Tag Archives: academia

The Contradictions of Institutional Neutrality

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

Coming Attractions in My Jihad Against Institutional Neutrality

Over the last year or so, I’ve written about two dozen posts here critiquing institutional neutrality, and given maybe a half dozen conference presentations on the subject. But in some ways, the criticisms I’ve made so far are peripheral to the fundamental problem with the doctrine. The fundamental problem is that it’s self-contradictory and self-subversive. This latter problem is so obvious, and so obviously fatal to the doctrine, that stating it threatens to trivialize the whole discussion about institutional neutrality: if the doctrine is self-contradictory, why discuss it? Good question. In any case, I might as well articulate the objection, if only to put it out there. 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 →

Loyalty and Academic Freedom

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

The case of Jonathan A. C. Brown
A friend is circulating an Open Letter to Interim President Robert Groves of Georgetown University in defense of Professor Jonathan A.C. Brown, the Alwaleed bin Talal chair of Islamic Civilisation in the School of Foreign Service. Apparently, during the recent US-Israel-Iran war, Brown made this comment on X:

“I’m not an expert, but I assume Iran could still get a bomb easily. I hope Iran does some symbolic strike on a base, then everyone stops,” Brown wrote on X.

Brown has tenure and a chaired professorship at Georgetown, but apparently the comment was regarded as frightening enough to call for his suspension. The President forced Brown to delete the tweet, and he’s now been suspended. He’s also been removed as chair of his department, which I believe was intended as punishment. Continue reading →

Kalven’s Complicit Executioners

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

I’ve previously mentioned that I’ll be giving a presentation on institutional neutrality at the Heterodox Academy Conference in Brooklyn a couple of weeks from now, Tuesday, June 24th. I have yet to write the paper up, but here’s the abstract, below. I’d be interested in/grateful for any comments, questions, objections, etc. I’ll probably be posting on material related to the paper over the next few weeks. Continue reading →

Alasdair MacIntyre (1929-2025)

Posted on by under Memorials and Obituaries

My mentor Alasdair MacIntyre died this past Wednesday, at the age of 96. The last time I spoke to him in person was 2008, on the occasion of my dissertation defense. It had taken me seventeen years, from matriculation to defense, to finish the degree, and even at the defense itself, it was very far from clear whether I would actually finish. A minor civil war broke out within the defense over the merits of my work, but after tense negotiations, I passed. MacIntyre, amused by the fracas, described my having completed the degree as the best of the arguments for the existence of God: only a God, he said, could have ensured that Khawaja crossed the finish line. I laughed at first, but was then given pause. And that, in microcosm, describes my relationship with Alasdair MacIntyre. Continue reading →

Karl Ameriks, RIP

Posted on by under Memorials and Obituaries

I wanted to note the passing of Karl Ameriks (1947-2025), the Emeritus McMahon-Hank Professor of Philosophy at Notre Dame. He died yesterday in South Bend, Indiana at the age of 77.

I didn’t know Ameriks particularly well. My first memory was a conversation I had with him in 1991 about what little I knew about Kant’s first Critique. I’d taken an undergraduate course on Kant with Wolfgang Carl, the eminent Kant scholar, and was flattered to learn that Ameriks was interested in my lecture notes. He read them, thanked me for them, but never commented on them. I think he found them more amusing than anything else. Continue reading →

Meir Kahane at Princeton: April 1984

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

Princeton in the Service of Ethnic Cleansing

Here is the first installment of the supplementary posts to my April 5 post, “Princeton’s Genocide.” This one consists of screenshots from the Daily Princetonian (April 27, 1984) of Meir Kahane’s first visit to Princeton in April 1984, at the invitation of Yoram Hazony. As you’ll see from the last screenshot, Kahane explicitly advocates the apartheid and ethnic cleansing likewise defended in his book, They Must Go. “If necessary to maintain a Jewish majority in Israel, Arabs might need to be deported.” Since Kahane regarded Israel as encompassing everything it held in 1984, that meant that “Arabs” would have to be deported from the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem, Golan, and Israel proper. Continue reading →

Princeton’s Genocide

Posted on by under activism, cancel culture, Fatwas, moralism, MTSP Discussion: George Sher's Desert, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine

In October 2024, after several years of activism (most recently spearheaded by Princeton Israeli Apartheid Divestment, or PIAD), the Council for the Princeton University Community (CPUC) invited written comments from members of the Princeton University community weighing in for and against divestment from Israel. The CPUC rejected the bid for divestment about a month ago.

What follows below is my written statement to the CPUC, which essentially speaks for itself–and likewise speaks to the title I’ve given this post.  I will, in the near future, be posting some supplementary material, including screen shots from The Daily Princetonian of Meir Kahane’s two appearances at Princeton advocating ethnic cleansing and genocide (April 1984 and February 1988), the written version of my follow-up question to the CPUC about the issue of complicity, and the transparently evasive “response” to my question offered by Hilary A. Parker, Vice President and Secretary of Princeton University. I’ll also be posting a written response here to John Groves, chair of CPUC’s Resources Committee. Both Parker and Groves refused my repeated requests to offer a candid disclosure of the facts concerning the University’s investments, opting for concealment and evasion. Continue reading →