watsafs

Open letter to the Scientific American Editorial Board

Wed, 06 Nov 2024 21:54:11 GMT

To the Editors of Scientific American

Your chief editor's comments on the election, see below, were beneath contempt. Aside from their being unhinged and deeply unreasonable, they also demonstrated that she has zero political judgement.

More generally, when the scientific community is trying to forge both scientific consensus and then mobilize social and political consensus for climate change policies which will certainly be both painful and unequal in their impacts, this kind of self-righteous virtue signalling is just appalling. Does she not realize that Democrats abusing ordinary people in the fly-over states as ‘deplorable’ or ‘garbage’ or ‘Nazis’ is precisely WHY Trump got the landslide. Every high-profile Laura Helmuth was worth 10,000 votes for Trump.

And frankly, this time round he would have got my vote. When scientists claim not to understand the biological definition of ‘woman’ but call any questions about climate change ‘fascistic’, then any claim to special knowledge and expertise becomes as useful as a trumpet in a Quaker meeting.

People like LH have guaranteed that attitudes towards sustainability break down along a left/right cleavage. It’s now almost impossible to separate climate change from say the issue of abortion, or Israel/Gaza. And yet, you’re the ones who claim to need a massive consensual majority to effect ‘transformative change’. It’s not only offensive, but stupid. It is so stupid that its almost tempting to check her qualifications.

History, theology, philosophy and politics are a little outside her bailiwick, however Dr Helmuth would be well advised to be a little more circumspect with regard to the ‘moral arc of the universe’. Clearly such an ‘arc’ would imply some kind of Natural Law/Telos and probably the existence of the very God in whom those ‘racist/sexist /fascist’ Midwesterners have so much faith. This doesn’t square with her own obnoxious blend of scientific positivism and moral relativism.

But it is also true that iconoclastic rationalists convinced about their capacity to create an earthly heaven have invariably caused more suffering and death than pretty well anyone else in history. Laura is probably convinced that America won’t make progress until the last Republican president has been strangled with the guts of the last pro-life activist, but we have been here – many times. Eric Voegelin quipped that we shouldn’t attempt to ‘immanentize the eschaton’. Helmuth is the reason why this has always been such a bad idea.

This person is clearly convinced that the means justify the ends – and that the ‘ends’ are obvious to any sane/normal person, and that any objection is indicative of insanity/abnormality – and so of a category of person who doesn’t have any automatic right to respect. It’s a short step from this kind of self-righteous contempt to the gulag.

If you don’t sanction her and preferably fire her, then you’re basically just as bad - and a plague on the lot of you. You seem basically to be asking for universities to be defunded.

Are you asking for universities to be defunded?

Yours sincerely

Dr Stephen Quilley

Associate Professor

University of Waterloo

(Personal Capacity)

Diversity dysfunction at Wilfrid Laurier University’s faculty of social work

Tue, 27 Feb 2024 19:30:35 GMT

Indigenous faculty members in Faculty of Social Work and the black dean accusing each other of racism

Indigenous faculty asked to participate in a September 2022 faculty meeting remotely because of their fear of COVID, but newly hired Dean Hogarth had a preference for the department’s members to meet in-person. Three formal investigations later, the Faculty is designated a toxic workplace and Dean Hogarth is promoted to VP Global Strategy.

The complete article is available at the True North:

Mandatory EDI Statements Force Scientists to Lie for Grants

Fri, 23 Feb 2024 17:45:51 GMT

Faculty Must Complete EDI Statements to Win Grants but Only 'Correct' Statements are Successful

An engineering professor recently told me that “engineers will say anything” to get a grant, joking that they’d throw their own mothers under the bus if it improved their prospects. It seems throwing their principles comes just as easy.

The complete article is available at the Toronto Sun:

UW Conference on Intimidation a Gaslighting Exercise

wmcnally@wlu.ca (William McNally) — Fri, 17 Nov 2023 17:35:55 GMT

University of Waterloo Woke Faculty Host Conference on Academic Antagonism and Intimidation of Woke Faculty

Woke faculty at UW hold conference to publicly complain that they're the subjects of antagonism, intimidation and harassment. No right-wing or dissenting speakers invited.

Link to the speaker series and conference here:

The complete article is available at the Daily Skeptic

Why I'm Leaving the Heterodox Academy

Mon, 27 Feb 2023 23:01:29 GMT

To Jonathon Haidt, John Tomasi, the Board and Management of the Heterodox Academy (HxA)

I write in haste to respond to John Tomasi’s rebuttal of Nathan Cofnas’s critique of the HxA. I’m afraid to say it, but Nathan’s piece struck a chord.

And I don’t think I am alone.

HxA has indeed become a leftist club – and seems unwilling to make the kind of political interventions and alliances necessary to change the culture of HE. If your left-liberal members are not willing to fight woke culture and expose it for what it is – a dangerous, totalitarian religion – then, to be honest, you are part of the problem.

This last week, I learned that:

1300 colleges in the US are using Maxient software to create a culture of spying and informing among students and faculty with the explicit aim of ‘regulating conduct.’ This system is gene therapy compared to the Stasi’s 18 ^th century naval surgery.

A 16-year-old student in Ontario was arrested for denying gender fluidity

Thousands of text changes have been made to the corpus of Roald Dahl to re-write literary history in a way that makes 1984 look like a Haines ‘How to…’ manual.

An NHS trust in the UK, is abandoning any reference to ‘mothers.’

