14 ms·

Faculty group calls on Yale to make teaching 'distinct from activism'

162 points by crescit_eundo 3y ago

mouse_ 3y ago
Education and VC/Hedge funds should be thoroughly isolated from each other.
- dmitrygr 3y ago
  [flagged]
laidoffamazon 3y ago
It's funny how this doesn't happen at state schools (Evergreen State excepted) but apparently Yale students are supposed to be a more important class of human than the rest of us.
- finolex1 3y ago
  It happens at plenty of state schools (see UC Berkeley for the most prominent example). It just doesn't make it to national news.
  - drawkward 3y ago
    This isn't national news. It's the Yale school newspaper.
  - gamblor956 3y ago
    Berkeley employs one of the more conservative faculties in the U.S. The activism is almost entirely student-driven, on both sides.
    - gnicholas 3y ago
      Your comment gives the impression that the faculty at Cal is particularly conservative. Apparently it’s about 10:1, in favor of democrats (Stanford is 7.6). [1] Cal (and Stanford) may have more conservative faculties than other elite institutions, but I’m sure there are many schools in other states that are not this democrat-heavy. A quick google shows that Princeton and Columbia are roughly also 10:1, so I’m not sure I’d say Berkeley's faculty is especially conservative for an elite institution. 1: https://swopec.hhs.se/ratioi/abs/ratioi0054.htm#:~:text=For%20UC%2DBerkeley%2C%20we%20found,species%E2%80%9D%20on%20the%20two%20campuses https://swopec.hhs.se/ratioi/abs/ratioi0054.htm#:~:text=For%....
      - gamblor956 3y ago
        I'm not sure what a study from 2 decades ago based on even older data is supposed to prove about the current makeup of the Cal faculty?
    - pessimizer 3y ago
      evidence: https://www.law.berkeley.edu/our-faculty/faculty-profiles/john-yoo/#tab_profile https://www.law.berkeley.edu/our-faculty/faculty-profiles/jo... That being said, these students are the most listened-to class on the planet. Their awful mass media-drenched suburban backgrounds along with the race for interesting opinions that they engage in to try to distinguish themselves from those backgrounds is lowering the quality of education in general.
lupusreal 3y ago
It's fine for faculty to demand this, but will their students permit it?
newsclues 3y ago
Academics have for a long time been progressive activists at many schools.
- CivBase 3y ago
  I think this quote from Julia Adams, one of the signers, is relevant: > "The concerns articulated in the FfY formation statement pertain to universities — and not their members! — as activists." There's no problem with individuals within academics being activists, but the institution itself should remain neutral. Its goal should be to foster an environment where ideas can be shared freely and considered by anyone.
  - ToucanLoucan 3y ago
    > There's no problem with individuals within academics being activists, but the institution itself should remain neutral. Its goal should be to foster an environment where ideas can be shared freely and considered by anyone. Not all ideas are created equal. We have a long history of ideas, including sciences, that are discredited to a degree where they are, frankly, beneath consideration. Subjects like phrenology and eugenics, the creation theory for the origins of the universe, etc. IMO continuing to permit debate on some of these is not only harmful because the science itself was, in itself, harmful, but it's also a waste of an expensive institution's resources. At some point, further inquiry on a given subject just does not merit the time and energy of people who have far better work to be doing.
    - CivBase 3y ago
      I don't think anyone is asking institutions to spend resources on ideas which have been discredited. I believe the ask is for academic institutions to avoid creating an atmosphere where ideas are abandoned before they can be evaluated because they run counter to the activist ideas promoted by the institution. EDIT: or an atmosphere where certain ideas are favored because they support the activist ideas promoted by the institution.
- pradn 3y ago
yieldcrv 3y ago
Nature is healing Given that we already have distinct forms of organizations for activism, corporations and other forms of non-profits should “use their platform” to tell activists to pound sand
newaccount7g 3y ago
But if mainstream economic theory is anything close to being correct, denying Marx was correct is like denying gravity. It’s just so clear based on the literature that the rate of return on investment exceeds the growth of the real economy. Anything else is conservative activism not grounded in experimental reality.
- gryzzly 3y ago
  the modern university education lacks exactly the same thing that your 1 paragraph of letters does – nuance. "Anything else is …" is the crap we need to see less of, if we are to respect academic research and publishing at all.
  - wolverine876 3y ago
    > the modern university education lacks exactly the same thing that your 1 paragraph of letters does – nuance Where do you get that? My experience is very much the opposite. What I see from university educations is far more nuanced and sophisticated than what I see anywhere else - far beyond HN, fwiw.
    - gryzzly 3y ago
      I’m not even going to take a specific stand or call out the specific things that make me loose hope for the future. But if you don’t notice that activism and books praising activism (as opposed to seeking knowledge and revealing truth, or even just having deep knowledge of craft, like medicine), are a large part of modern academia, then we live in two different worlds.
      - wolverine876 3y ago
        How do you define activism? I think activism is very much about the truth - it's a means of putting a challenging truth on the agenda when otherwise it would be ignored. MLK said that people don't change their minds (maybe not exactly his term) in the absence of tension. There's plenty of history that they will ignore things for generations if they can. Look at what's happening with climate change, for example - and instead of acting to stop the problem, many in power are acting to deny it and to suppress anyone who points out out. > if you don’t notice that activism and books praising activism (as opposed to seeking knowledge and revealing truth, or even just having deep knowledge of craft, like medicine), are a large part of modern academia What in academia do you have experience with? Any at all?
awaythrow999 3y ago
This has been popping up like mad the past 10 days on all my feeds. In a nut-shell: "Right wing think tank argues against activism in academia ..." Rethinking the Plight of Conservatives in Higher Education https://www.aaup.org/article/rethinking-plight-conservatives-higher-education https://www.aaup.org/article/rethinking-plight-conservatives... Culture wars are raging on US campuses. Will they affect research? https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00393-1 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00393-1 Special Issue: The Participatory University Between Policy and Activism: The conceit of activism in the illiberal university https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/14782103211003422 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/147821032110034...
simpletone 3y ago
What you choose to teach and how you choose to teach is innately a form of activism. It's impossible to separate teaching from activism. The problem with activism in universities isn't with the professors, it's with the administrative staff. What yale and other institutions need to do is adopt a neutral stance and protect freedom of speech. Which used to be the standard when I went to school. A neo-nazi, a zionist, a christian, an atheist, etc should have a right to study, teach, opine, etc in an american university. People need to feel free to be a 'devil's advocate' in any academic institution. The problem is that the lunatic fringe has coalesced together and taken power not only in academia, but corporate america and government. As for limiting donor influence, I think we can all agree on that. It's crazy how a few despicable billionaires were able to take out the leaders of harvard, penn, etc.
- gnicholas 3y ago
  How do you suggest limiting donor influence, as a practical matter? How can they be forced to donate to organizations whose actions they oppose?
  - simpletone 3y ago
    > How do you suggest limiting donor influence, as a practical matter? Harvard, Penn, etc is far more important than bill ackman, trump, etc. > How can they be forced to donate to organizations whose actions they oppose. They don't have to donate. And their children don't get special privileges to these institutions. Besides, as I said, the organizations should take a neutral stance.
