Prof Wax's gofundme links to a 0714 Daily Pennsylvanian article which mentions broad generalizations she made on Tucker Carlson's show like "Blacks feel resentment at the accomplishments of Western Civilization". I appreciate that Glenn made a point of saying that he doesn't agree with Prof. Wax about everything, but I am wondering why some offensive public statements she has made, which are not backed by scholarship, were not discussed on the podcast.
Thank you for the excellent interview. Also thank you for lowering the subscription cost during this period of inflation- allowed me to continue subscribing.
Thank-you again for your tremendous courage and integrity. My solution is to have every non-POC identify and register as a POC and every man to self identify as a woman. That way we will all be POC females. Since there is no unambiguous definitions out there, no one can reject it. If you can’t beat them; join them and get that full ride, job offer and promotion. Much love guys. <3
Red Tails had nothing to do with Affirmative Action and one reason they were successful is precisely because they hadn’t developed their skills based on Affirmative Action handouts.
Thank you for speaking out. It sounds like you've paid a tough price. Putting that aside for a moment. I suspect that if you were a white male they would have kicked you out by now. Keep fighting, you have a lot of people who believe in you and your cause.
Loury really went out on a limb for this one, backing Wax unequivocally and calling her a “friend,” despite his repulsion for some of her propositions. He will get tons of flak from the usual suspects and maybe some fresh ones besides. So it was stunning to hear Wax tossed off a mild “thanks” in Loury’s direction at the end of it all. She needn’t scratch Loury’s initials into her bicep to prove her gratitude, but a bit more appreciation certainly is in order. What a sour note on which to end. Can she really be that tone deaf? Never mind.
I have said my piece about Amy Wax being on this show ever again but I am just gritting my teeth here. I am sorry that her family was harassed.
I am receptive to "class-based affirmative action" arguments that many elite universities with a poor record of social mobility are claiming that AA is an instrument of social mobility when for them it is not. But the "contradiction" here is that the universities are claiming they would not have ENOUGH Black students if not for AA and individual students are claiming that any individual Black student got there because of AA when they are not privy to the decisions of the admissions office and that student might have got there absent AA. (G-d forbid that student might be a legacy or a recruited athlete or a poor immigrant story.) The way that I understand the admissions process at super-elite schools (and they have some investment in keeping it mysterious), they could fill their whole class with students with perfect grades and test scores. Every single person who gets in has to have a gimmick. They have to have done something extraordinary. For the people who got in because of AA, being of an underrepresented race is an enhancer to the extraordinary thing that they have already done or helps the admissions office understand why it was extraordinary.
That said, after a whole generation of no AA at the University of California the voters continued it because younger people didn't understand why AA was supposedly necessary. I agree with Wally in the sense that the Black community has learned to take the guarantee of a few people getting out over the enormous task of everyone getting out.
UC is supposedly not considering AA, but in truth, they are doing so, albeit through various euphemistic policies such as 'holistic measures' for admission, removing the SAT, etc so that it becomes harder to pin accountability on the university.
Old wine in a new bottle, to shut up the critics, that's all it is
It’s not that alumni ,fire or even government run by the gop will change the ideology of universities. But it provides dissenters in the colleges allies to prevent suppression of their ideas and writings.
Amy is correct in saying the freedoms of the academic world wouldn't be curtailed if a republican administration were in power. Since this is a topic very dear to Glenn's heart (and John's), it never fails to amaze me why they would repudiate Trump so vehemently then. Very strange.. Trump was totally against the woke mob, cancellation, for school choice, and for section 230, etc which would have weakened the power of both Unions and university admin significantly.
"Amy is correct in saying the freedoms of the academic world wouldn't be curtailed if a republican administration were in power."
Oh, dear. Just as I was about to sign off on this comment section, I saw this, which is so far from the truth that it requires at least one quick corrective comment. Ron DeSantis, Florida's Republican governor, is in the news again precisely for trying to impose speech codes (the "Stop Woke act") on universities - and beyond.
Greg Lukianoff, the President of FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which is nonpartisan, but is often accused by those on the left of being a right-wing organization) observed that the Stop Woke Act's "provisions about higher education are probably the most clearly unconstitutional legislative threat to academic freedom I’ve seen in my 21 year career."
Ilya Somin, who is associated with for the libertarian Cato Institute and who writes for The Volokh Conspiracy at Reason Magazine, notes that the Stop Woke Act violates the First Amendment.
Seth, if you had soldiered on for a bit longer through this thread, you would have noticed that I conceded the point! Unlike most (il) liberals, I am occasionally capable of spotting the faults in the political party I favor.
Though I might personally think a ban on CRT is a wonderful thing, I could never countenance such an act in reality. Instead, the acceptable alternative would be to support school choice, which gives both parents, teachers and schools the freedom to choose.
No she's not. Progressive chokeholds over campus culture got *more* monolithic during the Trump years, not less; Trump gave the Progressives a convenient enemy to all rally against, and with which to tar their local opposition.
