I agree with the author's analysis but do see signs of hope that the tide may be turning. While Gen Z has many disadvantages in their scholarly development because of the woke schools systems they have grown out of, the young working class, especially the young men, seem to be rejecting the nonsensical drivel peddled by the social justice warriors in large numbers. They live in the real world and the prospect of being sent to fight globalist wars abroad by incompetent politicians has motivated them to see the world as it is not as social justice warriors delude themselves into wishing it was. As others have argued, there are no atheists in a fox hole, similarly, those being called to fight personally are not as inclined to go along with a DEI hire as commander in chief or support leaders, including university faculty, who spout such nonsense. With a new president in the White House committed to draining the swamp, it may also be time to drain the academic swamp of its social justice delusions. Perhaps it is time for massive federal defunding of academic programs and research from universities that fail to demonstrate ideological balance and engage in systemic race/gender based discrimination under the guise of DEI. Academics can complain about "government" interference in academic decisions...but have only themselves to blame for turning their institutions into superfund sites of anti-intellectual activity. Like all such toxic environments, a clean up from outside is often required over the objections of those who made the mess.
Agreed. Personally, I think the entire faculty and staff should be dismissed in all academic institutions and we should require all faculty to reapply for their positions with the clear requirement that political parity be the outcome even if that means half of liberal academics have to find new careers to make room for "diversity".
Bravo for this excellent summary! Having grown up in the USSR, I have seen enough socialist party stickers (hammer, sickle, and Lenin all there) plastered around Penn campus to know that faculty like Amy Wax would not be tolerated as a minority for her diversity of opinion (the type of diversity that should be celebrated on campus).
Hopefully, a 1968 Wharton graduate can make some welcome changes, including rearranging the letters in the DEI acronym so it no longer hinders the pursuit of truth!
Thank you, Geoff and Heterodox STEM, for publishing this piece. While the Heterodox Academy is focused on higher education, I can tell that from my position within public K-12 education, that feeds many an incoming student to higher education, Social Justice Faith seems firmly embedded into both the public system, as well as in the unions of many of the instructional staff that work in them.
Our governments have been instrumental in installing woke ideology and procedures in universities and throughout societal institutions. President Biden in the U.S. and Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada mandated woke prejudice and discrimination in universities, both claiming that their societies were bigoted and guilty of oppression (and, in the exemplary case of Canada, of genocide!). Our funding agencies, critical for supporting research, have all adopted "social justice" as their primary criterion. I was fortunately to spend most of my working life in an Enlightenment university dedicated to the search for truth through evidence and argument. I was happy to escape as my university abandoned its heritage in favour of "social justice," identity politics, segregation, and hate and exclusion of "evil oppressors," i..e. whites, males, and Jews. My own department has become Palestinianized and is dedicated to crushing "colonial settlers" at home (i.e. the vast majority of Canadians) and abroad (above all: Israel). Our universities desperately need a housecleaning. Trump seemed inclined to make an effort in that direction. I enthusiastically voted for him.
You captured perfectly what is going on in today's universities, including mine--Cornell. However, I am hopeful that with the "retirement" of Martha Pollack, the social justice president, and with the appointment of Mike Kotlikoff, Cornell may be on a hopeful path.
For years, I have maintained a very unpopular stance that members of various under-represented groups should not be coddled and advanced under quota systems. I do not think they are inherently less capable than the members of the over-represented groups. I know of too many counter-examples of high-performing minorities and women in STEM.
I think the answer is not to artificially push members of under-represented, under-performing groups into positions they are not prepared for, but to prepare them better. And I think they will rise to the challenges, as they have historically.
I am personally a member of an under-represented minority. I did not know I was until I received DNA test results. Since I had no idea that I was "supposed" to under-perform, instead I over-performed. And I was and remain plenty competitive with members of all groups. I am positive I am not the only one who can do this.
We only have to put our energies into "solutions" for disparate representations that actually work, and are not just window-dressing. This has the added benefit of reducing the waste of scarce human talent. Our current systems in STEM R&D are fraught with far too much waste and inefficiency.
And our STEM fields, and all of humanity, suffer for it.
Although I didn’t vote for him maybe the election of Trump signals a nearing end to the practice of discriminating against whites, Asians and men in a vain effort to counter past discrimination against others and undermining our economy by abandoning merit selection of students and employees.
Thank you. We are indeed engaged in two types of wars: 1. religion vs objective truth. This is a war of religious ideology vs science, not a war of one faith vs another (1), and 2. Religion vs religion (both pursuing the vision of free expression and pretend-Academic Freedom): DEI/Woke vs the anti-Woke (including FIRE, Heterodox Academy). Please let’s not pretend that our religion advocates for scientific methodology and scholarly discourse in academia. FIRE and Heterodox do support the right to spread disinformation on campus no matter how much it hurts as long as one does not violate the law. FIRE explicitly supports the expression of antisemitism on campus.(2,3)
Yes, thank you to scientists who do practice science. But we do need an academic organization that advocates for evidence based scholarly discourse on campus. To advance objective truth, FIRE and Heterodox Academy should change their agenda and fight for restoring scholarly discourse on campus, not for enforcing the first amendment in the classroom where 2 + 2 = 5 requires proof.
