There has to be a lawsuit here. The only way this shit stops, is a staggering award by a judge or jury against Princeton for lacking due process in the way he (or Sabatini at MIT) was treated.
There has to be a lawsuit here. The only way this shit stops, is a staggering award by a judge or jury against Princeton for lacking due process in the way he (or Sabatini at MIT) was treated.
I don't agree that a lawsuit is the only solution - or even an effective solution. Historically, there has been two overlapping periods in our nation's long intellectual history where the private elite institutions in the East Coast seemed irreparably broken - the ~1930-1960 period in which they enacted a complex system of admissions, recruitment and tenure policies designed for the sole purpose of limiting Jewish enrollment and faculty (similar to what's happening to East Asians today - but more extensive), and the 1950-1975 period in which virtually all of the Ivy League social science departments were dominated by far-leftists - around half of which self-identified as Marxist - and were beginning to purge every single liberal (i.e. believer in free market capitalism) in their departments.
These periods of insanity didn't end with lawsuits. They were solved by a much stronger concept: competition. Thousands of talented Jewish students who were shut out of Columbia simply went next door to NYU; those shut out of Harvard went next door to MIT (and to a lesser extent BC/BU/Tufts); and many also took less expensive options at public universities. The emergence of these alternative institutions took place in exactly the same period that the Ivy League was trying to maintain its rigid WASP culture. These students (mostly, not all Jewish) built up campus cultures and alumni networks that matched the best of the Ivy Leagues while being much more open-minded, pluralist and meritocratic - a fact that was widely known by the 1960s and threatened the Ivy League's very existence. By the 1970s all of the Ivy Leagues were forced to abolish their discriminatory policies against Jews and even took up the mantle of diversity to reach out to African-Americans and Hispanics (ironically, the same principle that has now been corrupted to create racial and political barriers today).
Competition played the same role in ending the far-left grasp on social science departments. From the 1950s to 1975 or so, talented young social-science PhDs who didnтАЩt have a portrait of Lenin in their bedrooms were self-exiled to regional universities in the Mid-west, South and West of the country where they set up spaces for rigorous intellectual inquiry. UChicagoтАЩs economics department, barely considered top 20 in 1950, quickly rose to became the undisputed best department and graduate program in economics by 1980 (with MIT a close second, benefitting in some measure from the Jewish exodus from Harvard as well). Minnesota, Rochester, Wisconsin-Madison, Carnegie-Mellon, Caltech, UCLA all went from second-rate departments to producers of Nobel prizes within a few decades, maintaining amongst them their own economic journals and conferences which threatened to surpass the economic orthodoxy. Over a 25 year period 1975-2000, only one Princeton-affiliated economist received a Nobel prize, the brilliant theorist John Nash; for Yale and Harvard that figure was zero. In the UK, a similar story occurred with the LSE quickly surpassing Oxford/Cambridge in prestige. By the time of the 1980s, the rigorous methodological and intellectual changes in economics had spilled over to the neighboring fields of sociology and political science, upending a largely qualitative and Marxian establishment in those fields as well. Perhaps most consequentially, the new wave of rigorous social science researchers тАУ generally called behaviorists тАУ also took a leading role in setting up graduate schools of business (a hitherto unknown concept) that became another source of competition to traditional social science departments тАУ producing research publications that encompassed almost all traditional fields of social science, with the qualifier that the same faculty must regularly teach business students and thus be *forced* to reconcile some of their research with actually-existing society, and in this clever way gradually clearing out the navel-gazing rotten core of social science hierarchy. By the 1980s, most of the тАЬsaltwaterтАЭ economics departments had surrendered and hiring extensively from places like UChicago, Minnesota and Rochester; and by the 2000s graduate students in sociology and political science were taking classes on statistics and social inquiry rather than the latest batch of post-structuralist theory from Paris and Frankfurt.
These efforts worked because they provided a clearly-better *alternative* than the corrupted core of elite institutions. In both cases, economic self-interest played a key role. Large companies that were hiring out of NYU, rather than Columbia, forced Columbia to internally reform. Private-sector R&D divisions that were increasingly collaborating with MIT STEM faculty тАУ and injecting a massive amount of funding to their research тАУ forced the Harvard faculty to examine why theyтАЩre missing out on a slice of the pie. Similarly, social science faculty at places like Chicago and Rochester took care to establish small, rigorous programs of study where they maintained open spaces and seminars, freely mixing with their graduate students, and ensuring that they all become good teachers on their own - and itтАЩs this tremendous human capital investment that eventually convinced aspiring young academics to abandon the Ivy League social science departments where a disproportionate amount of PhD graduates failed to maintain academic careers.
