Being careful, on the whole, to keep the natural and physical sciences, mathematics, and a variegated Column A of departments (sometimes psychology, sometimes philosophy, sometimes linguistics), and the professional schools that relate symbiotically to practical America relatively free of political agendas—though even in these cases, the barriers to crude politicization may break down—the careerist administrators have kept largely intact those disciplines where added value might be measured.

Neither he nor I am claiming that all areas of the university are politicized. He does say

From diverse motives of ideological sympathies and acute awareness of who can blackball their next career moves, they have given over the humanities, the soft social sciences and the entire university in loco parentis to the zealots of oppression studies and coercive identity politics.

At Duke it’s more than just a few isolated individuals. We had 88 profs in English, AAAS, Romance Languages, and others (soft science) on the public record condemning the campus culture as a racist/sexist/classist “Social Disaster” in the infamous “Listening Statement”. Not only that but later, even when many more facts were known, most of the same group doubled-down their position in a so-called “Clarifying Statement”. They were joined by others who’d not had a chance to sign the original statement. I’m unwilling to call 100 university faculty acting in concert a few isolated “wacky, misguided, unethical, and irresponsible” individuals.

As far as I am aware the only example of an administrator standing up for the rights of the lacrosse players was when Provost Peter Lange called out Houston Baker (Apr. ‘06). That was the last heard from Lange. Most of the administration was silent or affirmed the position of the “Listening” statement. I’ll not provide the numerous quotes from one Richard Brodhead.

The only faculty member to stand up for the accused was Steven Baldwin of the Chemistry Department (hard science). He was immediately and publicly was slapped and silenced because he used “politically incorrect” language. Somewhat later (Jan. ‘07) the Economics department felt compelled to publish a joint statement that lacrosse players would be welcome in their classes, at least. Imagine that, an entire university department feels compelled to make a statement that all kinds of students are welcome. Does that not imply to you that there are entire departments hostile to certain categories of students?

What was the university’s response? To appoint committees consisting largely of the 88 to address the presumed racist/sexist/classist campus culture via the Campus Culture Initiative (CCI). Did you read the report?

http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/reports/ccireport.pdf

Here was one of the major recommendations-

1. Modify the Cross Cultural Inquiry curricular requirements so that one of the two required courses has a primary focus on racial, ethnic, class, religious, and/or sexual/gender differences in the United States.

These faculty want to make sure every student takes a mandatory course that has “a primary focus on racial, ethnic, class, religious, and/or sexual/gender differences in the United States.” I invite you to imagine the syllabus of this course without any kind of political slant or indoctrination. (As I said, it appears that the CCI will be allowed to die without action but it sure speaks to intent.)

The other administration response was to elevate AAAS to full departmental status. Almost the whole department signed the “Listening” statement and indeed it was listed as being supported by the department as a whole. If this is not a sign of administrative approval of the actions and attitudes of those faculty then I don’t know what would be. This is affirmation of their actions at the highest level.

The 88 and their ilk, did however take home an important lesson. That is to never go provably on record. Thus, at the “Shut Up and Teach?” event they used “plausible deniability” and I can’t prove to you what they said.

However, I checked my notes. The section of the Q&A that initiated the discussion to which I referred began thusly:

AA female student: When I got here four years ago, I had no idea that I was surrounded by racism all the time. I want to thank Prof Lubiano for teaching me that.

Lubiano: (smiling, nods head)

(crowd applauds enthusiastically)

Well that’s one fully indoctrinated. That’s when the panel launched into a discussion that they also had to teach the white students the same thing. One faculty wondered why the curricular requirements of the CCI were such a big deal. The entire AAAS faculty was there and the other departments involved in the “Listening Statement” were in enthusiastic attendance.

I quote again what could be a summary of that meeting

How can [we] make them understand, with only four years to do so, that capitalism and individual- ism have created cultures that are cruel, inefficient, racist, sexist and homophobic, with oppressive caste systems, mental and behavioral? How, in such a brief period, can they enlighten “minorities,” including women (the majority of students), about the “internalization” of their oppression (today’s equivalent of false consciousness)? How, in only eight semesters, might they use the classroom, curriculum and university in loco parentis to create a radical leadership among what they see as the victim groups of our society, and to make the heirs of successful families uneasy in the moral right of their possessions and opportunities?

