A couple of months ago, 76 entries into the longest comment thread I’ve ever hosted, we were debating the “other Duke rape,” the one that happened at a frat party on Gattis St. on Feb. 11, 2007. Joan Foster mentioned that the father of the victim wanted to talk to President Brodhead but was rebuffed […]
Also tagged William AndersonThe funny thing about the broadside KC Johnson fired in my direction about two months ago (yes, I’m finally getting around to it) is how noncommittal it is. Sometimes his defense is solid, other times not so much. For instance, urging Duke to conduct an “impartial investigation” may not “strike [him] as the response of […]
Also tagged Duke University, KC JohnsonA quick note about one of the “… intriguing … items” that KC Johnson recently scrutinized, a “‘report’ produced by an entity called ‘Trinity Heights Action Committee’” and then faxed by Durham mayor Bill Bell to Duke president Richard Brodhead. I’ll admit it, I would have accepted that the document is an actual report written […]
Also tagged KC JohnsonAs I’ve watched things appear on Durham-in-Wonderland lately I’ve been thinking that KC Johnson must finally be running out of material. Tonight’s post seemed to be more of the same, another episode in his recent fixation with Wahneema Lubiano, apropos of nothing. But then he totally outdoes himself by tacking on an impressive bit of […]
Also tagged Karla Holloway, KC Johnson, William AndersonThere’s another rhetorical crutch at work in the conservative critiques of academia that I’ve been going over—the golden age. KC Johnson’s commentary (see the last post—this one is a close offshoot of that one) refers to “the alarming decline in intellectual pluralism,” and—here’s a coincidence—the site that ran it, Minding the Campus is “a project […]
Also tagged Alan Kors, culture war, intellectual diversity, KC Johnson, Minding the CampusThere’s a simple question behind the things I’ve written over the past six months or so about the intersection between the Duke lacrosse case and the conservative critique of higher education. How can anyone who’s worried about the academic world’s low intellectual standards, who’s pushing to raise those standards, even, how can they not only […]
Also tagged Alan Kors, culture war, intellectual diversity, KC Johnson, Minding the Campus, thefire.orgIn this post and the one before I’m looking at a couple of recent episodes in KC Johnson’s ongoing crusade against left-wing extremists in academia. Last time I wrote about his attempt to pursue two narrow agendas at once. One, the academic-culture crusade, he pursues with the usual rhetoric and agenda-driven reasoning while the other […]
Also tagged culture war, KC Johnson, Rashid Khalidi, Tim Tyson, tribalismAbout a week ago, Google dug up an odd little bit of satire in an Onion knock-off called Carbolic Smoke Ball. [The text is gone now—all that’s left is a picture of a goofy quarter.] North Carolina’s Commemorative Quarter to Honor Duke Lacrosse False Rape Case DURHAM - North Carolina officials proudly unveiled the state’s […]
Also tagged culture war, Duke University, Michael GustafsonI know I’m supposed to be putting up some kind of “wrap-up” post, but somehow it’s just not happening. In the mean time, stuff like this comes up, so why hold back? Duke’s African and African American Studies Department is getting a new chairman from Harvard—the devil incarnate, er, I mean, J. Lorand Matory. According […]
Also tagged Duke University, Karla Holloway, KC JohnsonIt’s time for me to stop the endless picking apart of KC Johnson’s blog, Durham-in-Wonderland (DIW). In fact it was probably time a few months ago. I’ll never reach the level of the poor sap who’s spent years defaming Brian Leiter, but I might end up on par with the one who got a bad […]
Also tagged Duke University, KC Johnson