We have been discussing how faculty around the country are supporting the abandonment of free speech principles to bar speakers and speech with which they disagree. The most extreme form of this rejection of classical liberal values is the antifa movement. We have seen faculty physically attack speakers or destroy messages that they oppose. We have also seen faculty physically attacked and intimidated. In some of these incidents, other faculty have supported students in shutting down speakers or fellow academics (here and here). The latest example of faculty opposing free speech is a letter of over 200 University of California, Berkeley professors and faculty are calling for the shutdown of classes and activities during “free speech week.” To the dismay of these professors, free speech week will include speakers with whom they disagree. Thus, they have posted a letter that not only seeks a boycott of free speech but have proclaimed that certain speech (in this case speech they do not like) is unworthy of free speech protection. Note the faculty and Ph.D students are calling for a boycott of classes and all campus activities, not just the speeches themselves. Turning off the lights and fleeing the campus at the approach of opposing views hardly fits with the school’s motto of “Fiat Lux” (Let There Be Light).
Fortunately, the letter below does not include any law professors.
The letter captures the growing academic movement to curtail free speech on campus, supporting ever expanding notions of microaggressions and prohibited speech. The letter contains the common references to conservative speakers as threatening the physical and mental well-being of faculty, students, and staff.
“We recognize that as a public institution, we are legally bound by the Constitution to allow all viewpoints on campus. However, there are forms of speech that are not protected under the First Amendment. These include speech that presents imminent physical danger and speech that disrupts the university’s mission to educate.”
What speech causes imminent physical danger? The violence at Berkeley has been largely the result of counter-protesters fueled by faculty like this who legitimize anti-speech activities. Putting that aside, these professors would adopt a rule allowing the denial of speech that they deem “disruptive.” That passes for principle among these faculty members.
The boycott contains the same reference to speech harming students by expressing thoughts with which they disagree:
“As faculty we cannot ask students and staff to choose between risking their physical and mental safety in order to attend class or come to work in an environment of harassment, intimidation, violence, and militarized policing.”
The faculty members blame the university for allowing the free expression of opposing views:
If the administration insists upon allowing the Alt-Right to occupy the center of our campus for four days to harass, threaten and intimidate us, as they did during Milo’s visit in February, then faculty cannot teach, staff cannot work and students cannot learn
That line is particularly revealing. As I previously discussed, the “anti-fascists” on our campuses seem strangely fascistic in their views in demanding the silencing of opposing views. Here the mere fact that conservatives are speaking on campus is deemed a form of harassment, threats, and intimidation. The telling inclusion of this language highlights the danger of microaggression and speech prohibitions which often use the same subjective and ill-defined terms. Seminars and handouts on campus proscribe such microaggressions as saying “There is only one race, the human race,” “America is the land of opportunity,” or asking “why are you so quiet?” Berkeley also defines hate speech as “any speech, gesture or conduct, writing, or display that may incite violence or prejudicial action against someone based on actual or perceived race, color, ancestry, gender, gender identity, ethnicity …” As for expression of bias to be reported, this can include any “general communication not directed toward a particular individual, which disparages a group of people on the basis of some characteristic ….”
This letter however reveals how anti-free speech views have become mainstream with faculty who want universities to bar speech (particularly conservative speech) as threatening to the university as a whole. What is embarrassing is the low-grade logic of these letters. There is little effort to go beyond the premise of how some-speech-makes-us-ill rationale. The scope of permitted scope simply becomes a majoritarian decision. At the same time, these professor are telling students that they legitimately fail mentally and physically threatened by being exposed to opposing views. If our students are becoming “snowflakes,” the below are the snow makers.
Here is the letter: Berkeley Letter
BOYCOTT THE ALT-RIGHT @UCBerkeley
September 24-27th
A letter from UCB Faculty to the Campus and Berkeley Community
To sign the letter, click here.
While there has still not been an official announcement from campus administrators, we are learning that from September 24th to 27th, the University of California at Berkeley will provide a platform to Milo Yiannopoulos, Ann Coulter, Stephen K. Bannon, Breitbart media and their far right audience. A series of explicitly violent Alt-Right, militia and pro-Fascist events are also, again, being scheduled for Civic Center / MLK park in downtown Berkeley on those days.
Once more, signs point towards an escalated and uncontrollable confrontation both on and off campus during these four days. The history of these events has been chilling. Since Inauguration Day, Alt-Right followers have shot someone at the University of Washington, stabbed two people to death on public transport in Portland, stabbed to death a college senior in Maryland, beaten numerous nonviolent protesters at the University of Virginia, and most recently murdered a peaceful protester with an automobile in Charlottesville. Most immediately troubling, given Trump’s decision to end DACA, is that these forces have publicly expressed their intent to specifically target “sanctuary campuses” and disclose the identity of undocumented students. As concerned faculty members, we cannot remain silent while students, staff, colleagues, and fellow community members are threatened.
Therefore, as faculty committed to the safety of our students and our campus, we are calling for a complete boycott of all classes and campus activities while these Alt-Right events are taking place at the very center of UC Berkeley’s campus. As faculty we cannot ask students and staff to choose between risking their physical and mental safety in order to attend class or come to work in an environment of harassment, intimidation, violence, and militarized policing. The reality is that particularly vulnerable populations (DACA students, non-white, gender queer, Muslims, disabled, feminists, and others) have already been harmed, and are reporting increased levels of fear and anxiety about the upcoming events, the increased police presence on our campus, and how all this will impact their lives and their studies.
It is not just physical violence that our campus faces from this media circus. Many of these provocateurs’ most committed audiences are online, and the Breitbart media machine uses that audience to harass, cyberbully, and threaten anyone who speaks out against them. Students and faculty on our campus have already had their lives threatened for speaking out against Milo and his followers. Online threats are real threats, and if we allow this intolerant and bullying version of free speech to take over our campus, then it can only but come at the expense of the free speech rights of the Berkeley community as a whole. In fact, campus safety concerns have already forced the Anthropology Department to cancel a public talk during “free speech week.” This makes clear that the administration understands the imminent threat to campus safety while also revealing that the loud demands of the Alt-Right has the effect of silencing members of our campus community.
