University of Rhode Island Condemns its Women’s Studies’ Professor for Taking an Improper Position in her Op-Ed on LBGTQ

You would think it's a good thing for a Women's Studies' Professor to write an op-ed on an issue relating to LBGTQ. Much of the op-ed written by Donna Hughes criticized the the far right and its violent history and ideology. Her employer, University of Rhode Island had no problem with any of that.But she also criticized a position associated with the far left:

The American political left is increasingly diving headfirst into their own world of lies and fantasy and, unlike in the imaginary world of QAnon, real children are becoming actual victims. The trans-sex fantasy, the belief that a person can change his or her sex, either from male to female or from female to male, is spreading largely unquestioned among the political left.” She added that “[w]omen and girls are expected to give up their places of privacy such as restrooms, locker rooms, and even prison cells.

For criticizing LBGTQ ideology, she was publicly condemned by her employer in a flagrant assault on the First Amendment:

A faculty member’s First Amendment and academic freedom rights are not boundless, however, and should be exercised responsibly with due regard for the faculty member’s other obligations, including their obligations to the University’s students and the University community. As stated in the above referenced documents, faculty have a special obligation to show due respect for the opinions of others and to “exercise critical self-discipline and judgment” and “appropriate restraint” in transmitting their personal opinions.

The University, College of Arts and Sciences and Department of Gender and Women Studies are working to support our students and the community as we move through — and learn from — this situation.

The problem is, apparently, that if you criticize an ideology, it is the equivalent of doing violence to real life people. That's what happens when we make a high art of pretending that people are fragile (what we really need is anti-fragility).

Turley accurately concludes: "The only way that Hughes could not cause such harm would be to stay silent on her criticism of the movement. This is a matter that runs to the very core of her writings as an academic and identity as a feminist. , , The silence of other faculty at the university to support their colleague’s rights to free speech and academic freedom is, again, deafening."

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California’s Department of Education Evades Simple Questions about Elimination of High School Calculus in New Math Framework

Follow this thread:

And also this thread by Steve Miller, including the "anti-racist" motivation for eliminating calculus, which provoked the above inquiry by House Democrat Ted Lieu:

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What is the Performance Difference Between Olympian Athletes Who Have Undergone Male Versus Female Puberty?

43-year-old weightlifter Laurel Hubbard is likely to become the first transgender Olympian athlete this summer. As a man, she competed in men's weightlifting before transitioning in 2013. The resulting controversy is covered by the U.K Mail Online, in an article titled: "'It's another kick in the teeth for female athletes': Former British Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies hits out at decision to allow transgender weightlifter Laurel Hubbard to compete in Tokyo."   Former British swimmer Sharron Davies is voicing an objection:

We need to talk respectfully and find fair solutions, maybe a female category and an open and inclusive category. I’m not anti-transgender but I’m pro female sport, facts and fairness. Feelings are no fair way to categorise sport.

Other athletes feel that they cannot voice an opinion. According to this article:

Several female athletes share the view of Davies but are told to stay silent by sponsors to avoid controversy and a potentially toxic fall-out with the trans community.
How much of an advantage do female transgender athletes have over women athletes? Here are three excerpts from the article:

Biological differences between males and females are huge, with insurmountable performance implications. A male versus female gap of even 10 per cent, as is found in running events, is so large that many thousands of men outperform the very best woman.

Many high school boys sprint faster, throw further and jump higher than women’s Olympic champions. Strength and power differences are even larger than in running. At the same weight and height, men lift 30 per cent heavier weights, and produce 30 per cent more power.

.    .    .

These changes are ‘performance positive’, enhancing athleticism in all but a few sports, and the result is a performance gulf, rather than gap, between typical males and females, or between Olympic-level athletic males and females. It is this difference, ranging from 10-50 per cent depending on the attribute . . . "

According to the article, for an athlete who has already gone through male puberty, using hormone suppressants for 12 months only slightly decreases these advantages.

See the full article for more quotes and statistics.

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John McWhorter Discusses Anti-Racism with Bill Maher

Linguistics Professor John McWhorter sat down with Bill Maher on a recent episode of Real Time to discuss "anti-racism." McWhorter describes himself as someone who is hearing things that don't make sense and his quest is to try to obsessively make sense of things like "anti-racism."  The interview was as intense as it was fast-moving. Several take-aways:

A) "Anti-racism" condescends to people who identify as "black," infantilizing them.

B) There is a great diversity of thought among those who identify as black, almost two-thirds of whom are middle class (or even higher earning), the majority of whom do not live in ongoing fear of being harassed or shot by the police,

C) None of this is to suggest that there isn't still racism, which needs to be addressed.

D) Wokeness is a religion where "whiteness" functions as "original sin" that afflicts even babies, a religion where Robin DiAngelo's misguided book, White Fragility is mistakenly being treated as "research" instead of second-rate literature that advocates for victimization;

E) People pretend to "atone" for "white privilege" by posting on FB that they are "doing the work." This solves nothing.

F) White Fragility is not representative of "the general black view of things."

G) There is no one "black view" of things - Also, "'Yes we can't'" has never been the slogan for black America and it's not now."

H) In the religion of Wokeness, advocates pretend that "racism has never been worse" than today, even in the 1960's and even during the 1850's. These are palpable untruths to any person who knows even a tiny bit of history. "Why is it un-black to address degree?"

I) It is childish for anyone to shut down opposing views to protect themselves from never being told that they are wrong. This "cathartic" approach will never change anything. We need meaningful engagement.

J) Social media has everyone "peeing in their pants," afraid to defer even minimally from Woke orthodoxy, which is making "mendacity" ubiquitous.

K) The fear of being honest and the fear to even tell a joke is "becoming almost everywhere. The only exceptions are people who are "weird like us and you don't mind being hated. But most people are not going to have that disease, and so we are stuck where we are."

If you'd like to follow John McWhorter, you can find him on his own Substack Website, It Bears Mentioning.   Also, McWhorter often joins Glenn Loury for conversation at The Glenn Show on Patreon. 

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It is Important to Criticize Each Others’ Ideas

Peter Boghossian's Letter to the Chronicles of Higher Education. What he writes about civil engineers, physicists and philosophers really hits the nail on the head.

It is worth noting that criticism is framed as harassment only by academicians working in certain domains of thought that are in Critical Theory’s orbit. Civil engineers are not claiming that criticism of truss bridge design is harassment. Physicists are not claiming they’re being persecuted when their contributions to quantum theory are criticized. Philosophers are not claiming victimization when their arguments about free will are scrutinized. Claiming criticism is harassment occurs when a discipline’s North Star is not Truth, but ideology.

The internal rationale for calling criticism “harassment” is as simple as it is absurd: because these Critical Theories are believed to proceed from one’s “social position” as an occupant of some “identity category,” the person and her ideas are treated as though they overlap. They do not. Thinking they do is a dangerous mistake for anyone to make, not least institutions that are nominally devoted to Truth. The backbone of rational thought is separating people from ideas to protect the dignity of the former while being free to criticize the latter.

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