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I am not sure how I am supposed to get your identity from you providing a few published examples. The UNC Chapel Hill case is a bad example as Nikole Hannah-Jo

I am not sure how I am supposed to get your identity from you providing a few published examples. The UNC Chapel Hill case is a bad example as Nikole Hannah-Jones engaged in divisive political activism in her role instead of academic rigor and is the brains behind major indoctrination efforts such as the 1619 project. Someone like her that teach students what to think instead of how should not get tenure, and does not meet the academic rigor to teach. Calls for academic freedom has been used to subvert university resources from academic pursuits to political activism. This was never the intention behind protections of academic freedom and is a corruption of the academic pursuit.

UncleMeat 5y ago
So much for free speech then. Clearly some kinds are good and some are "divisive political activism" that don't deserve any kind of protection.
klyrs 5y ago
Is discussion of Critical Race Theory an exercise of free speech?
- fallingknife 5y ago
  Teachers are employees, and freedom of speech has never been recognized in that context. For example, it would be kind of ridiculous if a science teacher was allowed to teach students flat earth theory because of freedom of speech. Outside of the classroom, which was the subject of the comment above, obviously it would be covered by the 1st amendment.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    > Teachers are employees, and freedom of speech has never been recognized in that context. In college, it certainly has and is recognized. Tenure, in particular, is at least partly designed to protect professors' ability to research and speak, free of censorship or influence.
    - asabjorn 5y ago
      > In college, it certainly has and is recognized. Tenure, in particular, is at least partly designed to protect professors' ability to research and speak, free of censorship or influence. It is true that tenure is there to protect professors engaging in the liberal project on unpopular topics. However, many do not pass the bar to receive tenure. Nikole Hannah-Jones of the 1619 project is not engaging in the liberal project tenure seek to protect. I've said elsewhere in this thread that the goal the 1619 Project is not, and never was, to improve our historical understanding. Rather, its goal was always to perpetrate a critical historiography that muddles and besmirches it (i.e. problematize). This includes undermining trust in the liberal ideas of individualism and human universality, wherein people are judged by the contents of their character and recognized for their common humanity, and forwarding identity-group thinking that is more useful for (radical) identity politics. She is therefore in direct opposition to the liberal mission of the universities, and she does not deserve to receive tenure protection to continue subverting resources intended to further the university liberal mission to what is useful for (radical) identity politics. Protecting the universities liberal environment agains activists like her is a necessary precondition for continuing the liberal project.
      - wolverine876 5y ago
        As I said in response elsewhere, these claims really need some support or they are just bytes on the Internet.
        asabjorn 5y ago
        I guess I also have to repeat here as well then. The problem with the kind of critical theory dialectic Nicole Hannah-Jones use is how the claim of truth is made. I showed you how critical theory projects like the 1619 project makes a claim and deals with truthiness. I made it specific to this project and how it inherently makes unfalsifiable claims as it builds upon “lived experiences” of convenient political activist utility. I even showed you an example of how you overturn a claim in critical theory projects, with an example relevant to the 1619 project. This example makes it very clear how different this type of academic dialectic is from the liberal project. Universities are traditionally stewards of the liberal project, although unfortunately at this points it’s been corrupted to further the Hegelian religion of critical social justice.
- asabjorn 5y ago
  She is free to continue doing activism and even continue her indoctrination efforts, she just can't expect to subvert university resources under tenure to achieve her activist goals. Note however that she was still offered an untenured position. The importance of the point that her 1619 Project is not a serious attempt at historical understanding but a project within critical race Theory is beyond calculability. This is because the standard approach to challenging the 1619 Project’s bogus claims and attempts to roll itself out into our society and educational system is to challenge its historical legitimacy, and this is unfortunately a necessary part of engaging with it. The trouble is, because the 1619 Project neither is history nor claims to be history, this necessary activity is ultimately severely limited in its purposed utility. Letting political activism like this into the universities therefore makes it harder to continue the Universitys original mission of continuing the liberal project of real knowledge seeking and research. Not everyone is fit for research and teaching, and you do have to protect the liberal system from efforts such as this for them to remain centers of knowledge production and truth seeking.
wolverine876 5y ago
> major indoctrination efforts such as the 1619 project You may believe the 1619 Project is a "major indoctrination effort" and that it lacks "academic rigor", but that's not established fact at all. Many people think highly of it and of her work - including her potential UNC professional colleagues, who wanted her there in a tenured job at an excellent university. It does represent a point of view that disagrees with established ones, but that's almost the point of academic research: Find where established beliefs are flawed. Especially on sensitive topics, that may result in an angry reaction and division; that shouldn't stop people from publishing, and that's what tenure protects. Nothing about the conservative response to the 1619 Project seems distinguished from that kind of reaction, or from the reactionary response to most attempts to address racism. > Someone like her that teach students what to think instead of how should not get tenure, and does not meet the academic rigor to teach. What basis do you have for saying she teaches in that manner? All professors have their own research, their own point of view, and they teach it. If you've taken a liberal arts college class, you will recall that you are expected to be able to handle that and think critically about it. > Calls for academic freedom has been used to subvert university resources from academic pursuits to political activism. What distinguishes those things? Who decides? Just because it has happened at some time in some place, is that evidence that it's happening now? Should we eliminate all academic freedom?
- asabjorn 5y ago
  > You may believe the 1619 Project is a "major indoctrination effort" and that it lacks "academic rigor", but that's not established fact at all. Many people think highly of it and of her work - including her potential UNC professional colleagues, who wanted her there in a tenured job at an excellent university. It does represent a point of view that disagrees with established ones, but that's almost the point of academic research: Find where established beliefs are flawed. Especially on sensitive topics, that may result in an angry reaction and division; that shouldn't stop people from publishing, and that's what tenure protects. If the intention of the 1619 Project was merely to use rigorous historical methods to expand the purview of the historical record in accordance with the useful-sounding aspects of truthful claims that have been suppressed, as some insist, it would be a valuable, if not necessary, contribution. However, the goal the 1619 Project is not, and never was, to improve our historical understanding. Rather, its goal was always to perpetrate a critical historiography that muddles and besmirches it (i.e. problematize). This it seeks to achieve by calling into doubt the American metanarrative and establishing alongside it, if not in place of it, the critical race Theoretical metanarrative instead: that the United States is indelibly racist and has been since its origins. This includes undermining trust in the liberal ideas of individualism and human universality, wherein people are judged by the contents of their character and recognized for their common humanity, and forwarding identity-group thinking that is more useful for (radical) identity politics. The fact that so many professors at UNC shares a critical consciousness is a sign of how far gone that university is from its original liberal vision of truth-finding in favor of identity politics. > What distinguishes those things? Who decides? Just because it has happened at some time in some place, is that evidence that it's happening now? Should we eliminate all academic freedom? If an academic is engaging in critical consciousness, basically creating meta-narratives to further a radical political activist goal instead of truth-finding, it should be treated the same as an academic that mainly teaches baptism of Christianity in history class and produce a revisionist meta-narrative to further baptism. Such a person would not receive academic freedom protections.

