The Volokh Conspiracy
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More on Controversial Books at Princeton
A member of Congress weighs in, and the university president speaks out
Before the start of the Fall semester, I noted that an assistant professor in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University was mired in a controversy over a book that she had assigned for an upcoming class. The university was receiving demands that the book be banned from the class, and in some cases that the professor be fired for good measure. The book, The Right to Maim, was characterized as antisemitic in its criticism of the Israeli military. The controversy is detailed in my post here.
The semester has now begun, and to my knowledge the class is being taught with The Right to Maim still on the syllabus. The university administration had refrained from issuing a public statement on the controversy, until now.
President Chris Eisgruber included a brief reaffirmation of the importance of academic freedom in his address to the faculty at the start of the new academic year. That statement was cast in general terms, and it can be found here.
Democratic Congressman Josh Gottheimer has now released his own public letter to the university "calling on them to take action in response to their universities' inclusion of antisemitic, anti-Israel, and hate-filled classroom curriculum and upcoming guest speakers," in the words of the Representative's press release. The letter itself is a bit more nuanced and refrains from directly demanding that the university pull the book out of the classroom. The letter can be found here.
President Eisgruber has now released a public letter in response to Representative Gottheimer. In it, he observes
Princeton's commitments to inclusivity coexist with equally vigorous commitments to free speech and academic freedom. Though people today sometimes seek to drive a wedge between free speech and equality, they are both fundamental to America's constitutional tradition and they are essential to the aims of a great university. We can achieve our mission, as a polity or a university, only if people of all backgrounds feel welcome, respected, and free to express their opinions. At Princeton, and at other great colleges and universities, we promote inclusivity and belonging in many ways, but never by censoring speech, syllabi, or courses.
The full letter can be found here. It is good to see the university standing up to the censors in this matter.
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It’s woke vs. woke – the Democratic Congressman’s letter is full of references to “safety” and “inclusion.” While Princeton seems to have a class which promotes Palestinian propaganda.
The key issue is who has more woke points? Who outscores the other?
Princeton perhaps should win because it’s one of our great liberal-libertarian universities.
But a Democratic Congressman calling for “safety” and “inclusion” related curricular changes at a private university, and explicitly mentioning, in his complaint, the fact that the University gets federal aid – that’s a lot of woke.
“Woke” has become a generic catch-all word for anything conservatives don’t like, and as such is basically a meaningless term at this point.
But “woke” originated from the left.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke#:~:text=Black%20American%20folk%20singer%2Dsongwriter,women%20in%20Alabama%20in%201931.
It doesn’t matter what new words the left invents to represent the same concepts they originally used “woke” for. The new words will eventually take on the same connotations “woke” has now.
Call it progress, “woke,” liberalism, whatever you wish . . . in any event, better American will continue to shape our national progress based on it.
Yes, and it’s perfectly disgraceful that a term that was originally a civil rights rallying cry has become a (mostly but not completely) racist epithet. It’s nothing more than mocking attempts to overcome injustice.
If this is how conservatives wish to spend the time they have remaining before replacement, let them enjoy it.
Again with the “Replacement” well, “Coach” Sandusky, I’m a Jew, and you will not replace me! Ironically, Coach Sandusky was replaced, and while the Nittily Lions (HT Barry Hussein O) might not have the hard hitting D-fence they had with you, they haven’t had any Sex Offender Coaching scandals either. You should have coached at an SEC school, you’d have gotten a pass.
Frank
You, like every other cranky old bigoted Republican, will die off in the normal course.
You (the dead clingers, collectively) will be replaced in our society and electorate by younger, more diverse, less rural, less backward, less bigoted, better Americans.
This replacement is the American way.
