Posted on by rjonakait

Do They Really Want Viewpoint Diversity?

The Trump administration is pressuring Harvard University to have greater “viewpoint diversity.” The Trumpistas have not defined the term nor is it self-evident. This is an administration that has sought to stop the consideration of certain topics in schools and elsewhere. We do know that they consider discussions of institutional racism and certain gender issues to be verboten in classrooms. Some people cannot enter the country if they have criticized Israel. Lawful residents may get deported if they speak out on behalf of Palestinians. The administration, apart from Harvard, is trying to prevent viewpoints from being heard, not expanding the diversity of them.

Many reports indicate that Harvard has few faculty members who identify as conservative. The inference from the right is that Harvard students are being indoctrinated with liberal thinking and that such indoctrination must change. If there is indoctrination, however, it is in a narrow curricular space. In many courses the political affiliation of the instructor does not matter. The content of math, physics, astrophysics, chemistry, molecular biology, and many other subjects will not be affected by whether the professor is conservative or liberal.

Of course, the political perspective of professors might intrude on certain subjects (political science, economics, etc.), but that does not mean that students are affected by those professorial views. I have not seen, but would like to, a good study of how student political thinking changes during one’s years at Harvard. This study would require the collection of similar data from other colleges to see if any shifts might be the result of Harvard’s education or is simply the normal maturation process that students go through everywhere. Of course, we already know that the supposed liberal indoctrination — if it is, indeed, there — does not always work. Many famous, adamant conservatives have gone to Harvard, including Ted Cruz, Steve Bannon, and Ron DeSantis. If they have escaped the liberal indoctrination and have learned to “think for themselves,” surely other Harvard students can do and have done the same.

A thought experiment: How effective is the so-called “indoctrination” by Harvard? If you personally know any Harvard graduates, how many are in positions that seek to radicalize the country? How many are commie-pinkos? As far as I can tell, Harvard has not been very successful in turning out cadres of radicals. The predominant choice for a starting job for Harvard undergrads is finance. They want to make money, not destroy the country. Something similar is the choice of business, medical, and law school graduates. This, perhaps, is not necessarily good for the country, but not in the way that the Trump administration fears.

And anyway, why should the Trump administration be able to dictate viewpoint diversity at Harvard or any other university? The Trump acolytes have not made that clear, but apparently it is because the federal government gives money to Harvard for research and programs, and they think that Harvard should toe the conservative line if they are to get those funds. That is not a sufficient reason. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (which many conservatives opposed), specifically forbids discrimination by programs and activities that receive federal funds on the basis of race, color, or national origin. (It does not prohibit religious discrimination, but antisemitism has been seen as a form of discrimination on the basis of national origin. That is a story for another day.) However, that Civil Rights provision does not insist on “viewpoint diversity.”

If viewpoint diversity is required of an organization that gets money from the federal taxpayers. shouldn’t that mean that an activity or program that gets all of its money from us taxpayers should have to have viewpoint diversity, too? What entities get all  their funds from the taxpayers? Answer: any division of the federal government. If Harvard is required to have viewpoint diversity, surely the same should be required of the federal government Trump has tried to appoint right wing judges. That should end if his position on viewpoint diversity at Harvard is right. State Department appointments should be viewpoint diverse as should those in the Justice Department. And so on throughout the federal government. Perhaps the Trumpistas should be concerned about winning the day at Harvard. On the other hand, they have never been famous for philosophical consistency.

Posted on by rjonakait · 1 Comment

Feeling Safe

The Trump administration voices a concern about antisemitism on college campuses. In light of that, I found a recent news report interesting. It stated that according to a survey conducted among Harvard students last year,15% of Jewish students said they did not feel physically safe on campus.

Was this a high number? I wanted more context. What percentage of students overall felt physically unsafe? The report did not say.

Interestingly, the survey reported that 47% of Muslim respondents said they do not feel safe. In another aspect of the survey, 61% of Jewish students reported fearing academic or professional repercussions for expressing their political views. However, 92% of Muslim students felt the same. These data would suggest that we should be talking about more than antisemitism, but I am not expecting this broader discussion from our president.