Note that this isn't an argument for dumping Trump; heterodox academics certainly seem to be caught in the left's "heads I win, tails you lose" game. Instead, it's an argument for acknowledging that the American university system, such as it is, is extremely polluted and needs root and branch remediation. With all due respect to the learning communities that Prof. Loury reveres, that's just not what we have anymore. Tax-exempt status for endowments should be attacked. The illusion of "academic freedom" needs to be put out of its misery, and the excesses curtailed using existing civil rights law and/or new legislative enactments.
This need not mean that the U.S. populace go uneducated; there is already significant evidence that the quality of education provided by liberal arts programs has decreased as the proportion of the population attending college has increased. Additionally, the coming decades will see a massive demand for industrial workers as global supply chains break down and industrial production re-shores closer to input production and end-product markets. This will require a vast number of engineers, technicians, foremen, inspectors, accountants, transportation workers, logistics professionals, etc. Technical education institutions to meet this demand can be stood up rapidly, in communities not suffering outbreaks of excessive wokisme, and without the bloated administrative barnacling that liberal arts colleges and universities have accumulated. The cost of this education can be comparatively low, and the time investment required minimal, thus also decreasing the burden on students and limiting the barriers to mid-career reskilling.
You have a point. Academic freedom remained under jeopardy when Trump was President. The universities do seem to be a law unto themselves which operate independent of politics, and I suspect their assured federal funding plus big donor big bucks make them invulnerable. I don't know what the answer is, to make them more accountable. Don't know if it's even possible. Truly tragic.
There have been grand institutions of learning and inquiry which did not conform to the current research university level. There will be again after Harvard has passed from memory.
"I have a dream..." said a man who is becoming less relevant by the day. Racializing society was poison the first time. What sane person thinks the result will be better if different people do the same thing?
It’s as if it’s revenge. This bad thing was done to us so now we’re going to do that bad thing to you. Which of course this will just create an endless cycle of umbrage and vengeance. What happened to “When they go low, we go high”?
Penn Law's case against Professor Wax is laughable when you look carefully at the charges and at what she's actually said and written. I've done a close consideration of some of the "offenses" her Dean believes merit serious sanctions against her: https://alexanderriley.substack.com/p/latest-on-upenn-laws-effort-to-purge
But, as Professor Wax suggests here, they know it doesn't really matter how pathetically weak their case is.
They are cynically relying on the fact that few people will look carefully at the charges, even those who are disposed to dislike this kind of woke DEI overreach. There is a huge contingent of the American public that will just hear the vapid mantra "racism!" and immediately agree with what Penn Law wants to do, and another large contingent of those who are vaguely concerned about the woke revolution but too intellectually lazy and afraid to stand up to it, especially if it's not (at the moment) attacking them personally.
Most woke policies are being carried out by upper middle class whites “for” blacks.
Woke whites and fellow travelers are impervious to complaints from whites, or Asians for that matter, about the elevation of blacks using a lower standard than is applied to whites or Asians and the intellectual corruption necessary to do so while denying the negative effects of the practice.
Woke whites are impervious to complaints from whites that identity based politics and social practices are a historical dead end for inter-racial social cohesion the United States, and by extension, for humanity.
Woke whites are impervious to complaints that identity based politics and social practices are a detriment to the working class of all backgrounds because the working class does not have the means to escape the immediate consequences as do the upper classes.
Woke whites are impervious to complaints that woke policies are stoking the culture of black grievance with negative results in various areas such as violent crime, black performance, and general race relations.
There is enough support in the black community, from the very poor to the upper middle class, for woke policies. The concept of “being owed” for slavery and discrimination has broader and deeper support in the black community than is generally discussed or acknowledged.
In the black community, those expressing the sense of being owed drown out those who express ideals of hard work, accomplishment, and moving beyond the psychology of grievance much in the way woke attitudes now drown out opposition in the white community.
Thinkers like Loury, McWhorter, Sowell are talking to the wrong people about the wrong things. White, Asian, and black intellectuals are not able to counter woke policies as intellectuals concerned about the ideals of the enlightenment like the rule of law, free speech, due process, etc. nor actual detriments suffered largely by elite white professionals.
Woke policies are not going to be changed until blacks end them.
Blacks will not actively oppose woke policies until and unless they organize around how these policies are detrimental to them in both immediately tangible and more abstractly historical terms.
Leading blacks to counter woke ideology is a political task, requiring black leadership.
The prospects of black leadership emerging from the Democratic Party to tackle woke policies is slim to non-existent.
Part of the issue is that embracing woke policies is currently net beneficial to the Black community rather than net detrimental, although I certainly agree it probably makes society worse off as a whole. I think woke policies are going to be changed when people are fundamentally incentivized to behave in different ways. So in my opinion it's a little more complicated than just demanding that the Black community end its embrace of woke ideology. There's an entire system in place that as Glenn and John have pointed out repeatedly rewards people for engaging in bad behavior, so why should we expect them to act any differently?
Maybe this isn't a perfect analogy, but it seems like our current state of affairs might represent a sort of local maximum that we're stuck on that's preventing us from attaining what could be described as the true global maximum. In order to get ourselves out of our current situation, some people are going to have to accept short term pain in return for longer term gain.