We recognize that as a public institution, we are legally bound by the Constitution to allow all viewpoints on campus. However, there are forms of speech that are not protected under the First Amendment. These include speech that presents imminent physical danger and speech that disrupts the university’s mission to educate. Milo, Coulter and Bannon do not come to educate; they and their followers come to humiliate and incite. If the administration insists upon allowing the Alt-Right to occupy the center of our campus for four days to harass, threaten and intimidate us, as they did during Milo’s visit in February, then faculty cannot teach, staff cannot work and students cannot learn.
We refuse to grant the Alt-Right the media spectacle that they so desperately desire. This strategy responds to the concerns voiced in the letter authored by the chairs of the three departments most impacted–Gender & Women’s Studies, African American Studies and Ethnic Studies – and also follows the lead of the SPLC advice to ignore these agitators. As faculty, we reject both the administration’s rhetoric of false equivalency that all speech – including “hate speech” – merits value and respect and also the impulse to see direct confrontation as the only strategy of resistance. A boycott of all campus activities during these days is the only responsible course of action.
Therefore we are calling upon faculty to take the following steps:
- Cancel classes and tell students to stay home. A boycott of classes affirms that our fundamental responsibility as faculty is to protect the safety and well being of all our students. While we understand the argument that canceling classes might be seen as a penalty to students who want to learn–by holding class when some students CAN NOT attend by virtue of their DACA status and the imminent threat that these campus events hold, faculty who DO hold classes are disadvantaging DACA students and others who will feel threatened by being on campus.
- Close buildings, close departments and let staff stay home. If the campus is unsafe for student learning then it is unsafe for staff members to work. We should work with campus maintenance and building managers to close as many departments and buildings as possible, starting with those in the immediate vicinity of Sproul Plaza. No one should be forced to work surrounded by men with clubs, police with guns and the sting of teargas.
- Faculty who decide to hold class during this week, in the face of these explicit threats, should not penalize students who are afraid to come to campus. It is unfair and discriminatory for faculty to schedule exams or require attendance during this week. Such an expectation forces students to choose between their physical safety, their mental well being, and a grade. Consider making a video lecture available, give the students a take-home assignment, or creating another alternative class plan. If you decide you must hold class, please do it away from campus, away from the Telegraph Avenue point of campus entry, and away from Downtown.
The Administration, in failing to halt these events, has left concerned faculty with no other choice than to act to prevent further harm to our community. We urge you to join us in keeping our students and our campus safe by signing on to this call for a campus-wide- boycott.
In Solidarity,
To add your name to this letter, follow this link and sign at the bottom.
Signed:
Michael Mark Cohen
Associate Teaching Professor, American Studies and African American Studies
Leigh Raiford,
Associate Professor, African American Studies
Juana María Rodríguez
Professor, Ethnic Studies
Charis Thompson
Chancellor’s Professor, Gender and Women’s Studies and Center for Science, Technology, Medicine and Society
Leslie Salzinger
Associate Professor, Gender and Women’s Studies
Jeffrey Skoller
Associate Professor, Film and Media
Natalia Brizuela
Associate Professor, Spanish & Portuguese and Film and Media
Julia Bryan-Wilson
Professor, History of Art
Allan Desouza
Associate Professor & Chair, Art Practice
Ramona Naddaff
Associate Professor, Rhetoric
Peter Glazer
Associate Professor, Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies
Mary Ann Doane
Class of 1937 Professor of Film & Media
Anne Walsh
Associate Professor, Art Practice
Jake Kosek
Associate Professor, Geography
Stephanie Syjuco
Assistant Professor, Art Practice
Mel Y. Chen
Associate Professor, Gender and Women’s Studies
Cori Hayden
Associate Professor, Anthropology
Gregory Levine
Professor, Art and Architecture of Japan and Buddhist Visual Cultures
James Vernon
Professor, Department of History
Samera Esmeir
Associate Professor, Rhetoric
Victoria E. Robinson
Lecturer, Ethnic Studies
john a. Powell
Director, Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society
Paola Bacchetta
Professor, Department of Gender and Women’s Studies
Minoo Moallem
Professor, Department of Gender and Women’s Studies
Déborah Blocker
Associate Professor, Department of French
Carlos Muñoz, Jr.
Edward A. Dickson Distinguished Emeriti Professor, Ethnic Studies
Patricia Penn Hilden
Professor Emerita, Ethnic Studies
Chris Zepeda-Millan
Assistant Professor, Department of Ethnic Studies
Mark Goble
Associate Professor, English
Keith P. Feldman
Associate Professor, Ethnic Studies
Nadia Ellis
Associate Professor, English
Nikki Jones
Associate Professor, African American Studies
Susan Schweik,
Professor, English
Geoffrey G. O’Brien
Associate Professor, English
Richard B. Norgaard
Professor Emeritus, Energy and Resources Group
Rachel Morello-Frosch
Professor, Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management & School of Public Health
Emily O’Rourke
Rhetoric, GSI
Beezer de Martelly
PhD Candidate, Music/Ethnomusicology
Laleh Behbehanian
Lecturer, Dept. Of Sociology
Suzanne Guerlac
Professor, French Department
Ivonne del Valle
Associate Professor, Spanish and Portuguese
Simon Rogghe
GSI, French Department
Joni Spigler
ABD, History of Art Dept
Soraya Tlatli
Associate Professor, French
Eric Peterson
PhD Student, Dept. of Architecture
Akua Ofori
Postdoctoral Scholar
Ayse Agis
Continuing Lecturer, Gender and Women’s Studies
Maria Faini
CRG Specialist/PhD Candidate: Ethnic Studies/Critical Theory
Scott Hewicker
Lecturer, First Year Program
Caroline Lemak Brickman
PhD candidate, Slavic Dept.
