Viewpoint Diversity Is Yet Another False Flag
The insistence on more points of view misunderstands the structure of scholarly knowledge.
The insistence on more points of view misunderstands the structure of scholarly knowledge.
(David A. Hollinger, Chronicle of Higher Education) - “David, the changes you want in academia will not happen without outside political pressure, and of a kind you will not like.” Several colleagues told me this after I spoke and wrote against the DEI statements often recommended and sometimes required of applicants for faculty jobs. These statements, I complained, served to diminish viewpoint diversity by means of a striking reclassification of ideas: What had long been honest disagreements about how universities should deal with historic injustices were reclassified as violations of a campus’s shared values.
I hate to admit it, but my colleagues were right.
But only up to a point.
What might have been a regrettably necessary nudge from the outside has become an unprincipled, sweeping campaign to decisively weaken the capacity of universities to decide on faculty appointments, determine the intellectual shape of departments, and design classroom curricula.
Did “we” bring this upon ourselves? Not exactly, but the chorus of academic leaders calling for a renewed commitment to higher education’s core mission correctly acknowledges that we had some responsibility for it. Hostility to academe is not new, but the widespread use of DEI statements gave unique credibility to the claim that universities were dominated by…