Category Archives: Neutrality and Complicity

Karma Comes for Mikie Sherrill

Posted on by under Big Data, character based voting, EVS Journal, Health Care Series, moralism, Neutrality and Complicity, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine

A controversy has recently broken out in the New Jersey gubernatorial campaign. Mikie Sherrill, who has long touted her experience as a helicopter pilot for the Navy, is now facing the somewhat exaggerated charge that she “cheated her way” through the Naval Academy (to quote hearsay from the Internet).

The backstory is this: Nicholas DeGregorio, a supporter of Sherrill’s opponent in the race, made a records request re Sherrill, including her Naval Academy record, to the National Personnel Center of the National Archives. Continue reading →

Thoughts on Complicity

Posted on by under activism, moralism, Neutrality and Complicity, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine

I’ve recently given a handful of talks critical of the Kalven Committee Report’s (KCR) conception of institutional neutrality–three or four, depending on how you count, with one or two more to come, depending on what the referees say. My argument is pretty straightforward: it’s an adequacy-condition on any account of academic norms that the account deal with the problem of institutional complicity in wrongdoing. The KCR defense of institutional neutrality doesn’t just fail to deal with this issue; it offers complicit institutions a blueprint for evading accusations of complicity even when those accusations are recognized as true, well-documented, and incriminating. Continue reading →

Montgomery Twp Issues ITA Proclamation

Posted on by under activism, cancel culture, migrant defense, Neutrality and Complicity

Apropos of my last post, Montgomery Township has just issued an official proclamation in favor of the Immigrant Trust Act. A proclamation has a somewhat lower official status than a resolution; unlike a resolution, it’s issued collectively by the mayor and Council, and doesn’t require individualized votes by Council members. So it’s not exactly what we wanted, but it’s still a win. 

Whether coincidentally or not, two Council members who were present last time were absent today, notably Dennis Ahn and Vincent Barragan.

Continue reading →

Institutional Neutrality: Another Day, Another Exception

Posted on by under activism, cancel culture, moralism, Neutrality and Complicity

Institutional neutrality is the doctrine that institutions like universities should refrain from issuing public comment on matters of public controversy. As I’ve argued here at PoT (and elsewhere), one canonical exception to neutrality is institutional self-defense: a university is obliged to speak up when the university itself comes under attack. Predictably, we now have yet another exception to add to the list: the Charlie Kirk Exception. This exception asserts that when a famous right-wing loudmouth is shot on a university campus, all institutions hitherto bound by solemn pledges of institutional neutrality are obliged to carve out a special dispensation to condemn the act. Continue reading →

Mistah Kirk, He Dead

Posted on by under Fatwas, Neutrality and Complicity, Notes on the Anti-War Movement

I’m sitting here eating a nice vegan meal, reading Livy. I just heard that somebody killed Charlie Kirk, another fascist nobody in this rapidly disintegrating country. We can’t keep track of how many fucking wars or proxy wars we’re in, or how many innocent people we’ve killed or sent to concentration camps in a week, but here come the hand-wringers and cry-babies on command, from Trump to Newsom to Obama, gnashing their teeth and virtue signaling over the least consequential death in America today.

Continue reading →

Kiosks and Cowardice

Posted on by under activism, anarchism, cancel culture, Fatwas, moralism, Neutrality and Complicity

I wrote this in May, but forgot to post it. I happened to notice it today while cleaning out old files. It seems a fitting start to the academic year.

In Princeton, where I live, there are two kiosks on Nassau Street, the main drag, on which people put up up flyers of various sorts, sometimes announcements of cultural events, sometimes flyers of a more political nature. Most but not all of the political flyers tend to the left of the political spectrum, and some of these target either the municipality or the University. The kiosks are deeply resented by elites at both institutions, who regard them, with predictable hauteur, as “eyesores.” Despite determined public opposition, the local town council has voted to demolish the kiosks and replace them with something that it can (in the words of one proponent) “control.”

They’re still there for now. The stated rule governing them is that flyers are taken down on the first of every month. Today is the 22nd of May. And yet, as I walked through town this morning and then this evening, I found all of the flyers systematically taken down on both kiosks. Continue reading →

Is It Time to Bomb Columbia University?

Posted on by under activism, anarchism, cancel culture, moralism, Neutrality and Complicity, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine

I had a conversation the other day with a friend who just started law school at Columbia. This person told me that on the first day of orientation, the first-year law students were visited by officials from Columbia’s so-called Office of Institutional Equity (OIE). According to OIE, the chant “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will be Free,” is presumptively to be understood as advocacy of genocide, as discrimination against Jews, and therefore as a violation of Title VI. Anyone who chants it thereby becomes a candidate for reprimand, suspension, and/or expulsion. So they were instructed not to chant it. A couple of things can be said about this, I think. Continue reading →

Does Heterodox Academy Practice Institutional Neutrality?

Posted on by under activism, cancel culture, moralism, Neutrality and Complicity, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine, pedagogy

The doctrine of institutional neutrality asserts that an institution ought not to make public pronouncements on matters of public controversy. It’s promoted most vigorously nowadays by organizations like Heterodox Academy, and by the 150 or so universities that have signed on to Heterodox Academy’s campaign. This gives rise to an oddly neglected question: does institutional neutrality apply to Heterodox Academy itself? Is Heterodox Academy itself bound by the doctrine of institutional neutrality? It’s not clear how to answer this question, or whether it can coherently be answered at all. Continue reading →

MAP Public-Facing Philosophy

Posted on by under General announcements, Neutrality and Complicity, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine

A reprise of an earlier announcement: I’ll be presenting “Academia’s Complicit Executioners: A Critique of the Kalven Committee Report” at the MAP Public Facing Philosophy conference on Saturday, September 6th. The first link above goes to a video of my talk at the Heterodox Academy conference this past June in Brooklyn. I’m hoping to have a much-expanded hard copy version of that presentation written up soon, which I’ll post here and on the MAP page. Anyone can attend the MAP conference (it’s free), but you have to RSVP. Info below, and RSVP here.

The panel goes from 12-1 pm EDT, and the Works in Progress Presentations begin at 1. Updated correction: The presentations are ten minutes each, and will be given sequentially, followed by a joint 30 minute discussion until about 2. The keynote follows that.

The contrast with Heterodox Academy is sort of amusing. For my most recent attack on institutional neutrality, go here. Continue reading →