in 2007, Greg Lukianoff wrote an article on “social justice” that the NYT decided was too hot to handle. Lukianoff then shopped his article to the Chronicles of Higher Education, which published it. The problem is that attempts to teach vague world views like “social justice” open the floodgates to teaching personal political preferences and unsubstantiated quasi-religious philosophies as though these are uncontroversial factually-anchored topics that can be described by objective standards. Here is an excerpt from “Social Justice and Political Orthodoxy“:

Vague, subjective, and politicized evaluation standards are dangerous. They invite administrators and faculty members to substitute their own opinions and political beliefs in place of evaluating students’ skill as teachers. Many of us can think of teachers and professors whose politics we may not have agreed with but who were nonetheless exceptional educators. Having the “correct” political beliefs no more makes someone a good teacher than having “incorrect” beliefs necessarily makes someone a bad teacher.

The fact that such politicized standards may be well intentioned does not make them less troubling. Attempts to institute mandatory political orthodoxies for “good reasons” are nothing new. Depending on where the political pendulum is at any given moment, such tests may come from the left or the right. In the 1950s, attempts to root out Communist sympathizers in higher education were rightly opposed even by scholars and judges who believed the Soviet threat was very real, because they also believed such enforced conformity of thought incompatible with liberal education.

At the heart of the modern liberal university is an ideal simultaneously grand and humble: None of us are omniscient, none can know what strange paths can lead to wisdom and understanding, and it is arrogant for any institution to assume the role of final arbiter of truth. Official orthodoxies impede rather than facilitate education and lead to dogma rather than living, organic ideas. One would hope that we are long past the time when education was viewed as an opportunity to inculcate “correct” and unchallengeable answers to philosophical, moral, and societal questions.

The problem of imposing mandatory political orthodoxies is a serious one, whether those beliefs concern “social justice,” “individualism,” or “patriotism.” In 1943 the Supreme Court invalidated a mandatory school flag-pledge requirement challenged by Jehovah’s Witnesses because it went against their religious beliefs. As Justice Robert H. Jackson wrote then, efforts “to coerce uniformity of sentiment in support of some end thought essential” have proven destructive throughout history, raising the bitter question of “whose unity it shall be.” He concluded: “Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard.”

This problem of compelled orthodoxy in the context of Critical Race Theory was addressed by Helen Pluckrose in an article titled, “White Fragility Training and Freedom of Belief.” Here is an excerpt on Ideological Conformity

It is perfectly reasonable for employers to require employees to commit to not discriminating against anybody on the basis of race, and to not expressing racist beliefs. Because this is an important issue and employers will want to be very clear about it, a talk or meeting could be necessary and employees might be required to confirm that they understand and commit to following the rules. However, it is also important that the focus is on expected attitudes and behaviours at work and does not require anyone to affirm their commitment to any particular belief system that they may not believe in and should not be coerced into.

The ethical problem with requiring ideological conformity is often understood better by people on the political left when it comes to a belief system like Christianity, which is a majority view and often combined with conservative politics. It is usually clear to leftists that, unless the role is a specifically religious one, an employer should not require their atheist, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist or even Christian employees to affirm the Christian faith. It is less clear to a certain subset of them that they should not be required to affirm a belief in concepts of invisible systems of power and privilege such as whiteness. This is because Social Justice beliefs are not currently recognised as ones to which the concept of secularism should be applied. They should be. . . .

the belief system around these concepts of whiteness, privilege and fragility includes the truth claims that:

• An invisible power system exists that perpetuates racism throughout every aspect of society.
• Racist systems require power, therefore only white people can be racist and all white people are racist. This invisible racist power system is called whiteness.
• Whiteness pervades everything and so is always present whenever white people do or say anything. It is impossible for white people not to behave in racist ways.
• White people are generally unable to see the invisible force of whiteness and need theorists like DiAngelo to explain it to them.
• Whiteness results in white people being privileged and it is always essential to focus on this privilege to the exclusion of all other factors that could help or hinder a person.
• White people cannot bear to be confronted by DiAngelo’s beliefs in their racism. This is because they are psychologically fragile and not because they know their own minds.
• Any attempt to disagree with this definition of racism, whiteness or privilege is simply a manifestation of this fragility. Being quiet or going away is also a sign of it.
• White people therefore have two choices: they can be racist and admit it or racist and deny it. Both are bad, but the latter is willfully ignorant and therefore really bad.

Critical Social Justice theories of whiteness represent a complex and internally consistent belief system, which is the result of at least fifty years of discourse theory. The similarities between this belief system and belief systems more instantly recognisable as religious, which also believe in original sin, powerful but insidious forces of evil, a priesthood, epiphany and atonement, are clear.

A secular society does not deny belief systems power over others because they are factually wrong. It denies them power over others because it protects the individual’s right to her own private conscience, whether she is right or not. This is a remarkable and counterintuitive thing to humans, but it has served us well.

The principles of secularism hold that, no matter how strongly you believe your belief system to be true or how essential you think it is that all of society holds it to be true and lives according to its moral dictates, you do not have the right to impose it on anyone else. We currently live in societies that do a pretty good job of applying this rule to religion, but which have not yet recognised Critical Social Justice as the same kind of thing. Instead, Critical Social Justice is largely misunderstood as a continuation of the liberal civil rights movements, which worked to reform laws and to open up all opportunities to everyone, regardless of their identities, and whose principles can still, quite reasonably, be expected to be upheld by employers. This is a misunderstanding of Critical Social Justice. As shown above, Critical Social Justice is a very specific belief system, which revolves around several core truth claims, which have not been shown to be true. It requires an admission of inherent racism and regards all disagreement as evidence of the problem.