Sima Belmar
Lecturer, TDPS
Bryan Wagner
Associate Professor, English
Ian Duncan,
Professor of English
Joshua Anderson
GSI, English
Todd P. Olson
Professor, History of Art
Donna Honarpisheh
Comparative Literature
Anne-Lise Francois
Associate Professor, Comparative Literature & English
Manuel Rosaldo
PhD Candidate, Sociology
Jovan Lewis
Assistant Professor, Geography and African-American Studies
Alex Bush
PhD Candidate, Film & Media
Seth Holmes
Public Health and Medical Anthropology
Maya Kronfeld
PhD Candidate Comparative Literature
Johnathan Vaknin
PhD Candidate, Comparative Literature
Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda
East Asian Languages and Cultures
Kathryn Levine
Ph.D. Candidate, French
Hallie Wells
PhD Candidate, Anthropology
Daniel Benjamin
GSI, English
Ernest Artiz
GSI, Department of English
Christian Nagler
PhD Candidate, Theater, Dance & Performance Studies
Zachary Levenson
Ph.D. Candidate, Sociology
Abigail De Kosnik
Associate Professor, Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies
Lida Zeitlin Wu
PhD candidate, Film & Media
Elias Lawliet
PhD student, Jurisprudence and Social Policy
John Mundell
PhD student, African American & African Diaspora Studies
Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby
Richard and Rhoda Goldman Distinguised Professor of Arts and Humanities, History of Art
Peter Teichner
Professor of Mathematics
Pedro Rolon
GSI/ Ph.D. student, Comparative Literature
Alex Brostoff
GSI and PhD student, Comparative Literature
Alex Brostoff
GSI and PhD student, Comparative Literature
Melina Packer
PhD Candidate, Environmental Science, Policy & Management
Maria Tonione
PhD candidate
Diana Ruiz
PhD student/GSI, Film & Media
Xiao Yun Chang
MS Transportation Engineering / Master of City Planning. CEE / DCRP
Alex Thomas
ESPM
Christy Getz
Cooperative Extension Specialist, Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management
Stefannia Mambelli
Integrative Biology
Margaret Jones
Ph.D. Candidate/Music
Kavleen Singh
Political Science
Lauren Kroiz
Associate Professor, History of Art
Juliet Rose Kunkel
PhD student, School of Education
Kristen Sun
GSI, Ethnic Studies
Paul De Morais
PhD candidate, Comparative Literature
Andrew Pastor
Lab Manager, School of Public Health
Tess Peppers
EWMBA Student, Haas School of Business
Patrick Baur
Postdoctoral Fellow, ESPM
Xavier Perrone
Programs Manager – Center for Latino Policy Research
Andrew Sharo
PhD Candidate, Biophysics
Patrick Harrison
PhD Student, Film & Media
Omar Gutiérrez del Arroyo
PhD Candidate, Environmental Science, Policy & Management
Julie Pyatt
PhD in Environmental Sci, Pol. & Mngmt.
Christina Azahar
Ph.D. Candidate/GSI, Music
Jacob Wolbert
Graduate Student, Music––––
Giancarlo Cornejo
PhD Candidate/Rhetoric
Sarah Cowan
PhD Candidate, History of Art
Lou Silhol-Macher
PhD Student, German
Harry Burson
PhD student/GSI, Film & Media
Rebecca Feinberg
PhD candidate, Anthropology
Jacob Raterman
Graduate Student/GSI, French Department
Katrin Wehrheim
Associate Professor, Mathematics
Adam Bazari
UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical Program
Mary Mussman
GSI and PhD Student, Comparative Literature
Kumars Salehi
PhD candidate/German
Lisa Jacobson
PhD Candidate and GSI, Film & Media
Whitney Mgbara
Phd candidate – Environmental Science, Policy, and Management
Debarati Sanyal
Professor, Department of French
Michael Song
PhD Student, Integrative Biology
Janet Torres
PhD student, Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning
Kelly Daniela Norris
PhD student/GSI, Film & Media
Jocelyn Saidenberg
PhD candidate, Comparative Literature
Ariel Wind
GSI and PhD Candidate, Spanish and Portuguese
Alina Predescu
PhD Candidate, Film & Media
Omi Salas-SantaCruz
PhD Student/GSI/ School of Education
Adam Jadhav
PhD student, instructor, Geography
Caitlin Scholl
GSI, Comparative Literature
The professors could show some courage and respect for our Constitution by saying they will attend any and all events of speakers with whom they disagree. They can stand in the breech if violence occurs. Then they can offer solace to any student who needs it.
It really is that simple. Courage, strength and compassion.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the country. . . Law Professor Amy Wax at Penn has called for a return to bourgeois values. J H Kunstler has a good article up on it:
Hit the “Pushback” article there to get to the article. I find it ironic and hilarious that the law faculty members who disagreed with her presented no counter-arguments.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Squeeky – there are no counter-arguments to Amy Wax, hence the need to avoid them. 😉
Oh, there are arguments. Not good ones. But you know, the standard “She’s raaaacisssst!” bullsh*t. Like this idiot from Above The Law. The same old run of the mill bunch of canards:
http://abovethelaw.com/2017/08/law-professors-say-white-50s-culture-is-superior-other-racist-stuff/
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Hummm. The faculty who wrote this letter purport to believe that if a student were to hear Ann Coulter speak, said student would be triggered, microaggressed, and at risk of physical/mental harm. Berkley most likely has safe spaces available for protection. Now I wonder how said student would respond if a nuclear device was detonated over their head. Why I sincerely hope this does not happen, it is possible based on recent threats from North Korea. Maybe the facultys’ time would be better spent helping students prepare for actual catastrophes. In any event, I hope the safe spaces will protect the students from radiation fallout.
You misunderstand the letter. Try again.
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
George Orwell
DDS fails to understand the role of faculty at a modern university. Most require research or a performance equivalent.
I meant DSS for Desperately Seeking Susan.
You keep trying to pull rank rather than state a position and make an argument. It’s a reasonable inference that if you stated what you actually think, you’d look like a jack-wagon to anyone not suspended in the foetid waters of contemporary academe. It’s a reasonable inference as well that you refuse to state and defend a position here (rather than offering jabs and supercilious asides) because that would be treating people here as peers, which is something you just cannot bring yourself to do, however much their tax dollars have contributed to the maintenance of public higher education.
The principal role of the faculty is to provide services for a salary. The secondary role is to hire other faculty in their field, subject to the review of their dean and provost. The tertiary role is to review faculty currently hired for contract renewal, tenure, or promotion, subject to the policies and procedures of the institution (which include review by superordinate authorities).
There are other roles accorded to faculty as a matter of practice that should not be allocated to them, such as service on committees concerned with non-academic matters. There are academic roles which cannot be entrusted to the faculty because they perform them incompetently, like putting together a core curriculum or service on disciplinary panels. Who student groups invite to campus is just none of the faculty’s bloody business, and faculty make clowns of themselves by insisting on taking ‘stances’ which reveal nothing so much as their general psychological isolation and difficulty adjusting to environments they cannot control.