An old and respected STEM journal has published an article recommending that the language of sex differences is expunged entirely from scientific research and discourse.

A teacher in BC was sacked for repeating a statement of fact and quoting from the governments’ own Truth and Reconciliation Committee (to the effect that residential school kids died of TB)

School boards across America are imposing curricula derived entirely from woke race/gender studies disciplines in universities. Recent examples include a parent shut down for quoting from a schoolbook designed to teach children how to use Photoshop to conceal their identity when posting explicit child-pornographic selfies online.

More generally:

Thousands of universities employ academics who teach/tweet on a daily basis to the effect that whiteness and white people are ‘the problem.’ They are not sanctioned, and often endorsed and even celebrated by their university administrations.

Every university in North America is actively sponsoring and in many cases enforcing an ideology of gender fluidity (for instance through the normalization of ‘pronouns’) that is creating a devastating psychological pandemic among teens and young adults, and leading to the abuse of very young children.

A very large number of academics – tens of thousands – across every conceivable discipline, use their state-funded positions to push the most egregiously partisan ideology on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, op eds in the MSM. On the basis of a notional expertise in ecology, physics or medieval literature or nursing – the discipline has no bearing – they pronounce on all manner of hot button political issues. This is not a matter of expressing private political opinions (clearly this is fine). It is done explicitly with a view to weaponizing status and academic expertise to delegitimate the entire spectrum of political opinion to the ‘right’ of woke. In a very real sense this is a betrayal of a fundamental professional ethic that would see academic and scientific culture one step removed from, and partially insulated from, the dirty logic of political contestation. For liberal societies to survive, let alone thrive, campus politics (at least on the part of the faculty) should always be small ‘p’. Small ‘p’ political culture is dead and buried. Triumphant woke standards and ensigns fly from every flagpole, are displayed in every office window and flutter on the website pages of university libraries and of course the daily communications from every part of the administrative hierarchy. DEI is just the icing on the cake.

When HxA was established, I wanted to see a manifesto for a raft of legal and regulatory changes:

Punitive and crippling penalties for universities that don’t uphold freedom of speech (zero funding for three years)
Policies to remove ideological grade schoolteachers and de-politicize education.
Grievance disciplines to be defunded, closed down and or folded into more general social science departments where ostensibly ‘critical’ ideas will perhaps be subject to critique.
The defunding of all DEI initiatives and hirings on campus
Targets for conservative voices on campus – and real diversity of perspective
Deregulation to make it easier for university start-ups.
Hard, legal caps on admin versus faculty ratios
Diversified funding channels (if necessary, funding distributed by think tanks from across the political spectrum)
Bans on DEI/ ideological allegiance pledges in recruitment processes.
Bans on the enforced acquiescence to pronouns culture.
A ban on the use of software such as Maxient ( https://www.maxient.com ) [Seriously guys, why is this not front and centre on the HxA agenda?]

AND FINALLY, I wanted to see HxA endorse or disavow political candidates based on these commitments – and explicitly to move away from the reflex distaste for Republicans and Conservatives.

For instance, in Canada, HxA should be presenting Pierre Poilievre with a package of legislative and regulatory changes that would create a more open and politically balanced ideological culture on campus. This could start by making any state funding at all conditional on a transparent and binding commitment to the Chicago Principles ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_principles ). The Conservative government in the UK should be facing similar pressure. Jonathan Haidt should be using the HxA and his own platform to extract cast iron public commitments from prospective Republican presidential nominees. HxA could play a significant role in creating an arms race in Republican discourse, shifting the Overton window (in the same way that Poilievre is now pinioned by his public commitment to defund the CBC). Haidt of course would be horrified, not least because this strategy in way leverages exactly the kind of purity spiral that has seen academia lurch towards a degree of leftist authoritarianism that would have been unimaginable, just ten years ago. This is a case of fighting fire with fire. The difference is that our goal is to re-establish the conditions for a liberal, colour-blind civic society.

Needless to say, I’ve seen none of this. The system is broken. The HxA shows no real interest in fixing it. John Tomasi’s response to Nathan Cofnas’s critique seems inadequate. He says:

“Our approach will necessarily be a long-game, activating members from inside of the academy, for sustained culture change. The respective roles of voluntarism and coercion in the process of cultural formation is a classic problem with the theory of social change. I will not pretend that HxA has solved that strategic riddle. But at HxA, our theory of change is a living, evolving theory of practice’

I was never much for Leninism, but you can’t effect wholesale institutional change without wielding political power. The idea that the use of coercion of some kind is a choice is sociologically naïve. Woke politics – the long march through the institutions – is predicated on coercion. This is the essence of Marcuse’s (1969) concept of ‘ repressive tolerance’ , which paradoxically was derived from the Nazi legal theorist Carl Schmitt (1932). It is predicated on the absolute tribalism of politics and the impossibility of compromise. It is this idea that is repeated ad nauseum in the work of woke critical race and gender theorists such as Ibram X Kendi (2019) who argues that to counter historical wrongs, the anti-racist left is licensed and indeed morally impelled to discriminate and coerce in the present. A secular doctrine of original sin (whiteness) is fused with Marxist conflict theory and a Schmitt-derived Marcusian para-legal justification of intolerance. And Kendi’s (2019) rather hackneyed understanding of the role of race-conscious (‘woke’) intellectuals is lifted directly from Lenin’s (1901) What is to be Done? and Gramsci’s understanding of the role of ‘organic intellectuals’ – basically leading the workers by the nose and training them to see their own situation in terms of a zero-sum conflict with a contending other. It’s easy to see the influence of Schmitt’s justification of the Nazi state’s emergency powers Sadly for John Lennon, the working class are yesterday’s heroes, replaced now by intersections of race, gender and an ever more bewildering array of identity-victims.

