Academic left
April 16, 2019 — Steven Hayward
This news today from the University of Tulsa, by way of Yascha Mounk: I’m sure lumping things under a “Humanities and Social Justice” banner will do the trick. But perhaps we should applaud this as truth-in-advertising—social “science” is dropping its pretensions as a science, and admitting that it’s an advocacy program. Then there’s this from the Library Journal: Surely, I thought, this has to be another hoax from the brilliant
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April 15, 2019 — Steven Hayward
I have thought from time to time of walking through Sproul Plaza at Berkeley with Harvey Mansfleld’s book Manliness tucked conspicuously under my arm, just to see what might happen. Because Manliness is an ode to “toxic masculinity” don’t you just know. I think I have a clue how it might go, because Mansfield has been disinvited from giving the commencement address at Concordia University in Montreal, as he explains
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March 20, 2019 — John Hinderaker
We wrote last June about New Yorker fact-checker Talia Lavin, who falsely accused a disabled veteran of being a “Nazi” because she misinterpreted his military tattoo. It made quite a stir at the time, and the New Yorker fired Lavin. Her libel of the amputee veteran wasn’t a one-off; she hates Republicans, or suspected Republicans, in general: The truth of the matter is that anyone who willingly declares themselves [sic]
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March 1, 2019 — Steven Hayward
Readers will likely recall my note here last week about the person working a table at Sproul Plaza at Berkeley was assaulted. I received this notification a few hours ago from the administration: Community: Update on Sproul Plaza Assault Case Dear Steven Hayward, Today, an Alameda County Superior Court Judge issued a warrant for the arrest of the suspect in the matter involving a February 19 assault on Sproul Plaza.
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February 21, 2019 — Steven Hayward
The left would have you believe that America is a sea of hate from deplorable Trump voters, and on campus especially we hear endlessly that dissent from the party line is “literal” violence to vulnerable peoples. Strangely, actual violence on campuses (and elsewhere) seems to be the monopoly of the left. Such as this incident at Berkeley today, where a student with a table on Sproul Plaza promoting Turning Point
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February 13, 2019 — Steven Hayward
You just knew that a full-scale Maoist ideology struggle session would break out amongst college administrators in the aftermath of Governor Moonwalk’s yearbook fiasco. And behold American University: To: American University Community From: Daniel Myers, Provost, Fanta Aw, Vice President of Campus Life Re: Yearbook Review Dear American University Family, When the issue of yearbooks and past student conduct emerged in the national conversation last week, AU
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January 25, 2019 — Steven Hayward
Before there was “diversity,” which is college-speak for people who look different but all think the same, there was “multiculturalism.” In the abstract, “multiculturalism” is entirely sensible. We ought to learn about other cultures, and even borrow from or imitate them when they have successful or enriching customs and art. But in practice what multiculturalism meant is active hatred of our culture—the culture of Western European civilization and its outgrowths
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January 22, 2019 — Steven Hayward
For those of you in the New Haven area, I’ll be returning to Yale on Thursday afternoon (if the airlines and weather cooperate!) for the next in my series of lectures for the William F. Buckley Program at Yale, this time on the subject “The Endless Quest for Social Equality.” The actual lecture has taken a different—and I guarantee more provocative!—direction since the description written for the early announcement below,
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January 21, 2019 — Steven Hayward
I’m in Los Angeles right now, taping two different Fox News panel shows. Last night I taped an episode of “Deep Dive,” which is a show for Fox’s new online streaming service FoxNation—you can sign up for a free trial subscription here. The show has a rotating host, drawn chiefly from the ranks of Wall Street Journal writers and editors, though last night’s taping was hosted by Fox’s own Steve
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January 6, 2019 — Steven Hayward
I have an unofficial “No TED-Talks” policy for Power Line, because of the overproduced style of the things, and the vacuousness of 90 percent of the content. This “thought leader” spoof gets the problem just right. Also this one. And this one, too. And . . . yeah, they’re almost endless. But I do make occasional exceptions. Such as anything by the late Hans Rosling. Especially his talk on “the
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December 23, 2018 — Steven Hayward
Like our coveted Green Weenie Award, we could cover academic absurdities on an hourly basis these days. To paraphrase Will Rogers, there’s no trouble exposing the rot of our universities when so many faculty are working full time for you. So we limit ourselves to the most extraordinary or novel expressions of academic rot. Like the idea that conventions in writing are—wait for it, you know what’s coming—raaaacccist! American University
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November 28, 2018 — Steven Hayward
I have a hypothesis that I’ve not yet published anywhere, but it seems like the propitious time has arrived. My hypothesis is that while places like Berkeley, Colorado/Boulder, the University of Wisconsin, etc. have the rap for being the most politically correct and radical institutions of higher education, in fact they are relatively sane compared to small, elite private liberal arts colleges. I believe that most small private liberal arts
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November 24, 2018 — Steven Hayward
With all of the holiday commotion I have neglected to put up notice here of my final visit to Yale for this semester, this Tuesday at 4:30, in the same location as before (WLH 207, 100 Wall Street). Sponsored by the William F. Buckley Program, I’ll be giving a lecture on the topic of equality. I’m going to begin with the droll opening line from Peter deVries’s novel The Prick
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November 20, 2018 — Steven Hayward
I was reading an old lecture on Aristophanes by Leo Strauss when I came across these very usable sentences: When about to enter a place at which we are meant to laugh and to enjoy ourselves, we must first cross a picket line of black-coated ushers exuding deadly and deadening seriousness. No doubt they unwittingly contribute to the effect of the comedies. Strauss had in mind of course the typical
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November 18, 2018 — Steven Hayward
One of the high priority items for the incoming Democratic House is to make college free. It is perfectly understandable why Democrats would want to do this. Just look how successful they were at making health care more widely available and affordable with Obamacare! No, that’s not the reason. Noting that people with college degrees tend to vote more Democratic, one way to generate more Democratic voters is to have
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November 13, 2018 — Steven Hayward
We have come to the point where even liberal academics in good standing will feel the wrath of leftist orthodoxy if they depart from the party line. So what to do? Imitate the late Soviet Union, and start a samizdat literature. I heard several months ago that this new initiative was in the works, but now it is official. A group of scholars from across the political spectrum is launching the
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November 1, 2018 — John Hinderaker
As the lawsuit by Asian-American students against Harvard proceeds, our friend David Lebedoff–one of whose degrees is from Harvard, if I remember correctly–weighs in, with Harvard’s motto, Veritas, as his polar star: Karl Marx, who today’s undergraduates think was that curly-headed guy honking at Groucho, proclaimed in his own turbulent time that “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.” Well, he had to get something right. But who
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