Professor Dorian Abbott of the University of Chicago Threatened for Expressing Dissent over DEI Policy

What is a hero?  There are many types.  One type of hero is someone who steps up to do what is right and say what is true knowing that the consequences will be painful and potentially damaging to one's livelihood.  The scene is the University of Chicago, which issued the strongly worded "Chicago Statement" in 2015. Here is an excerpt:

“Because the University is committed to free and open inquiry in all matters, it guarantees all members of the University community the broadest possible latitude to speak, write, listen, challenge, and learn . . . . [I]t is not the proper role of the University to attempt to shield individuals from ideas and opinions they find unwelcome, disagreeable, or even deeply offensive.”

I learned of the story of Geophysics Professor Abbott through a series of tweets by Colin Wright. Abbot's crime was to question his department's DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) policies. His concerns included the following:

My basic points are: (1) We need to think through the consequences of DEI efforts to make sure they aren’t hurting promising scientists of all demographics, (2) There are major societal problems that we should try to fix as a society as well as by giving our own time and money off campus, but adjusting departmental ratios at elite universities does not really address them, and (3) the current academic climate is making it extremely difficult for people with dissenting viewpoints to voice their opinions.

Abbot's concerns resulted in a letter to Geophysics Department signed by 130 graduate students and post-docs demanding that Abbott be stripped  of all titles, courses, and privileges. Those signing the letter claimed that Abbot's opinions "threaten the safety and belonging of all underrepresented groups" and are "an aggressive act." They issued 11 absurd demands that, again, include a demand that the University ruin Professor Abbott's career. Here is the starting point (click on this link to jump in):

Professor Abbott detailed events of Mid-November in this document.  Here's an excerpt from his report:

On Saturday, 11/14/20, friends started telling me that there were a large number of people on Twitter misrepresenting what I was arguing, saying untrue things about me, and even demanding that I be fired. One friend noted that there were a number of tweets using the logic: “I don’t feel safe when you object to my premises, therefore you cannot object to my premises on campus.” I found this very upsetting because it confirmed my fear that certain people are exploiting the language of personal trauma to silence anyone with dissenting opinions on these issues.

Analysis: I believe that this situation was caused by the collision of two different strongly held worldviews. I subscribe to the traditional University of Chicago perspective, as outlined recently in what has become known as the Chicago Statement. In this view academic freedom and the tolerance of dissenting views are given prominence. The reason for this is that it is important for promoting the discovery of new knowledge, which is the main purpose of a modern university. I and many other faculty specifically chose to work at the University of Chicago in part because it has always affirmed this attitude. The alternative viewpoint is that certain groups feel inherently threatened on campus, and need to be protected from anything that might make them feel unsafe or happy to pursue their work. I am sympathetic to this viewpoint and agree in some cases, such as general department and classroom climate, but I feel that it cannot be applied to intellectual discussions. The reason is that it is associated with the type of logic noted above, in which the position is taken: “I don’t feel safe when you object to my premises, therefore you cannot object to my premises on campus.” This is similar to what philosophers call “begging the question,” or “assuming the answer,” and obviously is not an effective way to resolve an intellectual dispute correctly.

I invite you to click on these links and to keep following this story to see whether the University of Chicago will honor its stated principles that universities must always be places where dissent will always be invited.

Continue ReadingProfessor Dorian Abbott of the University of Chicago Threatened for Expressing Dissent over DEI Policy

People Who Refuse to Read What J. K. Rowling Writes about People Who are Transgender Hate Her for her Writings.

This Tweet and others by John Cleese on transgender issues are eye-opening and raise an important point. This can be confirmed quickly by cruising Twitter. Numerous people refuse to read what J. K. Rowling writes about people who are transgender, yet they hate her for what she supposedly said. This is even more distressing than the large number of people who read only headlines before responding to posts or sharing the entire article. "59 percent of all links shared on social networks aren’t actually clicked on at all, implying the majority of article shares aren’t based on actual reading." I've seen it repeatedly on Twitter that Woke Folk claim that Rowling has said things that she never said.  Tweets by or about Abigail Shrier draw hate from the same crowd (and from large media outlets), most of whom claim that she is "anti trans," when 1) there is no evidence of this and 2) Shrier's book, Irreversible Damage, focuses only on teenagers who are undergoing surgery and hormone treatment based upon self-diagnosis and without the benefit of any counseling in an attempt to change their gender. 

Continue ReadingPeople Who Refuse to Read What J. K. Rowling Writes about People Who are Transgender Hate Her for her Writings.

Andrew Sullivan: People are Far More Diverse than Colors

Andrew Sullivan identifies one of the main problems with Wokeness in his article, "The Minorities Within Minorities: And how they can help us revive liberal democracy." This excerpt is from Sullivan's excellent independent Substack column, The Weekly Dish:

I see much of the woke left as deeply threatening to some of my core identities: their hostility to religious freedom, their redefinition of my sexual orientation into a gender preference, their instant judgment of a person by the color of their skin or their maleness. . . . Once you see everything through the prism of crude identity, and reduce everyone to socially constructed molecules in racial hierarchies of various kinds, this is the kind of analysis you get. But what these left and right-tribalists obscure or cannot see is we’re talking about a spectrum of countless, unique human beings here, with individual identities and views formed by a cascade of different life experiences and backgrounds. Things are far, far more complicated and interesting than these crude ideologies can explain.

After publishing the above I spotted Andrew Sullivan's tweet summarizing his article:

Minorities add complexity to America but America adds complexity to them in return. That's why many Americans of countless complicated identities voted this year as individuals and as unhyphenated citizens.

Continue ReadingAndrew Sullivan: People are Far More Diverse than Colors

Anarchists = BLM Minus Black People

From the Los Angeles Times article, "Portland’s anarchists say they support racial justice. Black activists want nothing to do with them":

The election of Biden has only antagonized the anarchists — and exposed their differences with the Black activists they claim to support.

Black activists and community leaders, who generally view the defeat of Trump as an opportunity for change within the system, said the anarchists are hijacking the movement and undermining the push for racial justice by continuing to commit violence.

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Better Than Nature – Puberty Blockers

A tweet by James Lindsay of New Discourses:

I struggle to understand the willingness of prepubescent teenagers to take hormone blockers in light of the high physical and emotional risks (other than social contagion and need to please one's social network). What follows is an excerpt from Irreversible Damage, by Abigail Shrier:

“So first of all, the studies show that when a kid is put on puberty blockers, almost 100 percent will go on to do cross-sex hormones.” This is true, though the reasons are not entirely clear. One possibility is that a young person would only go on puberty blockers in the first place if she was reasonably certain of wanting to lead a transgender life. Another is that, after years of socially identifying as a person of the opposite sex, the social costs of taking it all back are quite steep. It’s hard to change your mind about something you’ve been insisting on for so long— even if you might wish you could.

But it was the next thing she learned that sent Katherine [the mother of a teenager] spinning. “When you’ve stopped puberty with puberty blockers and go straight to cross-sex hormones, you absolutely guarantee that you will be infertile.” When the gender clinicians pushed Katherine to start her preteen child on hormone blockers, they were proposing that she put Maddie on a path toward infertility. Her faith in the gender therapists fell apart.

Katherine could not understand how psychologists would encourage this, how doctors would allow it, or why medical professional standards would permit parents to consent to eliminating such a vital human capacity on behalf of their minor children. And yet, right in front of her, schools were encouraging it, parents were going along with it, the media was celebrating it, and everyone was acting as if this were perfectly kosher.

Continue ReadingBetter Than Nature – Puberty Blockers