UncleMeat 5y ago

So much for free speech then. Clearly some kinds are good and some are "divisive political activism" that don't deserve any kind of protection.

klyrs 5y ago

Is discussion of Critical Race Theory an exercise of free speech?

fallingknife 5y ago
Teachers are employees, and freedom of speech has never been recognized in that context. For example, it would be kind of ridiculous if a science teacher was allowed to teach students flat earth theory because of freedom of speech. Outside of the classroom, which was the subject of the comment above, obviously it would be covered by the 1st amendment.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  > Teachers are employees, and freedom of speech has never been recognized in that context. In college, it certainly has and is recognized. Tenure, in particular, is at least partly designed to protect professors' ability to research and speak, free of censorship or influence.
  - asabjorn 5y ago
    > In college, it certainly has and is recognized. Tenure, in particular, is at least partly designed to protect professors' ability to research and speak, free of censorship or influence. It is true that tenure is there to protect professors engaging in the liberal project on unpopular topics. However, many do not pass the bar to receive tenure. Nikole Hannah-Jones of the 1619 project is not engaging in the liberal project tenure seek to protect. I've said elsewhere in this thread that the goal the 1619 Project is not, and never was, to improve our historical understanding. Rather, its goal was always to perpetrate a critical historiography that muddles and besmirches it (i.e. problematize). This includes undermining trust in the liberal ideas of individualism and human universality, wherein people are judged by the contents of their character and recognized for their common humanity, and forwarding identity-group thinking that is more useful for (radical) identity politics. She is therefore in direct opposition to the liberal mission of the universities, and she does not deserve to receive tenure protection to continue subverting resources intended to further the university liberal mission to what is useful for (radical) identity politics. Protecting the universities liberal environment agains activists like her is a necessary precondition for continuing the liberal project.
    - wolverine876 5y ago
      As I said in response elsewhere, these claims really need some support or they are just bytes on the Internet.
      - asabjorn 5y ago
        I guess I also have to repeat here as well then. The problem with the kind of critical theory dialectic Nicole Hannah-Jones use is how the claim of truth is made. I showed you how critical theory projects like the 1619 project makes a claim and deals with truthiness. I made it specific to this project and how it inherently makes unfalsifiable claims as it builds upon “lived experiences” of convenient political activist utility. I even showed you an example of how you overturn a claim in critical theory projects, with an example relevant to the 1619 project. This example makes it very clear how different this type of academic dialectic is from the liberal project. Universities are traditionally stewards of the liberal project, although unfortunately at this points it’s been corrupted to further the Hegelian religion of critical social justice.
asabjorn 5y ago
She is free to continue doing activism and even continue her indoctrination efforts, she just can't expect to subvert university resources under tenure to achieve her activist goals. Note however that she was still offered an untenured position. The importance of the point that her 1619 Project is not a serious attempt at historical understanding but a project within critical race Theory is beyond calculability. This is because the standard approach to challenging the 1619 Project’s bogus claims and attempts to roll itself out into our society and educational system is to challenge its historical legitimacy, and this is unfortunately a necessary part of engaging with it. The trouble is, because the 1619 Project neither is history nor claims to be history, this necessary activity is ultimately severely limited in its purposed utility. Letting political activism like this into the universities therefore makes it harder to continue the Universitys original mission of continuing the liberal project of real knowledge seeking and research. Not everyone is fit for research and teaching, and you do have to protect the liberal system from efforts such as this for them to remain centers of knowledge production and truth seeking.