In short, the ground zero for 21 ^st century campus woke was Western Marxism and the Frankfurt school’s response to the perceived failures of the 1920s. HxA has not ‘solved the strategic riddle’ of coercion. Of course not! But by eschewing any explicitly political project at all, it has opted to simply ignore the problem of coercion and institutional power. And, in effect, this means a policy of strategic acquiescence to woke authoritarianism. If there is any prospect for the recovery of a balanced, liberal pattern of negotiated centrism – and the healthy, weaving, mutually balancing interplay between left and right; between progressive change and conservative skepticism – then this means, at the very least, deposing the ideologues whose foundational premise is that there can be no tolerance of dissent and no possibility of compromise or coexistence.

The culture war is a fight between genuine ideological Liberals (including conservatives who are happy to co-exist with liberalism in the public square) on the one hand, and genuine totalitarians on the other. If ‘moderates’ choose to ignore the extent to which the liberal-democratic ‘society of individuals’ relies on the covert monopolies of violence, education, currency etc – which is to say on the power of the state – they will lose. This is an academic’s version of the maxim ‘don’t bring a knife to a gun fight’.

Finally, a specific example: Ron DeSantis introduced a raft of very moderate and reasonable changes to the treatment of sex/gender education in schools and the curriculum with regard to race in American history. The woke rendering of these changes was hysterical, deliberately inaccurate, highly motivated – AND diffused through the entire mainstream media ecosystem. HxA, as far as I can see, said nothing. Handwringing ‘both sides-ism’ is not neutral. Rather it brings to mind the diplomatic contortions of Chamberlain’s ‘Peace in Our Time’. And as with the Munich conference, there will be no peace.

Case closed. The system is broken. HxA has no answers and I’m unsubscribing. Please delete my details. You might also pass on my comments to the board and the advisory committee.

Yours sincerely

Professor Scroger Ruton

References:

Gramsci, Antonio (1971) [1929–1935]. Hoare, Quintin; Smith, Geoffrey Nowell (eds.). Selections From the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci (11th printing) (International Publishers)

Kendi, Ibram X (2019). How to Be An Antiracist (New York: One World)

Lenin, Vladimir (1901). "What Is To Be Done?". Lenin's Selected Works. (Marxists Internet Archive)

Marcuse, Herbert (1969). "Repressive Tolerance" in Wolff, Robert, Moore, Barrington; Marcuse, Herbert A Critique of Pure Tolerance (Boston: Beacon Press)

Schmitt, Carl (1932) The Concept of the Political. George D. Schwab, trans. (University of Chicago Press, 1996; expanded edition 2007, with an introduction by Tracy B. Strong)

Universities should be promoting truth not fiction

Mon, 20 Feb 2023 18:25:04 GMT

University of Waterloo VP of Equity issues statement riddled with bizarre and contradictory evidence.

Trapped in a culture of fear, UW Faculty afraid to criticise woke administrator.

The complete article is available at the Toronto Sun

AI and Equity: a perfect storm for undergraduate education

Sun, 05 Feb 2023 16:46:02 GMT

Artificial Intelligence and Equity: a perfect storm for undergraduate education

Universities are panicking. Some months after their most entrepreneurial undergraduates, professors are beginning to experiment with the open-source AI tool Chat GBT ( https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt/ ) To their horror, they are finding that the system can generate good and even excellent, well referenced answers to essay questions, on seemingly any topic, in just a few seconds.

A few decades ago, this this wouldn’t have been a problem. When I took my finals, we were faced with nine exams in over just 14 days. It felt like sudden death. This is because ‘finals’ were final exams – taken in formal and highly regulated conditions, without books, let alone computers. Examinees no longer wore gowns, but we were under no illusions about what was at stake. Our performance over that last two weeks of our college career was measured by a tripos ranking that divided the cohort into five unforgiving categories: 1 ^st Class; 2 ^nd Class (i); 2 ^nd Class (ii); 3 ^rd Class; Unclassified.

Needless to say, things are now a little different. Over the last 20 years, higher education has seen:

An inexorable slide towards continual assessment : This was mostly driven by the perception that traditional exams were a barrier to access and participation. In some ways they were. But in fact, rigorous examinations have also often provided a meritocratic avenue for advancement for students from poorer backgrounds. In the UK this was true of the 11+ exam for grammar schools abandoned in favour of comprehensive schools; It is still true in the Indian civil service that sticks to the old model long after the colonial power has all but abandoned entrance exams.
Significant grade inflation : As an undergraduate social scientist in the 1980s, I was marked effectively between 0 and 90. When I started teaching in the late 1990s, we marked effectively between 40 and 80. Over the last fifteen years at Waterloo, the range seems to be, for the most part, between 75/80 and 95. There has certainly been an enormous narrowing in the range of marks, which are concentrated overwhelmingly in the upper quartile.
A massive expansion of accessibility services – and a culture of systematic and proactive remedial intervention to ‘level the playfield’. Clearly well intended, the system that has developed is certainly, in some ways, more humane. When I took my finals, I could break my leg or lose my mother on the day of the exam, and there would be no alternative but to re-sit the following year. It was pretty harsh – and sometimes even cruel. However, the accessibility system is now a bureaucratic industry (rather like ‘research ethics’) with dedicated (and sometimes officious) professionals, training regimes and budget streams. And the scope of intervention seems to widen every year. As things stand, so many students are accessing special accommodations, that the additional administrative overhead attached to different forms of assessment (particularly exams) means that this factor is now having a global influence on how we assess students – a case of the tail wagging the dog. To be clear, it is not that there are not goods associated with the drive for accessibility – but that there has been no rigorous assessment of either the opportunity costs, trade-offs and unintended consequences of this regime.

