After a long deep sleep, the NYT is finally starting to acknowledge the dysfunctions and dangers of Critical Race Theory. Or maybe I’m being too charitable. This has been a newspaper in deep denial, paralyzed by the fear of being called names by hostile people who mislabel themselves as “liberal” and who falsely claim to have solutions to “racism.”  I’ve been reading and writing about these dangers for the past year, yet this is only the second article I’ve seen by the NYT that acknowledges obvious dysfunction in many of our colleges (the other was last week’s article about Smith College). Here’s an excerpt from Brett Stephens Op-Ed, “Smith College and the Failing Liberal Bargain: Absolution is off the table. And liberal ideals themselves are up for renegotiation”: 

Why is it that racial tensions keep boiling over at some of the nation’s most emphatically progressive-minded institutions, whether it’s at Smith, Yale, Northwestern, Bryn Mawr or the Dalton School? Why does the embrace of social justice pedagogies seem to have gone hand in hand with deteriorating race relations on campus?

One answer is that if many students are enjoying a diet of courses on critical race theory, and employees are trained on the fine points of microaggressions, they might take to heart what they are taught and notice what they have been trained to see.
Another answer is that if those who report being offended gain sympathy, attention and even celebrity, more accusations may be reported. . . .

In place of former notions of fairness toward individuals regardless of race, the Woke left has new ideas of “restorative justice” for racial groups. In place of traditional commitments to free speech, it has new proscriptions on hate speech. In place of the liberal left’s past devotion to facts, it demands new respect for feelings.

All of this has left many of the traditional gatekeepers of liberal institutions uncertain, timid and, in many cases, quietly outraged. This is not the deal they thought they struck. But it’s the deal they’re going to get until they recover the courage of their liberal convictions.”