How do you see woke being a net benefit? I see only a limited number of middle and upper middle class blacks who are in a position to benefit from the DEI hiring push - in academia, corporations, and TV commercials.
Definitely a net benefit, though some may not consider that kind of unwarranted largesse a true benefit: Black people who commit an offence are now less likely to be pulled up by cops for fear of racial backlash. Black adults can break into stores or commit property crimes, and owners stay silent for fear of being un-pc. Black students in most public schools are now being cut a LOT more slack than other students due to 'equitable grading" policies. Black students can dress and speak sloppily and get away with the "Black culture" card. Any time a crime is reported in the papers, and the race and mugshot are carefully omitted, you can bet your bottom dollar that the perp is a Black. Govt contracts, which are massively lucrative, are being awarded to Black business owners more than any other race. Loans taken by Black farmers have been forgiven. Black older people had priority in getting vaccines sooner. These are not the Clarence Thomases of the world, but regular people who are standing to benefit purely based on their melanin count. I could go on and on and on ....
I see what you are saying. I am one of those people who would put some part of your list into the detriment category. True enough, the individual who is not stopped or punished for a crime or acting out in school is getting a momentary benefit, but I would argue that living a life of grabbing whatever petty object is at hand is not better than having a life with meaningful work, honest relationships, and a sense of dignity and self worth.
And even if those rewards are not seen as beneficial, the chaos and disorder that comes from chronic crime or just plain anti-social behavior hurts the members of that community, the majority of whom do not participate in the criminality.
But I get your general point that assessing the balance of detriment and benefit from woke policies is not an easy task. Anyone trying to organize black opposition to them has an uphill struggle since the detriments are harder to quantify and tend to exist in the future, whereas benefits are tangible and immediate.
I agree that meaningful work and a life of purpose are incomparably better than a life of petty crime, but here's the thing. How you or I view the 'benefits' is totally irrelevant. It is the perspective of the Black community that counts, and for the large part, they view it as a benefit because it's easier to square it with themselves. It's human nature to take the easy way out and blame someone else for your own inadequacies than look inward. What's more, mainstream society is aiding and abetting them in this belief, consider how the media has replaced the word "riot" which suggests violence and mayhem, with the more genteel "civil unrest" a la King and Gandhi.
I think that's sort of what I was trying to get at with my analogy about local maxima versus global maxima. In my opinion there are definitely benefits to embracing wokeism for Blacks of all classes, but obviously African Americans as a whole would be better off if they embodied the same values as more successful groups in this country.
I think the seduction of being stuck on a local maximum is that in order to move towards the global peak, you have to first take steps downhill and absorb some clear short term pain. Which oftentimes makes it hard to do.
I agree with everything except the part about being on a "local max"! Black student performance has never been as dismal as at present, and plumbing new depths every day (y approaching neg infinity?). Maybe "Global minimum" would be more apt.
Yes, Glenn and John are simply preaching to the choir. Same old, same old message, and same old, same old tired audience. They need to take their message to the Black community, invite Black church leaders on their show, debate with Black inner-city school superintendents and councilmen, hold townhalls in inner cities, etc. They have the gravitas, legitimacy, expertise and the correct skin color to pull it off. I would gladly donate what I could to such an initiative.
I’m glad you said this. As a charter school teacher who was once a little black kid from the “hood”, I often listen to these conversations and wish they had more perspective. I WISH we could shift the conversation from talking about “these kids” in the abstract, and hear more about the actual work “these kids”are doing to make personal strides. I WISH we could stop using Chicago and the South Bronx as short hand for dysfunction. My students may very well be from “The South Bronx”, but they’re really just New Yorkers with dreams and aspirations just like any other kid in the City. They’re normal people doing normal things. Some are extraordinary people doing extraordinary things. I have some that are working towards Juilliard and thus, studying Shakespeare. I have some who write and publish their own books. Some who teach themselves about different camping tactics. Some that get lost in the books. Some who have behavioral issues and get abused by their parents. Some that want to grow up and own their cab fleet. Some that’ll most likely end up on the corner. They’re normal people. Glenn and John, and by extension Coleman, can wax eloquent about all that has gone wrong and the help that black folks need, but we need fresh perspective from people with boots on the ground and people who live these regular, normal lives. We talk about all the many ways kids DONT have access to XYZ resource, and completely gloss over all of the free resources that ARE available to them in their own neighborhoods and schools. John kind of alluded to this in an interview with Modern Wisdom a few months ago (I think).
Ian Rowe has been a good addition to the conversation, but there’s more to the story. I’d love to hear him chat more with the representatives of the church partnerships he’s formed. I’d love to hear more from educators and administrators who are doing work comparable to his. Let’s hear from professors of education. I know the intelligencia has their thing about education departments being worthless, and teachers statistically being the least smartest folks at a university, but like it or not, these departments are where most teachers come from. Some studying to be teachers are, in fact, dense. Others work heartily to ensure your child gets the best and makes the out of their education. Teachers are with children everyday and see the context of their lives in real time. Let’s talk about what education departments are doing right, what they’re getting wrong, and how we might improve in the field of education. And let’s really talk about it. Not from on high, endlessly pontificating, but with actual educators, administrators, and professors who are doing the work. Let’s hear from parents.