Of course, the survey numbers by themselves could not tell me about the validity of the responses. Perhaps many who felt safe were naïve and more should have felt threatened on campus. On the other hand, some of those who felt apprehensive might not be in any real danger. (Paradoxically, people sometimes feel an increased threat from crime when the data show that crime is falling.)

Who is not in favor of people feeling safe? But the issue is more complex than the knee-jerk response indicates. Making some people feel safe often means circumscribing the actions of others. The feeling-safe-on-campus refrain today is not about guns or disease or child abuse or domestic violence. Instead, it is a reference to college protests by those who criticize Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank.

For much of my half century in New York City, I lived in what authorities described as a high-crime neighborhood. That designation may have come from actual statistics, but it could have been merely a shorthand for saying whites are in the minority, which was true where I lived.

I had reasons to agree with the high-crime label. Our cars had been broken into many times. Our cars, as well as garbage cans and bikes, had been stolen. Our house had been broken into. I was mugged at knifepoint. I was frequently apprehensive and wary on the streets near my house. In other words, I was often fearful. This reached its peak around 1980, when crime was reportedly high in New York City. Some of the time I was working the equivalent of the night shift and arriving at my home subway station at eleven at night. It was only two short blocks to my house, but I was always fearful for those two blocks. Usually I was the only one getting off the train at that stop, but if a young Black man also stepped onto the platform or if I saw young Black men walking towards me on the sidewalk, I became much more apprehensive and wary. I felt unsafe.

If we reflexively agree that I should feel safe, we need to think about what actions would be necessary to make me feel safe. The answer would have been to prohibit young Black men from being on my block at night. Thus, to reduce my apprehension, we would have to substantially curb the activities (not to mention the rights) of others. The reality is that a miniscule number of young Black men constitute a threat to me. While I have been robbed twice at knifepoint by young Black men, I have passed many many many young Black men at night. Tens of thousands. Maybe much more. What are the odds that any single person might cause me harm? The answer is vanishingly small. My odds are better with the lottery.

Similarly, to make some college students feel safer, the suggestion has been to restrain the activities (and the rights) of others. Often the activities sought to be restrained are not those of physical violence or even physical activity. Instead, many want to restrict speech that makes someone feel unsafe even if that speech does not pose a reasonable risk of physical violence.

There are several issues here. First concerns the complicated subject of when and if speech should be curtailed. Volumes, of course, have been written on this topic, but it boils down to context. Some speech is incendiary, but some speech is not. Crowds screaming antisemitic epithets as Jewish students go to their dorm should be prohibited. A speaker at a peaceful rally in an auditorium who suggests that Israel is a colonial power that never should have been created…well, that should not. Restraining speech is about context, but a consideration of context requires a nuanced approach, which too many are unwilling to do.

Making me feel safe by constraining the rights of others is a tricky and a dangerous notion.

Posted on by rjonakait

Snippets

The article reported on the weightlifting prowess of women in their 60s, 70s, and even 80s. It concluded that the weightlifters showed that “age is nothing but a number.” Another cliché that is hooey. I have been four and now many multiples of that, and age has never been nothing but a number. I couldn’t drive when I was four and I have trouble cutting my toenails now. If anything, age has my number.

I have a friend whose memory is so good that he can remember sex.

I have thought it possible that Trump was a Russian asset, but now I have my doubts. I have wondered what Putin thinks about Trump proclaiming the United States won World War II, which Trump, disregarding the brutal killing that went on for months longer in the Pacific, maintains ended on May 8, 1945. Of course, one of the turning points of WWII, perhaps the turning point was Stalingrad. Trump should ask Putin how many Russians died during that war. And I am guessing that Trump never heard John and Paul’s song A Day in the Life with its line, “The English army had just won the war.”

Viewpoint is everything. What did one lab rat say to the other? “I’ve got my scientist so well trained that every time I push the buzzer, he brings me a snack.”

For the third straight year, Utah was named the nation’s top state, based on 71 metrics, including education, economy, and crime. The next four states were New Hampshire, Idaho, Minnesota, and Nebraska. The bottom five: Louisiana, Alaska, Mississippi, New Mexico, and West Virginia. I note that four of the bottom five are solidly red states.

