start => Run => cmd => ping www.yahoo.com , for example.
In FreeRepublic terms, pinging means to address a response to a thread to someone, so they will see it in their My Comments / Pings listing, and come to the thread.
Thank you for the compliment.
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