How do we go about signing it? I listened to a recent Coleman Hughes podcast with John McWhorter, and among the things they discussed was just how few "activists" influence campus culture. Hughes had gone through the informal exercise of trying to identify among the students taking his classes (which are on race and slavery, so are likely to attract perhaps more "activists" than the average class) those who were the noisiest in all senses of the word in this context. He thought it might be, at the most, 10%. McWhorter said that sounded about right to him, based on his experience. So at most 10% of students (and perhaps faculty) are determining the entire hostile culture! Why, oh why, can they get away with this? Why are the "normies" such weenies?
Thank you, Judy, for highlighting how a small fraction of a community can sometimes drive a cancellation. These efforts often involve inflammatory petitions based on limited direct knowledge and without any opportunity for rebuttal or due process. Such petitions can quickly gather 1,000 signatures, largely from virtue signalers. Administrators should, at minimum, consider the far larger number of people in the community who did not sign the petition — typically the vast majority.
Yes, they should, but they are weenies. So who should be holding the weenie administrators to account? We need more brave people in academia. (FWIW, when I was dean, I took a number of actions that my weenie predecessors had avoided. I turned out to be more popular than not for doing so. I wish I could pass that experience on.)
Thank you for this chance to cosign a letter that aims to turn the tide from the lies of the postmodern oppressor-oppressed ideology to the search for truth.
Interesting idea, but it could kind of let them off the hook. I can imagine that someone who was treated the way Hooven was treated by Harvard might say "No thanks" to an offer, and they could be, like, "well, we offered and she declined, so all is well". The offer should come with a public apology and a full report of what happened to bring about Hooven's departure, and a statement about how they have addressed any policy or procedural failures that led to her mistreatment, and what they will do in the future to protect faculty, tenured and non-tenured, from mob action.
I like this suggestion. Make them explain EXACTLY what they did wrong, in excruciating detail. Make it public. Make other amends, like penalizing those behind this action, up to and including termination and worse.
I believe a message should be sent. But that's just me.
In my opinion, academia is dying. So if you want it to continue to fail, be my guest.
I left academia decades ago because it had turned into a nightmare. I have had several friends who basically had breakdowns because of their treatment in academia.
I don't see Harvard complying with this request. It would require an admission that they were wrong...and Harvard faculty and administrators are far too arrogant to do so. For context, my grandfather got his PhD in physical chemistry in 1936 at age 23. My grandparents supported all their children and grandchildren going to college to study whatever they wished...with one exception. They would NOT support any effort to attend Harvard. Has anything changed in the last 90 years? Certainly not for the better. A better response would be to refuse to collaborate or work with Harvard and its faculty so long as cancel culture remains policy on their campus.
This is an interesting letter. However, being an old geezer, I remember how NYC policing was reformed quite vividly. This letter sort of misrepresents what went on in NYC under Giuliani's direction.
Before Giuliani, NYC was a nightmarish place. The murder rate was about an order of magnitude larger than it currently is. Citizen vigilante groups took to the streets to protect the public. For one example, remember the Guardian Angels and their red berets.
NYC city was a failing, dystopian hellscape. The wealthy were fleeing NYC in droves (maybe even more vigorously than they are currently doing). Times Square was a trash-strewn place of porn theaters, hookers and boarded-up storefronts.
The Broken Window Theory of Policing, which the letter references, also included the "Stop and Frisk Policy". The entire approach of removing graffiti and repairing street lamps and stopping suspicious characters for interrogation was vehemently and even violently opposed by the usual suspects, the Left.
Almost everyone on the Left hated the idea that crime might be reduced in NYC. They were livid, and I remember this quite well. They felt it was their "right" to have violent dangerous cities, much as we have seen during the Summer of Love in various West Coast cities that allowed self-governed "no go zones". Just as various left wing foundations recently sued to try to stop policies to reduce homelessness in California, the left then and now feels it is "fair" and "just" to subject citizens to terrible indignities and random violence. After all, how will the Left get the public to demand a totalitarian dictatorship by the Left if their lives are too pleasant? The wastelands are the entire point, a valuable stepping stone to the goal of the Left. When in doubt, always remember that this is always about money and power. The Left craves money and power, and has no interest in making life better for anyone but an infinitesimally small elite.
I might also note the snide comment about heavily armed aggressive police action in Brazil. There are counterexamples, like the recent drastic reform of El Salvador. It went from the most violent dangerous place in the Western Hemisphere to the safest, in just a couple of years. It did this by the same heavily armed aggressive police action that the letter decries.
By the way, the police reform under Giuliani was viewed at the time as the same aggressive police action by the Left that this letter suggests always fails. Clearly, it does not always fail. One cannot really depend on the Left's characterization or memory of anything to get some sense of reality or history.
The letter is correct in depicting cancel culture as dangerous. There must be some space for intellectual diversity. If there is not, STEM and even Western Culture will fail, inevitably.