Faculty are institutional employees and should have nothing to do with defining global institutional missions any more than should the chief or security or the registrar. Defining global missions is a function of state legislators and trustees. Defining permissible concentration, certificate, and degree programs in a state is a function of the state legislature. Extending a franchise to particular institutions to offer a given program is a function of the state board of regents. Institutional trustees (public and private) should always be elected by stakeholders in contests supervised by the state board of elections unless an institution is a subsidiary of a larger institution or an institution hasn’t much history. No self-regenerating body of trustees should be found on the board of an institution incorporated more than sixty years ago and only an institution founded in the last twenty years should have a board entirely composed of self-regenrators. No board should have more than 15 members.
As for tenure, if we are wise, it will be replaced by renewable contracts of varying terms not to exceed six years. The most successful academics will teach at 3 different institutions during the course of their career, for about 12 years each. Retirement will be mandatory after 35 years contributing to TIAA-CREF (pro-rated for p/t faculty) or at the age full Social Security kicks in, whichever comes later for a given faculty member. An emeritus could fill in on one-semester contracts, but would be otherwise out to grass. If tenure is retained, slots should not exceed 40% of FTE faculty, extension of tenure to faculty under 45 or with less than 12 years f/t service should be debarred, and grants to faculty under the age of 55 should be quite unusual.
You still haven’t done your homework before bloviating.
Fortunately, nobody is going to pay attention.
Fortunately, nobody is going to pay attention.
Wrong. It’s clear you have no reasonable argument, are too lazy or are being charged by the letter for the use of your computer. Whatever the excuse, you offering nothing of substance to these threads is noticed.
I offer:
Study first then comment.
Few commenters here are knowledgeable.
Study first then comment. Few commenters here are knowledgeable.
You consistently add to the latter by whiffing on the former.
Nicely done!
You prove my point.
David, You just proved Oily’s point.
I think this reply of yours David proves DSS’s point.
The signatories don’t represent a cross-section of Berkeley faculty. About 98% come from the academically marginal programs such as ethnic and gender studies. Many of the signers are not professors, but are Ph.d candidates (presumably teaching assistants) or lecturers. Noticeably absent are real professors in the solid disciplines that Berkeley is known for, such as engineering, economics, law and the sciences.
Berkeley is well regarded, to put it mildly, in mathematics. I noticed a maths professor on the list.
It’s a window into the faculty mentality that David Benson fancies this statement is anything but non sequitur.
Your understanding of logic is seriously deficient. I recommend further study.
You just keep running the same tape on continuous loop.
ONE out of 75+ full professors in the UCB math dept? You made my point!
I pointed out that your last sentence is false as it stands.
“I noticed a maths professor on the list.”
What type of dumb statement is this? There must be way over 100 members of the math dept at UC Berkely. That would make it way less than 1% of the math department. There were plenty of signatories from the French department that likely less than 1/10th the size of the math department.
David, I think you have been retired a bit too long and need to do something more than play Free Cell. As an aside, do you win or lose at Free Cell?
I simply pointed out that the sentence, as written, is false.
Do learn to read with care.
When you write a response it has meaning in reference to prior statements. I think it was just a dumb statement that you are now shrinking away from. Of course it could be due to poor communication skills, but that doesn’t account for one dumb statement after another.
Mine are logical but do require rubbing one brain cell against another.
There is a logic, but it is not very good rhetoric. When your brain cells don’t touch one another the synapsis don’t work. That could be part of your problem.
Tin, Good pick up. But, as the dull witted Benson points out, “I notice a maths professor on the list.”
There’s an emeritus, Richard Norgaard, who was a professor of energy/resources economics. But he’s a climate justice activist and his daughter is a “food justice” activist. No surprise that he would sign this.
As far as I can tell, this is largely happening in the aristocracy of the west coast and schools that are affiliated with those echelons. Never forget that the vast majority of these folks are quite privileged themselves. It’s difficult to take them seriously, so I don’t. I boycott anything that has even a hint of their scent on it. Stop sending your kids to Berkeley. Stop sending your contributions to them. Do not support Columbia owned businesses or lodging if in NY. Let them try to fend for themselves and see how far their totalitarian BS gets them.
I spent one summer during my college years working in the Trusts Dept of a N.Y. bank. The primary function of the dept was to manage trust funds for the super-wealthy. Many of these were the grand-children or great-grandchildren of some industrialist who made a fortune; enough that his heirs would never have to produce anything and could live a very cushy lifestyle. Reading through the list of these instructors and their academic disciplines brought back memories: Some hard working German immigrant around the turn of the century comes up with the idea of selling canned meat in the days of no refrigeration. The product catches on and eventually becomes a national brand. Four generations later it is still selling, and his heirs are living off his fortune. His great-grandson is gay and teaching “performance art” at Berkeley. I saw quite a number of scenarios such as this. It was quite an eye-opener as to the downside of accumulated wealth.
Yup.
Tax wealth.
“Eat the rich.”
Well, I would hope and predict that creatively low grade people, with a lack of discernment of a good investment/cause, will on the average spend their fortune away frivolously.
If they don’t, then they will likely be living a quiet life anyway that doesn’t reflect their inanity upon the society at large.
I doubt the wealthy customers of that particular bank would be pleased to know that they allowed sensitive confidential information to fall into the hands of a seasonal temp employee (who was sitting in judgment of them to boot).
That’s the way it works in the banks, investment houses and top accounting firms. Your “investment adviser” with the luxurious office and magnificent view is really little more than a salesman. After you leave, your portfolio is sent down to the basement where the “worker bees” in cubicles do the actual accounting and financial work, prepare the audit reports, disclosure forms and so forth. One of the topics of discussion over the past ten years is whether the major CPA firms are required to disclose to their customers that their financial info is transmitted electronically to India, where low paid accountants prepare their tax forms. Yes, it used to be college students, temps and low paid, high turn-over employees who formed the backbone of the financial industry. Now most of that work is sent offshore, where third-world employees work even more cheaply.
That’s the way it works in the banks, i
There is no shortage of accounting professionals in this country, nor of skilled clerks who make their living in these sorts of venues. There isn’t much excuse in hiring snotty adolescents on ten-week stints.