Die? Old? I’m a youthful 61! Heck, when Parkinsonian Joe was my Age Barry Hussein was still just plain old Barry Hussein who was against Same/Sex/Marriage, “Cranky”? maybe, “Bigoted”? not really, I don’t care if you’re a Spook, a Wetback, Fat Jap, Chink, Towel/Dot Head, you can hit to the opposite field and go deep in the hole (love going deep in the hole) I’ll put you in the line up! Just saying, I’d rather smoke a Doob with Kanye or Snoop than do whatever you do with Mitt Romeney or Mitch the Turtle any day… and Repubiclown?? OK, do vote for them, who else am I gonna vote for in Georgia, Black Moose-lum Supremercist War-lock? Aunt Jemimah Stacy Abraham? Funny how all of us Bigoted Repubiclowns voted for #34(We don’t call him that other name ) and last time I checked Jerry Sandusky is 79, I’ll bet on your “Replacement” before mine,
and “Less Rural”?? I was born in Midtown Atlanta, get “the vapors” if I’m more than 5 miles from an Interstate, and have you been to the South? the “Rural” peoples aren’t who you think they be
Frank “Such a bigoted Repubiclown I voted for Al Sharpton in the 2004 DemoKKKrat primary”
“a generic catch-all word for anything conservatives don’t like”
“a (mostly but not completely) racist epithet”
*Of course* anyone who criticizes something you like is racist!
But since you’re such an anti-racist, I suppose you wouldn’t mind saying unambiguously that discrimination on the basis of race is wrong.
Well?
Well, you’ve posted enough here that strongly suggests you’re a racist that the issue of whether I like it is beside the point. As someone once told Peter, thy speech betrayeth thee.
And since the white grievance industry defines discrimination differently than I do there’s no real point to my responding to your attempted gotcha since we’d be talking about different things.
If you were anti-racist or non-racist, you’d have no trouble whatsoever saying that discrimination based on race is wrong.
“Misery loves company,” and since you support racial discrimination, naturally you’ll want to see racism in others, regardless of evidence.
And your reference to whites obscures your support for anti-Asian discrimination – don’t you think one way to “stop Asian hate” is to stop racial discrimination against them?
“If you were anti-racist or non-racist, you’d have no trouble whatsoever saying that discrimination based on race is wrong.”
If you were smart or average-intelligence, you’d have no trouble agreeing that discrimination based on race is not categorically wrong. So which is it? Are you an idiot, or is it okay for Hamilton to have an all-black cast? (Hint: Both things can be true.)
I’m going by my pre-woke dictionary whose relevant definition of “discrimination” is “prejudiced or prejudicial outlook, action or treatment.” With *racial* discrimination being given as an example.
Or you could have some fun and use your own definition!
But you folks don’t seem willing to denounce racial discrimination under *any* definition.
Which is curious, because you could simply have said it isn’t discrimination to favor some races because it’s all done for the sake of social justice. Or that turning away an applicant to a university based in part on race is just like casting a black man as Othello.
With all those options available to narrow the meaning of racial discrimination, you still refuse to repudiate the term, perhaps because you have difficulty coming up with a coherent definition which allows the stuff you like while not allowing the stuff you dislike.
I answered your (literally) out of place comment above.
Ok, here’s the problem with your premise.
Suppose a firefighter breaks a window and enters a burning building to rescue a child who is trapped inside. What would you think of some idiot who said he should be prosecuted for breaking and entering? You’d think he’s an idiot, that’s what, even if what the firefighter did technically fit within the B&E statute. Because context matters. Is it wrong to kill someone? It depends; are you doing it to steal his wallet, or are you doing it because you’re a solder and we’re at war? Again, context matters. There are few, if any, acts that are always 100% right or wrong regardless of context. And you’re smart enough to know that.
You and your fellow racists have come up with a one size fits all definition of discrimination that turns people who are trying to fix the effects of racism into the real racists. You get there by completely ignoring context and you are the equivalent of the idiot who wants to prosecute the firefighter for breaking and entering. And yes, the most logical hypothesis is that anyone making an argument that stupid is probably doing so out of a racist motive. I do give you credit for having the chutzpah to dress your racism in virtue; you’re just looking out for the interests of poor, put-upon whites.
I see you don’t even bother to deny supporting racial discrimination against Asians. Where’s the “fire” which justifies your woke racist “firemen” discriminating against them? Are Asians just collateral damage in your crusade against the perfidious white grievance industry?
“you’re just looking out for the interests of poor, put-upon whites.”