You need to produce something of value to dislodge a failing monopoly. Lawsuits donтАЩt do that. The threat of legal compensation simply forces their activities into more subtle mechanisms. Instead of outright firing a centrist/center-right tenured faculty member, they can, for instance, dramatically expand the scope of their inquiry during the recruitment and tenure process, forcing any tenured hires to agree to terms of agreement that filtered out anyone with non-PC beliefs (without being explicitly discriminatory), and thus ensuring anyone who reaches tenure stage would carefully toe the party line. On the opposing end, if legal payouts are normalized, a disgruntled tenured faculty member who wants to retire might *intentionally* provoke the university establishments into firing him by stepping out of line - getting well compensated in the process, and doing nothing to help repair the broken state of affairs in elite institutions. Economic incentives need to be aligned towards the actual supply of good research and good teaching under a free environment - not for protesting the lack of it in rotten institutions.
Brilliant piece of background there, for those of us who don't know the history. As I was reading, I was tempted to object that the long process of professors fleeing to greener pastures does nothing in the short term to compensate for the economic damage and career precarity caused by the pogroms. But then I got to the end and agreed with your assessment that once lawsuits are a proven remedy for being blacklisted, the mediocracy will take advantage, perhaps draining the academic endowment. Although that in itself might be a warning to other institutions not to go overboard with political persecution. I guess it's hard to know without comparing real world experiments. Also curious about something else: How are U Chicago and the LSE both mavericks in econ, when they have competing philosophies of economic theory? Or am I wrong about that? Econ and social science strike me as the emperor's clothes. Imagine the pedigree you need to get hired as a Federal Reserve official. And yet these people keep tripping over their shoelaces from one administration to the next. If the job of the Fed is to achieve both full employment and economic growth, that is an impossible task. The only societies with full employment also have gulags in which the unemployable simply disappear. If the job of the Fed is just to print money by political fiat, pickpocketing the electorate rather than allowing them to see the true cost of dubious decisions, then I'd say they're performing admirably. But of course you don't need a phi beta kappa key to do that job; just some perfumed bullshit.
Also the Dept of Education and expanded student loan program happened in 1979. Both of those factors have shielded the Universities from normal market pressures, and in fact, have created a strong, reliable source of liberal indoctrination, which the DNC will fight viciously to protect.
Sy, I don't believe that your prediction that the 'market corrects' will hold in this case.
I like your thought process on this. But even by using it we have had 30 years or so since 1930 when they were not off-track. It seems to me to be a recurring pattern of failure.
My concern is that the infrastructure of our permanent government, media and academia have been so thoroughly corrupted by wokeness that competition alone will never solve the problems in academia, unless a movement to create more 2 year specialty degrees to support STEM careers starts to make the traditional 4 year degree obsolete. Also, way too many HR departments build Masters degrees into job requirements to make interviewing easier, but I don't see an end result in that either.
Also, I'm wondering why every state in the union hasn't moved to create a Hilldale or UAustin as an alternative to the bloated indoctrination alternatives.
I'm sorry, I just don't think waiting for an organic solution is the answer, and let me say, I hate litigation as a solution for anything, but it's the only answer I can see. It does, if nothing else, highlight that a court finds these practices illegal, and shines light on the problem.
Finally, your post was excellent, even though I may disagree with some aspects of it.
I agree. Wokeness has become too all-pervasive, and it is led by people who will stop at nothing. I fear that accreditation boards will make competition impossible by refusing to allow non-Woke schools to operate.
Well thatтАЩs my point on litigation something has to shake this system the non woke kids/people/professors wonтАЩt be able to work in the real world amidst all the pandemic havoc now they are still cancelling 5 star profs daily creating BDS groups on their campus
While I agree completely that, over time, competition is the only way to solve the problem of the Ivies . . . lawsuits are necessary for the personal harm caused to specific professors caught in the dragnet of Rightthink. I believe both are needed--lawsuits for personal damages, competition for structural. Neither, alone, will cover the other's need.