CFAs in professionally-run operations are junior-grade quants trained in finance. They are salesman only in the sense that they have client-contact skills which bring in business and maintain relationships.
I never said there is a shortage of accountants in this country. Quite the contrary. Which is why there is concern in the accounting profession that accounting work is being sent offshore because it’s cheaper to have someone in India prepare your federal income tax return than to hire a junior accountant here. The accounting firm pockets the increased profit, with the earnings of CPA partners at large firms comparable to that of top lawyers. Professionals thought they were immune to having their work shipped to 3d world countries, but such is no longer the case. Yes, there are higher risks of identity theft and fraud, but that hasn’t slowed down the trend.
And while you dismiss summer interns from top-tier business schools as nothing more than “snotty adolescents,” how do you think these firms hire their young associates? The firms interview on select campuses, compete to hire promising interns and then make offers to the young men and women that performed well over the summer.
Finally, observations as to the impact of multi-generational inheritered wealth forms the basis of policy discussions that have existed since the adoption of the federal tax on large estates. Both Warren Buffett and Bill Gates have vowed to leave most of their fortunes to charity, rather than create a legacy of idle, essentially useless descendants a la Paris Hilton.
And while you dismiss summer interns from top-tier business schools as nothing more than “snotty adolescents,” h
Quit giving me a reason to.
Finally, observations as to the impact of multi-generational inheritered wealth forms the basis of policy discussions that have existed since the adoption of the federal tax on large estates. Both Warren Buffett and Bill Gates have vowed to leave most of their fortunes to charity, rather than create a legacy of idle, essentially useless descendants a la Paris Hilton.
I’d look at the Kennedy family for a more instructive example. Somewhat north of a quarter of them have led embarrasing lives. (One of the Lawfords, one of the Smiths, one of Teddy’s brood, and about 5 of Robert’s brood). About 10% have demanding professional-managerial employments (one of Teddy’s brood, one of Roberts, and one of the Smiths). There’s one name on both lists, Dr. William K. Smith. They’re mostly non-profit sector functionaries and society matrons. As for 25% or 30% of the Kennedys being ringers, that sort of % is a variant of normal in most families. It’s just that the Kennedy’s get written up in the papers (and, too bad for them, often have the resources to postpone the discipline the society at large provides).
Here’s the deal: you take any randomly selected group of 28 people, most (as in about 80%) are not going to be suitable for professional-managerial employments and maybe one will found a successful business. The money may have an enervating effect on people who would otherwise have prospered, but a great deal of what you’re looking at is people who would have had unremarkable lives in some other set of circumstances. It’s just that they’re unremarkable people with $200,000 of interest and dividend income every year.
Now look at the Rockefeller family for another example. When John D. Rockefeller died in 1937, his assets were, in relation to the wealth in the society at large. about 3x what Bill Gates are today. A few Rockefeller scions are employed in corporate business in some capacity. Not three generations later, the family owns no businesses you’re likely to have heard of and controls only some foundations of modest significance. The Rockefellers wherever they live count as exceptionally flush local patricians, and not much more than that. They’ve produced far fewer embarrassments than the Kennedys as their fortunes have dissipated.
Regression to the mean.
I think it good to have a handy list of fascists at the university so that when the inevitable (see Univ. of Mo.) layoffs occur, the dean will have a guide using these signatories. I especially like the exception to the First Amendment created out of whole cloth: “speech that disrupts the university’s mission to educate.” That’s a hoot.
Thankfully, they didn’t include “stupid speech,” elsewise there’d be lots of wispy, goateed professors milling around campus in their jeans and tee-shirts with their hands in the pockets and staring into space with nothing to say — and that’s just the female ones! Don’t get me started on the beta males in the “victimology programs.” (gratias ago, DSS)
Incitement to riot is probably prohibited by state law. It is only the federal government which cannot control speach.
You have to be a fool or a fraud to define one of Ann Coulter’s humor talks as ‘incitement to riot’. Without a doubt, these Berkeley krill are up to the challenge.
I doubt that any of the talks will fall into the rhelm of illegal speech.
You just Make Stuff Up.
You were the one chuffering about ‘incitement to riot’ but I’m the one who ‘just make stuff up’. I haven’t figured out whether you’re senile or your capacity for chutzpah exceeds the norm by an order of magnitude.
The latter.
The point was that freedom of speech is not absolute. Too many commenters here appear to think it is.
You just butted in without thinking first.
Too many commenters here appear to think it is.
You impute views to people they’ve never stated, then attack them for holding those views. You really are tiresome.
DSS said, “You [David B. Benson] impute views to people they’ve never stated, then attack them for holding those views.”
When did Mr. Benson state the view that Ann Coulter practices incitement to riot?
Who imputes views to people they’ve never stated? Who attacks those people for holding those views that that they’ve never stated?
Benson’s right. You make stuff up.
It is true that freedom of speech is not absolute, but the exceptions are few and very narrowly prescribed. Prohibiting speech because it might make the hearer “uncomfortable” is trivial and not a basis for denying the rights of other to participate in the constitutionally protected free exchange of ideas.
Dr. Benson knows that. His entire participation in this thread has been a series of feints and parries.
TIN, the signatories of the letter are calling for a boycott of attendance during free speech week. The boycott is voluntary. Anyone who wants to attend Berkeley during free-speech week is free to do so. The boycott does not infringe upon anyone’s right freely to speak. You’re exaggerating your claim, TIN.
Diane, you are on very thin ice. What might be considered illegal is conspiracy. I am not advocating charges of such a crime, but these actions appear to be just that.
Allan, a far better example of skating on thin ice would be your suggestion that a bunch of college professors who sign a letter advocating a student boycott are somehow engaged in a “conspiracy” that might be considered “illegal” even though you don’t recommend criminal charges.
Benson is right. The concept of academic freedom is utterly lost on you Breitbart crybullies.
“Benson is right. The concept of academic freedom is utterly lost on you Breitbart crybullies.”
You apparently don’t have the slightest idea of what academic freedom is. It doesn’t exist in many of the universities for if it did there would be more conservative representation. Instead there is a lack of diversity and an intransigence to accept the existence of other ideas to such an extent that all learning has to cease.
