{"id":38644,"date":"2023-09-29T12:56:14","date_gmt":"2023-09-29T17:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/?p=38644"},"modified":"2023-09-30T10:49:15","modified_gmt":"2023-09-30T15:49:15","slug":"boston-university-is-in-denial-that-it-is-paying-the-price-for-choosing-to-impose-an-ideology-rather-than-seeking-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/2023\/09\/29\/boston-university-is-in-denial-that-it-is-paying-the-price-for-choosing-to-impose-an-ideology-rather-than-seeking-truth\/","title":{"rendered":"Boston University is in Denial that it is Paying the Price for Choosing to Impose an Ideology Rather than Seeking Truth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>David Decosimo, an associate professor of theology and ethics at Boston University, writing at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/how-ibram-x-kendi-broke-boston-university-academic-freedom-progressive-fb92d525\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Wall Street Journal<\/em><\/a>, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/how-ibram-x-kendi-broke-boston-university-academic-freedom-progressive-fb92d525\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">How Ibram X. Kendi Broke Boston University: The university totally committed itself to his ideology. It hasn\u2019t backed off despite the scandal<\/a>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I wrote a letter to BU\u2019s president that afternoon, stressing that beyond the problems with Mr. Kendi\u2019s vision, the more fundamental issue concerned betraying the university\u2019s research and teaching mission by making any ideology institutional orthodoxy. Nothing changed. Even now, BU is insisting it will \u201cabsolutely not\u201d step back from its commitment to Mr. Kendi\u2019s antiracism.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Kendi deserves some blame for the scandal, but the real culprit is institutional and cultural. It\u2019s still unfolding and is far bigger than BU. In 2020, countless universities behaved as BU did. And to this day at universities everywhere, activist faculty and administrators are still quietly working to institutionalize Mr. Kendi\u2019s vision. They have made embracing \u201cdiversity, equity and inclusion\u201d a criterion for hiring and tenure, have rewritten disciplinary standards to privilege antiracist ideology, and are discerning ways to circumvent the Supreme Court\u2019s affirmative-action ruling.<\/p>\n<p>Most of those now attacking Mr. Kendi at BU don\u2019t object to his vision. They embrace it. They don\u2019t oppose its establishment in universities. That\u2019s their goal. Their anger isn\u2019t with his ideology\u2019s intellectual and ethical poverty but with his personal failure to use the money and power given to him to institutionalize their vision across American universities, politics and culture.<\/p>\n<p>Whether driven by moral hysteria, cynical careerism or fear of being labeled racist, this violation of scholarly ideals and liberal principles betrays the norms necessary for intellectual life and human flourishing. It courts disaster, at this moment especially, that universities can\u2019t afford.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Consider also, Jonathan Haidt&#8217;s argues &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/heterodoxacademy.org\/blog\/one-telos-truth-or-social-justice-2\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Why Universities Must Choose One Telos: Truth or Social Justice.<\/a>&#8221; An Excerpt:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>What is the telos of university? The most obvious answer is \u201ctruth\u201d \u2014 the word appears on so many university crests. But increasingly, many of America\u2019s top universities are embracing social justice as their telos, or as a second and equal telos. But can any institution or profession have two teloses (or teloi)? What happens if they conflict? &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>I am not saying that an individual student cannot pursue both goals. In the talk below I urge students to embrace truth as the only way that they can pursue activism that will effectively enhance social justice. But an institution such as a university must have one and only one highest and inviolable good. I am also not denying that many students encounter indignities, insults, and systemic obstacles because of their race, gender, or sexual identity. They do, and I favor some sort of norm setting or preparation for diversity for incoming students and faculty. But as I have argued elsewhere, many of the most common demands the protesters have made are likely to backfire and make experiences of marginalization more frequent and painful, not less. Why? Because they are not based on evidence of effectiveness; the demands are not constrained by an absolute commitment to truth.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Gatn5ameRr8\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>[Added Sept 30 2023]<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/christopherrufo.com\/p\/the-downfall-of-ibram-kendi?utm_source=post-email-title&#038;publication_id=1248321&#038;post_id=137520062&#038;utm_campaign=email-post-title&#038;isFreemail=false&#038;r=8wdgq&#038;utm_medium=email\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Chris Rufo sums up<\/a> the rise and fall of Ibram Kendi:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>This is part of a pattern that we saw in 2020. We saw record donations to groups like Black Lives Matter, to groups like Ibram Kendi\u2019s so-called Anti-Racism Center, and now fast-forward three years and what we have seen is the BLM organization, the leaders looted it and headed to the hills. They decamped to their mansions and left the organization in shambles. And now we have Ibram Kendi\u2019s Antiracism Center, which is the most spectacular academic failure in many years. They hoovered up $40 million and produced almost no research.