NYU professor and leading social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has resigned from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology due to the new requirement that members must include Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and anti-racism commitments if they want to present research at any conference. It is the latest mandatory statement as a threshold requirement for academics and Haidt has refused in what could be a major confrontation to this field.
We have been following conflicts over official statements or acknowledgements on diversity, colonialism, or privilege at universities. These conflicts often involve concerns over free speech or academic freedom. The most recent controversy has arisen at Cornell University and involves a challenge to an official declaration that the university perpetuates “settler colonialism, indigenous dispossession, slavery, racism, classism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, antisemitism, and ableism.” That led to a confrontation with Randy Wayne, associate professor in the School of Integrative Plant Science in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences who objected to the statement and led to a controversy at the school.
We also discussed land acknowledgement controversies like University of Washington Professor Stuart Reges who was disciplined because he refused to post the school’s “land acknowledgment” and instead posted an alternative statement.
Haidt objected that “In order to present research at the conference, all social psychologists are now required to submit a statement explaining ‘whether and how this submission advances the equity, inclusion, and anti-racism goals of SPSP.’ Our research proposal would be evaluated on older criteria of scientific merit, along with this new criterion.”
He explained that “most academic work has nothing to do with diversity, so these mandatory statements force many academics to betray their quasi-fiduciary duty to the truth by spinning, twisting, or otherwise inventing some tenuous connection to diversity. I refuse to do this…”
Haidt is a cofounder of the Heterodox Academy, an organization of academics promoting viewpoint diversity.
The issue with the statement is its mandatory elements. There would be no objections for an organization to put forward a policy that encourages members to pursue anti-racism agendas and offers specific elements of how one can pursue such a worthy goal.
However, the Society declared “The Task Force recognizes the need for the organization to make fundamental changes to its priorities and activities in ways that address the goal of anti-racism and equity.” What was an encouragement last year became a mandatory element this year: “We are now rolling the DEI statements out as part of the full review process this year.”
That raises questions of free speech and academic freedom for participants like Haidt. Yet, an academic (particularly less established or more junior academics) must fulfill these statements if they want access to key professional opportunities to present scholarship and research.
Speaking of DEI….
Benny Johnson
@bennyjohnson
This woman just *smashed* the glass ceiling in Europe’s oldest country.
Meloni is the first woman to lead Italy, yet I can’t find a single article celebrating her achievement in the “pro-woman empowerment” American corporate media.
Odd
Almost like our media are bullsh*t frauds
“Breaking the glass ceiling” constitutes criminal trespass and breaking and entering.
Freedom, Free Enterprise and Self-Reliance constitute the American thesis.
Thou Shalt Not Covet
Thou Shalt Not Steal
Italy and the rest of Europe, America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are being overrun by unassimilable, foreign, illegal alien, dependent parasites.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“The influx of foreigners must, therefore, tend to produce a heterogeneous compound; to change and corrupt the national spirit; to complicate and confound public opinion; to introduce foreign propensities. In the composition of society, the harmony of the ingredients is all-important, and whatever tends to a discordant intermixture must have an injurious tendency.”
– Alexander Hamilton
_________________
Political oil and water do not mix.
To mix political oil and water requires extensive and voluminous political emulsifiers including, but not limited to, matriculation affirmative action, grade-inflation affirmative action, employment affirmative action, quotas, welfare, food stamps, minimum wage, rent control, social services, forced busing, public housing, utility subsidies, WIC, SNAP, TANF, HAMP, HARP, TARP, HHS, HUD, Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Labor, Energy, Obamacare, Social Security, Social Security Disability, Social Security Supplemental Income, Medicare, Medicaid, “Fair Housing” laws, “Non-Discrimination” laws, etc.
You’re an extreme bigot George.
You communists deny rights and freedoms to Americans in order to provide unconstitutional and communistic redistribution of wealth and social engineering to illegal alien, foreign hyphenate invaders.
You don’t get to do that; so says the Constitution.
Had Karl Marx’s “…earnest of the epoch…” leading America toward “…the RECONSTRUCTION of a social world…,” “Crazy Abe” Lincoln, obeyed fundamental law, secession would have be licit, the Civil War would have never happened, habeas corpus would not have been suspended, the illegal aliens created by the unconstitutional emancipation proclamation, and the “injurious” and unconstitutional, corruptly and improperly ratified, preposterously under the duress of brutal, post-war, military occupation and oppression, “RECONSTRUCTION Amendments” would have been struck down.
You broke the law to “…fundamentally transform the United States of America…” into communism.
Just like you broke the law to impose a “fake” constitutional right to abortion.