    - kelnos 3y ago
      I agree with your toplevel comment in general, but I'm not sure I understand how they should avoid the outsized influence of a few donors. Is the idea that institutions should adopt policies that ensure that no one donor (or a small group of donors) consists of too much of the donations pool? Or should they actively be rejecting donations based on some sort of subjective evaluation of the donor? The former seems reasonable, but the latter sounds like the opposite of an org taking a neutral stance. I do think there are some cases where orgs should be actively disqualifying specific donors; the Epstein junk seems to be a good example of why they should be picky.
kelseyfrog 3y ago
Sorry, but all teaching[1] takes a position. Being fringe/widely accepted and taking a position are orthogonal concepts. It sounds like Yale's instead engaging in curriculum by controversy avoidance, which incidentally is one of the worst ways of designing a curriculum and most certainly "taking a position" - the position of trying to avoid controversy. 1. by virtue of being an interpersonal interaction
- smokel 3y ago
  I started writing a similar comment at this, but then figured that the situation is not so black-and-white. Some activists are using disingenuous practices to undermine science. Undermining science by itself might be a noble cause in some areas, but please just use the legal or political systems to accomplish that. Do not attack individuals directly.
  - jimbokun 3y ago
    What would be an example of nobly undermining science? Do you mean undermining poorly done science with better science?
    - AlbertCory 3y ago
      Maybe they mean "calling scientific method a form of racism?" Just a thought.
    - bilbo0s 3y ago
      I think they mean demanding the elimination of peer review. There is a movement afoot to eliminate the practice because if it is done the way intended, the bar is too high. The bar probably is too high, but that's not necessarily a problem. Rather that's the point. I agree, that particular movement does have at its root an assault on science.
      - jimbokun 3y ago
        Should go on peer review, and demand replication of results before accepting a paper's findings, in an ideal world.
trinsic2 3y ago
[flagged]
badgersnake 3y ago
I guess they didn’t teach ‘Hard Times’ "Fact, Fact, Fact!"
wly_cdgr 3y ago
Teaching has literally never been distinct from activism, but, good luck!
wait_a_minute 3y ago
This is the correct move. Students need to learn math, science, history, philosophy, and generally grow in critical thinking. There is instead a lot of indoctrination being foisted onto their minds, and a lot of it is even anti-American. That is fine for someone to explore on their own time, but institutions of learning becoming centers of indoctrination is a huge no from me.
- shadowgovt 3y ago
  How does one tell the difference between teaching and indoctrination? Every fundamental hard science started controversial. In some circles, they still are. Do we stop teaching heliocentrism because it's the devil's work? Who decides?
  - subtra3t 3y ago
    The topics that you or I consider to be "fundamental hard science" are significantly less controversial than the topics that would normally fall under the category of activism. I'm not saying that controversial ideas should be completely ignored, just that controversy may be an important factor, in the eyes of some, to draw the line between cold hard truths and up-and-coming divisive ideas.
  - polski-g 3y ago
    If you start talking about Palestine in your Differential Equations class, that is indoctrination. If you start talking about Jews in your CompSci 102 class, that is indoctrination. There is no reason to talk about anything besides the class, in the class.
    - lapetitejort 3y ago
      Can you point to a curriculum or lecture where that has occurred?
      - polski-g 3y ago
        [dead]
hiddencost 3y ago
The American Right moves to silence critique of dismantling democracy....
nonrandomstring 3y ago
It's hard to tell from this article what is at stake and who is calling for what. Whose free speech? Students, professors, administrators, donors? And the idea of "neutrality"? hmmm. Not directly related but much apropos is this video on "What's gone wrong with political journalism in the UK" featuring Armando Iannucci [0] . The key concept is that neutrality and integrity have nothing to do with each other. One can be a monster by feigning neutrality, as Howard Zinn says it [1] "on a Moving Train". What matters, at least in journalistic if not academic integrity, is the "360 degree scepticism" needed to make the choice of when neutrality is appropriate or not. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoBNU_lMjaM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoBNU_lMjaM [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Zinn:_You_Can%27t_Be_Neutral_on_a_Moving_Train https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Zinn:_You_Can%27t_Be_Ne...
- geodel 3y ago
  Reading Howard Zinn's "People's history of united states" with its endless series of atrocities I just tend to not believe a single word from him. I liked this fact from Wikipedia article though: > "In 2008, the film was chosen by the Zinn Education Project (a collaboration of two national organizations, Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change) to be included in an education package sent to 4000 high school and junior high school teachers across the country."
  - nonrandomstring 3y ago
    > endless series of atrocities I just tend to not believe a single word The good news is that if you're susceptible to denial and percepticide it means you're a "nice person". TBH I had the same reactions reading Christopher Browning, Solzhenitsyn, Chomsky, Primo Levi. The bad news is that you grow out of it, and with the courage to face the world, realise that historians don't just make up stuff to scare people - otherwise they'd have more fun and money being fiction writers like Stephen King. Now I'm not a "nice" person I can tell you, the weird news is that the bad news is the good news.
    - Jiro 3y ago
quacked 3y ago
Education is indoctrination, no matter what form it takes. Even telling students raw "non-political" facts is indoctrination into the worldview "people born to your station ought to be knowledgeable". You cannot "learn" anything without being indoctrinated into whatever view of reality your teachers take, so the idea that you could teach without "activism" and only focus on "transmission of knowledge" seems unachievable to me. Many conservatives (a word which I call myself) seem to take this view that it's possible to "teach without activism". However, when you examine what is entailed as a part of "teaching without activism", they are almost always arguing that schools should teach according to a social or informational standard that was considered "radical activism" anywhere from five to fifty decades ago. I suppose my overall point is that a faculty group calling to "teach without activism" should drop its "apolitical" façade and instead openly advocate for teaching according to whichever principles they think are most desirable for good societal outcomes. In this case, it seems like the subtext is that they'd like to see more socially conservative or "right-wing" filters applied to what is taught and how it's taught, and these filters are out-of-alignment with the standard progressive/communist/leftist/etc. spirit which is quite common on college campuses (and has been for decades, if not centuries). I suppose this would result in many of them being publicly and embarrassingly fired by their overwhelmingly left-wing donors and students, but if their ideas are good enough they should be able to seek funding by right-wing donors and open competing universities dedicated to "instruction" over "activism", whatever that means to them. There is a demand for a service like this right now in the US that theoretically could be met by sufficiently motivated actors. I don't see this happening, though, as in the US the "right wing" is held in the pervasive grip of an anti-intellectual movement that started a long time ago.
- jimbokun 3y ago
  The goal of "teaching without activism" should be to force students to assess ideas on their own and present good arguments for what they believe to be true. And to occasionally be persuaded and change their opinions. The ideal teacher would leave students at the end of the semester not knowing what their personal position on a controversial issue was, as they present arguments for different opinions and challenge all those opinions as well.