I agree with the author's analysis but do see signs of hope that the tide may be turning. While Gen Z has many disadvantages in their scholarly development because of the woke schools systems they have grown out of, the young working class, especially the young men, seem to be rejecting the nonsensical drivel peddled by the social justice warriors in large numbers. They live in the real world and the prospect of being sent to fight globalist wars abroad by incompetent politicians has motivated them to see the world as it is not as social justice warriors delude themselves into wishing it was. As others have argued, there are no atheists in a fox hole, similarly, those being called to fight personally are not as inclined to go along with a DEI hire as commander in chief or support leaders, including university faculty, who spout such nonsense. With a new president in the White House committed to draining the swamp, it may also be time to drain the academic swamp of its social justice delusions. Perhaps it is time for massive federal defunding of academic programs and research from universities that fail to demonstrate ideological balance and engage in systemic race/gender based discrimination under the guise of DEI. Academics can complain about "government" interference in academic decisions...but have only themselves to blame for turning their institutions into superfund sites of anti-intellectual activity. Like all such toxic environments, a clean up from outside is often required over the objections of those who made the mess.
Personnel is policy in political institutions like universities, so there will need to be major changes.
Agreed. Personally, I think the entire faculty and staff should be dismissed in all academic institutions and we should require all faculty to reapply for their positions with the clear requirement that political parity be the outcome even if that means half of liberal academics have to find new careers to make room for "diversity".
Oh yes. And it will be very disruptive and painful. But, it is necessary.
Bravo for this excellent summary! Having grown up in the USSR, I have seen enough socialist party stickers (hammer, sickle, and Lenin all there) plastered around Penn campus to know that faculty like Amy Wax would not be tolerated as a minority for her diversity of opinion (the type of diversity that should be celebrated on campus).
Hopefully, a 1968 Wharton graduate can make some welcome changes, including rearranging the letters in the DEI acronym so it no longer hinders the pursuit of truth!
Thank you, Geoff and Heterodox STEM, for publishing this piece. While the Heterodox Academy is focused on higher education, I can tell that from my position within public K-12 education, that feeds many an incoming student to higher education, Social Justice Faith seems firmly embedded into both the public system, as well as in the unions of many of the instructional staff that work in them.
UPenn has behaved disgracefully, like Soviet commissars.
Good piece,
Our governments have been instrumental in installing woke ideology and procedures in universities and throughout societal institutions. President Biden in the U.S. and Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada mandated woke prejudice and discrimination in universities, both claiming that their societies were bigoted and guilty of oppression (and, in the exemplary case of Canada, of genocide!). Our funding agencies, critical for supporting research, have all adopted "social justice" as their primary criterion. I was fortunately to spend most of my working life in an Enlightenment university dedicated to the search for truth through evidence and argument. I was happy to escape as my university abandoned its heritage in favour of "social justice," identity politics, segregation, and hate and exclusion of "evil oppressors," i..e. whites, males, and Jews. My own department has become Palestinianized and is dedicated to crushing "colonial settlers" at home (i.e. the vast majority of Canadians) and abroad (above all: Israel). Our universities desperately need a housecleaning. Trump seemed inclined to make an effort in that direction. I enthusiastically voted for him.
Dear Geoff,
You captured perfectly what is going on in today's universities, including mine--Cornell. However, I am hopeful that with the "retirement" of Martha Pollack, the social justice president, and with the appointment of Mike Kotlikoff, Cornell may be on a hopeful path.
Thanks,
randy
I'm an 87-year-old retired university professor who is appalled and ashamed at what DEI has done to higher education in America.
For years, I have maintained a very unpopular stance that members of various under-represented groups should not be coddled and advanced under quota systems. I do not think they are inherently less capable than the members of the over-represented groups. I know of too many counter-examples of high-performing minorities and women in STEM.
I think the answer is not to artificially push members of under-represented, under-performing groups into positions they are not prepared for, but to prepare them better. And I think they will rise to the challenges, as they have historically.
I am personally a member of an under-represented minority. I did not know I was until I received DNA test results. Since I had no idea that I was "supposed" to under-perform, instead I over-performed. And I was and remain plenty competitive with members of all groups. I am positive I am not the only one who can do this.
We only have to put our energies into "solutions" for disparate representations that actually work, and are not just window-dressing. This has the added benefit of reducing the waste of scarce human talent. Our current systems in STEM R&D are fraught with far too much waste and inefficiency.
And our STEM fields, and all of humanity, suffer for it.
Although I didn’t vote for him maybe the election of Trump signals a nearing end to the practice of discriminating against whites, Asians and men in a vain effort to counter past discrimination against others and undermining our economy by abandoning merit selection of students and employees.
I hope she sues them and wins a large award.
Thank you. We are indeed engaged in two types of wars: 1. religion vs objective truth. This is a war of religious ideology vs science, not a war of one faith vs another (1), and 2. Religion vs religion (both pursuing the vision of free expression and pretend-Academic Freedom): DEI/Woke vs the anti-Woke (including FIRE, Heterodox Academy). Please let’s not pretend that our religion advocates for scientific methodology and scholarly discourse in academia. FIRE and Heterodox do support the right to spread disinformation on campus no matter how much it hurts as long as one does not violate the law. FIRE explicitly supports the expression of antisemitism on campus.(2,3)
Yes, thank you to scientists who do practice science. But we do need an academic organization that advocates for evidence based scholarly discourse on campus. To advance objective truth, FIRE and Heterodox Academy should change their agenda and fight for restoring scholarly discourse on campus, not for enforcing the first amendment in the classroom where 2 + 2 = 5 requires proof.
1. https://journalofcontroversialideas.org/download/article/3/1/236/pdf
2. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pXVGi3uEM7n5rVUvi3dD_NXBw4FEixnj3HINhGirGfE/edit?pli=1&tab=t.0
3. https://hxstem.substack.com/p/appeal-to-redefine-academic-freedom