I remember when conservatives railed against big government. However, our present administration is trying to take over Harvard. That sounds to me like big government. Where are those conservatives when you need ‘em?

How many Harvard graduates does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Just one. He grabs the bulb and waits for the world to revolve around him.

As a result of Defense Secretary’s war on DEI, West Point, according to a news article, is ordered “to remove any readings that focused on race, gender or the darker moments of American history.” The Defense Department told the Naval Academy to remove 381 books from the library. Hegseth’s order does not just prohibit the teaching of aspects of our history and society; it also commands that the service academies teach that “America and its founding documents remain the most powerful force for good in human history.” And I thought that Pete Hegseth thought of himself as a Christian.

A lot of people these days tell us that this country was founded on Christian principles or, sometimes, being more inclusive, Judeo-Christian principles. I assume that they do not know that North Carolina’s original constitution banned Jews from public office and that in other states only members of specified Protestant denominations could hold office.

Posted on by rjonakait

The Wit of JFK

Is wit necessary to be a good president? I thought about that as I read The Kennedy Wit edited by Bill Adler, a book published eight months after the assassination. My paperback copy, which I found in an antique store in a Pennsylvania village, was printed in February 1965. Its cover proclaims:

THE LANDSLIDE NATIONAL BESTSELLER

110,000 COPIES IN PRINT AT $3.00. NOW ONLY 60¢!

 Reading this, I could not remember the last time I saw the cent sign. However, written in pencil on the first page was a three, so I paid the proprietor the cost of the original hardcover. That seller, in handing back a couple singles, said, “He was the last good president they produced.” (An inflation calculator tells me that $3 in 1964 equals $25.84 today, so I guess my purchase was still a bargain for an antique book.)

All presidents try to be witty, but in the age of the speechwriter, it is hard to know how much a president should get credit, or blame, for attempts at wit, which too often fall embarrassingly flat. Perhaps we can only gauge their delivery. E.g., Obama had great timing and Reagan told a good story. Both of them, I suspect, were truly witty, as was President Kennedy. JFK delivered droll, often self-deprecatory one-liners with a confident deadpan, and it was fun to read many of them again. Some of them:

“I do not think it entirely inappropriate to introduce myself to this audience. I am the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris, and I have enjoyed it.”

To the National Industrial Conference Board: “It would be premature to ask your support in the next election and it would be inaccurate to thank you for it in the past.”

“There is no city in the United States in which I get a warmer welcome and less votes than Columbus, Ohio.”

“Politics is an astonishing profession. It has enabled me to go from being an obscure member of the junior varsity at Harvard to being an honorary member of the Football Hall of Fame.”

“Those of you who regard my profession of political life with some disdain should remember that it made it possible for me to move from being an obscure lieutenant in the United States Navy to Commander-in-Chief in fourteen years with very little technical competence.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, I was warned to be out of here in plenty of time to permit those who are going to the Green Bay Packers game to leave. I don’t mind running against Mr. Nixon but I have the good sense not run against the Green Bay Packers.”

“We had an interesting convention at Los Angeles, and we ended with a strong Democratic platform which we call ‘The Rights of Man.’ The Republican platform has also been presented. I do not know its title, but it has been referred to as ‘The Power of Positive Thinking.’”

“Last week a noted clergyman was quoted as saying that our society may survive in the event of my election, but it certainly won’t be what it was. I would like to think he was complimenting me, but I’m not sure he was.”

“You remember the very old story about a citizen of Boston who heard a Texan talking about the glories of Bowie, Davy Crockett, and all the rest, and finally said, ‘Haven’t you heard of Paul Revere?’ To which the Texan answered, ‘Well, he is the man who ran for help.’”

Explaining to a little boy how he became a war hero: “It was absolutely involuntary. They sank my boat.”

“When we got into office, the thing that surprised me most was to find that things were just as bad as we’d been saying they were.”

“My experience in government is that when things are non-controversial, beautifully coordinated and all the rest, it must be that there is not much going on.”

At the Gridiron dinner before he was elected: “I have just received the following telegram from my generous Daddy. It says, ‘Dear Jack: Don’t buy a single vote more than is necessary. I’ll be damned if I’m going to pay for a landslide.’”