Let’s hear from other culture bearers like radio personalities (Charlamagne Tha God comes to mind, but there are others), perhaps one or 2 of the drill rappers that Mayor Adams spoke with (if they’re willing). Perhaps Coleman might have some leverage there.
People like Glenn, John and Coleman owe it to themselves (and to the Black community whence they came) to start to walk their talk. King Randall, the Black young adult in Georgia, and the youngest of them all, is leading the way and putting action to thought. He has started schools for Black teens in his neighborhood, with the intention of getting them off the streets, and is teaching them real-life skills such as automotive repair, how to change a tire, etc, and there is now a long wait list to get into his school. I might also add that his work is barely recognized, both by mainstream as well as "Black thinkers". He has faced stiff challenges in his work already, with the local school district not giving him space to house his school, as he is decidedly unpopular in those quarters, due to his bucking the apple cart big time and showing up other public schools in the neighborhood. He is also operating on a shoestring budget.
Just imagine, if we could replicate King Randall's model all over the inner cities of Oakland, Chicago, Baltimore, etc we could truly effect Change. For it all starts, not with AA and giving Black kids a place in a college for which they may be ill-equipped, but instead getting them off the streets and giving them something engaging and meaningful to focus on, thus giving them a purpose in life.
King is truly following in the footsteps of his namesake.
The so called need for AA comes from the failure of schools in inner city neighborhoods to educate minority children. Public schools are treaded as a source of patronage jobs, not a way to educate children so they can have a better chance at a good life. Republicans should push for more school choice everywhere they can. This is the only way schools like King Randall's school have a chance to spread their model.
Agreed. I understand what the Woke Blacks get out of this (or think they do), but not the Woke Whites.
But I also don't get what elite educated people get out of insisting that there are multiple genders and males and females are interchangeable, like socks or underwear.
Some of these people think they are doing the right thing and are on the right side of history like the civil rights activists of the 60s. People opposed are seen as racists with dogs and fire hoses. I kid you not.
I’ve used affirmative action practices in my hiring decisions. But I think I used them reasonably in a way that was not unfair or dehumanizing: I gathered all the candidates I thought were qualified to do the job, and then I gave a hard look at achieving some kind of representative cross section in the hires. I think I am fair but I used affirmative action to check any unconscious bias to only pick people who are like me. And to be certain I was not simply going through the motions, I made sure to hire a diverse set of people over time. I know lots of people who used to do the same. I don’t see a problem with that as long as a) every potential candidate is qualified and b) not every selection has to be a minority.
But, and here’s the big but, many people are not so rigorous or careful and they skip the step of analyzing each candidate on the merits without regard to identity. They simply toss aside candidates that are white or male or whatever and get right to the desired group. They then select one of those (if there are more than one and often there is not more than one). Thus the only real criteria is that person’s race and they are selected solely on that basis.
This practice is now becoming the norm. Entirely unconstitutional, but as long as no one puts any of this in writing, it’s never called out.
The problem is, and has been, that there are simply not enough black candidates that are as qualified as whites or Asians (for jobs or university) and the pressure to show results is enormous. Thus the only way to get diversity in the short term is to have a two or three track selection process. One for whites and Asians, one for Latinos and one for blacks. Even if this multi track system is not written down, it is nevertheless the actual analytic process: first categorize by race, or sex as the case may require, then choose from the desired category.
And anyone with inside baseball knowledge knows that many diversity positions are created in the bureaucracy because the institution is still failing to hire blacks even with this multi track process. Often there is simply no minority candidate for high level jobs. So quite cynically the institution creates positions which are earmarked for minority candidates. These positions are not posted as minority only because that is illegal, but the code words in the ads clearly indicate that only minorities will have the necessary experiences to qualify.
The problem is multifactorial, and the solutions are so complex, that it's just too easy to offer equality of outcome, rather than equality of opportunity.
I agree. Addressing underlying causes is hard work and would almost certainly involve disturbing the k-12 educational system, the welfare state bureaucracy, black grievance culture, among other things.
You might want to read this critical assessment of Dean Ruger's bill of indictment against Amy Wax:
https://alexanderriley.substack.com/p/latest-on-upenn-laws-effort-to-purge
Prof Wax's gofundme links to a 0714 Daily Pennsylvanian article which mentions broad generalizations she made on Tucker Carlson's show like "Blacks feel resentment at the accomplishments of Western Civilization". I appreciate that Glenn made a point of saying that he doesn't agree with Prof. Wax about everything, but I am wondering why some offensive public statements she has made, which are not backed by scholarship, were not discussed on the podcast.
Affirmative action is institutionalized racism. Pure and simple.
Thank you for the excellent interview. Also thank you for lowering the subscription cost during this period of inflation- allowed me to continue subscribing.
