“My crime? Arguing for academic evaluations based on academic merit.”
-Prof. Dorian Abbot
By: Mark Glennon*
America’s plunge into insanity, particularly in higher education, apparently hasn’t bottomed yet.
Dorian Abbot is a professor in the Department of the Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago. He was invited to give the annual Carlson Lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which apparently is a major honor in Abbot’s field. Abbot’s topic was to be climate habitability and the potential for life on other planets.
But a Twitter mob, as Abbot describes it, composed of a group of MIT students, postdocs, and recent alumni, demanded that he be uninvited. Sure enough, just six days later, MIT called Abbot to say the lecture was cancelled because they didn’t want the controversy.
The particular viewpoint at issue here is especially noteworthy: Abbot wants universities to hire and promote based on what he calls MFE — Merit, Fairness, and Equality, “whereby university applicants are treated as individuals and evaluated through a rigorous and unbiased process based on their merit and qualifications alone.”
Merit? Heaven forbid that. The assault on merit was initially a subtext lurking behind the woke movement. Now, however, the mob is open about it. Some examples in Illinois:
• A bill is pending in the Illinois General Assembly that would ban discrimination based on any characteristic that disadvantages somebody, the implications of which are absurd, as explained here. The bill already passed the House and two Senate committees.
• Mayor Lori Lightfoot sponsored a resolution at the US Conference of mayors equating “meritocracy” with racism.
• Cook County’s Racial Equity Policy statement defines “equity” as full inclusion regardless of “ability.”
For the MIT lecture, Abbot’s political views had no relation to the the topic he was to speak about. That doesn’t matter to the mob, which wants its enemies silenced on everything.
One who wrote about the Abbot/MIT affair is Chicago native, law prof and University of Chicago alum Jonathan Turley. “What occurred at MIT this month is a chilling reminder that even a premier institution will yield to anti-free speech campaigns,” Turley wrote. “The result is cringing obedience to a rising orthodoxy on our campuses.”
But the most important point was made by Abbot himself, who described the whole episode in Substack. Here’s his conclusion:
It’s time to say no to the mob, no to the cancellations. And it’s time to be forthright about your true opinions.
This is not a partisan issue. Anyone who is interested in the pursuit of truth and in promoting a healthy and functioning society has a stake in this debate. Speaking out now may seem risky. But the cost of remaining silent is far steeper.
*Mark Glennon is founder of Wirepoints.
Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do.
The state’s existing buyout program for its own pensions is the precedent for Chicago, which should be a warning: Look out for similar exaggerated claims and shoddy analysis.
Competence is an interesting concept. Rev. Sharpton has great competence in his field of endeavor, as did Chancellor Hitler. One about to go on trial in Belarus or in Detroit probably wouldn’t want, as his counsel, the president of the Harvard Law Review. A moron with long seniority is likely to be more effective in congress than the Rhoades Scholar. Similarly, the Voodoo priest in Port au Prince. Or Al Capone in Chicago’s good ol’ days. Democracy and discernment only coincide some of the time.
Both Sharpton and Hitler were lacking in merit, the former to a degree die to the Tawana Brawly incident (excuse any misspellings to her name) and the latter, whose actions speak for themselves. Great talent does not preclude vile actions. They sort of fail in the merit category, though Sharpton may have redeemed himself in the intervening decades.
If the purpose of a company is to make money, then it seems a perfectly acceptable business model to:
1. Comply with government-mandated racial quotas
2. Concede to all workforce demands
3. Get lucrative government contracts which are only awarded to companies adhering to racial quotas
4. Laugh at people who think that worker competency has anything to do with profitability, all the way to the bank
There is a productivity problem. The shortage of productive growth is why the economy is in the shape that it is. The ability to maintain or grow the standard of living in this country depends on productive growth.
You’re right. When business achievements for the year are defined as a favorable outcome in Washington, one could ask about what the real achievements are or whether the business is even trying.
The “shape the economy is in” looks very differently to public benefits entitlements recipients than it looks to you and me. To them it appareny looks quite shapely. I believe the solution lies in self-segregating according to some set of standards which are so unambiguous that a computer can understand–that is: impervious to human drivers greed&fear, and most importantly applied&enforced equally upon all, without special-interest exemptions. TIF? Everyone should be in the TIF. Defined benefit pensions with pre-60 retirement? Every citizen should get that same entitlement. Judges and politicians have zero professional malpractice liability? Docs and nurses shouldn’t either. If… Read more »
Judges’ immunity flows from the concept of sovereign immunity which means you cannot sue the government for damages. Judges’ authority is derived from the state and thus is immune. This doctrine goes back in common law from the crown of England and likely further back than that, hundreds if not a thousand years or more. As medical malpractice, that too is from common law, because the healing arts throughout history attracted a lot of …. quacks. Medical malpractice goes back at least to Stratton v. Swanlond, an English case that was decided in 1374. And so the standard of care… Read more »
I’m in the “workforce development” field, as an employment case manager. A prominent local workforce organization recently gave a training, the below is an excerpt from one of the documents they provided us. Interesting, the people that wrote this are all white, upper middle – class women, they are simply regurgitating woke nonsense. If I were a person of color, this would be HIGHLY insulting to me. Besides which, this below does not even make sense. I’m in manufacturing and following this “ideology” would further marginalize low – income/minority folks who desire good manufacturing careers. Read and weep, comrades! And there is 30 pages of this… Read more »
Socialism.
