Wokeness in higher education is still alive and kicking
Ballots went out last month for leadership positions at the American Sociological Association. Here’s some advice for candidates: Emphasize your Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion credentials. Among the past 13 ASA presidents, 11 were women, and 2 were black men.
Among the past 11 vice presidents, 10 were women. One was a white man. In addition, the criteria the ASA outlines for all of its awards make clear that “wokeness” in higher education is still deeply entrenched, notwithstanding efforts by the Trump administration to eliminate it.
The Environmental Sociology Teaching and Mentorship Award “honors faculty members who demonstrate a notable dedication to teaching and mentorship through …actionable attention to diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
The notice for an award for best article in a professional journal declares that “Women, people of color, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and people with disabilities are especially encouraged to submit.”
And when considering an award for articles “that advance the field of sociology of science, knowledge, and technology,” the ASA calls for more applications from “scholars who identify as Black, Indigenous, or People of Color (BIPOC).
Almost three years after the Supreme Court ruled racial preferences in college admissions unconstitutional and two years after Ivy League presidents embarrassed themselves before Congress during questioning about campus anti-Semitism, and more than a year after the Trump administration began its push to end the DEI regime and restore civil rights for all students on campus, it seems that college faculty and administrators are digging their heels in.
Even Yale’s recent report that higher education’s problems are partially its own fault and Harvard’s recent ask that donors fund more intellectual diversity, things are unlikely to change any time soon.
While there may be few white men even left in the field of sociology, it is nevertheless revealing that the ASA is so brazen about its preferences for diversity and intersectional ideologies. Indeed, many schools, instead of doing away with DEI programs, simply changed their names in an effort to conceal their real purposes.
Even the university administrators who were publicly humiliated when they seemed unsure of whether calling for the genocide of Jews would violate their academic codes of conduct —they said it depended on the “context”—have been rehabilitated.
Liz Magill, who was forced to resign from the presidency at the University of Pennsylvania, has now been named dean and executive vice president of Georgetown University’s Law School. And Harvard’s president, Claudine Gay, who was not only exposed as a racial ideologue and hypocrite but also a plagiarist, has returned to her previous job as a fully tenured Harvard professor, and is even teaching a class on university administration (of all things).
Meanwhile, UCLA, which was sued by the Trump administration and forced to pay more than $6 million in a settlement for letting protesters block Jewish students from getting to their classes, just cancelled a lecture by Bari Weiss. The Jewish head of CBS News pulled out of the event because of security concerns amidst a smear campaign by professors who tarred her with “right-wing grift” and accused her of supporting “fascism” and Palestinian “genocide.”
And at Columbia, which reached a similar settlement, administrators delayed disciplinary action against the offending students and continued to take large sums of money from countries like Qatar, which continue to fuel anti-American and anti-Jewish bigotry.
If pressure from the president, the Supreme Court, and the American public (whose confidence in higher education has plummeted) is not sufficient to force colleges and universities to change their ways, one wonders if there is any hope left for genuine academic reform.
It is true that the new civics programs at public institutions like the University of North Carolina, the University of Texas, Arizona State, and the University of Florida are positive developments.
It will be a great benefit to the students attending these institutions that these states have set aside funds to encourage intellectual diversity on these campuses, and to hire professors who wish to teach real history and constitutional principles, rather than identity studies and political advocacy.
But no one should be lulled into believing that the past few years have changed the character of academia. This is a generational battle.
Thousands upon thousands of faculty members in the humanities and social sciences have been steeped in far-left ideology.
University structures for hiring and promotion are all aligned to support professors who spout those ideas, and to discredit anyone daring to challenge them. It will take a lot more than a single presidential administration—even one as aggressive as this one—or a single Supreme Court decision to eliminate the academy’s deeply entrenched policies.
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