brindlejim 3y ago
University faculty-activists are a perfect example of elite overproduction a la Turchin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_overproduction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_overproduction We create small, smart cadres of people who watch power and wealth pass them by, and they advocate to overturn the system driving their envy.
- bena 3y ago
  Both this article and the article on Turchin himself don't pass the smell test. They both read more like opinion pieces than informative articles. Like they were written by either Turchin himself or people who know him. Contrast the article on Turchin to the one on Tim Berners-Lee (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee). No wishy-washy weasel language. No vague claims of contributions, just straight up: He was here, he did this thing.
  - pictureofabear 3y ago
    I didn't get that same feeling from reading the two articles, but Turchin's article on Elite Overproduction is relatively new and the idea is only as old as 10 years. It's a theory that's very convenient for explaining the present but seems to be grounded in past political instability, so who knows... maybe it'll stand the test of time. It is interesting though.
- rKarpinski 3y ago
  > University faculty-activists are a perfect example of elite overproduction a la Turchin. The faculty pushing back against "administrative encroachment" and seeking "the primacy of teaching, learning and research" are your perfect example of an over produced elite?
  - tines 3y ago
    No, the faculty-activists are the ones _being pushed back against_ by the faculty seeking the "primacy of teaching."
idkdotcom 3y ago
[dead]
nemo44x 3y ago
One of the problems with a lot of the liberal arts curriculum today is that every university tends to slant the same way with the same topics. They all come to same conclusions on non-deterministic, subjective ideas. There's a missing counterweight in may cases that exists to critique, ridicule, and otherwise keep in check opposing ideas. For each critical theory (race, gender, secuality, etc) department there should indeed be a neo-reactionary (or similar) one, for example. But not only is there not, any questioning or debate of the crits is stone walled as racist/misogynist/homophobic/white/etc. There's actually some good ideas there but not being allowed to or having the university platform to formalize opposing ideas and to challenge undermines them. This is how religion happens, not free inquiry. Let the ideas flow and let the strong ones prevail but certainly not become doctrine.
- wolverine876 3y ago
  > One of the problems with a lot of the liberal arts curriculum today is that every university tends to slant the same way with the same topics. They all come to same conclusions on non-deterministic, subjective ideas. There's a missing counterweight in may cases that exists to critique, ridicule, and otherwise keep in check opposing ideas. What is that based on? People I know in universities are exposed to a very wide range of ideas. In the OP, isn't it the conservatives who are suppressing ideas?
- itishappy 3y ago
  > There's actually some good ideas there... Have any in mind?
jjkeddo199 3y ago
Campus activism has been tainted by Marxism. "Critical [race|gender|disability] Theory" is just standard Marxism applied in the social science context. Since Marxism pre-requisitely requires framing everything in the world into a "oppressed vs oppressor, have vs have-not, good vs evil" binary, you will become a target for hostility/harm if you are perceived as somehow privileged. If isolating/targeting people based on on race/gender/ability bothers you, you should stand up against "Critical (Marxist) Theory" infiltration of activist circles in the social sciences. Activism should be about empowering the needy, not harming the need-nots.
- drawkward 3y ago
  >Critical Race Theory axiomatically requires white people to be written off as evil and the enemy. For the sake of argument, lets grant your point about the Marxist framing oppressor vs oppressed stuff. Cannot the system itself be the oppressor, instead of "white people"?
  - tristor 3y ago
    > Cannot the system itself be the oppressor, instead of "white people"? Sure, and that begs the question "who created the system?", "who does the system benefit?", "why is the system structured this way?". All of which are /good/ questions to ask, that critical theory advocates are all too willing to provide easy non-nuanced answers to, answers that boil down to "white people". Unfortunately, it turns out that anti-racism (at least as currently implemented/advocated in the majority of colleges and universities) is just racism with a different label.
    - drawkward 3y ago
      >All of which are /good/ questions to ask, that critical theory advocates are all too willing to provide easy non-nuanced answers to, answers that boil down to "white people". Then the problem is the the advocates and not CRT, no? >Unfortunately, it turns out that anti-racism (at least as currently implemented/advocated in the majority of colleges and universities) is just racism with a different label. Speaking of answers without nuance...
juujian 3y ago
Yes. Force them to be neutral. Teach both sides of climate change and the Panama papers. For sure...
- drawkward 3y ago
  Doesn't seem like that's whats being advocated for.
wolverine876 3y ago
The argument is in the premise, a powerful tool used by people sophisticated in public messaging: The premise here is that the status quo beliefs are knowledge, ideas that disagree are 'activism' - political activity - and are not knowledge. It's fundementally a higly conservative framing that, obviously and intentionally, protects the status quo power. Once you accept the premise, everything else follows - assuming X is political activity, and school is for learning, not so much for political actitivty, then obviously .... The effective means is not to make an argument directly for the premise - that makes the premise an issue on the table, something to debate. Instead, assume it in your argument: Stop this politicized liberal activism! See how that works? Even people who disagree have to figure out what they disagree about and construct an argument. In reality, neither idea is more political than the other, and the university, of all places, is where to explore and develop new ideas. Teaching the status quo idea is just as much indoctrination as any other idea - maybe more, because it doesn't raise the question of challenging itself. The real question is, how are they taught. And regardless, I trust the students at Yale are smart enough not to be so easily manipulated - just like the people on HN, of course, who know so well what's good for the students.
- kardianos 3y ago
  So long as you recognize that there exists a material reality, the correspondence to which we call truth, there can be objectivity and a separation of activism from teaching. If there can be no reasonable way to get closer to an objective truth, the very foundations of universities are in question and the entire institution destroyed. In fact, that is exactly what Queer Theory promotes, in which papers describe that when Queer Theory becomes normal, it must deconstruct itself further. No. I reject that notion. There is objective reality, and there is a reasonably objective way to teach knowledge apart from activism. It is entirely possible to promote alternate viewpoints without activism, so long as your alternate viewpoint is not "there is no objectivity".
  - wolverine876 3y ago
    There's objective reality IMHO, but humans have demonstrated that we fail to see it clearly, and that our view of reality is biased by our beliefs, drives, experiences, etc. This understanding of human nature extends back to Plato, at least. One strong bias is that we follow social norms; we follow the herd. Challenges to that norm are upsetting, disruptive. But norms are not privileged in truth; there have been endless evil and ignorant norms in history. > If there can be no reasonable way to get closer to an objective truth, the very foundations of universities are in question and the entire institution destroyed. Nobody said we can't get closer, but the way to get closer is not to accept one set of beliefs and supress the others; it's to innovate and improve. We know much more about economics than we did 50 years ago and 100 years ago and centuries ago, but we still have far to go. > that is exactly what Queer Theory promotes Could you give an example of that?
