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> This is just tautologically false. IDK what else to say about this particular quote. Re: the rest of your first paragraph, this seems like a huge double stand

> This is just tautologically false. IDK what else to say about this particular quote. Re: the rest of your first paragraph, this seems like a huge double standard. Would you be happy with MIT throwing out every climate skeptic and neo-luddite if only they wrote "advancement of science and technology" into their charter? Not really. Religion as in organized religion exists to promote a specific belief system. Science has a much different mission in it's search to describe the world accurately. A dissenting view there can potentially be the truthful path. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/the-key-to-science-and-life-is-being-wrong/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/the-key-to-s... If MIT threw out every scientist who opposed global warming, they'd be little better than a religious college. > This is why I put special emphasis on a private secular vs. private evangelical comparison. It's fair to both sides. I'm not sure why MIT has any special obligation to allow free speech that isn't shared by Wheaton. Care to explain? MIT has an obligation if it wants to present itself as a college that promotes education in general. Wheaton is there to teach people about a Christ filled life. MIT makes it clear they value innovation and groundbreaking ideas and discoveries. There no way to do that effectively without considering as many points as possible. > Look, secular universities just don't discriminate on the basis of political belief. Outside of a few very niche, very tiny, very not-influential departments, this just doesn't happen either explicitly or implicitly. When it comes to hiring new professors, teaching matters. Research matters. Personal political beliefs do not. https://medium.com/@freddiedeboer/theres-no-pro-campus-censorship-theory-for-me-to-debate-8c26d1b14cf8 https://medium.com/@freddiedeboer/theres-no-pro-campus-censo... https://medium.com/@freddiedeboer/conservatives-are-wrong-about-everything-except-predicting-their-own-place-in-the-culture-e5c036fdcdc5 https://medium.com/@freddiedeboer/conservatives-are-wrong-ab... Freddie has written a lot on this subject in general. In fact he's been routinely attacked and DDOSed for critiquing the liberal culture both on campus and in the institution. He's posted some really controversial stuff about how bad the research is in the liberal arts. It's also worth noting that he's hardly a conservative and is quite soundly a liberal. Money quote: "And while I think conservative students can mostly get by fine on the average campus, I really can’t imagine going through life as a conservative professor, particularly in the humanities and social sciences. Is that a problem? That depends on your point of view. But if it’s happening, shouldn’t we talk about the fact that it’s happening?" > "My personal experience -- and I think the evidence backs me on this -- is that liberal universities are far more welcoming to conservative viewpoints than the other way around." I don't know how to measure the merits of explusion/suspension vs. social ostracization. I also have known a fair amount of conservative people at Berkeley due to my efforts to outreach to other point of views in my student days. I don't think "welcoming" is the word that they would use when it comes to liberals and conservative viewpoints.

throwawayjava 9y ago
I don't buy your distinction between Wheaton and MIT. Free speech pre-dates the scientific method and exists independently of scientific inquiry. Also, at places like Wheaton and Hillsdale, politics are part-and-parcel with religion. Demanding religious belief, while allow a broad spectrum in which to express that belief, is one thing. But the divide between politics and religion at these places is tenuous at best. > I really can’t imagine going through life as a conservative professor... particularly in the humanities and social sciences In the sciences no one cares. Except Wheaton et al, who are afraid of the liberal atheist branches of mathematics or something...? Humanities and social sciences vary by field. IDK a lot about most of them them. But the one person I know from purdue -- where Freddie is from -- is in the humanities and very conservative (and doesn't hide it or anything). Maybe Freddie should've taken a leaf out of your book and talked to more people while at Purdue -- the unimaginable was right in front of him ;-) > I don't think "welcoming" is the word that they would use when it comes to liberals and conservative viewpoints. Sure, "more" is relative and being a minority always sucks. Still, MIT might make you feel alone. Hillsdale will just expel you.
- guildwriter 9y ago
  > I don't buy your distinction between Wheaton and MIT. Free speech pre-dates the scientific method and exists independently of scientific inquiry. You can publish your research that challenges the status quo so long as Free Speech is respected. Do you think it's a coincidence that Socrates challenged the physicists in Athens? (Granted that was one of the reasons they executed him) Or Aristotle? I can't think of better examples of early science and those came up under the first place we know of that did direct democracy. > Also, at places like Wheaton and Hillsdale, politics are part-and-parcel with religion. Demanding religious belief, while allow a broad spectrum in which to express that belief, is one thing. But the divide between politics and religion at these places is tenuous at best. Again. They're evangelical colleges. What do you really expect? > Humanities and social sciences vary by field. IDK a lot about most of them them. But the one person I know from purdue -- where Freddie is from -- is in the humanities and very conservative (and doesn't hide it or anything). Maybe Freddie should've taken a leaf out of your book and talked to more people while at Purdue -- the unimaginable was right in front of him ;-) Yes, one person is a preponderance of evidence. Not countless articles of students and professors being harassed and attacked for their conservative views in an environment that is supposed to be about higher truth. And some of those views that are becoming less and less conservative over time. "For years and years I have denied the idea that campus is a space that’s antagonistic to conservative students. I thought Michael Berube’s book What’s Liberal About the Liberal Arts? was the last word on the subject. I still reject a lot of the David Horowitz narrative. But as a member of the higher education community I just have to be real with you: the vibe on campus really has changed. I spent years teaching at a university in a conservative state recently and I was kind of shocked at how openly fellow instructors would complain about the politics of their students, how personal they go when condemning their students who espoused conventional Republican politics. I encounter professors all the time who think that it’s fine for a student to say “I’m With Her” in class but not for a student to say “Make America Great Again” — that’s hate speech, see — despite the fact that both are simply the recent campaign slogans of the two major political parties. Yet those profs recoil at the idea that they’re not accepting of conservative students. I hear people say that they won’t permit arguments against affirmative action in their classes — hate speech, again — despite the fact that depending on how the question is asked, a majority of Americans oppose race-based affirmative action in polling, including in some polls a majority of Hispanic Americans. The number of boilerplate conservative opinions that are taken to be too offensive to be voiced in the campus space just grows and grows, and yet progressive profs I know are so offended by the idea that they could be creating a hostile atmosphere, they won’t even discuss the subject in good faith." "The idea that we need any intellectual diversity at all invites immediate incredulous statements like, “you’re saying we should debate eugenics?!?,” as though the only positions that exist are the obviously correct and the obviously horrible. The idea that you’re supposed to read the publications of the antagonistic viewpoint has been dismissed as a relic. People call for conservative books to be pulled from library shelves; they insist that the plays of conservative David Mamet have no place in the contemporary theater;" > Sure, "more" is relative and being a minority always sucks. Still, MIT might make you feel alone. Hillsdale will just expel you. I don't think forced resignation and expulsion are much different.