Jonathan: Here are some other tidbits in the news that may have been overlooked:
Judge Dearie, the Special Master, is calling Trump’s bluff. Trump keeps claiming the FBI “planted” docs at Mar-a-Lago. The FBI just provided Dearie with a “Revised Detailed Property Inventory” of material seized. Only a few minor changes. So Dearie, a no nonsense judge, has given Trump’s lawyers until Friday to provide actual evidence of Trump’s bizarre claims. Put up or shut up, Donald. You can’t really complain because Dearie was your choice.
And Jared Kushner, who wants everyone to believe he had nothing to do with all the corruption in his father-in-law’s WH, is now facing his own music. He has agreed to pay $3.5 million to settle charges by the state of Maryland–charging Kushner with mistreating his tenants. According to the complaint filed in 2019 Kushner bilked his tenants out of money they didn’t owe, failed to maintain rental complexes that were ridden with mold, infested with rodents. These abuses went on for over a decade. Kushner claimed the lawsuit was a “witch hunt” by the Democratic state AG. Sound familiar?
Finally, as Hurricane Ian barrels down on Fl and is likely to devastate much of the state, Gov. DeSantis is promising state and federal aid for the victims. Too bad the governor didn’t put aside that $12 million for hurricane victims–the money he used to dump Venezuelan migrants in Martha’s Vineyard. Florida citizens come second when the Gov wants to stage a cruel political stunt!
You need to start your own blog. Compete with Insty on the news aggregator blog style. That’s what you think the Good Prof does. Except not. He opines about things that interest him, and allows us to peak in, and comment.
Then you can stop stealing from our host. That’s a real low life, free riding off of someone actually doing the work.
Dennis, nobody is here to suffer fools’ propaganda. This is Prof Turley’s space. Go find your own.
Also, FYI…SM Dearie isn’t supposed to be acting in the capacity of a Judge here. HINT: Dearie’s job as SM is literally to just go thru the documents, and then consider the laws around privileges in the context of those documents. Unfortunately for you it seems, Judge Cannon is still very much in charge of what happens here eventually. Also, Notice how you haven’t heard much about this issue and the docs since the Appeals Court ruled “Heck let’s all just Trust the FBI & DOJ here”? Please go away and have a good think as to why that is. Also, chance the channel.
“THOU SHALT NOT COVET”
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is “free stuff” and artificial status for sinful, covetous, illegal alien, foreign hyphenate, dependent parasite invaders.
They began their illegal incursion on January 1, 1863, violating the Naturalization Act of 1802, which was in full force and effect.
The unconstitutional incursion has persisted for 159 years and continues to this writing.
Freedom is for Americans.
Maximal individual freedom under severely limited and restricted government is the legacy of the Founders which they intended for “…themselves and their posterity.”
All men are created equal.
After creation, all men have a right and a duty to create their own success and the Right to “…Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
No man has any right to other people’s nation, money, property, enterprise or status.
The entire American welfare state is unconstitutional including, but not limited to, matriculation affirmative action, grade-inflation affirmative action, employment affirmative action, quotas, welfare, food stamps, minimum wage, rent control, social services, forced busing, public housing, utility subsidies, WIC, SNAP, TANF, HAMP, HARP, TARP, HHS, HUD, Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Labor, Energy, Obamacare, Social Security, Social Security Disability, Social Security Supplemental Income, Medicare, Medicaid, “Fair Housing” laws, “Non-Discrimination” laws, etc.
Once invaders consume the wealth created by others, the wealth will be gone.
“A man can not have his cake and eat his cake”
– Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, to Thomas Cromwell, 1538
____________________________________________
Naturalization Acts of 1790, 1795, 1798 and 1802 (four iterations – they meant it)
United States Congress, “An act to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization,” March 26, 1790
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That any Alien being a free white person, who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen thereof…
______________________________________________________________________________________________________
“We the People of the United States…secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,…”
– Preamble to the Constitution
________________________
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
– Thomas Jefferson
What is it with all this DEI stuff?
I neard of this in the late 1990’s.
Where did thos come from?
Affirmative action is a slow and labored process with progressive political returns. Affirmative discrimination through Diversity, Inequity, and Exclusion (DIE) under the Pro-Choice ethical religion produces results but with forward-looking collateral damage. Time will tell how long the population will tolerate the DIE principle and ethical philosophy.