Dumb, dumb and dumb.
That’s all fine. They should not be paid while not teaching classes they are paid to teach.
They had a contract with the school and therefore with the students that lost a portion of their tuition. Anyone that believes what these professors did was appropriate should think about paying for a movie but not being shown 30 minutes of it.
JR, neither you nor Allan are parties to the contract that Allan is blathering on about. You couldn’t even file suit for the tort you’re claiming.
Benson is right again. The concept of academic freedom is utterly lost on Breitbart crybullies.
“JR, neither you nor Allan are parties to the contract that Allan is blathering on about. You couldn’t even file suit for the tort you’re claiming.”
This demostrates Diane’s inability to be objective and why she has the mindset of a Borg. One doesn’t have to be a party to a claim to have a position. Additionally this is a public university funded in part with public dollars. I don’t think Diane has sufficient knowledge of us or the law to determine if either of us have standing.
I should add to all of this that Diane doesn’t seem to understand the concepts that differentiate contract law, academic freedom, and freedom of speech. They are different things and ecompass different ideas and rights. She conflates all of them to her silly desires and then attempts to write an argument that fails each time.
NEWSFLASH: The First Amendment applies to the states via the 14th Amendment. That’s been the law since 1925.
What they meant to say is: “speech that disrupts the university’s mission to indoctrinate.”
Exactly right, T.
How about that statement that any speech that “mentally harms” people cannot be protected.
That’s a reach that can be distorted to mean anything, depending on the listener.
And so it will.
If these professors feel so strongly about the danger arising from speech they don’t like, they should be willing to give up a week’s salary while they boycott and reimburse all the folks paying tuition while they’re not teaching classes.
Agreed!
Jackson Park is in Berkeley. I heard Chuck Berry play there 50 years ago. He sang: My Ding A Ling and was not censored. Of course I am speaking of Berkeley, Missouri which is the next town over from
Ferguson.
🙂
Many commenters here fail to understand academic freedom.
David Benson’s understanding of ‘academic freedom’ is that faculty get to turn institutions into their personal sandboxes and are never held accountable by anyone outside of the faculty. We understand what you want. It’s gross and unjust.
Your understanding is pitiable.
There is a history. Study it.
You’ve spent 50 years responding to challenges by being supercilious to people, and you fancy that’s enough of a smokescreen to keep others from seeing you for who you are.
Gotcha!
A boycott of free-speech week at Berkeley is hardly the same thing as a counter-protest aimed at “shutting down” dissenting speakers. Sure, it abdicates the educational mission of the university. But it does not infringe upon the free-speech rights of any dissenting speakers.
Can student attendance at Berkeley during free-speech week be compelled? By who? By what? Certainly not by the First Amendment.
Sure, it abdicates the educational mission of the university. But it does not infringe upon the free-speech rights of any dissenting speakers.
Oh, then it’s all good? Most people who don’t show up for work get a pink slip unless they fake a sick call. Higher ed is chock-a-block with people who fancy such proletarian concerns beneath them.
No involuntary servitude without due process of law. You want state universities to be work-farms for convicted criminals; don’t you?
Sober up before you post anything more.
She gotcha!
You fancy showing up for work as a condition of continued employment is slavery? You’ve been living in a bubble and you just got yourself.
Tenure.
Wait . . . That’s too open to misinterpretation.
His employer granted him tenure because he had earned it. Besides, they say that Quakers are keen on work.
His employer granted him tenure for whatever reason. Tenured faculty can get away with a great deal, which is regrettable. Public advocacy and practice of breach of contract — they are hired to teach, sister – should not be one of them. And, no, they are not enslaved because they are expected to show up for class, tenured or not.
Are you now suggesting that the terms of a professor’s employment contract trump that professor’s constitutional rights?
Please explain the constitutional right to be paid while not working.
JR, you are not a party to the contract between Berkeley professors and the administrators of UCB. You literally have no standing on the issue. You can carp and complain about the boycott to your heart’s content. But you cannot use The First Amendment to compel Berkeley professors to attend free-speech week.
Thus, for the third time, now, Benson is right. The concept of academic freedom is utterly lost on Breitbart crybullies.
Say what you will, your comment responds to assertions I have not made.
1. I have not claimed to be a party to the professors’ employment agreements.
2. I have not claimed standing in any way, shape, or form.
3. I have not suggested or even hinted that I would use the First Amendment or any other amendment or federal or state statute to compel Berkley professors or anyone else to attend free speech week.
4. I have never looked at any Breitbart publication.
5. Unlike so many at so many universities today, I DO NOT propose to bully anyone into silencing or compelling anyone’s speech.
6. I am suggesting that Cal Berkley professors who take a salary while not performing the work required are cheating the states’ taxpayers, and students/parents paying tuition. If you consider this a harsh judgement, that’s your right.
7. You might consider this carping and complaining, the only correct part of your statement. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
The signatories are drawn from the victimology programs and the humanities, with a scatter from the social research departments (sociology, anthropology, and geography make appearances). There are a scatter from the professional schools. Almost none from STEM.
It’s all humbug, of course. Emotionally damaged people moaning that the political opposition causes them distress. The question arises as to why as a society has allocated the task of sorting the labor market to institutions chock-a-block with emotionally damaged people and intellectual and moral frauds.
Whose at fault here? David Benson is at fault. The loss of status suffered by the jack-wagons who signed this will be precisely zero, and that’s what matters in an witlessly other-directed trade like college teaching. It’s the David Benson’s of this world who will see to it that their loss of status will be precisely zero. David Benson’s ilk shouldn’t be sorting the labor market either.
I’m retired.
David Benson – there is nothing about Berkeley’s history dept. that I find renowned. I read a lot of history and the authors are not coming from Berkeley.
I suppose you are reading books intended for the popular audience, not the professional journal papers.
Historians still publish original research in monographs and journal papers are accessible to laymen.
David Benson – professional journal papers are written to get tenure and then to keep you employed. Just finished Prang’s last book on Pearl Harbor. The last 40% of the book is footnotes. Before that was a book on the War of the Roses, of which I had only a vague idea. Right now I am reading a book on the Middle Ages. However, in my reading, I cannot remember any historian of renown from Berkeley.