Taken together the university system seems to be moving from a differentiating/ranking examination& assessment system, to a regime of certification (‘we certify that X did the course’).

OK back to the problem of AI and cheating (are we allowed to call it cheating?). These three factors – grade inflation, accessibility norms and continual assessment – now combine with an enormous institutional push for ‘equal outcomes’ all under the umbrella of Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI). And this configuration makes it almost impossible to respond to the challenge of AI in the most obvious way – which would be to reintroduce tough, meritocratic in-person exams, across the board.

Competition between universities for students, as well as the entrenchment of EDI benchmarks that focus on equal outcomes, makes it unlikely that the university would countenance any return to a system of final exams, not least because such a move would greatly increase the spread of marks and differentiation within the intra-cohort ranking. Such an outcome would fly in the face of now taken for granted shibboleths of equity (even though it is far from clear that the emerging certification system of HE actually helps groups marginalized by class, social capital, race or culture or any other factor). But in addition, the administrative load associated with the expansion of the consumer/equity-driven standards of accessibility (a transformation which may or may not be perfectly justifiable in itself), creates a formidable barrier to any shift back from continual assessment to exams. It is simply much easier to set an essay. And essays can now be generated within seconds, on demand, by ‘the machine’.

In complex systems jargon, I think this regime represents a moment of hysteresis. I can’t see how the leviathan structure of large public universities can or will do anything else but plough forward. On the other hand, universities are clearly beginning to fail in one of their central economic functions which is not only to train students but also to differentiate them for the labour market. As the basic degree and even Master qualifications become less useful to employers, in what was their fundamental functional gatekeeping/winnowing role, employers will covertly introduce their own tests and selective barriers to entry. And perhaps, there will be pressure for more additional certification through the bloated university system.

Finally, this crisis may well spur innovation and growth. Against the background of declining student numbers in mainstream institutions, the notable uptick in undergraduate recruitment in small conservative liberal arts colleges in the United States (as well as institutions such as Redeemer University and Our Lady Seat of Wisdom College in Ontario) perhaps points to market opportunities for nimble, HE start-ups that are willing to combined rigorous teaching and learning with equally rigorous and unsentimental examination and ranking. One of the first to recognize such opportunities has been Jordan Peterson, who’s Peterson Academy ( https://petersonacademy.com ) is likely to be the first of many.

Universities Should Be Neutral

Tue, 22 Nov 2022 18:13:06 GMT

"The university is the home and sponsor of critics; it is not itself the critic."

The job of university administrators is to oversee the operations of the university, which means keeping the lights on and the Wi-Fi network running, not stumping for political causes.

The complete article is available at Minding the Campus

WATSAFS Inaugural Event: A Conversation with Charles Pincourt

wmcnally@wlu.ca (William McNally) — Sun, 08 May 2022 19:51:55 GMT

David Haskell and William McNally Interview Charles Pincourt

Charles Pincourt is co-author (with James Lindsay) of “Counter Wokecraft: A Field Manual for Combatting the Woke in the University and Beyond”

In this video, the inaugural event for the Waterloo chapter of SAFS, David Haskell and William McNally talk to Charles Pincourt about combatting wokecraft.

Waterloo SAFS Inaugural Event

Tue, 03 May 2022 21:52:37 GMT

Waterloo SAFS Inaugural Event

Sunday May 8, 2022 7:30-9:30pm

Zoom meeting link, below. ZOOM link

Password = 843382

N.B. You must have a zoom account to join.

ZOOM link

Charles Pincourt is co-author (with James Lindsay) of “Counter Wokecraft: A Field Manual for Combatting the Woke in the University and Beyond”

https://newdiscourses.com/2021/11/introducing-counter-wokecraft/

Background Info - An interview of Charles Pincourt by Benjamin Boyce:

Find Charles on twitter @wokedissident and on GitHub: https://woke-dissident.github.io

UW Chair only for ‘Women, Transgender, Non-Binary, Or Two-Spirit’ People

Wed, 27 Apr 2022 19:25:45 GMT

UW uses non-academic criteria to award Canada Research Chair

“The Faculty of Environment at the University of Waterloo is seeking an exceptional scholar and researcher to fill a Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) Tier 2 Canada Research Chair and tenure track position at the rank of Assistant Professor with an anticipated start date of 1 July 2022 … This call is open only to qualified individuals who self-identify as women, transgender, non-binary, or two-spirit.”

The complete article is available at the Daily Caller

SAFS AGM May 13 & 14 2022

Thu, 21 Apr 2022 14:14:14 GMT

SAFS Annual General Meeting 2022

Friday, May 13 & Saturday May 14, 2022

Hamilton, Ontario

Homewood Suites Hotel

40 Bay St S, Hamilton, ON

Friday 13 May 2022

Saturday 14 May 2022

DIE and Respect are Bad for University Culture

Fri, 18 Mar 2022 20:35:47 GMT

DIE and Respect are Bad for my School's Culture

In 2021, our school (business and economics at Wilfrid Laurier University) retained a consulting group, Agree Inc., to do interviews to assess our workplace culture. It presented its recommendations in early December.