Also this how many of the union leaders think.
So if this is implemented the employer will have a de-facto unionized workforce, even if there is not a certified union local present.
The writer, if she actually believes this, is clearly suffering a psychotic break from reality. She should seek mental health treatment immediately.
Crazy people are logical but have insane premises. The logic of this author’s piece is impeccable – she’s absolutely correct that the employer does get to dictate what is professionalism and employability. But her insane premise is that white supremacy permeates the labor market. Therefore, it is perfectly logical to come to the conclusion that basic job requirements like punctuality, reliability, and customer service are tools of white supremacy, because she believes white supremacy is the labor market. But this not white supremacy, and is the fatal flaw in her argument. But it’s not even that the author is crazy.… Read more »
I work for a very large manufacturer in the area. Product engineering is rigorous here, CAD, math, mechanical, electronic and embedded firmware skills needed are very difficult, projects are very complicated to manage, not too woke yet That area cannot become woke easily. Plant engineering and operations can be just as difficult not too woke. Service engineering is equally difficult engineering wise, but in this area the need for soft skills increases as it backs up the product to the public, but still only somewhat woke. But I can say that all other departments are getting woke, especially HR, but… Read more »
Thanks for providing that. You are exactly right. When will minorities themselves object to how insulting this stuff is?
We’ll soon have a surplus of incompetents, all with degrees and credentials and licenses. Some will do serious harm to their clients and patients. But they’ll keep on advertising and people like Illinois voters will flock to their offices and clinics. Some will run for political office and become judges!
A few may practice their professions with honesty and competence. The problem is that most consumers won’t be able to tell the difference. Meanwhile, our beleaguered health and legal systems simply will not be able to unscramble the resulting omelet of nationwide decline.
Insanity at MIT. Now Merit, rational thought, Mathematics, free debate, free speech, grades, are now considered Racism.
Its easy to see this crap creeping into wokey subjects like, sociology, psychology, womens-gender-ethnic studies, etc. But when it starts to creep into calculus, chemistry, physics, electronics, aeronautics, etc… we are in deep doo doo. China and Russia are laughing. I’m a bit of a calculus nerd and thermionic vacuum tube nerd. I have math books from the 1920’s that were used in advanced high school calculus. And electron tube theory books from then. I seriously don’t believe ANY current high school student ANYWHERE in the USA is at the level of one of these books. The country is doomed… Read more »
https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/10/math-racist-university-illinois-professor/ Professor: ‘Mathematics Itself Operates as Whiteness’ “A math-education professor at the University of Illinois wrote about some of the more racist aspects of math in a new anthology for teachers, arguing that “mathematics itself operates as Whiteness.” “Who gets credit for doing and developing mathematics, who is capable in mathematics, and who is seen as part of the mathematical community is generally viewed as White,” Rochelle Gutierrez wrote, according to an article in Campus Reform. Confused? Think that math is just math? Well, you’re wrong; math might as well be called “white math,” because as Gutierrez explained, “curricula emphasizing… Read more »
The list of cancelled Professors grows.
Another cancelled Professor, Jason D Hill of DePaul, is a guest on the October 5, 2021, Washington Times Bold and Blunt podcast.
http://boldblunt.radio.washingtontimes.com/attacked-at-work-for-political-beliefs.
His latest book, “What Do White Americans Owe Black People: Racial Justice in the Age of Post-Oppression” is due to be released October 26, 2021.
Thank you for bringing this up.
It is getting serious.
Something needs to be done.
Who will do it if not us who get it?
MIT isn’t worth the time or money. I took my son there for a college visit and the very first thing they said was how proud they were of their 50% minority status. My son had nearly a perfect SAT score and could easily rival any MIT student. He graduated high school with nearly 2 years of college complete. He didn’t get in but a friend of his with a lesser score got in because she was a Latino female. His white male status was denied. Isn’t what Lightfoot and other minorities in power are doing also considered discrimination? They… Read more »
***—Cook County’s Racial Equity Policy statement defines “equity” as full inclusion regardless of “ability.”—***
So, my 2 yr. old grandson, regardless of his ability, should get a job with the county…?
Oh, wait, I forgot he can’t vote (D) yet…
Or can he…???
More of the absurd from our institutions of higher learning. Now the woke have a list of demands. Read more in the Stanford Review.
When it was the censoring of conservatives on campus, there were just snarky wisecracks from the academics and media types about the ‘rubes’. Now that the censoring has spread to them, it’s not so funny. Lesson learned? I doubt it. When you don’t support the Constitution, this is what happens in society – mob rule.
Exactly…
The only thing missing is Cesars 👍 or 👎…
And here’s a downside for talented African Americans when moving away from merit. I recently chatted with a 2020 graduate of a prominent MBA program. Graduated undergrad from Northwestern Summa Cum Laude. Sharp, articulate young man. He said he was not happy at NU because almost everyone–including whites, other African Americans and many professors- assumed he was at NU on a quota program. In high school, he had been 4.0 and a National Merit finalist and got into NU on his own merit. But there were so many less qualified affirmative action students there that he could never shake the… Read more »