Thank-you again for your tremendous courage and integrity. My solution is to have every non-POC identify and register as a POC and every man to self identify as a woman. That way we will all be POC females. Since there is no unambiguous definitions out there, no one can reject it. If you can’t beat them; join them and get that full ride, job offer and promotion. Much love guys. <3
If you haven't, read up on the "Red Tails", or - 332d Fighter Group - the Tuskegee Airmen.
They held the unequaled record of Never having lost a bomber they were escorting over Germany during WW2.
As far as I know the Luftwaffe had no Affirmative Action policy.
Red Tails had nothing to do with Affirmative Action and one reason they were successful is precisely because they hadn’t developed their skills based on Affirmative Action handouts.
If you haven't, read up on the "Red Tails", or - 332d Fighter Group - the Tuskegee Airmen.
They held the unequaled record of Never having lost a bomber they were escorting over Germany during WW2.
As far as I know the Luftwaffe had no Affirmative Action policy.
Thank you for speaking out. It sounds like you've paid a tough price. Putting that aside for a moment. I suspect that if you were a white male they would have kicked you out by now. Keep fighting, you have a lot of people who believe in you and your cause.
Forgot to mention, hats off to you Glenn. You give me hope. Your truly a champion of logic and truth.
Loury really went out on a limb for this one, backing Wax unequivocally and calling her a “friend,” despite his repulsion for some of her propositions. He will get tons of flak from the usual suspects and maybe some fresh ones besides. So it was stunning to hear Wax tossed off a mild “thanks” in Loury’s direction at the end of it all. She needn’t scratch Loury’s initials into her bicep to prove her gratitude, but a bit more appreciation certainly is in order. What a sour note on which to end. Can she really be that tone deaf? Never mind.
Amy Wax said that the student was only there because of AA?? That's different.
I have said my piece about Amy Wax being on this show ever again but I am just gritting my teeth here. I am sorry that her family was harassed.
I am receptive to "class-based affirmative action" arguments that many elite universities with a poor record of social mobility are claiming that AA is an instrument of social mobility when for them it is not. But the "contradiction" here is that the universities are claiming they would not have ENOUGH Black students if not for AA and individual students are claiming that any individual Black student got there because of AA when they are not privy to the decisions of the admissions office and that student might have got there absent AA. (G-d forbid that student might be a legacy or a recruited athlete or a poor immigrant story.) The way that I understand the admissions process at super-elite schools (and they have some investment in keeping it mysterious), they could fill their whole class with students with perfect grades and test scores. Every single person who gets in has to have a gimmick. They have to have done something extraordinary. For the people who got in because of AA, being of an underrepresented race is an enhancer to the extraordinary thing that they have already done or helps the admissions office understand why it was extraordinary.
That said, after a whole generation of no AA at the University of California the voters continued it because younger people didn't understand why AA was supposedly necessary. I agree with Wally in the sense that the Black community has learned to take the guarantee of a few people getting out over the enormous task of everyone getting out.
Discrimination based on race and gender is discrimination regardless of the race and gender. You are for discrimination and I am against it.
UC is supposedly not considering AA, but in truth, they are doing so, albeit through various euphemistic policies such as 'holistic measures' for admission, removing the SAT, etc so that it becomes harder to pin accountability on the university.
Old wine in a new bottle, to shut up the critics, that's all it is
I forgot the removing the SAT part. I will accept any change that cannot be gamed by "prestige school or bust" parents.
It’s not that alumni ,fire or even government run by the gop will change the ideology of universities. But it provides dissenters in the colleges allies to prevent suppression of their ideas and writings.
Amy is correct in saying the freedoms of the academic world wouldn't be curtailed if a republican administration were in power. Since this is a topic very dear to Glenn's heart (and John's), it never fails to amaze me why they would repudiate Trump so vehemently then. Very strange.. Trump was totally against the woke mob, cancellation, for school choice, and for section 230, etc which would have weakened the power of both Unions and university admin significantly.
"Amy is correct in saying the freedoms of the academic world wouldn't be curtailed if a republican administration were in power."
Oh, dear. Just as I was about to sign off on this comment section, I saw this, which is so far from the truth that it requires at least one quick corrective comment. Ron DeSantis, Florida's Republican governor, is in the news again precisely for trying to impose speech codes (the "Stop Woke act") on universities - and beyond.
Greg Lukianoff, the President of FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which is nonpartisan, but is often accused by those on the left of being a right-wing organization) observed that the Stop Woke Act's "provisions about higher education are probably the most clearly unconstitutional legislative threat to academic freedom I’ve seen in my 21 year career."
https://twitter.com/glukianoff/status/1560368698682183680
Ilya Somin, who is associated with for the libertarian Cato Institute and who writes for The Volokh Conspiracy at Reason Magazine, notes that the Stop Woke Act violates the First Amendment.
https://reason.com/volokh/2022/08/21/federal-court-rules-against-florida-law-banning-woke-workplace-training/?comments=true#comments
I'm afraid academic freedom isn't held in high regard by *either* political party these days.