How do we go about signing it? I listened to a recent Coleman Hughes podcast with John McWhorter, and among the things they discussed was just how few "activists" influence campus culture. Hughes had gone through the informal exercise of trying to identify among the students taking his classes (which are on race and slavery, so are likely to attract perhaps more "activists" than the average class) those who were the noisiest in all senses of the word in this context. He thought it might be, at the most, 10%. McWhorter said that sounded about right to him, based on his experience. So at most 10% of students (and perhaps faculty) are determining the entire hostile culture! Why, oh why, can they get away with this? Why are the "normies" such weenies?
If you would like to sign, please email John B. Londregan <jbl@princeton.edu> by Friday, June 19th.
Done.
Thank you, Judy, for highlighting how a small fraction of a community can sometimes drive a cancellation. These efforts often involve inflammatory petitions based on limited direct knowledge and without any opportunity for rebuttal or due process. Such petitions can quickly gather 1,000 signatures, largely from virtue signalers. Administrators should, at minimum, consider the far larger number of people in the community who did not sign the petition — typically the vast majority.
Yes, they should, but they are weenies. So who should be holding the weenie administrators to account? We need more brave people in academia. (FWIW, when I was dean, I took a number of actions that my weenie predecessors had avoided. I turned out to be more popular than not for doing so. I wish I could pass that experience on.)
You have my support but I don’t expect either party is willing to do this. Harvard and most Universities remain anti-American and woke.
Dear Dorian,
Thank you for this chance to cosign a letter that aims to turn the tide from the lies of the postmodern oppressor-oppressed ideology to the search for truth.
Thanks,
randy
Excellent initiative!
Interesting idea, but it could kind of let them off the hook. I can imagine that someone who was treated the way Hooven was treated by Harvard might say "No thanks" to an offer, and they could be, like, "well, we offered and she declined, so all is well". The offer should come with a public apology and a full report of what happened to bring about Hooven's departure, and a statement about how they have addressed any policy or procedural failures that led to her mistreatment, and what they will do in the future to protect faculty, tenured and non-tenured, from mob action.
I like this suggestion. Make them explain EXACTLY what they did wrong, in excruciating detail. Make it public. Make other amends, like penalizing those behind this action, up to and including termination and worse.
I’m thinking less retribution, more truth and reconciliation. But that’s me.
I believe a message should be sent. But that's just me.
In my opinion, academia is dying. So if you want it to continue to fail, be my guest.
I left academia decades ago because it had turned into a nightmare. I have had several friends who basically had breakdowns because of their treatment in academia.
We have problems. To ignore them will not help.
I don't see Harvard complying with this request. It would require an admission that they were wrong...and Harvard faculty and administrators are far too arrogant to do so. For context, my grandfather got his PhD in physical chemistry in 1936 at age 23. My grandparents supported all their children and grandchildren going to college to study whatever they wished...with one exception. They would NOT support any effort to attend Harvard. Has anything changed in the last 90 years? Certainly not for the better. A better response would be to refuse to collaborate or work with Harvard and its faculty so long as cancel culture remains policy on their campus.
This is an interesting letter. However, being an old geezer, I remember how NYC policing was reformed quite vividly. This letter sort of misrepresents what went on in NYC under Giuliani's direction.
Before Giuliani, NYC was a nightmarish place. The murder rate was about an order of magnitude larger than it currently is. Citizen vigilante groups took to the streets to protect the public. For one example, remember the Guardian Angels and their red berets.
NYC city was a failing, dystopian hellscape. The wealthy were fleeing NYC in droves (maybe even more vigorously than they are currently doing). Times Square was a trash-strewn place of porn theaters, hookers and boarded-up storefronts.
The Broken Window Theory of Policing, which the letter references, also included the "Stop and Frisk Policy". The entire approach of removing graffiti and repairing street lamps and stopping suspicious characters for interrogation was vehemently and even violently opposed by the usual suspects, the Left.
Almost everyone on the Left hated the idea that crime might be reduced in NYC. They were livid, and I remember this quite well. They felt it was their "right" to have violent dangerous cities, much as we have seen during the Summer of Love in various West Coast cities that allowed self-governed "no go zones". Just as various left wing foundations recently sued to try to stop policies to reduce homelessness in California, the left then and now feels it is "fair" and "just" to subject citizens to terrible indignities and random violence. After all, how will the Left get the public to demand a totalitarian dictatorship by the Left if their lives are too pleasant? The wastelands are the entire point, a valuable stepping stone to the goal of the Left. When in doubt, always remember that this is always about money and power. The Left craves money and power, and has no interest in making life better for anyone but an infinitesimally small elite.
I might also note the snide comment about heavily armed aggressive police action in Brazil. There are counterexamples, like the recent drastic reform of El Salvador. It went from the most violent dangerous place in the Western Hemisphere to the safest, in just a couple of years. It did this by the same heavily armed aggressive police action that the letter decries.
By the way, the police reform under Giuliani was viewed at the time as the same aggressive police action by the Left that this letter suggests always fails. Clearly, it does not always fail. One cannot really depend on the Left's characterization or memory of anything to get some sense of reality or history.
The letter is correct in depicting cancel culture as dangerous. There must be some space for intellectual diversity. If there is not, STEM and even Western Culture will fail, inevitably.
What information is needed besides one's name, in the signature?