The two primary recommendations were: 1) more diversity, inclusivity and equity; and 2) implement a culture of respect.

I presented this essay at our faculty meeting on March 18 ^th , 2022. The meeting included all business departments plus the department of economics—there were 94 people in attendance. When I was finished, the Dean said: “I disagree with everything you just said”.

In this essay I explain why the Agree recommendations would be very bad for the school—mainly because they are antithetical to the liberal foundation of the university.

What Is DIE?

Who could object to diversity, equity, and inclusion? Those words mean good things, right? Diversity is our strength. Equity means fairness and inclusion means being welcoming.

But that is not what those words mean.

DIE and respect are the product of critical social justice theory (‘woke’ for short). Woke ideas derive from Marxism (through critical theory) and post-modernism—and so we should not be surprised by some linguistic chicanery. ¹

Next, I’ll explain the real meaning of each of those terms. ²

Diversity

Enhancing diversity means to privilege the marginalized and marginalize the privileged. Diversity doesn’t mean viewpoint diversity. Diversity in hiring means to not hire white, Asian, male & cis (the oppressor) but instead to hire woke activists from the variety of intersectional identities. Diversity brings with it a number of philosophical positions, including: cultural relativism, standpoint epistemology (ways of knowing) and structural oppression.

Inclusivity

Inclusion means censorship. An inclusive space is a safe space. To be safe, a space must not include people and ideas that are unsafe or violent. So, to be inclusive, some ideas must be censored. The Rainbow Centre’s (RC) reaction to Lindsay Shepherd reveals the true meaning of inclusion. The RC argued that the idea of free speech (advocated by Shepherd) constituted a ‘profound violence’ and that the violence must not be allowed on campus. ³

Equity

Equity means shifting resources (jobs, money and power) to oppressed minority groups. Equity means equality of outcome and not equality of opportunity. One critic defines equity as “The destruction of everything in order for a retributive redistribution of power along the inverted axis of the prior hierarchy.” ⁴ The key idea is “retributive redistribution”, which is reparation for past injustice.

Respect

Respect reinforces the central role of group identity in woke theory. Respect means honoring, protecting and celebrating identity. ⁵

Some universities, such as Saint Mary’s, in Halifax, have codified respect. In a culture of respect, we are enjoined not to offend and students are encouraged to identify and address inappropriate behaviour. They are encouraged to speak out for someone else—AKA call-out culture. ⁶

Thus, ‘respect’ is a woke code of conduct enforced through complaints and backed by the threat of discipline.

It will be used maliciously, as it was against Professor Mark Mercer of Saint Mary’s University. ⁷ (See Minding the Campus for the full story.)

DIE Leads to Reverse Discrimination

One ugly product of a DIE culture is discrimination against whites, Asians and males. Ibram X. Kendi justifies reverse discrimination as a form of revenge: “The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.” ⁸

Discrimination against whites and Asians has come to WLU through the Inclusive Excellence program, which created 12 new faculty positions: six for black and six for indigenous applicants only. ⁹ This sort of discrimination contradicts the basic tenet of liberalism: equality of opportunity.

DIE Rejects Liberalism

Woke theory conflicts with liberalism, which is the intellectual foundation of the university. The contrast between the two is well articulated by Lindsay and Pluckrose:

“Theory and liberalism do not merely exist in tension: they are almost directly at odds with one another. Liberalism sees knowledge as something we can learn about reality, more or less objectively; Theory sees knowledge as completely created by humans—stories we tell ourselves, largely in the unwitting service of maintaining our own social standing, privilege, and power…. Liberalism values the individual and universal human values; Theory rejects both in favor of group identity…. Liberalism encourages disagreement and debate as means to getting at the truth; Theory rejects these as ways of reinforcing dominant discourses that suppress certain perspectives [and] promotes the idea that truth is a ‘language game’. Liberalism accepts criticism, even of itself, and is therefore self-correcting; Theory cannot be criticized.” ¹⁰

Woke Theory is Non-Falsifiable

Being immune to criticism makes woke theory unsuitable for a university. The epistemology of a university is disputation and falsification. But woke theory cannot be falsified logically or empirically. It assumes that oppression is baked into the system and that most participants, except the woke, have false consciousness. Thus, a university can be systemically racist without there being any intentionally racist members.

When a member of the oppressor group challenges the idea of structural oppression, the woke response is that the oppressor is denying their privilege and trying to perpetuate their power. Their dissent is treated as proof of their hierarchical power. This is a Kafka trap, which is a logical fallacy, and not a good faith, rational defense.

DIE Bullies Its Opponents

Critics of woke are attacked and bullied. This happened to David Haskell and me when we challenged President MacLatchy’s claim that WLU is systemically racist. In response to our open letter, The Cord published a hit piece titled “The ‘untouchables’: can tenured professors be fired for inflammatory comments?” ¹¹ Shortly afterwards, a social media cancel mob, comprising anonymous faculty and students, formed under the name #wluchangeisdue . The mob called on the president to fire Haskell and me.

Bullying will silence dissent. But dissent is essential to the search for truth.

Conclusion

Critical theory is, by its own admission, anti-rational, anti-individual, anti-liberal, and anti-equality of treatment. ¹² As a workplace culture, it promotes discrimination against white males, is intolerant of dissent, bullies its opponents and fosters a call-out culture of snitching to provoke institutional punishment.