wolverine876 5y ago

> major indoctrination efforts such as the 1619 project You may believe the 1619 Project is a "major indoctrination effort" and that it lacks "academic rigor", but that's not established fact at all. Many people think highly of it and of her work - including her potential UNC professional colleagues, who wanted her there in a tenured job at an excellent university. It does represent a point of view that disagrees with established ones, but that's almost the point of academic research: Find where established beliefs are flawed. Especially on sensitive topics, that may result in an angry reaction and division; that shouldn't stop people from publishing, and that's what tenure protects. Nothing about the conservative response to the 1619 Project seems distinguished from that kind of reaction, or from the reactionary response to most attempts to address racism. > Someone like her that teach students what to think instead of how should not get tenure, and does not meet the academic rigor to teach. What basis do you have for saying she teaches in that manner? All professors have their own research, their own point of view, and they teach it. If you've taken a liberal arts college class, you will recall that you are expected to be able to handle that and think critically about it. > Calls for academic freedom has been used to subvert university resources from academic pursuits to political activism. What distinguishes those things? Who decides? Just because it has happened at some time in some place, is that evidence that it's happening now? Should we eliminate all academic freedom?

asabjorn 5y ago
> You may believe the 1619 Project is a "major indoctrination effort" and that it lacks "academic rigor", but that's not established fact at all. Many people think highly of it and of her work - including her potential UNC professional colleagues, who wanted her there in a tenured job at an excellent university. It does represent a point of view that disagrees with established ones, but that's almost the point of academic research: Find where established beliefs are flawed. Especially on sensitive topics, that may result in an angry reaction and division; that shouldn't stop people from publishing, and that's what tenure protects. If the intention of the 1619 Project was merely to use rigorous historical methods to expand the purview of the historical record in accordance with the useful-sounding aspects of truthful claims that have been suppressed, as some insist, it would be a valuable, if not necessary, contribution. However, the goal the 1619 Project is not, and never was, to improve our historical understanding. Rather, its goal was always to perpetrate a critical historiography that muddles and besmirches it (i.e. problematize). This it seeks to achieve by calling into doubt the American metanarrative and establishing alongside it, if not in place of it, the critical race Theoretical metanarrative instead: that the United States is indelibly racist and has been since its origins. This includes undermining trust in the liberal ideas of individualism and human universality, wherein people are judged by the contents of their character and recognized for their common humanity, and forwarding identity-group thinking that is more useful for (radical) identity politics. The fact that so many professors at UNC shares a critical consciousness is a sign of how far gone that university is from its original liberal vision of truth-finding in favor of identity politics. > What distinguishes those things? Who decides? Just because it has happened at some time in some place, is that evidence that it's happening now? Should we eliminate all academic freedom? If an academic is engaging in critical consciousness, basically creating meta-narratives to further a radical political activist goal instead of truth-finding, it should be treated the same as an academic that mainly teaches baptism of Christianity in history class and produce a revisionist meta-narrative to further baptism. Such a person would not receive academic freedom protections.