isn’t currently offering degrees,
Sounds like they’re not offering any. Perhaps a high-end Learning Annex?
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Still trying to get a grip on these supposed “forbidden courses.” What are these courses? Where have they been banned? By whom? For what reason?
Apparently some people don’t think it will be Holocaust Deniers or Flat Earthers, but if not them, then who? Climate change deniers? The academic objection to climate deniers is not political, it is academic. The science doesn’t hold up to critical scrutiny. Eugenicists? Again the academic objection is academic. The science doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Election Conspiracists? Again, doesn’t hold up to academic scrutiny. Academia is not a place where all ideas must be accepted and embraced, no matter how absurd or ridiculous. And so what happens at this university when other academics and/or students push back? Isn’t that, too, academic freedom?
Frankly, this sounds like the latest grift by the usual anti-“woke” martyrs. They want a place present their views without consequence, challenge, or criticism. But that’s not free speech.
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This describes the current situation in most of higher educational institutions regarding the support for only the liberal side of the debate/conversation. As referenced upthread many professors and even more students feel stifled about sharing their views if they’re not in line with the reigning liberal attitudes.
I think this school won’t teach “odd” subjects but rather they’ll offer the standard subjects/majors with the aim of encouraging discussion and debate from different points of view without the risk of being shouted/shut down or afraid of being penalized grade-wise.
For example, the MIT debacle with Professor Abbot. Student sensitivies once again shutdown a presentation by a professor widely recognized in his field.
I hope the school can achieve its goals because education should be about examining and critiquing ideas, theories and facts. Not being force fed one viewpoint.
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“They just want a place to present their views without consequence, challenge, or criticism. But that’s not free speech.”
If that’s what they’re up to here, I’m with you, @mtmind . But you surpise me: Can I take from this that you are a proponent of free speech and that your problem with this new university is that it won’t live up to your ideal thereof?
Such is life when one holds opinions with which many or most disagree. But challenge, consequence, and criticism are part of speech. Pushback against disagreeable ideas is a core component of academia.
Given their only offering thus far is something called “Forbidden Courses.” This seems unlikely. Also, the faculty they have announced thus far don’t seem to have been chosen for their academic acumen. Rather they seem to have been chosen because they are activists with strong partisan leanings.
First, contrary to the bombastic nonsense in the Kanelo “manifesto,” Abbot was not treated like a “thought criminal” or any other kind of criminal. He served no time, suffered no fine, is still a tenured professor, still has plenty of speaking engagements, and even has a new and lucrative side-hustle as a martyr. And, while he had the public lecture cancelled, he was still invited to give his scientific presentation to MIT students and faculty.
Second, Abbot was not disinvited because he privately “objected to aspects of affirmative action.” Abbot was disinvited after using his status as a professor to very publicly enter the fray, comparing efforts at diversity, equity, and inclusion to the genocide in Nazi Germany.
Free speech is double edged. You can say what you want, but not without critique and consequences, and it is well within the “academic freedom” of MIT to not want to sponsor a speech by someone who engages in such divisive, disrespectful, outrageous, and unproductive rhetoric, whether or not it is his main field of study. Keep in mind, this was a speaker series meant to create excitement in science and MIT and to help attract a more diverse pool of applicants. MIT would have been foolish to allow him to speak.
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And yet somehow they felt differently when they invited him to speak initially until the predictable freak out occurred and he was canceled.
We’ll just have to agree to disagree. Your posts continue to display excellent examples of why some people support the creation of this university.
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They invited him to speak for the 2020 school year, prior to the divisive editorial, but the talk was postponed because of Covid issues. After he penned his divisive editorial drawing the Nazi comparison, MIT disinvited him, and appropriately so. Had he penned the editorial prior, he would have never been invited in the first place. It’s like when a school accepts a student, then the student does something ridiculously stupid prior to enrolling, so the school pulls the acceptance.
As for your closing snide comment, thanks for keeping it above board.
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My observation about your posts was sincere. You may not be aware of it, but you post your opinions as if they are the only way to look at an issue.
This article about Dr. Abbot does a good job discussing the issues surrounding his invitation and subsequent disinvitation and how various people can hold differing views of both his situation as well as the introduction of politics into academia.
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I’m also intrigued by what will be in these “Forbidden Courses”, but they won’t be the essence of the instruction offered nor will they be devoted to the kooky subjects @mtmind envisions. The founders and sponsors of this university aren’t kooks but serious people who wouldn’t associate themselves with unserious subject matters. While this is not likely to be a university that pounces on unwary statements made in or out of class and metes out reprisals of the sort documented by FIRE, the profs will be expected to know their stuff. If they don’t, it will fail. It may fail in any event, for any number of reasons. What is telling to me is that the very idea of it is so offensive to so many.
I have to say something about the case of Dorian Abbot. He was originally pilloried by grad students at his own university (the University of Chicago) for statements critical of affirmative action in hiring made in his personal blog. The “consequences” that they favored - and I suspect @mtmind would have supported - consisted of imposing a plethora of restrictions and sanctions in his teaching, administrative and mentoring duties. They couldn’t get him fired, much as they would have liked to do that, because he had tenure. Ultimately that initiative failed and was not acted on by his Department because that sort of thing is not done at the U of C.
In the Newsweek piece, written afterwards, he said the following: “Ninety years ago Germany had the best universities in the world. Then an ideological regime obsessed with race came to power and drove many of the best scholars out, gutting the faculties and leading to sustained decay that German universities never fully recovered from. We should view this is a warning of the consequences of viewing group membership as more important than merit, and correct our course before it is too late.”
