Tag Archives: academia

Complicity, Neutrality, Atrocity (2/5)

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

Stakeholders, Politicization, and Standing to Complain

This is part 2 of a five part series. For part 1, go here.

Background context: an institution accused of complicity in injustice counter-accuses its accusers of politicization and lack of standing.

Start with the politicization objection. The Stakeholders have two separate responses here. 

Responding to the politicization objection. First, they point out that it’s not clear that the politicization of a previously apolitical scene is necessarily objectionable. Productiveness, order, and justice are three separate values whose relative value is far from self-evident. Given this, it’s obviously not the case that the value of productiveness and order so outweigh justice as to trump it altogether. Continue reading →

Complicity, Neutrality, Atrocity (1/5)

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

Complicity and the Strategy of Evasion

Imagine that an institution (“the Institution”) maintains a set of investments in various enterprises that make a clear and demonstrable contribution to some indisputable injustice. Now suppose that a set of stakeholders (“the Stakeholders”) objects to these investments, calling on the Institution to divulge the facts in a fuller way, and demanding divestment from the clearly objectionable investments.  Continue reading →

Learn the Language

Posted on by under Trump 2

A friend of mine was unceremoniously fired from Felician University in 2023–one of sixteen people fired on a single day–after 23 unrelenting years as an English comp instructor to students with an average SAT verbal score well below 500. I described her in a letter of recommendation, without exaggeration, as “the most dedicated college instructor I had ever encountered” in two+ decades in the profession. Her office was across the hall from mine, and every now and then I’d eavesdrop on her efforts. I couldn’t imagine putting even half the effort into teaching that she did. Continue reading →

Divestment at Yale

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

Well, they say it’s kinda frightenin’
How this younger generation swings
You know it’s more than just some new sensation
Well, the kid is into losin’ sleep
And he don’t come home for half the week
You know it’s more than just an aggravation
–Van Halen, “And the Cradle Will Rock…”

Yale Daily News, December 8:

Yale students overwhelmingly pass divestment referendum

The Yale College Council announced today that the student body has passed the divestment referendum by a large margin.

Continue reading →

Divestment at Princeton

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

Princeton’s Silence Is Our Weapon

I’m happy to report that Princeton University’s undergraduate student Referendum #5 has passed by a margin of 68% to 32%. A referendum has to win at least 65% of the vote to pass, so this one did. The referendum calls on the University to disclose and divest all direct and indirect holdings in companies involved in weapons development, manufacturing, or trade, giving first priority to disclosing and divesting direct holdings in Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, RTX (formerly Raytheon), and General Dynamics, weapons manufacturers with documented ties to human rights violations. It also calls on the university to increase communication and accountability on socially responsible investments with the student body and campus community. Continue reading →

Princeton University USG Referendum Question #5: Divest

Posted on by under activism, cancel culture, ethics, Fatwas, General announcements, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine

Referendum Question #5 of Princeton University’s forthcoming Undergraduate Student Government elections. Scroll down (you may have to click “download”) for a PDF with the wording of the referendum. Kudos to these students for the work they’ve done on this. If only I could vote on it, but I’m 33 years too late.

donotabstain

Continue reading →

Defiance and Compliance in Princeton (2)

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

Back on September 3, I posted a letter here that I’d sent to Town Topics, a local paper in my hometown of Princeton, New Jersey, asking why the paper hadn’t covered the legal proceedings against the activists who’d been arrested this past April at a Gaza Solidarity event at Princeton University. A staff writer from the paper responded, promising coverage in the future. In the three weeks since then, three issues of Town Topics have come out–September 4th, 11th, and 18th. How well has it delivered? Continue reading →

Hell Is Empty and All the Administrators Are Here

Posted on by under Fatwas

Cass Sunstein has a Guest Essay in today’s New York Times that argues that the First Amendment is the key to the norms that govern free speech on campus: “Only the First Amendment Can Protect Students, Campuses, and Speech.” His point is that universities should either adhere to First Amendment jurisprudence or legislate and enforce some functional equivalent of it. The First Amendment is (on this reading) supposed to be a content-neutral protector of free speech, with exceptions that Sunstein duly enumerates in the latter half of the essay.

Some of what he says seems fine, and some of it seems wrongheaded, but I was struck by the insouciant sloppiness of this particular sentence: 

In a class on Shakespeare, students and professors can be instructed by administrators to discuss Shakespeare, not the presidential election.

No, they can’t. That’s not how academic freedom works, not how Shakespeare works, and not how pedagogy works. Continue reading →