No, most problems in the white community are due to bad attitudes and bad habits, like with most communities.
I’m not defending whites, I’m attacking your racism and projection.
I see you don’t even bother to deny
Well, this is some Arguing on the Internet fallacious bullshit.
People bucking your reductive definition doesn’t mean you get to put words in their mouth.
Good lord how gradeschool.
If you praise the woke “firefighters” who you claim are doing God’s work by practicing supposedly virtuous discrimination, and say that these firefighters are opposed solely by racist whites – while ignoring what the “firefighters” are doing to Asians – you deserve the rebukes I give.
You see, Kry isn’t defending some ideal, utopian policy of his own, he is defending real-world policies which, in the real world, discriminate against Asians. That’s what his “firefighters” are doing. And he knows it.
Your Asian argument is pure what aboutism, and as with most what aboutism it misses the point. So no, I’m not going to respond to it except to point out that what aboutism is a logical fallacy. Again, you’re too smart not to know that. You’re deliberately dissembling.
You defend the people actually engaging in racial discrimination in the real world – they are your firefighters. *You attached yourself to their cause.* And their cause includes discriminating against Asians.
You made it relevant.
Yet you find it convenient to dissemble and pretend your firefighters are only breaking white “windows.”
I suppose if the UNCF had racially discriminatory policies affecting Asians and went to the Supreme Court to defend those policies, I’d have to conclude they were discriminating against Asians.
This blog has become mostly a project by, for, and of bigots.
Congratulations, clingers.
No I did not make it relevant. You threw it in as a distraction to take attention away from your raw fury that someone might actually try to do something to fix the effects of past racism.
As with any other political problem, racism has lots of moving parts. That I’m focused on one for purposes of this discussion doesn’t mean the other isn’t important; it’s just not what I’m focused on in this discussion. Particularly when you’re using it as a distraction.
Next you’ll want to know if I’ve stopped beating my wife.
“When the UNCF, facing Jim Crow, decided to help primarily blacks persons Cal thinks they were racist.”
They went to the Supreme Court to defend their anti-Asian discrimination?
“your raw fury that someone might actually try to do something to fix the effects of past racism”
Here’s the part where you make things up again.
You sought the moral high ground by saying this is a question of evil white apologists versus-justice firefighters saving children. When I tried to bring the discussion away from your airy theories into the real world, *you* expressed raw fury.
“effects of past racism”
That’s interesting, you must lead a very sheltered or oblivious life not to notice that white racism continues to exist in the present. Of course it’s not as powerful as it was, but racism stays present in many members of all races.
My disagreement is with the idea that discrimination based on race can be good or bad depending on who the targets are. I don’t assume certain types of racism are safely in the past.
Margrave, I get that you think it’s a brilliant rhetorical device to take whatever someone said about you and turn it around — I said you’re a racist, so you said I’m a racist. I said you had raw fury about something so you said I had raw fury about something else. Well, it’s not a brilliant rhetorical device; it just makes you look juvenile and unable to discuss substance. Sarcastro is right; it’s completely grade school of you.
And did I say racism does not continue? No, but again, I’m talking about one thing at a time. Do you understand the concept of talking about one thing at a time?
You got the sequence of events wrong – *first* I challenged you to oppose racial discrimination, and only *then* did you adopt the clever tactic of calling me a racist. By the time you concocted your creative insult, I had already put you on the defensive. And you proceeded to prove that you did, in fact, support racial discrimination.
So you only called me a racist *after* I confronted you with your own racism – you’re projecting your own grade-school tactics onto me.
If you actually recognized that there was white racism in the present day you wouldn’t have to make up examples – if you raise the alarm of “wolf” at the sight of something which is completely not a wolf, it suggests that you can’t recognize a real wolf, or are pretending you can’t.
I actually know something about the history of slavery, Jim Crow, lynching, etc., etc., so I think I know white racism – or other varieties of racism – when I see them. By your actions you’ve revealed yourself to be ignorant and incapable of recognizing racism, including of course your own.
No, I said you’ve posted things that “strongly suggest” you’re a racist, which you have. If you can’t even be honest about that, then we have nothing to talk about.
