Eight McGill student societies have taken offense at the classical liberal views I have expressed in articles on matters of public interest. In a petition dated 30 November 2020, entitled “Open Letter Demanding the Overhaul of McGill’s Statement of Academic Freedom,” these students have demanded that the McGill Administration to revoke my Emeritus status, so that “Muslims and People of Colour [can] feel safe.” This request was nested in a more general plea to restrict academic freedom, presumably limiting it to opinions approved of by the students.The part of the petition that refers to me is as follows:“In the past year, several articles have been posted on public forums by Professor Philip Carl Salzman, a retired Professor Emeritus of the McGill Anthropology Department. In one recent example, Salzman goes on to write that “the Middle East is a place where doing harm and being cruel to others is regarded as a virtue and a duty.”Salzman goes on to condemn multiculturalism, immigration, gender parity, cultural equality, social justice, and the Black Lives Matter movement, along with dismissing the existence of rape culture and systemic racism.Despite their editorial nature, Salzman’s opinions are presented as though they are objective facts. Meanwhile, his affiliation with McGill lends him credibility that would not otherwise be afforded if not for his status as a Professor Emeritus of a respected institution such as McGill University. In providing such commentary while presenting himself as an affiliate of this University, Salzman’s recent publications in public fora demonstrate a lack of consideration for his responsibility as an academic.”Framing this as an issue of Professor Salzman’s academic freedom, rather than the right of Muslims and People of Colour have to feel safe, illustrates the ways in which McGill maintains structures that protect and legitimize racist and Islamophobic dialogues. Academic Freedom at McGill cannot be used to shield those who abuse their status and privilege as academics.
It appears to have eluded the students supporting this petition that a university is supposed to be a place where opinions, views, and theories are exchanged and critically assessed. I would welcome critiques of my articles through argument and evidence, and am prepared to defend my positions. But no attempt has been made by these students to challenge my articles with contrary arguments and contradictory evidence. Their view appears to be that diversity of opinion about important subjects is unacceptable. Faced with opinions that they dislike, they attack the messenger rather than the message. And they move swiftly from accusation to sentence, without bothering to pass through argument and evidence.
Two of the student societies that have signed this petition are anthropology student societies. These students appear to believe that they are at McGill not to learn anthropology, but to teach anthropology. Perhaps this is because anthropology, once a discipline fact- and evidence-based, has been overtaken by ideological moralism, and rather than seeking truth is now in the business of seeking and punishing ideological heretics. I rather doubt that the Holy Inquisition and Mao’s Cultural Revolution are fruitful models for an academic discipline.
The petition in its entirety is as follows:
OPEN LETTER DEMANDING THE OVERHAUL OF McGILL’S STATEMENT OF ACADEMIC FREEDOM
November 30, 2020
CW: Islamophobia, references to racism, sexism, xenophobia, sexual violence. We encourage you to prioritize your mental and emotional wellbeing as you choose how you want to engage with this statement.
To the McGill Community,
It is no secret that, like many other academic institutions, McGill University was built on a history of oppression, its existence made possible by profiting off of the labour of enslaved and marginalized peoples. This regrettable history not only tarnishes the University’s past but also continues to influence how the University operates today. Scholars have abused their right of free speech and academic freedom to defend acts of rhetorical violence against marginalized communities on campus, shielding racist, sexist, and transphobic speech behind the term “controversy.” … [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
Prof. Carl Philip Salzman is a member of the CIJR Academic Board.
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I’m a Professor from an Immigrant Family. Please Stop Telling Me That My University Is Racist
Theodore Pennington
Quillette, Nov. 29, 2020
On June 24th, the University of Calgary leadership team published its response to an open letter, dated June 9th, from hundreds of students, alumni, and faculty. The original letter had called on the university to make a series of anti-racist statements, and commit to a series of actions to address racism on campus. The specific statements and actions were helpfully catalogued in the open letter.
While the university president declined to give details on his plan of action, he declared in his June 24th response that “it is no longer adequate to simply not be racist, it is time to be anti-racist”; and that “systemic racism exists, and we allow it to live on when we fail to address it meaningfully and with urgency. There is systemic racism at UCalgary, and it is incumbent upon us to tackle this challenge with vigour and purpose.”
This is all very familiar. In recent months, we have seen countless organizations re-affirm their commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI), tout all the good work they have already done in these areas, while issuing a self-flagellating mea culpa in regard to how much more learning, listening, and understanding they still have to do. This cookie-cutter executive-speak has become predictable, almost as if it were written by the same small set of well-paid communications consultants. It is just the right mix of virtue signalling and self-abasement, offered in the hope that these organizations will be temporarily spared by the mob.