slyrus 3y ago
Meanwhile, there's a pretty sizeable percentage of the educational world that has inextricably tied education to religion. How about getting religion out of higher (and lower) education?
- gnicholas 3y ago
  How would you propose doing that in a way that is consistent with the First Amendment?
  - slyrus 3y ago
    The parent article is about decoupling activism from teaching. Surely religion is just a specific form of activism.
    - gnicholas 3y ago
      > Surely religion is just a specific form of activism. Even if this were true (a couple billion people would probably beg to differ), the First Amendment specifically protects the free exercise of religion. So any law that attempted to prevent religious-affiliated organizations from operating a university or school would be clearly unconstitutional.
      - slyrus 3y ago
        Fair enough. One's belief in creation myths, higher powers/beings, afterlives, etc... is not, per se, activism, but once you start gathering people on a regular basis to bring about societal/behavioral change (ya know, commandments, morals, laws based on religious ideas/notions/opinions, etc...), much less proselytizing, then, yeah, it's pretty much the definition (or at least the poster child) of activism.
        gnicholas 3y ago
        Lovely tangent; it seems you don't have any ideas about how this could be accomplished in a way that is consistent with the First Amendment (which was the entirety of my original comment)?
cupcakecommons 3y ago
I have a very close friend pursuing an advanced degree in sociology. They're an excellent student, highly intelligent, from a well-off background having benefitted from extremely good schooling their entire life - yet seem barely capable of critical thinking. They often talk about how research is just "food for thought" and has little use in any endeavor the requires decision making or informing policy and that truth as a concept is "frowned upon". These are paraphrased points this person has made to me on several different occasions. I want to understand their perspective but it's frankly shocking the conversations we have. The farther I've explored what this person believes the more bleak it gets. They argue that all perspectives are valid yet have extremely specific beliefs and perspectives on all sorts of things. These beliefs and perspectives are also exactly in-line with what you'd expect from a sociology department at a major US university. Seeing these topics at least being broached gives me some small amount of hope.
- rKarpinski 3y ago
  > They often talk about how research is just "food for thought" and has little use in any endeavor the requires decision making or informing policy and that truth as a concept is "frowned upon". Sounds like a reasonable perspective towards sociology research?
  - cupcakecommons 3y ago
    There are an inordinate number of people in sociology that undermine truth as a concept to reduce the possibility of ever being incorrect about anything. This is obviously completely anti-scientific. Almost miraculously, many of these people hold extremely specific viewpoints that inherently amount to truth claims. I'm all for "food for thought" research in complex fields where truth claims are tenuous at best - but what I'm referring to isn't that. It's rhetorical strategy to make implicit truth claims then fend off criticism by undermining the concept of truth itself.
- maxglute 3y ago
  Isn't that the job of universitities... to shape minds. I remember being surprised in undergrand that it took merely 2 semesters for architecture teachers to convert/indoctorinate most students from primarily enjoying traditional/classical designs to being fully being on the post/modern hype. Most people are passive recipients.
7402 3y ago
Education is about helping students know more about a subject after they take a class than before. Activism is about convincing others of something, or, failing that, to punish them. Is it proper for an atheist to be able to earn an "A" in a religion course? Yes. The professor should say at the beginning of class, "You do not have to be a believer. I will not judge you or grade you on your beliefs or lack thereof. All you need to do is learn and accurately show that you know what it is that people who do believe would say." Is it proper for a creationist to be able to earn an "A" in an evolutionary biology course? Yes. The professor should say to such a student, "You do not have to change your beliefs about creation or evolution. I will not judge you or grade you on your beliefs or lack thereof. All you need to do is learn and accurately show that you know how biologists calculate and reason about evolution." It is certainly true that opinions and beliefs can change as a result of education. But if that goal becomes the primary purpose of a university (as opposed to a possibly-beneficial side effect) then that university has corrupted the ideal of higher education.
- gnicholas 3y ago
  > Is it proper for a creationist to be able to earn an "A" in an evolutionary biology course? Yes. The professor should say to such a student, "You do not have to change your beliefs about creation or evolution. I will not judge you or grade you on your beliefs or lack thereof. All you need to do is learn and accurately show that you know how biologists calculate and reason about evolution." My bio teacher took this tack. He said I don't care what you believe; on my test, I ask you what someone who believes in the big bang would say about the creation of the universe. > Activism is about convincing others of something, or, failing that, to punish them. I have unfortunately had professors who took this tack. I was too naive at the time to understand that they would demand unadulterated ideological fealty, though perhaps it saved me the ethical dilemma of pretending to believe something I thought was wrong, for the sake of a grade.
everybodyknows 3y ago
Direct link to the inciting document: https://facultyforyale.yale.edu/homepage https://facultyforyale.yale.edu/homepage Best read this closely first, before the article. At bottom, it's a demand that the administration cede power to faculty, on multiple fronts. Questions of national politics energize the dispute, but are secondary.
- eli_gottlieb 3y ago
  >Best read this closely first, before the article. At bottom, it's a demand that the administration cede power to faculty, on multiple fronts. Sounds good. Administrators have often been the most petty of tyrants in academia, and faculty self-governance is a more original founding principle of university life than administrative ideological governance.
photochemsyn 3y ago
The rot in academia is closely tied to the rise of the public-private partnership and exclusive licensing of taxpayer-funded research to private interests - and of course, they've been indoctrinating their students and staff on this issue, because Lord forbid anyone starts demanding that university research results belong to the taxpayers who financed them, let alone any notions about 'open-source drug discovery'. E.g. "Yale's $1.5M Ketamine VA Settlement Spotlights Private-Public Partnership Complexities (2023)" https://www.psychiatrist.com/news/yales-million-ketamine-va-settlement-spotlights-private-public-partnership-complexities/ https://www.psychiatrist.com/news/yales-million-ketamine-va-... Corporate Lysenkoism is the norm in American academic institutions these days, that's what all the students are being indoctrinated into - whatever hysteria is circulating around the social science-related culture war nonsense is jut a distraction, a misdirection away from the real core problems in American academia today.
Balgair 3y ago
Bret Devereaux of NC State has a good take on the activism part. From a pragmatic point of view, one can view activism as taking and spending from the account of 'good-will'. That's fine, but you also have to fill that account as well. Typically, this is via some sort of outreach effort and speanding time in the community helping with some thing or another. The issue that Devereaux points out is that the income and outflow are asymmetric. You spend at a greater rate that you put in. So, for every hour/dollar/gadget/etc that you spend with activism, you must put in somewhere between 5-10X the outreach time/money/gadgets/etc.
pangolinja 3y ago
[flagged]
smsm42 3y ago
Universities should concentrate on knowledge and teaching, not partisan political activism. What a novel thought. Maybe somebody should try it out.