You’re lying, I said nothing to suggest I’m a racist.
I challenged you to denounce racial discrimination, and you not only didn’t answer, you flipped out and used your grade-school projection to draw a red herring across the trail.
Plus you compared actual racists to firemen breaking glass and saving children.
Piss off.
Also an example of “Cultural Appropriation” as “Woke” was originally an Ebonics word, and was stolen by Hacky-Sack playing, Man-Bun Wearing, Nipple ring/tattooed Pasty White millennials.
Show me a real Black Dude who says “Woke” anymore,
and Hunter Biden doesn’t count
Frank
I repost what I posted in response to the earlier article:
A faculty member should be able to use whatever books are deemed by them to be suitable or appropriate for the class, subject only to the faculty and university leadership being satisfied that the book makes sense to include in the context of the course – so it’s not a matter of free speech but education.
For example, if a professor has “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” on a reading list for a course on, say, Anti-Semitism. that makes sense. If however the course is “Influences on European Foreign Policy before WWI” and in context it’s evident that the professor intends Protocols to be regarded as a true historical document, then their faculty should stop them on education grounds. Though the subject is more emotive, it’s akin to a chemistry professor insisting that, e.g., “A Diſſertation on ye Phlogiſton Theorie” be read as a serious textbook, as opposed to a History of Science professor using the same essay.
I don’t know about this.
If someone is trying to teach something that is clearly wrong, how did they get tenure in the first place?
I don’t think the solution is censorship after hiring, as much as quality control before hiring.
I don’t think you have to do much work to prevent a professor teaching Chemistry 101 from using the writings of Aristotle or whatever instead of a modern textbook.
That said, I did once have a professor who seemed to avoid teaching the subject of his course, and kind of made the class an ideological screed. I guess it would be OK to rein him in. It is reasonable to expect a Chemistry professor to talk about Chemistry during class, rather than talking about an entirely unrelated topic. But still, in general, I think there should be wide latitude.
“I don’t think the solution is censorship after hiring, as much as quality control before hiring.”
‘I don’t disagree that more quality control up front would be a good thing, but people are not static, unchanging entities, so no level of up front quality control would be a perfect solution.
Well, is anything in life perfect? Not sure that perfection is the right standard.
“Princeton’s commitments to inclusivity coexist with equally vigorous commitments to free speech and academic freedom.” Nope. Just read about how it fired tenured Professor Joshua Katz.
“In 2021, The Daily Princetonian reported that Katz had been suspended in 2018 for engaging in a consensual sexual relationship with a student in violation of university policy. In May 2022, he was fired after a second investigation concluded that he had lied during the 2018 sexual misconduct investigation.”
From the perspective of the average Volokh Conspiracy fan, that guy did nothing wrong and should have been thanked and promoted for advancing the interests of white, stale-thinking males.
I think you’ve got him confused with Penn State Defensive Coach Jerry Sandusky, Coach Sandusky
Read more of the story. The incident was many years earlier. The second investigation was provoked by Katz expressing some diversity opinions in disagreement with the administration.
I did.
A conservative doing sex pest stuff, then crying martyr, is an old song.
Seems to work on you, though.
They got him for something else. Distinction without a difference.
Ah, but you see, Prof. Katz offended a group that actually matters. As the commenter Ben puts it: “special people.”
(And it wasn’t even anything he did as part of his teaching; it was an article he wrote for a non-Princeton-related publication.)
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
Let me know when they add
“The Satanic Verses” (S. Rushdie, Viking Penguin 1988)
ISBN 0-670-82537-9
OCLC 18558869
Dewey Decimal 823/.914
Frank “Fatwa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
I agree with the Eisgruber that free speech is necessary for equality and is, in fact, a recognition of equality.
Censorship is not possible unless we adopt that idea that X gets to tell Y what they can or cannot say. And that makes X superior to Y.
Antisemiticism, like racism, is not very smart. As such, the best way to combat it is with logic and rationality. We don’t need to censor bad ideas when they are so easy to argue against.
And we don’t need 100% of people to reject every single bad idea out there. The ambition of some would be censors is to somehow eliminate these bad ideas entirely. But that isn’t a realistic goal.