Seth, if you had soldiered on for a bit longer through this thread, you would have noticed that I conceded the point! Unlike most (il) liberals, I am occasionally capable of spotting the faults in the political party I favor.
Though I might personally think a ban on CRT is a wonderful thing, I could never countenance such an act in reality. Instead, the acceptable alternative would be to support school choice, which gives both parents, teachers and schools the freedom to choose.
No she's not. Progressive chokeholds over campus culture got *more* monolithic during the Trump years, not less; Trump gave the Progressives a convenient enemy to all rally against, and with which to tar their local opposition.
Note that this isn't an argument for dumping Trump; heterodox academics certainly seem to be caught in the left's "heads I win, tails you lose" game. Instead, it's an argument for acknowledging that the American university system, such as it is, is extremely polluted and needs root and branch remediation. With all due respect to the learning communities that Prof. Loury reveres, that's just not what we have anymore. Tax-exempt status for endowments should be attacked. The illusion of "academic freedom" needs to be put out of its misery, and the excesses curtailed using existing civil rights law and/or new legislative enactments.
This need not mean that the U.S. populace go uneducated; there is already significant evidence that the quality of education provided by liberal arts programs has decreased as the proportion of the population attending college has increased. Additionally, the coming decades will see a massive demand for industrial workers as global supply chains break down and industrial production re-shores closer to input production and end-product markets. This will require a vast number of engineers, technicians, foremen, inspectors, accountants, transportation workers, logistics professionals, etc. Technical education institutions to meet this demand can be stood up rapidly, in communities not suffering outbreaks of excessive wokisme, and without the bloated administrative barnacling that liberal arts colleges and universities have accumulated. The cost of this education can be comparatively low, and the time investment required minimal, thus also decreasing the burden on students and limiting the barriers to mid-career reskilling.
You have a point. Academic freedom remained under jeopardy when Trump was President. The universities do seem to be a law unto themselves which operate independent of politics, and I suspect their assured federal funding plus big donor big bucks make them invulnerable. I don't know what the answer is, to make them more accountable. Don't know if it's even possible. Truly tragic.
There have been grand institutions of learning and inquiry which did not conform to the current research university level. There will be again after Harvard has passed from memory.
"I have a dream..." said a man who is becoming less relevant by the day. Racializing society was poison the first time. What sane person thinks the result will be better if different people do the same thing?
It’s as if it’s revenge. This bad thing was done to us so now we’re going to do that bad thing to you. Which of course this will just create an endless cycle of umbrage and vengeance. What happened to “When they go low, we go high”?
Penn Law's case against Professor Wax is laughable when you look carefully at the charges and at what she's actually said and written. I've done a close consideration of some of the "offenses" her Dean believes merit serious sanctions against her: https://alexanderriley.substack.com/p/latest-on-upenn-laws-effort-to-purge
But, as Professor Wax suggests here, they know it doesn't really matter how pathetically weak their case is.
They are cynically relying on the fact that few people will look carefully at the charges, even those who are disposed to dislike this kind of woke DEI overreach. There is a huge contingent of the American public that will just hear the vapid mantra "racism!" and immediately agree with what Penn Law wants to do, and another large contingent of those who are vaguely concerned about the woke revolution but too intellectually lazy and afraid to stand up to it, especially if it's not (at the moment) attacking them personally.
Some conclusions:
Most woke policies are being carried out by upper middle class whites “for” blacks.
Woke whites and fellow travelers are impervious to complaints from whites, or Asians for that matter, about the elevation of blacks using a lower standard than is applied to whites or Asians and the intellectual corruption necessary to do so while denying the negative effects of the practice.
Woke whites are impervious to complaints from whites that identity based politics and social practices are a historical dead end for inter-racial social cohesion the United States, and by extension, for humanity.
Woke whites are impervious to complaints that identity based politics and social practices are a detriment to the working class of all backgrounds because the working class does not have the means to escape the immediate consequences as do the upper classes.
Woke whites are impervious to complaints that woke policies are stoking the culture of black grievance with negative results in various areas such as violent crime, black performance, and general race relations.
There is enough support in the black community, from the very poor to the upper middle class, for woke policies. The concept of “being owed” for slavery and discrimination has broader and deeper support in the black community than is generally discussed or acknowledged.
In the black community, those expressing the sense of being owed drown out those who express ideals of hard work, accomplishment, and moving beyond the psychology of grievance much in the way woke attitudes now drown out opposition in the white community.
Thinkers like Loury, McWhorter, Sowell are talking to the wrong people about the wrong things. White, Asian, and black intellectuals are not able to counter woke policies as intellectuals concerned about the ideals of the enlightenment like the rule of law, free speech, due process, etc. nor actual detriments suffered largely by elite white professionals.
Woke policies are not going to be changed until blacks end them.
Blacks will not actively oppose woke policies until and unless they organize around how these policies are detrimental to them in both immediately tangible and more abstractly historical terms.
Leading blacks to counter woke ideology is a political task, requiring black leadership.
The prospects of black leadership emerging from the Democratic Party to tackle woke policies is slim to non-existent.