throwawayjava 9y ago

I don't buy your distinction between Wheaton and MIT. Free speech pre-dates the scientific method and exists independently of scientific inquiry. Also, at places like Wheaton and Hillsdale, politics are part-and-parcel with religion. Demanding religious belief, while allow a broad spectrum in which to express that belief, is one thing. But the divide between politics and religion at these places is tenuous at best. > I really can’t imagine going through life as a conservative professor... particularly in the humanities and social sciences In the sciences no one cares. Except Wheaton et al, who are afraid of the liberal atheist branches of mathematics or something...? Humanities and social sciences vary by field. IDK a lot about most of them them. But the one person I know from purdue -- where Freddie is from -- is in the humanities and very conservative (and doesn't hide it or anything). Maybe Freddie should've taken a leaf out of your book and talked to more people while at Purdue -- the unimaginable was right in front of him ;-) > I don't think "welcoming" is the word that they would use when it comes to liberals and conservative viewpoints. Sure, "more" is relative and being a minority always sucks. Still, MIT might make you feel alone. Hillsdale will just expel you.

guildwriter 9y ago
> I don't buy your distinction between Wheaton and MIT. Free speech pre-dates the scientific method and exists independently of scientific inquiry. You can publish your research that challenges the status quo so long as Free Speech is respected. Do you think it's a coincidence that Socrates challenged the physicists in Athens? (Granted that was one of the reasons they executed him) Or Aristotle? I can't think of better examples of early science and those came up under the first place we know of that did direct democracy. > Also, at places like Wheaton and Hillsdale, politics are part-and-parcel with religion. Demanding religious belief, while allow a broad spectrum in which to express that belief, is one thing. But the divide between politics and religion at these places is tenuous at best. Again. They're evangelical colleges. What do you really expect? > Humanities and social sciences vary by field. IDK a lot about most of them them. But the one person I know from purdue -- where Freddie is from -- is in the humanities and very conservative (and doesn't hide it or anything). Maybe Freddie should've taken a leaf out of your book and talked to more people while at Purdue -- the unimaginable was right in front of him ;-) Yes, one person is a preponderance of evidence. Not countless articles of students and professors being harassed and attacked for their conservative views in an environment that is supposed to be about higher truth. And some of those views that are becoming less and less conservative over time. "For years and years I have denied the idea that campus is a space that’s antagonistic to conservative students. I thought Michael Berube’s book What’s Liberal About the Liberal Arts? was the last word on the subject. I still reject a lot of the David Horowitz narrative. But as a member of the higher education community I just have to be real with you: the vibe on campus really has changed. I spent years teaching at a university in a conservative state recently and I was kind of shocked at how openly fellow instructors would complain about the politics of their students, how personal they go when condemning their students who espoused conventional Republican politics. I encounter professors all the time who think that it’s fine for a student to say “I’m With Her” in class but not for a student to say “Make America Great Again” — that’s hate speech, see — despite the fact that both are simply the recent campaign slogans of the two major political parties. Yet those profs recoil at the idea that they’re not accepting of conservative students. I hear people say that they won’t permit arguments against affirmative action in their classes — hate speech, again — despite the fact that depending on how the question is asked, a majority of Americans oppose race-based affirmative action in polling, including in some polls a majority of Hispanic Americans. The number of boilerplate conservative opinions that are taken to be too offensive to be voiced in the campus space just grows and grows, and yet progressive profs I know are so offended by the idea that they could be creating a hostile atmosphere, they won’t even discuss the subject in good faith." "The idea that we need any intellectual diversity at all invites immediate incredulous statements like, “you’re saying we should debate eugenics?!?,” as though the only positions that exist are the obviously correct and the obviously horrible. The idea that you’re supposed to read the publications of the antagonistic viewpoint has been dismissed as a relic. People call for conservative books to be pulled from library shelves; they insist that the plays of conservative David Mamet have no place in the contemporary theater;" > Sure, "more" is relative and being a minority always sucks. Still, MIT might make you feel alone. Hillsdale will just expel you. I don't think forced resignation and expulsion are much different.