He was making a specific point about the effect of affirmative action. His historical analogy was in my opinion imprecise and overwrought, but is making such a point forbidden? If he had not brought in that analogy would the MIT objectors have been fine with his giving his talk? I hardly think so.
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I read the article, and others. MIT explained why they disinvited him, and the timing and reasoning are as I describe. Others can choose not to take MIT’s word for it, or question why they chose him in the first place (IMO it was a bad choice then too), but neither the timeline nor the stated reason are really at issue.
Also, politics has always been firmly ensconced in academia, especially at the institutions that most vociferously claim otherwise. One need only look at the C.V.'s of the early faculty choices for this institution to understand how they are intertwined.
One need look no further than their Who’s Who of Aggrieved Scholars to know exactly what to expect.
It is difficult to keep a straight face while being lectured on academic freedom by people like Bari Weiss, who urged Columbia to “hold Dean Anderson accountable for offering Ahmadinejad a podium” and complained bitterly about Barnard granting tenure to Nadia Abu El-Haj.
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Yep, and these are pretty much the same “serious people” who are on a crusade to ban anything in schools that might make some thin skinned white people feel bad.
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So, there will be limits on what forbidden topics may be discussed?
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Is this view shared by others familiar with this period in Germany’s history? Some have made analogous observations about the decline of Montreal relative to Toronto as a financial center. Per a 2015 Montreal Gazette article:
“Political tensions over language and the issue of Quebec sovereignty hurt private investment and drove some of the wealthiest and best educated people out of the province.”
I am sure other factors played a contributed role in both instances but I don’t think it is unreasonable for one to argue that race (or language/culture) based policies can have a significant impact. In any event, I believe it’s legitimate to debate whether, on balance, these policies are worthwhile.
@mtmind , you are fond of drive-by shootings (hint - it’s a metaphor), but of the twenty or so people associated with the new university how many can you name as being “the same ‘serious’ people who are on a crusade to ban anything that might make some thin skinned white people feel bad”? There are two elements to that accusation, in any event - the question of banning and the question of whether a CRT-inflected curriculum with its notions of “white fragility”, “white privilege”, and the race-based narrative of our history is an appropriate curriculum for school children. I doubt many or perhaps any of the assembled scholars support the banning part of it. Most of them probably dislike the practical way it is being implemented in the public schools, but they would hold that as a contestable theory some parts of it have explanatory power and other parts are tendentious and unjustified by evidence. In the new school as I conceive it any student or prof would be permitted to take any position on the debate about it either as an academic theory or in its application in the public schools. In this school there would be no fear of being shouted down or deprived of an occupation no matter where you stand on this or any other contestable matter. I know your position on this particular debate, but you must surely recognize that “keeping white people comfortable” is a cartoon version of the opposition. Or perhaps not: Is it even possible in your book to hold in good faith a different or more nuanced view than that? Steven Pinker (one of the academic supporters of the new school) condemns that sort of rhetorical tactic as a sin against rational argument - the depiction of the worst or most extreme possible instantiation of your opponent’s position as if it were the essence of it and thereby refusing to honestly consider it.
@splash1 , nothing should be forbidden to discuss. Much may be disagreed with.
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I agree. I don’t see why people on social media and some on this thread seem offended that this would even be attempted. No one is going to make your kid go there, and they aren’t taking public money to fund it, right? I don’t agree with all the people involved in this endeavor, but that’s kind of the point isn’t it? I am a fan of Jonathan Rauch. His latest book, The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth, is excellent. But I think that founding a new university is a huge lift, so I am skeptical this succeeds – but time will tell.
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I know it will only bother me if it does what Hillsdale did/does with their “survey” they sent out (and have done other years), pretending to be higher education and really ending up being an incredibly biased mouthpiece for one side totally skipping any educational foundation.
Otherwise, if they stick to truly being an area to discuss rational things based upon data and sound theories, I have no problem with them. The rest is just attracting their “fit.”
I looked up Patrick Henry to see how they were doing now. I had forgotten they were Christian, so it’s not a true comparison. Wiki says they have 383 students, so it seems they’re still out there. They were founded in 2000.
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If you really want to found a 4 year degree granting college, wouldn’t it make sense to merge with or take over some existing college that isn’t making it and then re-brand it? Then you wouldn’t be starting from ground zero with buildings and facilities. Of course many of those colleges are probably in less desirable locations. And probably donors want their names on buildings.
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Here’s the thread I started on the “survey” I received from Hillsdale:
And here’s a link to a similar, but not the same “survey” they sent out in 2019 (like provided by @kelsmom ):
https://lp.hillsdale.edu/2019-national-survey-on-socialism/
I wish I had taken photos of the one I received. It was eye-opening coming from what I thought was a legit college (conservative, but legit). I answered it writing in a little bit of my thoughts rather than checking boxes and sent it back, then thought about seeing if it might have been a scam.
We relatively often get surveys here (usually phone) from Franklin & Marshall and Monmouth. I expected similar (but written) when I saw Hillsdale. It’s no longer legit to me. Not when they send out that cwap and call it a survey putting their name on it.
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I honestly don’t care. There are quite a few schools out there that have a focus that doesn’t interest me. Some of them teach things with which I strongly disagree. I don’t see people flocking to these schools in numbers that will tip any societal scales. I don’t see this school attracting droves of students. Just another small ship in a big ocean.
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