Berkeley is a town right next to Ferguson. I saw Chuck Berry play music there about 50 years ago in an outdoor park. It was free speech all the way. He sang “My Ding A Ling.” He was not censored.
So what? You’re employed at an institution for 35 years, you did your part to make the institutional culture what it is.
What Fr. Paul Shaughnessy SJ had to say a half-generation ago holds. In any organization, 5% may be heroes, 5% scoundrels, and the others keep their heads down and try to do their jobs. In a healthy organization, the institution disciplines its bad actors and the heroes set the overall town. In a sociologically corrupt organization, the priority of the organization is managing public relations. Academic institutions are sociologically corrupt, stem to stern. They’re not capable of reforming themselves and need to be placed in receivership by state legislatures.
And in that last you are completely wrong.
No, I’m completely right. It will just be inconvenient to your ilk. who have performed poorly.
The world’s top rated universities are in the USA and the UK.
Top rated by whom? And how does having a capable engineering faculty excuse the student affairs apparat?
The ratings are widely available.
Do your own web search.
Yes, I noticed the question you didn’t answer.
It was off the current topic.
Than why did you utter the sentence to which it was a response? Do you ever stop playing games?
The Rhetoric profs who are signatories, though few, astound me. Same with the Env. Sci/Policy Dept., except if their focus is on policy and not science.
The English, History, various unnecessary “fill in the blank” Studies profs have all been brainwashed by the post-Modernists and of course are easily bamboozled by agenda-driven but data-deficient word salads.
The PhD candidates are “me, too” signatories.
Using your Ph.D. students is immoral. They will sign anything to stay in the program. I read the entire list. Most were from Film Studies, Ethnic Studies or Emeritus, plus all the Ph.D. candidates. They did have one from the Mathematics Department. Oh, I left out Gender Studies. They ticked all the boxes.
I think everyone on the list wants some paid leave.
Well, I noticed the historians who signed as UCB has a renowned history department.
UCB has a renowned history department.
1. So what?
2. “Renowned” by whom? By the people who have turned American history faculties into a collecting pool of race-class-gender obsessives?
All those last have established their own departments.
No, they have not. See the writings of KC Johnson. Wide swaths of American history are hardly taught anymore because new faculty positions are allocated to race-class-gender obsessives. (Per Johnson, military and diplomatic history have been the hardest hit).
David Benson – if any historian signed this the department should be stripped of its accreditation.
The problem is that American history is now like cultural anthropology and its kindred in the sociology department. It’s an apologetical discipline meant to provide briefs for contentious worldviews. Individual research projects may be valid, but the discipline as a whole functions as a propaganda exercise.
Not from where I sit.
You on your septuagenarian tuchus have not uttered an honest word on this subject.
False.
Postmodern, neo-marxists I would be willing to bet they all are.
Conservative is the cartch all term of the extremist left to denote anyone that disagees with them and has become a useless descriptive word as a result Read the progressive socialist left’s agents manual Don’t See The Elephant by their principle theoretician George Lykoff a Berkeley Professoer of …get this. cognition. whose a few gears and screws and cogs short of becoming a complete machine tool himself. Liberal however is still being used by the extreme left thought it too is becoming next door to useless
Call them what they are and quit using the fictionary of the losers and failures.
The Center is not the center of the left but in a Constitutional Republic the Constitution.
Rinos Do Dinos to Liberal Socialist Progressives is still a foreign ideology based on the writings and is largely Marxist Leninist except where it ‘s offshots National and Progressivce Socialism embellish the failed philosophy (But Berne go ahead your using it to tear apart the remnants is very useful)
The word democracy does not exist in our form of government and was directly and roundly rejected out of hand by the founders.It doesn’t exist except in the fairy tails of the left
Unaccountably they are unable to come tg grips with the the group that determined the out come of the last election mostly Constitutionalist supporters and mostly unaffiliated self governing citizens 40% of of the total votes cast in the Real Election ….forget that nothing sideshow popularity poll.
Clinton lost for two reasons. Who she isn’t and the resulting willingness to take an inexperienced outsider rather than an untutored hack pretend politician by the largest voting block.
Result 55% to 45% and only the RINO faction of the left benefited …..that time around. Given their nothing perforamance they will move to number two as the remnants of the Democrts move to Number One on the target list.
Meanwhile the media hasn’t a clue who came out of no where and won the election.
Reblogged this on Truth Troubles.
Sir, I forgot to mention a moment ago, being I enjoyed the read I am going to reblog this article for you.
Sir, as always, an excellent article. This is sort of like with Congress and the Senate, the Democrats have bounced way to far to the left and the Republicans have bounced way to far to the right. Both of their ideologies will destroy any country that try’s to adapt these out-liars as policy.
Not conservatives, Turley. Authoritarians, rabble rousers, white supremacists, but not conservatives.
Label them however you want, does this make you feel better about censorship?
Nobody is being censored in Berkeley.
@davidbenson
You’ll be the first to support hate speech laws when a major national politician advocates such.
Nobody being censored?
Absolutely not! Just doxxed, fired, assaulted by antifa with the support and denial of the MSM.
Basically anyone to the right of Paul Ryan is now officially classified as a neo-Nazi.
I am amazed that there are now 102 genders but politically one is totally, completely, politically correct on all things involving race, marriage, the removal of confederate monuments (the list is ever expanding) or they are an absolute neo-Nazi!
And sir, before you call me a slur, I cannot be racist, I’m Hispanic (just not a leftist one). According to leftists, I’m part of the victim class.
Based on this, I will say that you are confused.
Confused about what?
The difference between a boycott versus censorship
Well said, Antonio!
Poorly read. Debbie. The Berkeley faculty advocate a boycott of free-speech not an Antifa counter-protest against the Breitbart speakers.
Poorly written. Diane. The faculty advocate a boycott of free-speech week at Berkeley. Still, it works the other way, anyhow. No compulsory celebration of anyone’s expressive speech or expressive conduct.
Picture yourself receiving a court order to march in a Gay-pride parade. Then U. S. Marshalls show up to enforce that court order; and you’re physically forced to fall in line with the LGBTQ crowd.
Do you see the problem now?
Antonio, by being conservative you are straying off of the Democratic plantation and for that they hate you even more. Milo fits into the victimhood class, and the left hates him more than almost anyone else for he makes fools out of them.
