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The End of Being a Duke Professor and What It Means for the Future of Higher Ed

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Re: The End of Being a Duke Professor and What It Means for the Future of Higher Ed

#121

Post by Beldin »

ordinaryperson wrote: post #117
Shivetya wrote: post #89

Welcome to the Heckler's Veto becoming the norm of higher education if not corporate life. This is the method of choice in almost all instances of issues surrounding race, religion, and orientation, now. Look at Intersectionality[1] for clues to why the situation has gotten out of hand. In essence there are so many levels of grievance. In effect, unless you are part of the class of people your right to discuss or rai…

While I agree and sympathize with Professor Charney's on one level, on another the real problem (IMHO) is the lack of legit opportunities in Higher Ed. In the corporate world people are fired or let go for silly reasons or non-reasons all the time: that's at-will employment. But for people in most fields they just find another job and move on; the problem here is there aren't many opportunities to teach at a prestigi…

The article is not about his contract not being renewed, but about the reason for that lack of renewal.

Saying someone who consistently rates amongst your top performers as having unsatisfactory performance is clearly false.

Which means that not only did Duke cave in to an amount of complaints far outshone by praise, it also tried to hide this fact (circumventing its own bylaws).

Re: The End of Being a Duke Professor and What It Means for the Future of Higher Ed

#122

Post by yostrovs »

ordinaryperson wrote: post #117
Shivetya wrote: post #89

Welcome to the Heckler's Veto becoming the norm of higher education if not corporate life. This is the method of choice in almost all instances of issues surrounding race, religion, and orientation, now. Look at Intersectionality[1] for clues to why the situation has gotten out of hand. In essence there are so many levels of grievance. In effect, unless you are part of the class of people your right to discuss or rai…

While I agree and sympathize with Professor Charney's on one level, on another the real problem (IMHO) is the lack of legit opportunities in Higher Ed. In the corporate world people are fired or let go for silly reasons or non-reasons all the time: that's at-will employment. But for people in most fields they just find another job and move on; the problem here is there aren't many opportunities to teach at a prestigi…

Maybe there's not enough academic jobs because too many people try to obtain them. And the reason there's too many is because of false advertising of what academic life is really like. Who would really want to be a professor given what this professor is going through? And he probably didn't earn much. In the media, though, a professor is always presented with respect. It's a professor! So kids get the wrong idea. They don't realize the professor is a bitch of the administration.

Re: The End of Being a Duke Professor and What It Means for the Future of Higher Ed

#123

Post by Aloha »

logjammin wrote: post #48
Aloha wrote: post #21

"As to academic freedom, Professor Charney’s complaint argues that the criticisms of his classroom performance, and thus the decision not to renew his appointment, really had to do with his “radical free speech” approach, in which he forced his students to discuss controversial viewpoints on hotly contested issues of politics and public policy. The panel finds no evidence, however, that anyone at Sanford objected to…

It's hard to say for sure on this quote alone. On one hand, I could read it the way you did -- I have my own qualms about what often feels like an arms race about getting offended. On the other hand, though, if I'm trying to be calm about this, I could also read it as pretty mundane bureaucrat-ese for "look, this guy was just being an asshole and we don't want him back". Being the free speech guy / gal in charge of a…

I figured it was not the latter behavior, because it would have been caught 15 years ago, not just suddenly now.

Re: The End of Being a Duke Professor and What It Means for the Future of Higher Ed

#124

Post by jrochkind1 »

pjc50 wrote: post #66
esyir wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the free speech front, I'll note that at the moment, the right seems to care more about it than the left, or at least it pays more respect to its dressings. Whether this changes once the power balance tips is a whole different story.

From where I see it the right has leapt to the defence of certain kinds of speech, but absolutely not all speech, and certainly not all kinds of employer-speech interaction. I don't think the right is really going to stand up for "you can't fire your employees for their public statements", is it? In fact, the right is more likely to be in favour of "employers should be able to fire their employees at any time for any…

The right is happy to agitate for firing people because of their positions on Palestine, for instance.

Re: The End of Being a Duke Professor and What It Means for the Future of Higher Ed

#125

Post by [deleted] »

batty_alex wrote: post #116
yarg wrote: post #28

More and more this safe space bullshit is infiltrating the former bastions of free-thought. It is a disturbing trend where it no longer matters if someone can convey a counter argument to any given point of view, the mere presence of a point of view contrary to the modern anti-liberal left world view - even if purely rhetorical - breaches the safe space contract and justifies censuring or even punishment. It will onl…

> More and more this safe space bullshit is infiltrating the former bastions of free-thought. Responding to an article about Duke with this conclusion is rich. Duke is a hyper-wealthy institution that is hardly apolitical. Their neatly-manicured campus right next to impoverished portions of Durham and their decision to destroy a decades-long battle for light-rail by changing their mind last-minute doesn't strike me a…

[deleted]

Re: The End of Being a Duke Professor and What It Means for the Future of Higher Ed

#126

Post by yostrovs »

batty_alex wrote: post #116
yarg wrote: post #28

More and more this safe space bullshit is infiltrating the former bastions of free-thought. It is a disturbing trend where it no longer matters if someone can convey a counter argument to any given point of view, the mere presence of a point of view contrary to the modern anti-liberal left world view - even if purely rhetorical - breaches the safe space contract and justifies censuring or even punishment. It will onl…

> More and more this safe space bullshit is infiltrating the former bastions of free-thought. Responding to an article about Duke with this conclusion is rich. Duke is a hyper-wealthy institution that is hardly apolitical. Their neatly-manicured campus right next to impoverished portions of Durham and their decision to destroy a decades-long battle for light-rail by changing their mind last-minute doesn't strike me a…

The people that fired a great professor, it sounds like, are not pretty nice.