162 points by crescit_eundo 3y ago

mouse_ 3y ago

Education and VC/Hedge funds should be thoroughly isolated from each other.

dmitrygr 3y ago
[flagged]

laidoffamazon 3y ago

It's funny how this doesn't happen at state schools (Evergreen State excepted) but apparently Yale students are supposed to be a more important class of human than the rest of us.

finolex1 3y ago
It happens at plenty of state schools (see UC Berkeley for the most prominent example). It just doesn't make it to national news.
- drawkward 3y ago
  This isn't national news. It's the Yale school newspaper.
- gamblor956 3y ago
  Berkeley employs one of the more conservative faculties in the U.S. The activism is almost entirely student-driven, on both sides.
  - gnicholas 3y ago
    Your comment gives the impression that the faculty at Cal is particularly conservative. Apparently it’s about 10:1, in favor of democrats (Stanford is 7.6). [1] Cal (and Stanford) may have more conservative faculties than other elite institutions, but I’m sure there are many schools in other states that are not this democrat-heavy. A quick google shows that Princeton and Columbia are roughly also 10:1, so I’m not sure I’d say Berkeley's faculty is especially conservative for an elite institution. 1: https://swopec.hhs.se/ratioi/abs/ratioi0054.htm#:~:text=For%20UC%2DBerkeley%2C%20we%20found,species%E2%80%9D%20on%20the%20two%20campuses https://swopec.hhs.se/ratioi/abs/ratioi0054.htm#:~:text=For%....
    - gamblor956 3y ago
      I'm not sure what a study from 2 decades ago based on even older data is supposed to prove about the current makeup of the Cal faculty?
  - pessimizer 3y ago
    evidence: https://www.law.berkeley.edu/our-faculty/faculty-profiles/john-yoo/#tab_profile https://www.law.berkeley.edu/our-faculty/faculty-profiles/jo... That being said, these students are the most listened-to class on the planet. Their awful mass media-drenched suburban backgrounds along with the race for interesting opinions that they engage in to try to distinguish themselves from those backgrounds is lowering the quality of education in general.

lupusreal 3y ago

It's fine for faculty to demand this, but will their students permit it?

newsclues 3y ago

Academics have for a long time been progressive activists at many schools.

CivBase 3y ago
I think this quote from Julia Adams, one of the signers, is relevant: > "The concerns articulated in the FfY formation statement pertain to universities — and not their members! — as activists." There's no problem with individuals within academics being activists, but the institution itself should remain neutral. Its goal should be to foster an environment where ideas can be shared freely and considered by anyone.
- ToucanLoucan 3y ago
  > There's no problem with individuals within academics being activists, but the institution itself should remain neutral. Its goal should be to foster an environment where ideas can be shared freely and considered by anyone. Not all ideas are created equal. We have a long history of ideas, including sciences, that are discredited to a degree where they are, frankly, beneath consideration. Subjects like phrenology and eugenics, the creation theory for the origins of the universe, etc. IMO continuing to permit debate on some of these is not only harmful because the science itself was, in itself, harmful, but it's also a waste of an expensive institution's resources. At some point, further inquiry on a given subject just does not merit the time and energy of people who have far better work to be doing.
  - CivBase 3y ago
    I don't think anyone is asking institutions to spend resources on ideas which have been discredited. I believe the ask is for academic institutions to avoid creating an atmosphere where ideas are abandoned before they can be evaluated because they run counter to the activist ideas promoted by the institution. EDIT: or an atmosphere where certain ideas are favored because they support the activist ideas promoted by the institution.
pradn 3y ago

yieldcrv 3y ago

Nature is healing Given that we already have distinct forms of organizations for activism, corporations and other forms of non-profits should “use their platform” to tell activists to pound sand

newaccount7g 3y ago

But if mainstream economic theory is anything close to being correct, denying Marx was correct is like denying gravity. It’s just so clear based on the literature that the rate of return on investment exceeds the growth of the real economy. Anything else is conservative activism not grounded in experimental reality.

gryzzly 3y ago
the modern university education lacks exactly the same thing that your 1 paragraph of letters does – nuance. "Anything else is …" is the crap we need to see less of, if we are to respect academic research and publishing at all.
- wolverine876 3y ago
  > the modern university education lacks exactly the same thing that your 1 paragraph of letters does – nuance Where do you get that? My experience is very much the opposite. What I see from university educations is far more nuanced and sophisticated than what I see anywhere else - far beyond HN, fwiw.
  - gryzzly 3y ago
    I’m not even going to take a specific stand or call out the specific things that make me loose hope for the future. But if you don’t notice that activism and books praising activism (as opposed to seeking knowledge and revealing truth, or even just having deep knowledge of craft, like medicine), are a large part of modern academia, then we live in two different worlds.
    - wolverine876 3y ago
      How do you define activism? I think activism is very much about the truth - it's a means of putting a challenging truth on the agenda when otherwise it would be ignored. MLK said that people don't change their minds (maybe not exactly his term) in the absence of tension. There's plenty of history that they will ignore things for generations if they can. Look at what's happening with climate change, for example - and instead of acting to stop the problem, many in power are acting to deny it and to suppress anyone who points out out. > if you don’t notice that activism and books praising activism (as opposed to seeking knowledge and revealing truth, or even just having deep knowledge of craft, like medicine), are a large part of modern academia What in academia do you have experience with? Any at all?

awaythrow999 3y ago

This has been popping up like mad the past 10 days on all my feeds. In a nut-shell: "Right wing think tank argues against activism in academia ..." Rethinking the Plight of Conservatives in Higher Education https://www.aaup.org/article/rethinking-plight-conservatives-higher-education https://www.aaup.org/article/rethinking-plight-conservatives... Culture wars are raging on US campuses. Will they affect research? https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00393-1 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00393-1 Special Issue: The Participatory University Between Policy and Activism: The conceit of activism in the illiberal university https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/14782103211003422 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/147821032110034...

simpletone 3y ago

What you choose to teach and how you choose to teach is innately a form of activism. It's impossible to separate teaching from activism. The problem with activism in universities isn't with the professors, it's with the administrative staff. What yale and other institutions need to do is adopt a neutral stance and protect freedom of speech. Which used to be the standard when I went to school. A neo-nazi, a zionist, a christian, an atheist, etc should have a right to study, teach, opine, etc in an american university. People need to feel free to be a 'devil's advocate' in any academic institution. The problem is that the lunatic fringe has coalesced together and taken power not only in academia, but corporate america and government. As for limiting donor influence, I think we can all agree on that. It's crazy how a few despicable billionaires were able to take out the leaders of harvard, penn, etc.

