He’s fresh off a cross-country flight and pushing through jet lag, but John McWhorter is back nevertheless, and he’s bringing the heat. With Claudine Gay now out of the top spot at Harvard, there’s little news to report. But the reverberations of her departure are going to be felt for some time, and there’s still much left to discuss. It could be that we’ll look back on the entire debacle as a pivotal event in our era’s racial politics. Or perhaps it will turn out to be no more than a blip, a vaguely remembered controversy that will slip down the memory hole.
John contends, as he has all along, that Gay’s plagiarism was a relatively minor infraction in the grand scheme of things. I don’t agree, but we both know that it wouldn’t have been nearly the issue it’s become (and may well never have been discovered) were it not for her ardent advocacy for DEI. Will the downfall of a powerful proponent have consequences for DEI writ-large? John suspects the whole fiasco simply reinforces the very mistaken idea in some people’s minds that black people just aren’t that smart. Sadly, I think he may be right. In the subtitle of my forthcoming memoir, I call myself a “black conservative.” But am I? I theorize a bit about what comprises black conservatism. And we end the conversation with a long discussion of Amy Wax. John has criticized her previous appearances on this show, but he senses something fishy in Penn Law’s accusations against her. Did she really say make those inflammatory remarks in front of her students? He’s not so sure.
This was a fun one! And if you enjoy it, stay tuned for our January Q&A session dropping later this week. That one gets spicy.
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0:00 John: Claudine Gay needed to resign, but her plagiarism wasn’t a mortal sin
6:50 Has DEI taken a hit after the Gay controversy?
13:50 When “DEI” really means “racial preferences”
22:12 The case of Neri Oxman
23:52 John: Bill Ackman looks “absurd”
26:47 Three cheers for John’s dinosaurs
28:22 Is Glenn really a “black conservative”?
31:11 The three dimensions of black conservatism
37:50 Black elites and immigration
42:35 Ibram X. Kendi undeterred
44:48 Roland Fryer is still standing
46:48 Is Amy Wax getting railroaded by Penn?
Recorded January 27, 2024
Links and Readings
John’s NYT piece, “We Need a New Word for ‘Plagiarism’”
Elon Musk’s DEI airline post on X
Adolph Reed’s essay, “‘What Are the Drums Saying, Booker?’: The Curious Role of the Black Public Intellectual” (originally published in the Village Voice, April 11, 1995)
Wilfred Reilly’s comparative IQ post on X
Recording of Amy Wax’s FIRE webinar
Glenn’s December 2021 episode with Amy Wax
Glenn’s August 2022 episode with Amy Wax
Charles Murray’s book, Human Diversity: The Biology of Race, Gender, and Class
John McWhorter – Is DEI on Its Way Out?