Re: The End of Being a Duke Professor and What It Means for the Future of Higher Ed

#127

Post by basetop »

sytelus wrote: post #64
emmelaich wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the linked docs? They're pretty compelling. You cannot say it doesn't discuss specifics.

No, there is nothing specific in linked docs. It seems administration decided to get rid of him, appointed two faculty members to form committee and didn't followed their own bylaws. The tiny glimpse in the doc is that there were some low student ranking in 2018 and few people had negative experience interacting with him - but nothing specific. As per the doc, no one has made any formal complaints. It's however quite…

Actually, rather than having issue with liberalism, he seems to be defending it. His argument seems to be questioning the "bowing down" to "authority". All "authority" - scientific, religious, etc - should be questioned and we shouldn't be "bowing down" to them.

Religion and science are not the same thing ( thought social science is far closer to religion than science ), but authoritarianism and appeal to authority are the same thing.

After all, "scientific authority" was the basis of white supremacy and nazism ( social darwinism ). It was "settled science" not too long ago supported by every scientific authority that white people were superior and non-whites are inferior.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism

You should feel bad for anyone who is a victim of censorship. Being happy that someone is oppressed because they don't align with your political ideology isn't any better than enjoying seeing someone suffer because they aren't part of your race.

And if you are a true "liberal", then you should be against "bowing down" to any form of authority.

Re: The End of Being a Duke Professor and What It Means for the Future of Higher Ed

#128

Post by jrochkind1 »

edraferi wrote: post #3

It seems like there’s a gap in the market for a hard-nosed, teaching-first university. A place full of passionate professors with high standards. A place where high school valedictorians work their ass off for a B. A place where you feel your best will never be good enough because the standards are impossible... until, one day, you get an A. And that grade MEANS something. And after four years, the students walk out…

Does there exist a "teaching-first university" at all? If so, not many.

Re: The End of Being a Duke Professor and What It Means for the Future of Higher Ed

#129

Post by pjc50 »

gdfasfklshg4 wrote: post #119
pjc50 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) "assuming there's no trust issues involved" is doing an awful lot of load-bearing there 2) One of the things that people keep starting "free speech controversies" over is the idea that some groups are intrinsically less intelligent or apt than others. When, as a member of such a minority group, you are confronted with this idea, what can you conclude from the suggestion that you are intrinsically less intelligent…

I guess you should take a statistics class before taking this class so that you can understand that people are varied and different and not entirely defined by which groups they fit into. EDIT: NB In case it is not clear I personally don't think that there are meaningful e.g. IQ differences between the (in my opinion totally arbitrary) groups of humans that people divide other people into where those groups are based…

> understand that people are varied and different and not entirely defined by which groups they fit into

Funnily enough when this idea is called "diversity" it's much less popular.

Re: The End of Being a Duke Professor and What It Means for the Future of Higher Ed

#130

Post by claudiawerner »

gdfasfklshg4 wrote: post #115
pjc50 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is a large amount of misunderstanding (and misinformation) about what safe spaces and trigger warnings are actually all about. They have also been subject to a certain amount of .. inflation? But the core ideas are important. "Trigger" originally referred specifically to PTSD. There is a small number of students, such as women who have experienced sexual assault, for whom the subject is more than merely…

>> microagressing them > Somehow I'm reminded of the debate over corporal punishment in schools, where pedagogical effectiveness takes a back seat to more primal ideas about punishment, conformity, and order. People used to be beaten for being left-handed, remember. Can you provide some context to justify comparing microagressions with beating people with sticks?

Though it doesn't entirely answer your question, several philosophers of speech have identified no metaphysical difference between speech and non-speech, and some find the justifications for a law guaranteeing freedom of speech to be ultimately unfounded[0]. The issue for them is not whether speech causes harm (it does) but whether the harms are sufficient to allow some kind of regulation on speech; there is no evidence showing that speech "invariably causes less harm [than non-speech]". Several have argued this to be the case in the context of hate speech or pornography - it's conceivable their arguments may extend to widening current law (or college policy, since most discussion on the topic takes place in the context of universities[1]) to take into account microaggressions - which, as the researchers have noted, may not always be conscious[2].

[0] https://www.law.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Bris...

[1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/2696265?seq=1#page_scan_tab_con...

[2] Sue, Derald Wing. Microaggressions and marginality: Manifestation, dynamics, and impact. John Wiley & Sons, 2010.

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