gnicholas 3y ago
How do you suggest limiting donor influence, as a practical matter? How can they be forced to donate to organizations whose actions they oppose?
- simpletone 3y ago
  > How do you suggest limiting donor influence, as a practical matter? Harvard, Penn, etc is far more important than bill ackman, trump, etc. > How can they be forced to donate to organizations whose actions they oppose. They don't have to donate. And their children don't get special privileges to these institutions. Besides, as I said, the organizations should take a neutral stance.
  - kelnos 3y ago
    I agree with your toplevel comment in general, but I'm not sure I understand how they should avoid the outsized influence of a few donors. Is the idea that institutions should adopt policies that ensure that no one donor (or a small group of donors) consists of too much of the donations pool? Or should they actively be rejecting donations based on some sort of subjective evaluation of the donor? The former seems reasonable, but the latter sounds like the opposite of an org taking a neutral stance. I do think there are some cases where orgs should be actively disqualifying specific donors; the Epstein junk seems to be a good example of why they should be picky.

kelseyfrog 3y ago

Sorry, but all teaching[1] takes a position. Being fringe/widely accepted and taking a position are orthogonal concepts. It sounds like Yale's instead engaging in curriculum by controversy avoidance, which incidentally is one of the worst ways of designing a curriculum and most certainly "taking a position" - the position of trying to avoid controversy. 1. by virtue of being an interpersonal interaction

smokel 3y ago
I started writing a similar comment at this, but then figured that the situation is not so black-and-white. Some activists are using disingenuous practices to undermine science. Undermining science by itself might be a noble cause in some areas, but please just use the legal or political systems to accomplish that. Do not attack individuals directly.
- jimbokun 3y ago
  What would be an example of nobly undermining science? Do you mean undermining poorly done science with better science?
  - AlbertCory 3y ago
    Maybe they mean "calling scientific method a form of racism?" Just a thought.
  - bilbo0s 3y ago
    I think they mean demanding the elimination of peer review. There is a movement afoot to eliminate the practice because if it is done the way intended, the bar is too high. The bar probably is too high, but that's not necessarily a problem. Rather that's the point. I agree, that particular movement does have at its root an assault on science.
    - jimbokun 3y ago
      Should go on peer review, and demand replication of results before accepting a paper's findings, in an ideal world.

trinsic2 3y ago

[flagged]

badgersnake 3y ago

I guess they didn’t teach ‘Hard Times’ "Fact, Fact, Fact!"

wly_cdgr 3y ago

Teaching has literally never been distinct from activism, but, good luck!

wait_a_minute 3y ago

This is the correct move. Students need to learn math, science, history, philosophy, and generally grow in critical thinking. There is instead a lot of indoctrination being foisted onto their minds, and a lot of it is even anti-American. That is fine for someone to explore on their own time, but institutions of learning becoming centers of indoctrination is a huge no from me.

shadowgovt 3y ago
How does one tell the difference between teaching and indoctrination? Every fundamental hard science started controversial. In some circles, they still are. Do we stop teaching heliocentrism because it's the devil's work? Who decides?
- subtra3t 3y ago
  The topics that you or I consider to be "fundamental hard science" are significantly less controversial than the topics that would normally fall under the category of activism. I'm not saying that controversial ideas should be completely ignored, just that controversy may be an important factor, in the eyes of some, to draw the line between cold hard truths and up-and-coming divisive ideas.
- polski-g 3y ago
  If you start talking about Palestine in your Differential Equations class, that is indoctrination. If you start talking about Jews in your CompSci 102 class, that is indoctrination. There is no reason to talk about anything besides the class, in the class.
  - lapetitejort 3y ago
    Can you point to a curriculum or lecture where that has occurred?
    - polski-g 3y ago
      [dead]

hiddencost 3y ago

The American Right moves to silence critique of dismantling democracy....

nonrandomstring 3y ago

It's hard to tell from this article what is at stake and who is calling for what. Whose free speech? Students, professors, administrators, donors? And the idea of "neutrality"? hmmm. Not directly related but much apropos is this video on "What's gone wrong with political journalism in the UK" featuring Armando Iannucci [0] . The key concept is that neutrality and integrity have nothing to do with each other. One can be a monster by feigning neutrality, as Howard Zinn says it [1] "on a Moving Train". What matters, at least in journalistic if not academic integrity, is the "360 degree scepticism" needed to make the choice of when neutrality is appropriate or not. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoBNU_lMjaM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoBNU_lMjaM [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Zinn:_You_Can%27t_Be_Neutral_on_a_Moving_Train https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Zinn:_You_Can%27t_Be_Ne...

geodel 3y ago
Reading Howard Zinn's "People's history of united states" with its endless series of atrocities I just tend to not believe a single word from him. I liked this fact from Wikipedia article though: > "In 2008, the film was chosen by the Zinn Education Project (a collaboration of two national organizations, Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change) to be included in an education package sent to 4000 high school and junior high school teachers across the country."
- nonrandomstring 3y ago
  > endless series of atrocities I just tend to not believe a single word The good news is that if you're susceptible to denial and percepticide it means you're a "nice person". TBH I had the same reactions reading Christopher Browning, Solzhenitsyn, Chomsky, Primo Levi. The bad news is that you grow out of it, and with the courage to face the world, realise that historians don't just make up stuff to scare people - otherwise they'd have more fun and money being fiction writers like Stephen King. Now I'm not a "nice" person I can tell you, the weird news is that the bad news is the good news.
  - Jiro 3y ago

quacked 3y ago

Education is indoctrination, no matter what form it takes. Even telling students raw "non-political" facts is indoctrination into the worldview "people born to your station ought to be knowledgeable". You cannot "learn" anything without being indoctrinated into whatever view of reality your teachers take, so the idea that you could teach without "activism" and only focus on "transmission of knowledge" seems unachievable to me. Many conservatives (a word which I call myself) seem to take this view that it's possible to "teach without activism". However, when you examine what is entailed as a part of "teaching without activism", they are almost always arguing that schools should teach according to a social or informational standard that was considered "radical activism" anywhere from five to fifty decades ago. I suppose my overall point is that a faculty group calling to "teach without activism" should drop its "apolitical" façade and instead openly advocate for teaching according to whichever principles they think are most desirable for good societal outcomes. In this case, it seems like the subtext is that they'd like to see more socially conservative or "right-wing" filters applied to what is taught and how it's taught, and these filters are out-of-alignment with the standard progressive/communist/leftist/etc. spirit which is quite common on college campuses (and has been for decades, if not centuries). I suppose this would result in many of them being publicly and embarrassingly fired by their overwhelmingly left-wing donors and students, but if their ideas are good enough they should be able to seek funding by right-wing donors and open competing universities dedicated to "instruction" over "activism", whatever that means to them. There is a demand for a service like this right now in the US that theoretically could be met by sufficiently motivated actors. I don't see this happening, though, as in the US the "right wing" is held in the pervasive grip of an anti-intellectual movement that started a long time ago.