Again, facts are stubborn things:
“Does UNCF help only African Americans?
“Not at all. UNCF’s member HBCUs admit students without reference to race or ethnicity.”
https://uncf.org/pages/facts-and-questions
I don’t expect them to be monolithic, there are too many cracks in the coalition. They’re going to have a good deal of infighting. The Woke People’s Front versus the People’s Front of Woke.
By “misrepresentations” you mean that he is accused of not fully admitting to all of his faults in the earlier investigation against him. He is also married to a former student. Some are offended by that. Whether you like him or not, my point is that Princeton is not committed to free speech and academic freedom.
The first time I got the “what about the UNCF” argument, it was from people who assumed that the *current* UNCF was blacks only, and I showed how that was in error.
The moral dilemmas of opponents of Jim Crow over half a century ago providing aid to Jim Crow schools. that’s certainly tragic and would indeed involve cooperating with a racist system. If you could show us the modern counterpart, maybe your example would have some continuing relevance.
He’s right, HBCU’s admit some token “Minorities” (White/Asian) because They need some suckers, I mean “Students) to
1: pay full ride tuition,
2: help their “Average” Test Scores and probably most importantly
3: Place Kick/Punt for their shitty football teams (Millions of Afro-Amuricans playing football and how many place kickers/punters?, current NFL starting place kickers 31 white guys and an Asian.
Frank
The commenters – liberal and conservative – had reached a mistaken consensus about the UNCF’s *current* policies which I disproved merely by linking to their site.
Now I’m expected to take your word about their *past* policies.
But I asked Kry whether racial discrimination *is* wrong, not whether the UNCF *was* wrong over half a century ago under Jim Crow.
You seem to be grasping at straws to avoid defending real-world racial discrimination in the here and now. You support it but won’t defend it.
No, you need to explain whether discrimination *is* wrong, not whether your 70-year-old hypothetical involves some form of justified racial distinctions.
I think most people can imagine circumstances where racial distinctions are justified and don’t stem from “prejudice” (see the definition I gave which includes prejudice) – like when the police want the public to be on the lookout for a white male fugitive from justice.
Prejudice comes in when you make assumptions or stereotypes about individuals, or simply generalize about them without making distinctions – like harassing black people because they’re assumed without evidence to be criminals – or saying “I admit that these Asian applicants have stellar academic performance, but for some reason they just aren’t passing our holistic, impressionistic ‘character’ tests.”
You believe (or, more likely, *pretend* to believe) that opponents of the racial discrimination you support are the *real* racists. You seem to think Orwell is a users’ manual.
Of course, all I asked was whether racial discrimination *is* wrong.
That seems to have triggered you guys something awful.
President Biden fended off progressive challengers in primaries, so I guess he can’t be woke either.
The Congressman certainly seems to know the woke lingo – “a platform for professors to inappropriately engage in political activism at the expense of the *safety* of Jewish students.” [emphasis added]
He could have said “at the expense of the academic mission of your university,” or some such thing, but he used the politically au courant term “safety” to describe the danger of bad ideas. It may well be (assuming for argument’s sake) that this professor is promoting pernicious principles. That’s still not the same as endangering safety in a way that a non-insane person would understand safety. Pernicious ideas should be called pernicious ideas and dealt with on that basis, not because some group is emotionally endangered by it but because the ideas are objectively wrong and don’t match reality.
Sure, and in that sense ideas – bad and good – can be unsafe. It may even be unsafe to teach kids to think constantly about how unsafe they are.
And if the book turns out to be anti-semitic, or even merely one-sided, that’s a legitimate complaint in itself, whether or not it inspires some Palestinian nationalist or socialist activist to commit violence.
This must be the slow class.
If I didn’t know you were an obese Knee-Grow Tranny (i.e. Man) with Hypertension, Type 2 Diabetes, Sleep Apnea (check for recalls on your CPAP), and the host to a plethora of Spirochetes, Retroviruses, and Gram Negative Diplococci, I’d get angry about that comment.
That is what Princeton did in 2018. In 2022, after he expressed some opinions, he was fired.