The only way this shit stops is a class action against all the woke universities Joshua and David have nothing to lose they are only 2 of the profs that Bari has put on there are many more and watching Jonny Depps trial against Amber Heard I think the white male is fighting back and could be winning and like JoshuaтАЩs wife there are people who are standing with them and itтАЩs definitely growing we all need to stand up for them!!!
Jon, absolutely right. I think Katz is going after the lawyers conducting the school's investigation for the cause you cite: lack of due process. But I would like to see him go after the student with whom he had an affair with for defamation of character. He may not win - but people who slander others with no concrete proof of anything have to know they will have to do it the hard way and defend themselves in a court of law. Perhaps then we'll see less of these public witch hunts we've been witnessing.
Here's hoping but I wonder why the alumni are not speaking out, or more importantly, withholding financial support. At the end of the day, money is the only thing cowardly administrators respond to.
Wealthy alumni (the donors who might be listened to) don't speak out because they went to Princeton in order to become wealthy members of the elite, and they're terrified of losing their status.
While it's true they're behaving cowardly, most of us are cowards when to taking large risks against significantly more powerful and vengeful enemies, and rightly so.
Brian the average American doesnтАЩt want to behave like a coward we arenтАЩt cowards we have endured 2 years of sheer madness in the name of these lockdowns and survived the elite control us at the moment they tell us what we can read tell us what we can say ruin peoples lives when they feel threaten by someone who fights back or stands up they are the government so if a lot of us stand up and cause disruptions without burning and breaking itтАЩs called civil disobedience the month of July cancel you Netflix subs the month August cancel Disney trips September cancel cable the media are the enemy of the people anyway their misinformation and brainwashing beggars belief donтАЩt buy on line for October buy local shop at your mall nobody will starve remember we can always go back to Disney we can always reinstate Netflix etc we fighting for the heart and soul of America we have 21/2 years till 2024 we can do real damage by just standing up and being an American this is who we are!
Michelle, you're actually making my point for me. Cancelling your Netflix subscription? Forgoing Disneyland? Don't shop at WalMart in October?
These are not courageous things. If you believe woke capitalism is a threat, should you do them? Absolutely! But they entail no risk and only minor inconvenience.
When I say most of us are cowards, don't take it the wrong way. Most humans, in all times and places, have been cowards. We celebrate the martyrs and the saints precisely because we know most of us wouldn't do what they did; we know we would cave. Common Sense exists because 1 woman was willing to stand up and take a huge professional risk. Bari is NOT a coward. But based on my actions (or lack thereof) so far in this war, I am.
All of my actions have been, not performative, but largely risk free. We homeschool our kids in order to keep the insanity away from them, but, like opting out of Disney and NetFlix, that's just opting out of public schools. I haven't gone to a school board that my wife teaches in and spoken up about critical race theory infecting our local schools. The reason I haven't is because it would be extremely dangerous for her professionally and therefore for our family. That's what I mean by cowardice.
They all cowards God knows why they wonтАЩt stand up and I think money and those large endowments play a very big part the woke community is on a roll at the moment not sure how long they can sustain it but I think when it goes down it will go down big!!!
Seriously, why do alumni not speak out about this? I emphasized my Michigan degree on my resume back in the day, and was proud to have attended, but now I'm embarrassed at their role in destroying our country.
So true Kathryn. And the antisemitism demonstrated by UMich students this past year, and upheld by UM faculty and Administrators, was abhorrent. My father is a UM Law graduate, and heтАЩs grateful for the education and opportunities it afforded him. Nonetheless, has been appalled by much of what heтАЩs seen there, and at UM, for many years now.
Word has it that the moral narcissists are now gunning for outspoken Ivy League alums via their alum groups. The pathology doesn't end in the Ivory Tower. It's coming for us all.
There has to be a lawsuit here. The only way this shit stops, is a staggering award by a judge or jury against Princeton for lacking due process in the way he (or Sabatini at MIT) was treated.