Therefore, the task ahead is . . .
Part of the issue is that embracing woke policies is currently net beneficial to the Black community rather than net detrimental, although I certainly agree it probably makes society worse off as a whole. I think woke policies are going to be changed when people are fundamentally incentivized to behave in different ways. So in my opinion it's a little more complicated than just demanding that the Black community end its embrace of woke ideology. There's an entire system in place that as Glenn and John have pointed out repeatedly rewards people for engaging in bad behavior, so why should we expect them to act any differently?
Maybe this isn't a perfect analogy, but it seems like our current state of affairs might represent a sort of local maximum that we're stuck on that's preventing us from attaining what could be described as the true global maximum. In order to get ourselves out of our current situation, some people are going to have to accept short term pain in return for longer term gain.
How do you see woke being a net benefit? I see only a limited number of middle and upper middle class blacks who are in a position to benefit from the DEI hiring push - in academia, corporations, and TV commercials.
Definitely a net benefit, though some may not consider that kind of unwarranted largesse a true benefit: Black people who commit an offence are now less likely to be pulled up by cops for fear of racial backlash. Black adults can break into stores or commit property crimes, and owners stay silent for fear of being un-pc. Black students in most public schools are now being cut a LOT more slack than other students due to 'equitable grading" policies. Black students can dress and speak sloppily and get away with the "Black culture" card. Any time a crime is reported in the papers, and the race and mugshot are carefully omitted, you can bet your bottom dollar that the perp is a Black. Govt contracts, which are massively lucrative, are being awarded to Black business owners more than any other race. Loans taken by Black farmers have been forgiven. Black older people had priority in getting vaccines sooner. These are not the Clarence Thomases of the world, but regular people who are standing to benefit purely based on their melanin count. I could go on and on and on ....
I see what you are saying. I am one of those people who would put some part of your list into the detriment category. True enough, the individual who is not stopped or punished for a crime or acting out in school is getting a momentary benefit, but I would argue that living a life of grabbing whatever petty object is at hand is not better than having a life with meaningful work, honest relationships, and a sense of dignity and self worth.
And even if those rewards are not seen as beneficial, the chaos and disorder that comes from chronic crime or just plain anti-social behavior hurts the members of that community, the majority of whom do not participate in the criminality.
But I get your general point that assessing the balance of detriment and benefit from woke policies is not an easy task. Anyone trying to organize black opposition to them has an uphill struggle since the detriments are harder to quantify and tend to exist in the future, whereas benefits are tangible and immediate.
I agree that meaningful work and a life of purpose are incomparably better than a life of petty crime, but here's the thing. How you or I view the 'benefits' is totally irrelevant. It is the perspective of the Black community that counts, and for the large part, they view it as a benefit because it's easier to square it with themselves. It's human nature to take the easy way out and blame someone else for your own inadequacies than look inward. What's more, mainstream society is aiding and abetting them in this belief, consider how the media has replaced the word "riot" which suggests violence and mayhem, with the more genteel "civil unrest" a la King and Gandhi.
I think that's sort of what I was trying to get at with my analogy about local maxima versus global maxima. In my opinion there are definitely benefits to embracing wokeism for Blacks of all classes, but obviously African Americans as a whole would be better off if they embodied the same values as more successful groups in this country.
I think the seduction of being stuck on a local maximum is that in order to move towards the global peak, you have to first take steps downhill and absorb some clear short term pain. Which oftentimes makes it hard to do.
I agree with everything except the part about being on a "local max"! Black student performance has never been as dismal as at present, and plumbing new depths every day (y approaching neg infinity?). Maybe "Global minimum" would be more apt.
Yes, Glenn and John are simply preaching to the choir. Same old, same old message, and same old, same old tired audience. They need to take their message to the Black community, invite Black church leaders on their show, debate with Black inner-city school superintendents and councilmen, hold townhalls in inner cities, etc. They have the gravitas, legitimacy, expertise and the correct skin color to pull it off. I would gladly donate what I could to such an initiative.
I’m glad you said this. As a charter school teacher who was once a little black kid from the “hood”, I often listen to these conversations and wish they had more perspective. I WISH we could shift the conversation from talking about “these kids” in the abstract, and hear more about the actual work “these kids”are doing to make personal strides. I WISH we could stop using Chicago and the South Bronx as short hand for dysfunction. My students may very well be from “The South Bronx”, but they’re really just New Yorkers with dreams and aspirations just like any other kid in the City. They’re normal people doing normal things. Some are extraordinary people doing extraordinary things. I have some that are working towards Juilliard and thus, studying Shakespeare. I have some who write and publish their own books. Some who teach themselves about different camping tactics. Some that get lost in the books. Some who have behavioral issues and get abused by their parents. Some that want to grow up and own their cab fleet. Some that’ll most likely end up on the corner. They’re normal people. Glenn and John, and by extension Coleman, can wax eloquent about all that has gone wrong and the help that black folks need, but we need fresh perspective from people with boots on the ground and people who live these regular, normal lives. We talk about all the many ways kids DONT have access to XYZ resource, and completely gloss over all of the free resources that ARE available to them in their own neighborhoods and schools. John kind of alluded to this in an interview with Modern Wisdom a few months ago (I think).
