{"id":3509,"date":"2021-11-14T21:05:51","date_gmt":"2021-11-14T21:05:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/?p=3509"},"modified":"2021-12-02T14:22:15","modified_gmt":"2021-12-02T14:22:15","slug":"political-correctness-in-academia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/2021\/11\/14\/political-correctness-in-academia\/","title":{"rendered":"Political Correctness in Academia"},"content":{"rendered":"\nAcademics &#8212;  just as policeman, soldiers, politicians &#8212; will do whatever it takes to keep their jobs.  If they stray, they get fired or are denied tenure, as illustrated below.  \n<p><\/p><p>\nI became aware of this censorship in academia by sheer accident in 1973. I was heading towards Key West in my VW camping bus, and on the way I stopped by the University of Florida where I came across a news item that a philosopher was in court fighting his firing.  I had forgotten his name, but I do remember that he was a Marxist who spoke his mind in an unvarnished fashion. I stayed to listen to the testimony of the president and others. But I did not stay to find out the outcome of these hearings.  But searching the internet, I have found out that the philosopher was Kenneth A. Megill, who appealed a denial of tenure by President Stephen C. O&#8217;Connell. I found the following court ruling: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.courtlistener.com\/opinion\/339072\/dr-kenneth-a-megill-v-board-of-regents-of-the-state-of-florida\">Dr. Kenneth A. MEGILL, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. BOARD OF REGENTS OF the STATE OF FLORIDA et al., Defendants-Appellees.<\/a>\n<\/p><p>\nI remember other such cases.  The one that sticks in my mind was the dismissal of Saul Kripke. At the time I heard of this, I was &#8212; let us say &#8212; bewildered: Saul Kripke???  Again, scouring the internet, I found this informative piece:  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1976\/09\/26\/archives\/rockefeller-university-hit-by-storm-over-tenure-storm-over-tenure.html\">Israel Shenker,  &#8220;Rockefeller University Hit by Storm Over Tenure,&#8221; Sept. 26, 1976.<\/a>  Reading the piece, I discover that a whole group of other eminent philosophers had to find employment elsewhere.\n<\/p><p>\nOther cases of professors being fired &#8212; the euphemism is non-reappointment &#8212; or denied tenure which come to mind, are that of Howard Zinn who was dismissed from Spelman College in 1963 for supporting student protests as an act of insubordination.\n<\/p><p>\n\nThe case of Norman Finkelstein was especially disconcerting to me, and I wrote a big analytical piece about it:  <a href=\"https:\/\/ditext.com\/chrucky\/finkelstein.html\">Norman Finkelstein, DePaul, and U.S. Academia: Reductio Ad Absurdum of Centralized Universities, July 23, 2007.<\/a>\n<\/p><p>\n There is a short clip of me here, identified as Philosophy Teacher, Wright College, Chicago, offering my two bits : \n<\/p><p> Professor Finkelstein&#8217;s DePaul Farwell, Sept. 5. 2007:\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1029\" height=\"627\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/m_j0exZJ1UY\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe>\n<\/p><p>\nBelow is a full-documentary about Norman Finkelstein:<\/p><p>\nAmerican Radical: The trials of Norman Finkelstein [2009]\n<\/p><p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9R4KV9wAnsU\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p><p>Ward Churchill, a tenured professor, was fired from  the University of Colorado in 2007 on alleged plagiarism charges but really for claiming in an article and a book that the 9\/11\/2001 attack against the World Trade Center was &#8212; to use Chalmers Johnson&#8217;s CIA word &#8212; a &#8220;blowback&#8221; for the U.S. policies in the Middle East. Churchill took the wrongfull dismissal case to a court, and won; but was not reinstated. The controversial article was <a href=\"https:\/\/ratical.org\/ratville\/CAH\/WC091201.html\">&#8220;Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens,&#8221;<\/a>, Sept. 12, 2001, and the book was <i>On the Justice of Roosting Chickens: Reflections on the Consequences of U.S. Imperial Arrogance and Criminality<\/i>,  2003.\n<\/p><p>\nBelow is Megyn Kelly&#8217;s commentary and interview with Ward Churchill in 2014. \n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/itXJx5KAN6c\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe>\n<\/p><p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/WODPGNCV24I\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe>\n\n<\/p><p>\nThere is also the case of David Graeber whose contract was not renewed at Yale. Below is a link to an interview with Graeber about this affair.<\/p><p>Joshua Frank, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2020\/09\/04\/david-graeber-is-gone-revisiting-his-wrongful-termination-from-yale\/\">\n&#8220;David Graeber is Gone: Revisiting His Wrongful Termination from Yale,&#8221;<\/a> <i>Counterpunch<\/i>, September 4, 2020.\n<\/p><p>\n\nThe whole issue of censorship in America has recently been put on film: \n<a href=\"https:\/\/tubitv.com\/movies\/584768\/no-safe-spaces?start=true&amp;utm_source=google-feed&amp;tracking=google-feed\">No Safe Spaces<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"258\" height=\"381\" src=\"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/No_Safe_Spaces_poster.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3520\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/No_Safe_Spaces_poster.jpg 258w, https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/No_Safe_Spaces_poster-203x300.jpg 203w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 258px) 85vw, 258px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Academics &#8212; just as policeman, soldiers, politicians &#8212; will do whatever it takes to keep their jobs. If they stray, they get fired or are denied tenure, as illustrated below. I became aware of this censorship in academia by sheer accident in 1973. I was heading towards Key West in my VW camping bus, and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/2021\/11\/14\/political-correctness-in-academia\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Political Correctness in Academia&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,54,38,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bullshit-institutions","category-academic-bullshit","category-censorship","category-political-bullshit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3509"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3571,"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3509\/revisions\/3571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}