I don't agree that a lawsuit is the only solution - or even an effective solution. Historically, there has been two overlapping periods in our nation's long intellectual history where the private elite institutions in the East Coast seemed irreparably broken - the ~1930-1960 period in which they enacted a complex system of admissions, recruitment and tenure policies designed for the sole purpose of limiting Jewish enrollment and faculty (similar to what's happening to East Asians today - but more extensive), and the 1950-1975 period in which virtually all of the Ivy League social science departments were dominated by far-leftists - around half of which self-identified as Marxist - and were beginning to purge every single liberal (i.e. believer in free market capitalism) in their departments.
These periods of insanity didn't end with lawsuits. They were solved by a much stronger concept: competition. Thousands of talented Jewish students who were shut out of Columbia simply went next door to NYU; those shut out of Harvard went next door to MIT (and to a lesser extent BC/BU/Tufts); and many also took less expensive options at public universities. The emergence of these alternative institutions took place in exactly the same period that the Ivy League was trying to maintain its rigid WASP culture. These students (mostly, not all Jewish) built up campus cultures and alumni networks that matched the best of the Ivy Leagues while being much more open-minded, pluralist and meritocratic - a fact that was widely known by the 1960s and threatened the Ivy League's very existence. By the 1970s all of the Ivy Leagues were forced to abolish their discriminatory policies against Jews and even took up the mantle of diversity to reach out to African-Americans and Hispanics (ironically, the same principle that has now been corrupted to create racial and political barriers today).
Competition played the same role in ending the far-left grasp on social science departments. From the 1950s to 1975 or so, talented young social-science PhDs who didnтАЩt have a portrait of Lenin in their bedrooms were self-exiled to regional universities in the Mid-west, South and West of the country where they set up spaces for rigorous intellectual inquiry. UChicagoтАЩs economics department, barely considered top 20 in 1950, quickly rose to became the undisputed best department and graduate program in economics by 1980 (with MIT a close second, benefitting in some measure from the Jewish exodus from Harvard as well). Minnesota, Rochester, Wisconsin-Madison, Carnegie-Mellon, Caltech, UCLA all went from second-rate departments to producers of Nobel prizes within a few decades, maintaining amongst them their own economic journals and conferences which threatened to surpass the economic orthodoxy. Over a 25 year period 1975-2000, only one Princeton-affiliated economist received a Nobel prize, the brilliant theorist John Nash; for Yale and Harvard that figure was zero. In the UK, a similar story occurred with the LSE quickly surpassing Oxford/Cambridge in prestige. By the time of the 1980s, the rigorous methodological and intellectual changes in economics had spilled over to the neighboring fields of sociology and political science, upending a largely qualitative and Marxian establishment in those fields as well. Perhaps most consequentially, the new wave of rigorous social science researchers тАУ generally called behaviorists тАУ also took a leading role in setting up graduate schools of business (a hitherto unknown concept) that became another source of competition to traditional social science departments тАУ producing research publications that encompassed almost all traditional fields of social science, with the qualifier that the same faculty must regularly teach business students and thus be *forced* to reconcile some of their research with actually-existing society, and in this clever way gradually clearing out the navel-gazing rotten core of social science hierarchy. By the 1980s, most of the тАЬsaltwaterтАЭ economics departments had surrendered and hiring extensively from places like UChicago, Minnesota and Rochester; and by the 2000s graduate students in sociology and political science were taking classes on statistics and social inquiry rather than the latest batch of post-structuralist theory from Paris and Frankfurt.
These efforts worked because they provided a clearly-better *alternative* than the corrupted core of elite institutions. In both cases, economic self-interest played a key role. Large companies that were hiring out of NYU, rather than Columbia, forced Columbia to internally reform. Private-sector R&D divisions that were increasingly collaborating with MIT STEM faculty тАУ and injecting a massive amount of funding to their research тАУ forced the Harvard faculty to examine why theyтАЩre missing out on a slice of the pie. Similarly, social science faculty at places like Chicago and Rochester took care to establish small, rigorous programs of study where they maintained open spaces and seminars, freely mixing with their graduate students, and ensuring that they all become good teachers on their own - and itтАЩs this tremendous human capital investment that eventually convinced aspiring young academics to abandon the Ivy League social science departments where a disproportionate amount of PhD graduates failed to maintain academic careers.