Ian Rowe has been a good addition to the conversation, but there’s more to the story. I’d love to hear him chat more with the representatives of the church partnerships he’s formed. I’d love to hear more from educators and administrators who are doing work comparable to his. Let’s hear from professors of education. I know the intelligencia has their thing about education departments being worthless, and teachers statistically being the least smartest folks at a university, but like it or not, these departments are where most teachers come from. Some studying to be teachers are, in fact, dense. Others work heartily to ensure your child gets the best and makes the out of their education. Teachers are with children everyday and see the context of their lives in real time. Let’s talk about what education departments are doing right, what they’re getting wrong, and how we might improve in the field of education. And let’s really talk about it. Not from on high, endlessly pontificating, but with actual educators, administrators, and professors who are doing the work. Let’s hear from parents.
Let’s hear from other culture bearers like radio personalities (Charlamagne Tha God comes to mind, but there are others), perhaps one or 2 of the drill rappers that Mayor Adams spoke with (if they’re willing). Perhaps Coleman might have some leverage there.
People like Glenn, John and Coleman owe it to themselves (and to the Black community whence they came) to start to walk their talk. King Randall, the Black young adult in Georgia, and the youngest of them all, is leading the way and putting action to thought. He has started schools for Black teens in his neighborhood, with the intention of getting them off the streets, and is teaching them real-life skills such as automotive repair, how to change a tire, etc, and there is now a long wait list to get into his school. I might also add that his work is barely recognized, both by mainstream as well as "Black thinkers". He has faced stiff challenges in his work already, with the local school district not giving him space to house his school, as he is decidedly unpopular in those quarters, due to his bucking the apple cart big time and showing up other public schools in the neighborhood. He is also operating on a shoestring budget.
Just imagine, if we could replicate King Randall's model all over the inner cities of Oakland, Chicago, Baltimore, etc we could truly effect Change. For it all starts, not with AA and giving Black kids a place in a college for which they may be ill-equipped, but instead getting them off the streets and giving them something engaging and meaningful to focus on, thus giving them a purpose in life.
King is truly following in the footsteps of his namesake.
The so called need for AA comes from the failure of schools in inner city neighborhoods to educate minority children. Public schools are treaded as a source of patronage jobs, not a way to educate children so they can have a better chance at a good life. Republicans should push for more school choice everywhere they can. This is the only way schools like King Randall's school have a chance to spread their model.
Agree with the school choice sentiment. That’s definitely a front there needs to be more conversation and action on.
Agreed. I understand what the Woke Blacks get out of this (or think they do), but not the Woke Whites.
But I also don't get what elite educated people get out of insisting that there are multiple genders and males and females are interchangeable, like socks or underwear.
Some of these people think they are doing the right thing and are on the right side of history like the civil rights activists of the 60s. People opposed are seen as racists with dogs and fire hoses. I kid you not.
I’ve used affirmative action practices in my hiring decisions. But I think I used them reasonably in a way that was not unfair or dehumanizing: I gathered all the candidates I thought were qualified to do the job, and then I gave a hard look at achieving some kind of representative cross section in the hires. I think I am fair but I used affirmative action to check any unconscious bias to only pick people who are like me. And to be certain I was not simply going through the motions, I made sure to hire a diverse set of people over time. I know lots of people who used to do the same. I don’t see a problem with that as long as a) every potential candidate is qualified and b) not every selection has to be a minority.
But, and here’s the big but, many people are not so rigorous or careful and they skip the step of analyzing each candidate on the merits without regard to identity. They simply toss aside candidates that are white or male or whatever and get right to the desired group. They then select one of those (if there are more than one and often there is not more than one). Thus the only real criteria is that person’s race and they are selected solely on that basis.
This practice is now becoming the norm. Entirely unconstitutional, but as long as no one puts any of this in writing, it’s never called out.
The problem is, and has been, that there are simply not enough black candidates that are as qualified as whites or Asians (for jobs or university) and the pressure to show results is enormous. Thus the only way to get diversity in the short term is to have a two or three track selection process. One for whites and Asians, one for Latinos and one for blacks. Even if this multi track system is not written down, it is nevertheless the actual analytic process: first categorize by race, or sex as the case may require, then choose from the desired category.
And anyone with inside baseball knowledge knows that many diversity positions are created in the bureaucracy because the institution is still failing to hire blacks even with this multi track process. Often there is simply no minority candidate for high level jobs. So quite cynically the institution creates positions which are earmarked for minority candidates. These positions are not posted as minority only because that is illegal, but the code words in the ads clearly indicate that only minorities will have the necessary experiences to qualify.
The problem is multifactorial, and the solutions are so complex, that it's just too easy to offer equality of outcome, rather than equality of opportunity.
I agree. Addressing underlying causes is hard work and would almost certainly involve disturbing the k-12 educational system, the welfare state bureaucracy, black grievance culture, among other things.
Amen to that.