<\/p>\n<p>This really is at the heart of this movement. It\u2019s empty. It\u2019s nihilistic. It has nothing of substance\u2014it\u2019s all about taking in cash, producing nothing, cashing personal paychecks, and then running when everything falls apart. To me, this is a symbol of where we have come since 2020 and why that movement is really floundering today.<\/p>\n<p>Many of us saw this from the beginning. It was very clear that Ibram Kendi was a fraud in 2020. His signature idea was to use the government to discriminate against people of one racial group to benefit people of another racial group, which he called \u201canti-racist discrimination.\u201d But for any neutral or dispassionate observer, it was simply racism in a new direction.<\/p>\n<p>He has nothing to offer to the debate, and I\u2019m glad to see his research center implode. It\u2019s the ultimate vindication for those of us who said that critical race theory was not a solution to America\u2019s problems and that Ibram Kendi was a false prophet of a dangerous philosophy. This is really poetic justice and I think marks the end of this chapter in the left-wing racialist saga.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>David Decosimo, an associate professor of theology and ethics at Boston University, writing at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/how-ibram-x-kendi-broke-boston-university-academic-freedom-progressive-fb92d525\"><em>Wall Street Journal<\/em><\/a>, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/how-ibram-x-kendi-broke-boston-university-academic-freedom-progressive-fb92d525\">How Ibram X. Kendi Broke Boston University: The university totally committed itself to his ideology. It hasn\u2019t backed off despite the scandal<\/a>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I wrote a letter to BU\u2019s president that afternoon, stressing that beyond the problems with Mr. Kendi\u2019s vision, the more fundamental issue concerned betraying the university\u2019s research and teaching mission by making any ideology institutional orthodoxy. Nothing changed. Even now, BU is insisting it will \u201cabsolutely not\u201d step back from its commitment to Mr. Kendi\u2019s antiracism.<\/p>\n<p><p>\nMr. Kendi deserves some blame for the scandal, but the real culprit is institutional and cultural. It\u2019s still unfolding and is far bigger than BU. In 2020, countless universities behaved as BU did. And to this day at universities everywhere, activist faculty and administrators are still quietly working to institutionalize Mr. Kendi\u2019s vision. They have made embracing \u201cdiversity, equity and inclusion\u201d a criterion for hiring and tenure, have rewritten disciplinary standards to privilege antiracist ideology, and are discerning ways to circumvent the Supreme Court\u2019s affirmative-action ruling.<\/p>\n<p>\nMost of those now attacking Mr. Kendi at BU don\u2019t object to his vision. They embrace it. They don\u2019t oppose its establishment in universities. That\u2019s their goal. Their anger isn\u2019t with his ideology\u2019s intellectual and ethical poverty but with his personal failure to use the money and power given to him to institutionalize their vision across American universities, politics and culture.<\/p>\n<p>\nWhether driven by moral hysteria, cynical careerism or fear of being labeled racist, this violation of scholarly ideals and liberal principles betrays the norms necessary for intellectual life and human flourishing. It courts disaster, at this moment especially, that universities can\u2019t afford.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\nConsider also, Jonathan Haidt&#8217;s argues &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/heterodoxacademy.org\/blog\/one-telos-truth-or-social-justice-2\/\">Why Universities Must Choose One Telos: Truth or Social Justice.<\/a>&#8221; An Excerpt:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>What is the telos of university? The most obvious answer is \u201ctruth\u201d \u2014 the word appears on so many university crests. But increasingly, many of America\u2019s top universities are embracing social justice as their telos, or as a second and equal telos. But can any institution or profession have two teloses (or teloi)? What happens if they conflict? &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>\nI am not saying that an individual student cannot pursue both goals. In the talk below I urge students to embrace truth as the only way that they can pursue activism that will effectively enhance social justice. But an institution such as a university must have one and only one highest and inviolable good. I am also not denying that many students encounter indignities, insults, and systemic obstacles because of their race, gender, or sexual identity. They do, and I favor some sort of norm setting or preparation for diversity for incoming students and faculty. But as I have argued elsewhere, many of the most common demands the protesters have made are likely to backfire and make experiences of marginalization more frequent and painful, not less. Why? Because they are not based on evidence of effectiveness; the demands are not constrained by an absolute commitment to truth.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\n<iframe title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Gatn5ameRr8\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6673,56,6511,6716,24,6610,5721,1594,6561],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-race","category-censorship","category-debate","category-dei","category-education","category-free-speech","category-orwellian-communication","category-snake-oil","category-woke-issues","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38644"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38644\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38647,"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38644\/revisions\/38647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}