Read or listen to Dangerous written and in the case of the audio version read by Milo. He is a hoot and the audio version adds his audio drama to the text.
Nobody I approve of is being censored in Berkeley.
There, fixed it for you Benson.
Being deprived of an audience is not censorship. It’s criticism.
Being deprived of an audience is not censorship. It’s criticism.
So you’d have no problem if Turley deleted all of your comments or you from his blog? You know, in the interest of criticism?
The boycott deprives the speakers of an audience. It’s not censorship. There’s no law that compel Berkeley students and faculty to listen the Breitbart crowd.
Since no one ever said anyone should be compelled to attend, your response is contrived.
Failure to distinguish between a boycott versus censorship.
Failure to distinguish between criticism of speech versus suppression of speech.
Failure to propose a legal remedy to the boycott; because there is no legal remedy to the boycott.
Failure to distinguish between an educational mission versus the academic freedom to boycott attendance at somebody else’s speech.
Just-plain flat-out failure to distinguish oneself in speaking.
Diane or Di…..an…..e is eating her Wheaties today and striking out hard. Nice effort, but she falls flat for all the reasons mentioned earlier. Her understanding of the subject matter is limited and she confuses the facts and conflates the arguments.
“Being deprived of an audience’ is a rather anodyne way of referring to a set of games wherein a bunch of masked agitators show up and prevent people from attending your talk while security stands by (at the behest of the administration) and let the masked anarchists do what they want.
I’m referring to the boycott. You can’t compel anyone to listen to Breitbart.
You’re replying to contention no one ever made in this forum or on the Berkeley campus. Now, why would you do that?
Because Antonio and Olly mischaracterized the boycott as censorship. Or, failing that, they didn’t distinguish between the boycott versus Antifa counter-protests. Or, failing that, they didn’t read the original post for this thread. Or, failing that, they presumed that Mr. Benson was not referring to the boycott when he claimed that no one is being censored at Berkeley.
Now for the hard part: The only way the boycott could constitute censorship is if there were legal means to compel Berkeley students and facucty to attend free-speech week and listen to the Breitbart crowd. No such legal means exist. Ergo, the boycott is not censorship.
The only way the boycott could constitute censorship is if there were legal means to compel Berkeley students and facucty to attend free-speech week and listen to the Breitbart crowd.
The only way that you can think of. Think bigger. With a student population barred from attending classes during this week, what will they do with all that free time? Surely the campus will be a ghost town with classes shut down; especially given the fact all of the students living in fear of the Breitbart crowd will find their respective safe spaces on/off campus. Yeah, no censorship; this is all about safety. LOL!
Because Antonio and Olly mischaracterized the boycott as censorship. O
They both can understand the logic of the faculty complaint and see where this is going, Diane, even if you elect to pretend for purposes of argument that what this means is not what it means.
Olly, you did not propose a legal means of injunction against the boycott. That’s because there is no legal means of injunction against the boycott. The boycott is strictly voluntary. Anyone who wants to attend is free to do so. Your exaggerated fear that Berkeley might become a ghost town during free-speech week utterly fails to hit the mark of censorship and infringement of free speech.
The only legal means of compelling attendance at Berkeley’s free-speech week would be to make said attendance a required class-assignment for grades and credit-hours leading to a degree. The First Amendment cannot make attendance at Berkeley’s free-speech week a required class-assignment for grades and credit-hours leading to a degree.
If you cannot, or will not, recognize a proper distinction between a boycott versus an Antifa counter-protest, then your understanding of civil liberties is currently in abeyance.
This entire thread resembles yet another instance of Turley setting loose one his mechanical rabbits for the Breitbart greyhounds to chase all around the track with their jaws dropped and their slobbering tongues hanging out as well as that crazed-dragon look that greyhounds get when the chase is on.
The stamina is impressive; but the chase is pathetic twerpery.
The only legal means of compelling attendance at Berkeley’s free-speech week would be to make said attendance a required class-assignment for grades and credit-hours leading to a degree.
Imagine that. A publicly funded university compelling students to attend regularly scheduled classes. Are teaching salaries being boycotted as well? My state taxes are funding this university and its mission:
The distinctive mission of the University is to serve society as a center of higher learning, providing long-term societal benefits through transmitting advanced knowledge, discovering new knowledge, and functioning as an active working repository of organized knowledge. That obligation, more specifically, includes undergraduate education, graduate and professional education, research, and other kinds of public service, which are shaped and bounded by the central pervasive mission of discovering and advancing knowledge.
Boycotting their fundamental mission is the opposite of what the California taxpayers are funding this institution to do. Unless of course one considers what they are teaching our students through the boycott: there is no such thing as free speech; free speech is not a right but a privilege for those with whom one agrees; free speech is a threat at our institution and we cannot protect anyone from those that will say things with which one disagrees.
So now that the university system has defined the criteria which students can exploit whenever they want to avoid scheduled classes. What will the universities response be whenever they claim some event has them in fear and they want to shut down classes? When these students leave the safe harbor of campus and enter the real world, what have they been taught in response to hearing things that do not fit within their worldview?
By the way, who accepted the notion that free speech gets 1 week at our publicly funded UC Berkeley? And for 1 week they have to shut down classes? Sometimes what is legal completely fails what is right.
I’m glad you agree with me Olly. The only legitimate objection to the boycott is the Berkeley professor’s abdication of their educational mission. There is no court that would order an injunction against this boycott. Because there is no constitutionally permissible basis for any court to compel professors or students to attend the expressive speech and expressive conduct of the Breitbart cohort. Because the government is literally forbidden from compelling assembly for the purpose of hearing any speech.
One of the places I worked recruited Al Sharpton as a campus speaker. On the day he appeared on campus, there was an article in the Sulzberger Bumwipe about Sharpton’s scamming around in defiance of a court judgement against him in a slander case. That same institution paid a handsome sum to Bilge Clinton for 50 minutes of boilerplate. The only protest registered to these events consisted of a single-digit population of letters of complaint from students and alumni. The culture of academe is such that generous honoraria are paid to filthy characters. Unless your institution has a promulgated policy which would have ruled out these two invitations, you’re not in a position to strike poses like this.
And there you have it, folks. DSS wants to turn Berkeley into Parchman Farm.
Di………an………e, you stretch things so much you become unintelligible.