jimbokun 3y ago
The goal of "teaching without activism" should be to force students to assess ideas on their own and present good arguments for what they believe to be true. And to occasionally be persuaded and change their opinions. The ideal teacher would leave students at the end of the semester not knowing what their personal position on a controversial issue was, as they present arguments for different opinions and challenge all those opinions as well.

brindlejim 3y ago

University faculty-activists are a perfect example of elite overproduction a la Turchin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_overproduction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_overproduction We create small, smart cadres of people who watch power and wealth pass them by, and they advocate to overturn the system driving their envy.

bena 3y ago
Both this article and the article on Turchin himself don't pass the smell test. They both read more like opinion pieces than informative articles. Like they were written by either Turchin himself or people who know him. Contrast the article on Turchin to the one on Tim Berners-Lee (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee). No wishy-washy weasel language. No vague claims of contributions, just straight up: He was here, he did this thing.
- pictureofabear 3y ago
  I didn't get that same feeling from reading the two articles, but Turchin's article on Elite Overproduction is relatively new and the idea is only as old as 10 years. It's a theory that's very convenient for explaining the present but seems to be grounded in past political instability, so who knows... maybe it'll stand the test of time. It is interesting though.
rKarpinski 3y ago
> University faculty-activists are a perfect example of elite overproduction a la Turchin. The faculty pushing back against "administrative encroachment" and seeking "the primacy of teaching, learning and research" are your perfect example of an over produced elite?
- tines 3y ago
  No, the faculty-activists are the ones _being pushed back against_ by the faculty seeking the "primacy of teaching."

idkdotcom 3y ago

[dead]

nemo44x 3y ago

One of the problems with a lot of the liberal arts curriculum today is that every university tends to slant the same way with the same topics. They all come to same conclusions on non-deterministic, subjective ideas. There's a missing counterweight in may cases that exists to critique, ridicule, and otherwise keep in check opposing ideas. For each critical theory (race, gender, secuality, etc) department there should indeed be a neo-reactionary (or similar) one, for example. But not only is there not, any questioning or debate of the crits is stone walled as racist/misogynist/homophobic/white/etc. There's actually some good ideas there but not being allowed to or having the university platform to formalize opposing ideas and to challenge undermines them. This is how religion happens, not free inquiry. Let the ideas flow and let the strong ones prevail but certainly not become doctrine.

wolverine876 3y ago
> One of the problems with a lot of the liberal arts curriculum today is that every university tends to slant the same way with the same topics. They all come to same conclusions on non-deterministic, subjective ideas. There's a missing counterweight in may cases that exists to critique, ridicule, and otherwise keep in check opposing ideas. What is that based on? People I know in universities are exposed to a very wide range of ideas. In the OP, isn't it the conservatives who are suppressing ideas?
itishappy 3y ago
> There's actually some good ideas there... Have any in mind?

jjkeddo199 3y ago

Campus activism has been tainted by Marxism. "Critical [race|gender|disability] Theory" is just standard Marxism applied in the social science context. Since Marxism pre-requisitely requires framing everything in the world into a "oppressed vs oppressor, have vs have-not, good vs evil" binary, you will become a target for hostility/harm if you are perceived as somehow privileged. If isolating/targeting people based on on race/gender/ability bothers you, you should stand up against "Critical (Marxist) Theory" infiltration of activist circles in the social sciences. Activism should be about empowering the needy, not harming the need-nots.

drawkward 3y ago
>Critical Race Theory axiomatically requires white people to be written off as evil and the enemy. For the sake of argument, lets grant your point about the Marxist framing oppressor vs oppressed stuff. Cannot the system itself be the oppressor, instead of "white people"?
- tristor 3y ago
  > Cannot the system itself be the oppressor, instead of "white people"? Sure, and that begs the question "who created the system?", "who does the system benefit?", "why is the system structured this way?". All of which are /good/ questions to ask, that critical theory advocates are all too willing to provide easy non-nuanced answers to, answers that boil down to "white people". Unfortunately, it turns out that anti-racism (at least as currently implemented/advocated in the majority of colleges and universities) is just racism with a different label.
  - drawkward 3y ago
    >All of which are /good/ questions to ask, that critical theory advocates are all too willing to provide easy non-nuanced answers to, answers that boil down to "white people". Then the problem is the the advocates and not CRT, no? >Unfortunately, it turns out that anti-racism (at least as currently implemented/advocated in the majority of colleges and universities) is just racism with a different label. Speaking of answers without nuance...

juujian 3y ago

Yes. Force them to be neutral. Teach both sides of climate change and the Panama papers. For sure...

drawkward 3y ago
Doesn't seem like that's whats being advocated for.

wolverine876 3y ago

The argument is in the premise, a powerful tool used by people sophisticated in public messaging: The premise here is that the status quo beliefs are knowledge, ideas that disagree are 'activism' - political activity - and are not knowledge. It's fundementally a higly conservative framing that, obviously and intentionally, protects the status quo power. Once you accept the premise, everything else follows - assuming X is political activity, and school is for learning, not so much for political actitivty, then obviously .... The effective means is not to make an argument directly for the premise - that makes the premise an issue on the table, something to debate. Instead, assume it in your argument: Stop this politicized liberal activism! See how that works? Even people who disagree have to figure out what they disagree about and construct an argument. In reality, neither idea is more political than the other, and the university, of all places, is where to explore and develop new ideas. Teaching the status quo idea is just as much indoctrination as any other idea - maybe more, because it doesn't raise the question of challenging itself. The real question is, how are they taught. And regardless, I trust the students at Yale are smart enough not to be so easily manipulated - just like the people on HN, of course, who know so well what's good for the students.

kardianos 3y ago
So long as you recognize that there exists a material reality, the correspondence to which we call truth, there can be objectivity and a separation of activism from teaching. If there can be no reasonable way to get closer to an objective truth, the very foundations of universities are in question and the entire institution destroyed. In fact, that is exactly what Queer Theory promotes, in which papers describe that when Queer Theory becomes normal, it must deconstruct itself further. No. I reject that notion. There is objective reality, and there is a reasonably objective way to teach knowledge apart from activism. It is entirely possible to promote alternate viewpoints without activism, so long as your alternate viewpoint is not "there is no objectivity".
- wolverine876 3y ago
  There's objective reality IMHO, but humans have demonstrated that we fail to see it clearly, and that our view of reality is biased by our beliefs, drives, experiences, etc. This understanding of human nature extends back to Plato, at least. One strong bias is that we follow social norms; we follow the herd. Challenges to that norm are upsetting, disruptive. But norms are not privileged in truth; there have been endless evil and ignorant norms in history. > If there can be no reasonable way to get closer to an objective truth, the very foundations of universities are in question and the entire institution destroyed. Nobody said we can't get closer, but the way to get closer is not to accept one set of beliefs and supress the others; it's to innovate and improve. We know much more about economics than we did 50 years ago and 100 years ago and centuries ago, but we still have far to go. > that is exactly what Queer Theory promotes Could you give an example of that?