I have yet to see at Duke any serious resistance to that process. In fact, about 20 years ago, the Duke administration very publicly set out to hire the most radical faculty they could find. They are now reaping the harvest of their efforts.

And I ask again. Given that we agree that Duke is now a “rights-free zone” who has been doing that and why? Since you are reluctant to answer, historically, the removal of rights and due process is a precursor to the persecution of some group.

What group would that be?

This is a familiar experience—someone reads my blog and decides that I must have missed out on some crucial part of the story. So I get the conventional wisdom all stitched together so everything is of a piece, and full of blanket generalizations about the 88. Most of those generalizations are based on particularly damning interpretations of the “listening” statement that are held up as self-evident and indisputable. I’ve made my opinions about that ad clear enough. I don’t blame anyone for being pissed off by it. The complaint I have the least sympathy with, though, is that the ad (or some other general claim about the prevalence of racism) is a declaration that every white person at Duke is a racist. Especially when it amounts to taking it personally, it’s a reaction that strikes me as thin-skinned, insecure, narcissistic, or paranoid. I might well have choked on the little episode in the forum you describe, but it seems like something that I could object to without taking it as the last word on Lubiano and everyone else who can be lumped together with her.

The question I’m trying to get an answer to is this: If the “88 and their ilk” are so totally beyond the pale, why does KC have to rely on exaggeration, misrepresentation, cheap shots, and outright falsehood when he wants to criticize two of the most notorious of them, Karla Holloway and Mark Anthony Neal. I know it’s a completely ridiculous question from the anti-88 perspective—I guess that’s why no one ever tries to answer it. But it seems pretty clear to me that KC decided early on what kind of people were in his “Group of 88” and is committed to reinforcing that impression no matter what.

The Baldwin incident is a prime example of how much the self-righteous criticism of Duke faculty is running on autopilot—I’ve written about it here, here, and most especially here. It’s possible to appreciate and admire what Baldwin and the Economics Department did without pretending they’re completely divorced from Duke’s institutional and interpersonal politics, while on the other hand the 88 are completely mired in it. Both Michael Gustafson and James Coleman have articulated a more even-handed perspective on the faculty. But their credibility as rare voices of reason seems to have taken a big hit when they questioned the Wonderland narrative.

I registered the paragraph where Kors sets aside the “Column A or departments.” But the subject of the paragraph you quote at the end of your comment—little more than a rant, as far as I’m concerned—is “Academics,” not (for instance) “humanities faculty.” And he doesn’t suggest that certain departments (Women’s Studies, etc.) should announce their intention to indoctrinate—the whole university should.

As to the “‘rights-free’ zone,” Elliott Wolf’s articles are a great place to start.

Kors works himself up to a fever pitch with a string of rhetorical questions about the “almost insoluble problem of time” faced by professors intent on indoctrination…

It’s nutty stuff coming from a professor, though. Kors’ dire portrait goes far beyond reasonable concern…

As for as my own priorities, I can’t imagine wasting time and energy on indoctrination when I could be…

Fever pitch? Nutty stuff?

In your article above you ridicule even the suggestion that faculty would find the desire or time to indoctrinate students. I pointed to a group of faculty who stated exactly that agenda and wanted to make it a mandatory part of the curriculum. They claimed to be intellectuals but by your assessment they must be poisoned intellectuals. If they’re willing say that in public what must they be saying in the classroom where they have ultimate power over their students or in private to each other? In my career I heard a few of those discussions so I know they take place.

It could be that I missed the memo laying out this brave new world of undergraduate education–I’ve never really been in the loop.

You did miss the memo. Get in the loop, go read the curriculum proposed by the CCI, and tell me what you see.

… people who insist that the problems are caused by those nasty folks over there.

A very succinct description of the attitudes expressed by the faculty panelists at that event. Sorry if I reacted to being called an inherent and unrecoverable racist by people who don’t know me.