Critical theory is an ideological movement intent on revolution. To see what follows the revolution, remember the Lindsay Shepherd affair or look at what happened at Evergreen State College . ¹³

If we care for the marginalized, then we should embrace liberal values. DIE can achieve nothing good which cannot be accomplished better with liberalism.

If we want a culture of empathy and care then we don’t need another code. We need simply abide by one rule, articulated 2,000 years ago: “do unto others as you would have done unto yourself.”

Endnotes

1 For an overview of critical social justice theory, see: Helen Pluckrose and James A. Lindsay, Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity―and Why This Harms Everybody. Pitchstone Publishing, August 2020.

2 These definitions are largely drawn from James Lindsay’s ‘Social Justice Encyclopedia’ on his New Discourses web site. https://newdiscourses.com/

3 Rainbow Centre. Facebook. Nov 21, 2017.

4 Charles Pincourt and James Lindsay. “Counter Wokecraft: A Field Manual for Combatting the Woke in the University and Beyond.” New Discourses. 2021.

5 For a more complete analysis of respect, see Mark Mercer, “Respect the University”, Minding the Campus , January 21, 2021.

6 Saint Mary’s University. “About Respect at St. Mary’s”. https://www.smu.ca/about/safe-and-respectful-about.html

7 Mark Mercer. “Regrets, I’ve Had a Few.” Minding the Campus. March 26, 2021. https://www.mindingthecampus.org/2021/03/26/regrets-ive-had-a-few/

8 Ibram X. Kendi. “How to be an Antiracist”. Penguin. 2019.

9 Wilfrid Laurier University. “Laurier to hire more Indigenous and Black faculty members through Inclusive Excellence initiative.” Press Release. May 4, 2021.

10 Pluckrose and Lindsay. Ibid.

11 Alyssa Di Sabatino. “The ‘untouchables’: can tenured professors be fired for inflammatory comments?”, The Cord. July 15, 2020.

12 Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic. Critical Race Theory: An Introduction. New York University Press. 2001, p. 3.

13 The Evergreen State College story is told in a short 3-part documentary by Mike Nayna ( https://youtu.be/FH2WeWgcSMk ) and a long 24-part documentary by Benjamin Boyce (https://youtu.be/PQAJ-7t4QOo). Boyce was a student at Evergreen.

Ombudsman does nothing to stop Universities from censoring speech

Wed, 21 Jul 2021 20:05:20 GMT

Canadian universities are not safe places … for ideas

Ontario's campus free speech policy is worthless. The woke crowd knows they can censor and harass their ideological opponents with impunity — and they are

The complete article is available at the National Post

Professor could be dragged before Human Rights Commission

Sun, 11 Jul 2021 20:07:32 GMT

Professor could be dragged before Human Rights Commission after raising gender and race debates in class

Prof. Haskell at Wilfrid Laurier University has been threatened with charges that will bring him before the Ontario Human Rights Commission for raising gender and race topics as open to debate.

The complete article is available at the Conservative Review.

University weaponizes complaints process to silence conservative voices

Mon, 05 Jul 2021 19:52:59 GMT

Discrimination Approved for Conservatives on Campus

Despite all the attention paid to vulnerable groups in Canada these days, there’s one notable minority that garners no attention or concern. Professors and students with a conservative worldview constitute a small percentage at Canada’s universities. But instead of being tolerated, they’re often treated with disdain – if not outright hostility – by administration and their peers. Drawing on ample academic research as well as his own personal experiences at Wilfrid Laurier University, Professor David Millard Haskell reveals what it means to be a conservative on campus in 2021.

The complete article is available on the C2C Journal

Dismantling Institutional Wokeness

wmcnally@wlu.ca (William McNally) — Fri, 11 Jun 2021 19:02:08 GMT

Andrew Lawton discusses the Woke Takeover of Universities with Bruce Pardy, David Haskell and William McNally

In this special edition of The Andrew Lawton Show, Andrew does a deep dive into the campus free speech crisis with Laurier University professors William McNally and David Haskell, and Queen’s University professor Bruce Pardy. In this wide-ranging discussion, the panel takes on the ineffectiveness of Ontario’s campus free speech directive, institutionalized wokeness in the academy, and the permeation of critical theory throughout universities and society at large.

Scholar Strike Propaganda Replaces University Curriculum

wmcnally@wlu.ca (William McNally) — Sat, 03 Oct 2020 03:00:32 GMT

Wilfrid Laurier University Punishes Grad Student for Free Expression

Professors across North America took part in a "scholar strike" when the school year started, suspending lessons to propagandize on race relations using critical race theory. Ontario's Wilfrid Laurier University was one of the schools at which professors participated in this "strike" – even getting backing from the school's administration. Laurier professor William McNally joined True North's The Andrew Lawton Show to discuss academia's latest embrace of woke politics over academic rigour.

University endorses woke propaganda in the classroom

Sun, 27 Sep 2020 20:10:11 GMT

University endorses 'Scholar strike' propaganda for all classes

Wilfrid Laurier University encourages faculty to teach woke ideology, derived from a third-party, unvetted source, instead of their course content.

The complete article is available at the Post Millennial .

NOTE: A Post Millennial subscription is required to view this article

Student newspaper explores how to fire tenured faculty for WrongThink

Wed, 15 Jul 2020 14:33:00 GMT

The ‘untouchables’: can tenured professors be fired for inflammatory comments?

The editor of the WLU student newspaper writes about the limits of academic freedom and wonders how to get tenured faculty fired for WrongThink.

