heehee…

Aside from my disappointment at ephblog’s return to its political views (I much rather enjoy the cute cards instead…), I do think it fair to point out one problem with Cass’s “great” piece (aside from my complete disagreement with its entire message. But that’s neither new nor interesting to very many).

Namely, when he criticizes a course focusing on DuBois and Washington by arguing Strauss and Kristol have had a great effect on America today (debatable at the best), he forgets to note that by his own standard of “diversity addiction”, Jews and Judaism are counted as over-represented in our curriculum a la African-Americans. Jews, like, say Strauss and Kristol. oops!

This is almost as laughable as the conservatives accusing Henry Reid of racism for calling Clarence Thomas “an embarrassment” to the Supreme Court.

No, Rory — you’ve not only beaten that horse to death, but shattered its bones into dust.

He didn’t say they have had a great effect on America today, the quote was “The latter are probably having a greater impact on America today” (emphasis mine), referring to Strauss and Kristol. He’s talking about at the moment, not total past historical impact. But I guess mistakes like that are fairly common, now that grammar has gone by the wayside…

And if you want to talk about embarassments to the Supreme Court, there’s no better place to start than with Stevens, who is unable to understand even the very basics of economics, which has to be humiliating even to the anti-market portions of the political spectrum.

Jurisprudentially speaking, Clarence Thomas isn’t a judge whose style will go down as one of the greatest in the court’s history. By historical standards, He’s been about average for a supreme court justice so far, which is to say, still pretty good, and he has quite a few years left in him. How he’s an embarrassment is a mystery, but it’s another in a long line of the left’s specious smears against minorities who dare to dissent from the party line of victimology.

If you’d actually like to learn something about Thomas’ jurisprudence, history, and opinions, I’d suggest doing some reading and research so you don’t come off as completely ignorant on the topic. This would be a good place to start.

I think some professor should teach a class on the importance of private enterprise and faith in society relying on readings from both Booker T. Washington and Irving Kristol. That would be an _awesome_ class.

well, Lowell and I are at it again (any surprises? anyone? Bueller?).

Ok, I abologize for my grammatical oversight, even funnier considering I wrote “great” when I meant to writer “great” when I really should have written “probably having a greater”. Because that was clearly the point of that paragraph.

Also, Lowell, what I said was laughable was the idea being bantered about that Reid is racist for believing Thomas is an embarrassment. You may disagree with Reid, but saying that Reid’s view is based in racism, I hope you and I can both agree is pretty absurd.

Yes, I deserve mockery due to my inability to grammatically make fun of my own grammar mistakes. Sorry. I’ve stopped proofreading ever since college ended. I meant to write:

even funnier considering I wrote “great” when I meant to writer “greater” when I really should have written “probably having a greater”

I will not deny that ideology is a potential explanation for the focus upon racial minorities across a range of disciplines. But I would like to offer a couple of alternative explanations.

1) Academic disciplines are inherently trendy and Williams is no exception. Certain types of questions, methodologies, and modes of inquiry come into vogue and then are replaced by a new trend. Oren is simply picking up on his contemporary trend (some people complained of post-modernism while I was at Williams). The trends are especially noticable among young faculty members, recently arriving from graduate school.

2) The college benefits from having professors teach courses on their current research areas. The class becomes a fruitful learning environment for both student and professor. But why would history professors be focused upon minorities and other marginalized groups? Because so much has already been written about famous dead white men and institutions. Saying something new about Thomas Jefferson or Abraham Lincoln or Andrew Carnegie is really hard because of the extensive literature that already exists. The history of marginalized groups is relatively undiscovered, thus, it is much easier to make an original contribution to our store of knowledge.

3) Students want to take courses focusing upon marginalized groups and departments are responding to demand.

Oren’s Op-Ed accusing the college of ideological bias (or at least implying it) does not strike me as the most effect means of engaging the college on the issue. Instead, a group of concerned students should petition the relevant departments arguing:

a) A sufficient number of students would like to take history courses focusing on dead white males;

b) It’s all fine and good that academic historians are bored by traditional history and find it hard to publish anything new on the subjects, but the material would be entirely new to the undergraduates and it is important to know the dominant white “cultural canon”;

c) The pedagogical needs of this set of students to cover the subject matter trumps the desire of the professor to courses teach her/his current research and any instructional benefits that might acrue from such a harmony.

I can only assume that such a strategy would be more effective than claiming the college is addicted to diversity.