You need to produce something of value to dislodge a failing monopoly. Lawsuits donтАЩt do that. The threat of legal compensation simply forces their activities into more subtle mechanisms. Instead of outright firing a centrist/center-right tenured faculty member, they can, for instance, dramatically expand the scope of their inquiry during the recruitment and tenure process, forcing any tenured hires to agree to terms of agreement that filtered out anyone with non-PC beliefs (without being explicitly discriminatory), and thus ensuring anyone who reaches tenure stage would carefully toe the party line. On the opposing end, if legal payouts are normalized, a disgruntled tenured faculty member who wants to retire might *intentionally* provoke the university establishments into firing him by stepping out of line - getting well compensated in the process, and doing nothing to help repair the broken state of affairs in elite institutions. Economic incentives need to be aligned towards the actual supply of good research and good teaching under a free environment - not for protesting the lack of it in rotten institutions.
Brilliant piece of background there, for those of us who don't know the history. As I was reading, I was tempted to object that the long process of professors fleeing to greener pastures does nothing in the short term to compensate for the economic damage and career precarity caused by the pogroms. But then I got to the end and agreed with your assessment that once lawsuits are a proven remedy for being blacklisted, the mediocracy will take advantage, perhaps draining the academic endowment. Although that in itself might be a warning to other institutions not to go overboard with political persecution. I guess it's hard to know without comparing real world experiments. Also curious about something else: How are U Chicago and the LSE both mavericks in econ, when they have competing philosophies of economic theory? Or am I wrong about that? Econ and social science strike me as the emperor's clothes. Imagine the pedigree you need to get hired as a Federal Reserve official. And yet these people keep tripping over their shoelaces from one administration to the next. If the job of the Fed is to achieve both full employment and economic growth, that is an impossible task. The only societies with full employment also have gulags in which the unemployable simply disappear. If the job of the Fed is just to print money by political fiat, pickpocketing the electorate rather than allowing them to see the true cost of dubious decisions, then I'd say they're performing admirably. But of course you don't need a phi beta kappa key to do that job; just some perfumed bullshit.
Also the Dept of Education and expanded student loan program happened in 1979. Both of those factors have shielded the Universities from normal market pressures, and in fact, have created a strong, reliable source of liberal indoctrination, which the DNC will fight viciously to protect.
Sy, I don't believe that your prediction that the 'market corrects' will hold in this case.
I like your thought process on this. But even by using it we have had 30 years or so since 1930 when they were not off-track. It seems to me to be a recurring pattern of failure.
Thank you Sy well written and well research comment!
My concern is that the infrastructure of our permanent government, media and academia have been so thoroughly corrupted by wokeness that competition alone will never solve the problems in academia, unless a movement to create more 2 year specialty degrees to support STEM careers starts to make the traditional 4 year degree obsolete. Also, way too many HR departments build Masters degrees into job requirements to make interviewing easier, but I don't see an end result in that either.
Also, I'm wondering why every state in the union hasn't moved to create a Hilldale or UAustin as an alternative to the bloated indoctrination alternatives.
I'm sorry, I just don't think waiting for an organic solution is the answer, and let me say, I hate litigation as a solution for anything, but it's the only answer I can see. It does, if nothing else, highlight that a court finds these practices illegal, and shines light on the problem.
Finally, your post was excellent, even though I may disagree with some aspects of it.
See: Hillsdale. No conservative person or institution is allowed to exist unsullied.
I agree. Wokeness has become too all-pervasive, and it is led by people who will stop at nothing. I fear that accreditation boards will make competition impossible by refusing to allow non-Woke schools to operate.
Well thatтАЩs my point on litigation something has to shake this system the non woke kids/people/professors wonтАЩt be able to work in the real world amidst all the pandemic havoc now they are still cancelling 5 star profs daily creating BDS groups on their campus
While I agree completely that, over time, competition is the only way to solve the problem of the Ivies . . . lawsuits are necessary for the personal harm caused to specific professors caught in the dragnet of Rightthink. I believe both are needed--lawsuits for personal damages, competition for structural. Neither, alone, will cover the other's need.
Yes. Also lawsuits disclose inside communications by the defendant institution. Emails, texts, etc. often very revealing and helpful.
That Sabatini debacle is awful!
The only way this shit stops is a class action against all the woke universities Joshua and David have nothing to lose they are only 2 of the profs that Bari has put on there are many more and watching Jonny Depps trial against Amber Heard I think the white male is fighting back and could be winning and like JoshuaтАЩs wife there are people who are standing with them and itтАЩs definitely growing we all need to stand up for them!!!