I’m from an immigrant family, and a proud faculty member at the University of Calgary, a large post-secondary institution in the province of Alberta. And I take issue with the university’s response. … [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
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Questioning the Diversity Delusion on Race-Obsessed Campuses
Richard L. Cravatts
Front Page Magazine, Dec. 2, 2020
When he wryly observed that “During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act,” Orwell may well have had academia in mind, where challenging prevailing ideology can have a calamitous effect on one’s reputation and career—something especially true of faculty.
In 1978, the significant Regents of the University of California v. Bakke case brought the term “diversity” into the lexicon of higher education Although the Court found that the medical school at the University of California at Davis had used an unconstitutional quota system in denying Alan Bakke admission, Justice Lewis Powell made his now-famous observation that, notwithstanding the inherent defect of such a quota system, universities could likely enhance the quality of their enrollments by striving to create a “diverse student body” engaging in “a robust exchange of ideas,” and that there was “a compelling state interest” in trying to achieve such a goal and in promoting the inclusion of historically underrepresented groups on campus.
Rather than helping students adapt to the real diversity of society outside the campus walls, however, the campaign to increase diversity has served to create balkanized campuses where victims of the moment segregate themselves into distinct and inward-looking racial and cultural groups—exactly the opposite intention of the university diversocrats and their bloated fiefdoms with which they promote this theology of victimization, racial justice, and inclusion.
Coupled with the exclusion of all but liberal thought is the darker side of diversity: as victim groups become aware of their supposed classification as ‘authentic’ victims, they are prone to contradict the stated goal of diversity by limiting real dialogue and interchange between opposing points of view. Thus, while diversity proponents adamantly defend free speech in order to promulgate their own world views, they frequently move to stifle the alternate opinions of those with different opinions—through calls for censorship, threats of censure, and arcane speech codes—and exempt themselves from having to live by the suppressive rules they create for others. … [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
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University Administrators/ Pandemic Power Grab
Neetu Arnold
National Association of Scholars, Nov. 30, 2020
Universities’ profligate spending habits have caught up with them after substantial losses in student enrollments due to COVID-19. As undergraduate enrollment fell by 4.4 percent and students had fewer “on-campus experiences,” universities desperately began laying off employees. Some even have plans to consolidate departments and entire campuses.
Those actions spell trouble for the future of the shared governance tradition on American campuses.
Shared governance allows faculty to participate in determining university priorities pertaining to administrative hires, education policies, and the budget. Faculty participation in university governance allows academic and educational interests to have a seat at the decision-making table. While shared governance has already been steadily weakened over the past several decades due to concerning trends such as adjunctification and administrative bloat, it could face its final crisis as universities consolidate and centralize power in response to the pandemic.
Similar to the power and money grab by large corporations from small businesses during COVID-19, centralized power in higher education makes it easier for ever-growing administrations to execute their own priorities—without faculty interference. This centralization and consolidation is happening at an unprecedented rate across all levels: employee, department, and institution.
Employee Level
Early estimates by the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that nearly 484,000, or a tenth of workers, left the higher education industry between February and September 2020.
A good starting assumption is that the majority of those cuts should be positions that are 1) not directly related to the institution’s mission, or 2) dependent upon on-campus operations. These cuts would reflect sensible responses to the economic pressure from COVID lockdowns.
Regarding on-campus workers, the University of Delaware, unsurprisingly, laid off 3.5 percent of its 3,570 full-time staff members, mostly on-campus staff related to facilities maintenance, construction project management, and conference services. The University of Texas at San Antonio laid off 243 staff members who worked mainly in the academic and business affairs departments. Long Island University laid off 59 staff members, which included secretaries, librarians, and financial aid counselors. … [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
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For Further Reference:
Analysis: Foreign Subversion Of American Universities: Raymond Ibrahim, World Israel News, Nov. 29, 2020 — A recent governmental report exposes the “purchased” influence foreign nations have on America’s most prestigious universities and, as a result, on what America’s current and upcoming generations of analysts and policymakers will think and believe.
PODCAST 120: Jodi Shaw on a Climate of Fear at Smith College, Following Unproven Racism Accusations: Quillette, Nov. 3, 2020 — A whistleblower at an elite Massachusetts women’s college talks to Jonathan Kay about how a single 2018 incident on campus unleashed public-shaming measures that targeted the school’s lowest paid workers—all in the name of social justice.
Cancel Culture and the Jewish Experience: Manfred Gerstenfeld, BESA, Aug. 9, 2020 — In recent years the term “cancel culture” has become more and accepted in public debate.
The Folly of the Intellectuals: How Common Sense Evades the Smartest of Us: Daniel Pipes, The Spectator, Aug. 14, 2020 — A sixteenth-century expression holds that “there’s no fool like an old fool.” But the emergence of totalitarian ideologies like fascism, communism, and Islamism around World War I means this saying needs be amended to “there’s no fool like an intellectual fool.”