The complete article is available at the The Cord.

Professors challenge President's claim of systemic racism

Tue, 14 Jul 2020 19:48:02 GMT

Wilfrid Laurier University has become the site of yet another dispute over freedom of speech and critical thinking

Laurier Grad student, Lindsay Shepherd, was told by her supervising professor that by showing the video to her 'Canadian Communication in Context' class, 'it basically was like … neutrally playing a speech by Hitler …'

The complete article is available at the The National Post

Social Justice Harms Higher Education

Tue, 07 Jul 2020 21:29:33 GMT

Dr. David M Haskell explains how social justice harms university education

In this speech deliver in the spring of 2020, David Millard Haskell (professor at Wilfrid Laurier University) explains how the ideology of social justice uses discrimination and censorship to achieve its goals.

Laurier professor pushes back against “systemic racism” claims

Fri, 03 Jul 2020 03:44:02 GMT

Prof. David Haskell pushes back against Laurier president’s claim that there is “systemic racism” at their university.

Laurier University professor David Millard Haskell was one of only two professors at his school to push back against the Laurier president’s claim that there is “systemic racism” at the university. Prof. Haskell joins True North’s Andrew Lawton to talk about why this matters.

Laurier engages in sex-based discrimination

Sun, 08 Mar 2020 20:13:15 GMT

William McNally: Wilfrid Laurier engages in sex discrimination through inclusion efforts

Wilfrid Laurier University launches an entrepreneurship program open to women only.

The complete article is available at the Post Millennial .

NOTE: A Post Millennial subscription is required to view this article

Devil's Advocate only needed at events critical of social justice

Mon, 10 Feb 2020 22:13:15 GMT

University rejects opposing view at diversity event, promotes it for event questioning social justice

The university rejected the idea of “devil’s advocate roles” when the subject was last year’s event on why “equity, diversity, and inclusion are still important,” Haskell said, which shows it favors the prevailing left-wing orthodoxy on campus: “[H]ow’s this for hypocrisy?”

The complete article is available at the College Fix.

Tolerance & Why Liberals Get It Mostly Wrong

Thu, 14 Mar 2019 21:37:12 GMT

Dr. David M Haskell explains how social justice harms university education

David M. Haskell explains what tolerance is, how many misunderstand the concept and--reflecting on recent research-- shows how and why liberals have become the most intolerant in our society.

Compelled Statements of Fealty at the Law Society of Ontario

Mon, 11 Feb 2019 20:20:03 GMT

How Social Justice Ideologues Hijacked a Legal Regulator

by Murray Klippenstein with Bruce Pardy

Like many universities which require diversity statements with faculty job applications, the Law Society of Ontario began demanding, in 2016, diversity statements from all lawyers as a condition of licensure.

"...this development left me flabbergasted: Our regulator was demanding that lawyers and paralegals draft and then obey a set of specific political ideas—both in their personal and professional lives—as a condition of their license.”

The complete article is available at Quillette.

The Left, Protests, and Free Speech - David Haskell

Wed, 11 Jul 2018 20:42:06 GMT

David Haskell describes why he resigned from WLU's Free Speech Task Force

Vaughan and Bob Metz interview Professor David Haskell of Wilfrid Laurier University about his quitting a University task force created to make recommendations regarding freedom of speech on campus to the Administrators of Laurier University. This interview followed his presentation, along with Lindsay Shepherd, to the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship's 2018 AGM at Western University.

Why Lindsay Shepherd is suing Wilfrid Laurier University

Mon, 25 Jun 2018 19:57:05 GMT

A ‘dignity culture’ has been replaced by a ‘victimhood culture,’ and Lindsay Shepherd doesn’t want to be associated with the latter

Many Canadians who’ve read the news support her suit. In large part it’s because seven months ago they heard for themselves that now-famous audio recording. It revealed two Laurier profs and an administrator cruelly bullying Lindsay to the point of tears, insisting she renounce her belief that universities should promote open debate.

Why then did Lindsay finally feel pushed to take legal action? Because the university allowed an internal action to proceed against her. And, upon threat of severe academic penalty, they forbade her to discuss the details publicly.

The complete article is available at the Toronto Star.

The Lindsay Shepherd Affair as told by Lindsay to SAFS

Tue, 19 Jun 2018 19:28:30 GMT

The Lindsay Shepherd Story as told by Lindsay to the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship.

In this Just Right Media exclusive video Lindsay Shepherd is interviewed by Professor David Haskell on the details of her predicament at Wilfred Laurier University. The discussion took place at the 2018 AGM of the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship and is followed by a question and answer period.

Prof. Haskell protests censorious security fee policy

Thu, 03 May 2018 19:47:15 GMT

Christie Blatchford: Wilfrid Laurier professor withdraws from free speech task force in protest

Professor David Haskell stepped aside after learning the university is demanding $5,473 for unspecified 'security costs' for a Lindsay Shepherd-organized event.

The only free speech stalwart on Wilfrid Laurier University’s free expression task force has temporarily resigned. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Liberal arts associate professor David Haskell stepped aside Thursday after learning that the university is demanding $5,473 for unspecified “security costs” for a Lindsay Shepherd-organized free-speech event...

The complete article is available on the National Post

WLU's Diversity Office in their Own Words

Thu, 28 Dec 2017 20:41:23 GMT

Benjamin Boyce traces one of the roots of the Lindsay Shepherd Affair: Laurier's diversity office

Benjamin Boyce analyzes excerpts from promotional videos created by Laurier's Diversity office (featuring Director Laura Mae Lindo). Boyce explains the language and underlying critical social justice ideas and connects them to the Lindsay Shepherd affair. Boyce was a student at Evergreeen State College in May 2017.