Jon, absolutely right. I think Katz is going after the lawyers conducting the school's investigation for the cause you cite: lack of due process. But I would like to see him go after the student with whom he had an affair with for defamation of character. He may not win - but people who slander others with no concrete proof of anything have to know they will have to do it the hard way and defend themselves in a court of law. Perhaps then we'll see less of these public witch hunts we've been witnessing.
"There has to be a lawsuit here".
Here's hoping but I wonder why the alumni are not speaking out, or more importantly, withholding financial support. At the end of the day, money is the only thing cowardly administrators respond to.
Wealthy alumni (the donors who might be listened to) don't speak out because they went to Princeton in order to become wealthy members of the elite, and they're terrified of losing their status.
While it's true they're behaving cowardly, most of us are cowards when to taking large risks against significantly more powerful and vengeful enemies, and rightly so.
Brian the average American doesnтАЩt want to behave like a coward we arenтАЩt cowards we have endured 2 years of sheer madness in the name of these lockdowns and survived the elite control us at the moment they tell us what we can read tell us what we can say ruin peoples lives when they feel threaten by someone who fights back or stands up they are the government so if a lot of us stand up and cause disruptions without burning and breaking itтАЩs called civil disobedience the month of July cancel you Netflix subs the month August cancel Disney trips September cancel cable the media are the enemy of the people anyway their misinformation and brainwashing beggars belief donтАЩt buy on line for October buy local shop at your mall nobody will starve remember we can always go back to Disney we can always reinstate Netflix etc we fighting for the heart and soul of America we have 21/2 years till 2024 we can do real damage by just standing up and being an American this is who we are!
Michelle, you're actually making my point for me. Cancelling your Netflix subscription? Forgoing Disneyland? Don't shop at WalMart in October?
These are not courageous things. If you believe woke capitalism is a threat, should you do them? Absolutely! But they entail no risk and only minor inconvenience.
When I say most of us are cowards, don't take it the wrong way. Most humans, in all times and places, have been cowards. We celebrate the martyrs and the saints precisely because we know most of us wouldn't do what they did; we know we would cave. Common Sense exists because 1 woman was willing to stand up and take a huge professional risk. Bari is NOT a coward. But based on my actions (or lack thereof) so far in this war, I am.
All of my actions have been, not performative, but largely risk free. We homeschool our kids in order to keep the insanity away from them, but, like opting out of Disney and NetFlix, that's just opting out of public schools. I haven't gone to a school board that my wife teaches in and spoken up about critical race theory infecting our local schools. The reason I haven't is because it would be extremely dangerous for her professionally and therefore for our family. That's what I mean by cowardice.
I have my B.A. from Oberlin and Ph.D. from Michigan (analytical chemistry) and do not donate to them, but rather to colleges that focus on learning.
And to my high school
And the new University of Austin (UATX)
Hillsdale and Ralston
They all cowards God knows why they wonтАЩt stand up and I think money and those large endowments play a very big part the woke community is on a roll at the moment not sure how long they can sustain it but I think when it goes down it will go down big!!!
I hope so.
They are. Princeton has plenty of money, so they can let this blow over. But if the alumni stop volunteering, that's a bit of a different story.
Seriously, why do alumni not speak out about this? I emphasized my Michigan degree on my resume back in the day, and was proud to have attended, but now I'm embarrassed at their role in destroying our country.
So true Kathryn. And the antisemitism demonstrated by UMich students this past year, and upheld by UM faculty and Administrators, was abhorrent. My father is a UM Law graduate, and heтАЩs grateful for the education and opportunities it afforded him. Nonetheless, has been appalled by much of what heтАЩs seen there, and at UM, for many years now.
Word has it that the moral narcissists are now gunning for outspoken Ivy League alums via their alum groups. The pathology doesn't end in the Ivory Tower. It's coming for us all.
That may be where they make their fatal error. Actual wage earning citizens won't be cowed like tenured faculty, and could turn on them.
I think he did file defamation suits, but am not positive. I truly hope he winds up owning the place.
Yeah. If money is a problem.. Well, there are plenty-a avenues to get donations these days.
Bust em NOW!!!