In contrast, I absolutely agree with your evaluation of Duke and other schools as having implemented a “rights free zone”. The next step is to figure out why that’s been done and who it is that would want it and why. (Cf. Larry Moneta and “water buffalo”)

Yes, I did actually mean what I wrote, and I know that my opinion about indoctrination may put me at odds with some of the faculty who spoke at the “Shut up and teach?” forum. I can’t really argue about what was or wasn’t said at the event—you were there and I wasn’t. But given the way you exaggerate what I’ve written here, I don’t find you to be a very credible witness. For instance, I didn’t “ridicule even the suggestion that faculty would find the desire or time to indoctrinate students.” What’s ridiculous is the idea that if the typical university was forced to be honest it would have to admit that its true mission, as an institution, is indoctrination. Individually, professors can and a few will do all sorts of wacky, misguided, unethical, and irresponsible things.

I trimmed the quotes to cut down on sprawl.

I attended a forum at Duke in February ‘07 entitled “Shut Up and Teach?” in which a panel of six Duke faculty (W. Lubiano, M. A. Neal, and C. Piot among others) complained that someone was trying to silence them simply by criticizing what they say.

http://www.jhfc.duke.edu/icuss/pdfs/shutup4.pdf

During the Q&A afterwards Duke faculty members made the claim (summarizing) that all white students at Duke are racists predicated simply by the color of their skin and their assumed “white privilege” and they need to be taught the error of their ways. They baldly admitted this should be the goal of the so-called Campus Culture Initiative (which has apparently suffered an unlamented demise). Sounds like intent to indoctrinate to me. (There’s a nasty name for people who look at you and judge you as a person based on the color of your skin.)

I’d give you a direct transcript of their remarks but they were so ashamed of what they were doing that they refuse to provide one and prevented any video or audio recording except for their own copy which is apparently locked away in the catacombs under Duke Chapel never to be seen again.

I was a university faculty member for 14 years and I can absolutely confirm what happens to faculty when they have a difference of opinion with the prevailing groupthink.

It’s not like intolerance and pettiness was unknown in academia until the radical left moved in. And did I say somewhere that the “Shut up and teach?” forum was a model of open-minded debate, or that every bit of left-wing political activism on campus is tolerant and benign?

This is how it always seems to go, though. “I saw this thing once, and…” The lacrosse case has not been marked by conspicuous tolerance from any side, and I don’t have any patience with people who insist that the problems are caused by those nasty folks over there.

Wow, many thanks indeed for that link. It’s an important piece and I hadn’t seen it.

Glad to help—it’s good stuff.

I invite you to witness the latest effort of a Duke professor to prove that he’s “an intellect.”

There, Prof. Tim “Spirit of the Lynch Mob” Tyson blabs about his estimate of the amount Duke paid in its confidential settlement with the three indicted players. Not content with that, Prof. Tyson also claims that prosecutors put Darryl Hunt on trial while knowing he was innocent, and that a jury of racists convicted him on “no evidence”.

I’m sorry, but I have to wonder about your definitions when you find people like Prof. Tyson to be either intellectual or not extreme.

RRH

“Extremist” is a sloppy word that I probably let myself get away with more than I should. But I don’t think of Johnson as an extremist—if I gave that impression either I’ve changed my mind or I wasn’t expressing myself well. He doesn’t seem to mind feeding ammunition to extremists, which isn’t something I admire. I’ve tried a number of times in a number of ways to explain what I feel is anti-intellectual about his criticism, so I’m not sure what I can add to that.

Where we really disagree is about what it means to talk about “88ers” and “people like Prof. Tyson.” I don’t think either is very useful, which is why I’ve studied the statements and work of a few professors who’ve been knocked around on DIW and written about them individually. So I’m comfortable saying that Mark Anthony Neal is a better writer and a truer intellectual than Johnson. That, I should say, is judging each by their blogging, and Johnson primarily by DIW. Probably I’d conclude the same thing about some others among the 88, but I’m making no claim about all of them except that it’s silly to make sweeping claims about the “Group.”

You can read for yourself how I react to Tyson.