Jordan B Peterson Interviews Laurier Professors McNally and Haskell to discuss Shepherd Affair

Tue, 26 Dec 2017 21:19:24 GMT

Laurier Professors McNally and Haskell discuss University response to Shepherd Affair with Jordan B. Peterson

Dr. David Haskell and Dr. William McNally joined Dr. Jordan Peterson to discuss (December 19) President MacLatchy's response to a report exonerating Lindsay Shepherd of all responsibility.

Sloppily executed pay raise for women at Wilfrid Laurier creates reverse inequality for men

Fri, 22 Dec 2017 21:18:31 GMT

A pay hike for female faculty at Wilfrid Laurier University, made in the name of all that is sacred — fairness for women — has created a brand new wage inequity.

Smith, a faculty member at LAurier since 1987, said the move “has created a major problem in the finance area,” where, he said, “when we hired women going back over 20 years, we hired them at the same time as the men and offered them the same salaries as the men.

“I know this because I was part of the hiring and I know exactly what was offered,” he said. “This is blatant discrimination.”

The complete article is available at the National Post.

Words lose their meaning at Wilfrid Laurier University

Wed, 13 Dec 2017 21:00:43 GMT

Orwell: beware any person or group that redefines words so that they no longer align with facts, common sense, and common usage.

As one of a small group of professors pushing for maximum freedom of expression and inquiry at my university, I’ve been personally frustrated by my colleagues who claim that some topics are “not up for debate” and that censorship is required when a counter-argument offends the feelings of certain individuals or groups.

However, professionally, as a researcher in the area of communication, I’ve been fascinated by the way my university’s free expression opponents provide a vivid illustration of Orwell’s theory of political language.

The complete article is available at the Quillette.

Laurier’s “gendered violence” policy prohibits ideas

Tue, 28 Nov 2017 22:45:00 GMT

Laurier’s “gendered violence” doesn’t just prohibit harassment and assault, it prohibits ideas.

Ontario’s Bill 132, passed in 2016, required universities to have a policy on sexual violence. Unlike the Wynne Liberals’ definition, Laurier’s “gendered violence” doesn’t just prohibit harassment and assault, it prohibits ideas. All it takes to commit an act of gendered violence according to Laurier’s policy is for a listener to experience “emotional harm.”

The complete article is available on the The Toronto Star

Prof. David Haskel Explains Intent of Free Speech Rally

Sat, 25 Nov 2017 19:49:53 GMT

Dr. David M Haskell discusses Lindsay Shepherd affair and free speech rally with Free Bird Media

Professor David M. Haskell took the time to speak with Alex Van Hamme at a pro-Free Speech rally organized at Laurier University after controversial erupted when Laurier TA Lindsay Shepherd showed a video clip of Dr. Jordan Peterson discussing gender pronouns.

Wilfrid Laurier University Punishes Grad Student for Free Expression

Sat, 18 Nov 2017 03:52:21 GMT

Wilfrid Laurier University Punishes Grad Student for Free Expression

Most recently, the media reported Lindsay Shepherd, a grad student and teaching assistant in Laurier’s communications program, ran afoul of her university bosses while instructing a first-year class. She showed a clip of a debate between U of T professors Jordan Peterson and Nicholas Matte.

Shepherd showed a three-minute clip to spark discussion but it seems someone in class complained that the ideas of Peterson made them feel unsafe. Shepherd found herself called before a hostile tribunal of her thesis adviser, the program chair, and the manager of the university’s Gendered and Sexual Violence Prevention and Support Office.

Wilfrid Laurier Professor Defends Lindsay Shepherd

Sat, 18 Nov 2017 03:41:27 GMT

Wilfrid Laurier Professor comes to defence of censored TA Lindsay Shepherd

David Haskell, Associate Professor at Wilfrid Laurier University, tells Global News his disappointed in school faculty and administration after they chose to censure TA Lindsay Shepherd.

Professors stifle Grad student who showed TVO video

Thu, 16 Nov 2017 04:38:52 GMT

Suppressing TVO video, stifling free speech, is making Wilfrid Laurier unsafe

Professors and a diversity administrator were wrong to castigate a grad student and teaching assistant for showing to her students a debate on TVO’s The Agenda that featured controversial professor Jordan Peterson.

The complete article is available at the Toronto Star.

Laurier grad student is chastised for showing Jordan Peterson video

Fri, 10 Nov 2017 22:27:38 GMT

Thought police strike again as Wilfrid Laurier grad student is chastised for showing Jordan Peterson video

The complete article is available at the The National Post

University diversity office supports cancel culture

Thu, 16 Mar 2017 19:58:48 GMT

David Haskell: Free speech at university under attack … again

Disrupting a planned keynote address by Ghomeshi’s defence attorney Danielle Robitaille is an attack on freedom of expression — and the principle of learning to think critically by being exposed to competing ideas.

The complete article is available on the Toronto Star

Revisiting free speech debate on campus

Tue, 18 Oct 2016 20:16:44 GMT

The views of Jordan Peterson at U of T have led to calls for censorship

How the academic leaders at the University of Toronto handle this situation with Peterson will give us a sense of which way the wind is blowing. There’s already a chill in the air.

The complete article is available at the Toronto Star.