This week, John McWhorter and I are joined by Jonathan Rieder, professor of sociology at Barnard and Columbia. Jonathan recently found himself in some trouble when a small group of his students complained to his school’s administration after he quoted a passage from the film 8 Mile that employed the n-word. Jonathan’s course, “Culture in America,” was subsequently canceled. (You can read about the incident in more detail here.) Jonathan thinks the incident is a symptom of a broader abandonment of the norms that guide liberal arts education, and we discuss what happens when a handful of “CRT zealots” derail the process of free inquiry and Socratic pedagogy the university depends on.
After Jonathan departs, John McWhorter and I go on to discuss the Supreme Court’s impending decision on affirmative action. Everyone can see that racial preferences in college admissions are not long for this world, so what comes next? John gives us some indication, pointing to an Atlantic article by Richard Rothstein that calls for continued racial preferences—even for middle-class black applicants—and civil disobedience on the part of university administrators. (John wrote about it in a special guest post on Sunday.) We close with a discussion of my friend Randall Kennedy, the brilliant Harvard Law School professor, who, despite his somewhat heterodox views on race, nevertheless insists on the necessity of racial preferences in affirmative action.
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0:00 Why Jonathan’s course “Culture in America” got canceled
9:07 The fragility of liberal arts education
17:24 Managing “CRT zealots” in the classroom
27:44 Is there a future for free inquiry?
35:03 John: Black middle-class students don’t need affirmative action
44:57 Is diversity the problem, or is it elitism?
52:35 The virtues (and virtue signaling) of Randall Kennedy
Recorded June 17, 2023
Links and Readings
Alex Morey and Nadine Strossen’s FIRE article about Jonathan, “Who’s Allowed to Teach ‘Culture in America’?”
Barnard’s Center for Engaged Pedagogy
John’s book, Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America
Robin DiAngelo’s book, White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism
Cornell Belcher’s book, A Black Man in the White House: Barack Obama and the Triggering of America’s Racial-Aversion Crisis
Richard Rothstein’s Atlantic piece, “The Problem with Wealth-Based Affirmative Action”
John’s guest post, “Racial Preferences May End, but the Fight Will Continue”
Derrick Bell’s book, Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism
Glenn’s City Journal essay, “Affirmative Distraction”
Randall Kennedy’s Atlantic essay, “My Race Problem”
Randall Kennedy’s book, For Discrimination: Race, Affirmative Action, and the Law
Randall Kennedy’s book, Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word
John McWhorter and Randall Kennedy on The Glenn Show
John’s 2008 Bloggingheads conversation with Randall Kennedy
John McWhorter & Jonathan Rieder – Canceling "Culture in America"