slyrus 3y ago

Meanwhile, there's a pretty sizeable percentage of the educational world that has inextricably tied education to religion. How about getting religion out of higher (and lower) education?

gnicholas 3y ago
How would you propose doing that in a way that is consistent with the First Amendment?
- slyrus 3y ago
  The parent article is about decoupling activism from teaching. Surely religion is just a specific form of activism.
  - gnicholas 3y ago
    > Surely religion is just a specific form of activism. Even if this were true (a couple billion people would probably beg to differ), the First Amendment specifically protects the free exercise of religion. So any law that attempted to prevent religious-affiliated organizations from operating a university or school would be clearly unconstitutional.
    - slyrus 3y ago
      Fair enough. One's belief in creation myths, higher powers/beings, afterlives, etc... is not, per se, activism, but once you start gathering people on a regular basis to bring about societal/behavioral change (ya know, commandments, morals, laws based on religious ideas/notions/opinions, etc...), much less proselytizing, then, yeah, it's pretty much the definition (or at least the poster child) of activism.
      - gnicholas 3y ago
        Lovely tangent; it seems you don't have any ideas about how this could be accomplished in a way that is consistent with the First Amendment (which was the entirety of my original comment)?

cupcakecommons 3y ago

I have a very close friend pursuing an advanced degree in sociology. They're an excellent student, highly intelligent, from a well-off background having benefitted from extremely good schooling their entire life - yet seem barely capable of critical thinking. They often talk about how research is just "food for thought" and has little use in any endeavor the requires decision making or informing policy and that truth as a concept is "frowned upon". These are paraphrased points this person has made to me on several different occasions. I want to understand their perspective but it's frankly shocking the conversations we have. The farther I've explored what this person believes the more bleak it gets. They argue that all perspectives are valid yet have extremely specific beliefs and perspectives on all sorts of things. These beliefs and perspectives are also exactly in-line with what you'd expect from a sociology department at a major US university. Seeing these topics at least being broached gives me some small amount of hope.

rKarpinski 3y ago
> They often talk about how research is just "food for thought" and has little use in any endeavor the requires decision making or informing policy and that truth as a concept is "frowned upon". Sounds like a reasonable perspective towards sociology research?
- cupcakecommons 3y ago
  There are an inordinate number of people in sociology that undermine truth as a concept to reduce the possibility of ever being incorrect about anything. This is obviously completely anti-scientific. Almost miraculously, many of these people hold extremely specific viewpoints that inherently amount to truth claims. I'm all for "food for thought" research in complex fields where truth claims are tenuous at best - but what I'm referring to isn't that. It's rhetorical strategy to make implicit truth claims then fend off criticism by undermining the concept of truth itself.
maxglute 3y ago
Isn't that the job of universitities... to shape minds. I remember being surprised in undergrand that it took merely 2 semesters for architecture teachers to convert/indoctorinate most students from primarily enjoying traditional/classical designs to being fully being on the post/modern hype. Most people are passive recipients.

7402 3y ago

Education is about helping students know more about a subject after they take a class than before. Activism is about convincing others of something, or, failing that, to punish them. Is it proper for an atheist to be able to earn an "A" in a religion course? Yes. The professor should say at the beginning of class, "You do not have to be a believer. I will not judge you or grade you on your beliefs or lack thereof. All you need to do is learn and accurately show that you know what it is that people who do believe would say." Is it proper for a creationist to be able to earn an "A" in an evolutionary biology course? Yes. The professor should say to such a student, "You do not have to change your beliefs about creation or evolution. I will not judge you or grade you on your beliefs or lack thereof. All you need to do is learn and accurately show that you know how biologists calculate and reason about evolution." It is certainly true that opinions and beliefs can change as a result of education. But if that goal becomes the primary purpose of a university (as opposed to a possibly-beneficial side effect) then that university has corrupted the ideal of higher education.

gnicholas 3y ago
> Is it proper for a creationist to be able to earn an "A" in an evolutionary biology course? Yes. The professor should say to such a student, "You do not have to change your beliefs about creation or evolution. I will not judge you or grade you on your beliefs or lack thereof. All you need to do is learn and accurately show that you know how biologists calculate and reason about evolution." My bio teacher took this tack. He said I don't care what you believe; on my test, I ask you what someone who believes in the big bang would say about the creation of the universe. > Activism is about convincing others of something, or, failing that, to punish them. I have unfortunately had professors who took this tack. I was too naive at the time to understand that they would demand unadulterated ideological fealty, though perhaps it saved me the ethical dilemma of pretending to believe something I thought was wrong, for the sake of a grade.

everybodyknows 3y ago

Direct link to the inciting document: https://facultyforyale.yale.edu/homepage https://facultyforyale.yale.edu/homepage Best read this closely first, before the article. At bottom, it's a demand that the administration cede power to faculty, on multiple fronts. Questions of national politics energize the dispute, but are secondary.

eli_gottlieb 3y ago
>Best read this closely first, before the article. At bottom, it's a demand that the administration cede power to faculty, on multiple fronts. Sounds good. Administrators have often been the most petty of tyrants in academia, and faculty self-governance is a more original founding principle of university life than administrative ideological governance.

photochemsyn 3y ago

The rot in academia is closely tied to the rise of the public-private partnership and exclusive licensing of taxpayer-funded research to private interests - and of course, they've been indoctrinating their students and staff on this issue, because Lord forbid anyone starts demanding that university research results belong to the taxpayers who financed them, let alone any notions about 'open-source drug discovery'. E.g. "Yale's $1.5M Ketamine VA Settlement Spotlights Private-Public Partnership Complexities (2023)" https://www.psychiatrist.com/news/yales-million-ketamine-va-settlement-spotlights-private-public-partnership-complexities/ https://www.psychiatrist.com/news/yales-million-ketamine-va-... Corporate Lysenkoism is the norm in American academic institutions these days, that's what all the students are being indoctrinated into - whatever hysteria is circulating around the social science-related culture war nonsense is jut a distraction, a misdirection away from the real core problems in American academia today.

Balgair 3y ago

Bret Devereaux of NC State has a good take on the activism part. From a pragmatic point of view, one can view activism as taking and spending from the account of 'good-will'. That's fine, but you also have to fill that account as well. Typically, this is via some sort of outreach effort and speanding time in the community helping with some thing or another. The issue that Devereaux points out is that the income and outflow are asymmetric. You spend at a greater rate that you put in. So, for every hour/dollar/gadget/etc that you spend with activism, you must put in somewhere between 5-10X the outreach time/money/gadgets/etc.

pangolinja 3y ago

[flagged]

smsm42 3y ago

Universities should concentrate on knowledge and teaching, not partisan political activism. What a novel thought. Maybe somebody should try it out.