There are some who post here who do not see a problem with DEI. Who could be against diversity, equity, and inclusion. Favoritism of one race over another is not diversity. Equality of outcome regardless of superior talent in one field or another is not justice. Inclusivity by one race over another by declaring that people of the present are guilty for the sins of their ancestors who lived four hundred years ago has nothing to do with inclusivity. Compelled speech as demonstrated in the past by people of the totalitarian mindset is no different from compelled speech by people of a totalitarian mindset today. “Inside every progressive is a totalitarian screaming to get out.” -David Horowitz. Will we let it happen again?
Diversity, Inequity, and Exclusion (DIE) is not limited to “race”, but is an ethical religious principle that socially justifies color judgments and class-based bigotry (e.g. racism, sexism, ageism). First, they came for the babies…. fetuses… fetal-Americans… People of Pink.
“Who could be against diversity, equity, and inclusion.”?
Me. Equity is the diametric opposite of Equality. It demands the unequal treatment of people based on superficial characteristics. It is in opposition of every principle this nation exists for. I oppose Equity with every fiber of my being.
“FREEDOM FROM BIAS OR FAVORITISM”
Merriam-Webster
equity noun
eq·ui·ty | \ ˈe-kwə-tē
\
plural equities
Definition of equity
1a : justice according to natural law or right // specifically : freedom from bias or favoritism
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The entire American welfare state is bias and favoritism.
The entire American welfare state is unconstitutional including, but not limited to, matriculation affirmative action, grade-inflation affirmative action, employment affirmative action, quotas, welfare, food stamps, minimum wage, rent control, social services, forced busing, public housing, utility subsidies, WIC, SNAP, TANF, HAMP, HARP, TARP, HHS, HUD, Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Labor, Energy, Obamacare, Social Security, Social Security Disability, Social Security Supplemental Income, Medicare, Medicaid, “Fair Housing” laws, “Non-Discrimination” laws, etc.
They said all they wanted was their freedom; what they really, really wanted was “free stuff” and “free artificial status.”
DEI Non Gratia
OT
Complaint:
https://pacificlegal.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/2022-09-27-garrison-v-us-dept-of-education-complaint.pdf
Lawsuit filed to stop Biden administration’s unlawful student loan cancellation
Indianapolis; September 27, 2022: Today, Pacific Legal Foundation filed suit against the U.S. Department of Education to block its illegal move to cancel more than $500 billion in student loan debt.
“Congress did not authorize the executive branch to unilaterally cancel student debt,” said Caleb Kruckenberg, an attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation. “It’s flagrantly illegal for the executive branch to create a $500 billion program by press release, and without statutory authority or even the basic notice and comment procedure for new regulations.”
Regarding PLF:
Pacific Legal Foundation is a tax exempt, nonprofit 501(c)(3) charitable organization. All donations of cash, property, and securities are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law. Our tax identification number is 94-2197343. Last year, approximately 66 percent of our donated funds come from individuals. Another 27 percent of our donated funds come from foundations, and 7 percent of our support was from small businesses and other organizations.
https://pacificlegal.org/financials/
Here is my DEI statement, “I hate everyone equally.”
Jonathan: I just don’t understand all the controversy over DEI. I have read several DEI university statements Michigan University says a DEI statement is important because “as the student population has become more diverse, many institutions are coming to understand the need for faculty who are committed and prepared to provide intellectually and culturally rich learning contexts for all students”. Nothing particularly controversial there. UM says its DEI is not “intended to be ideological or political statements”. No attempt to impose some “liberal” or “leftist” political ideology on faculty. When I took American Literature at my alma mater the white professor had almost exclusively white male authors in his syllabus. What is wrong with professors being required to now include well known women authors and those of color. After all, women students are now in the majority at many universities and Black and other minority students comprise a rising presence. That’s what “diversity” is all about. But some conservative groups like “FIRE”, that promotes a greater conservative presence on campuses, falsely claims DEI is “compelling faculty to endorse specific political or ideological views…”. I didn’t find that in the university DEI statements I read.
So why is Haidt so exercised about the NYU DEI? He is one of the 3 founders of Heterodox Academy” that argues political conservatives are under represented in social psychology–a similar theme you have been hammering on for some time–about the so-called “liberal” bias on university campuses. HA claims it is “promoting viewpoint diversity” but what it really wants is more conservative right-wing political ideology taught at universities. What I can’t figure out is why Haidt is so opposed to declaring he is not a racist–unless, of course…
I just don’t understand all the controversy over DEI.
What I can’t figure out is why Haidt is so opposed to declaring he is not a racist–unless, of course…
When/If you ever figure out the latter, then you’ll understand the former.
Dennis, I’m lefthanded. Would you mind if myself and other lefthanded people demanded lefthanded authors be included in the curriculum?
Sure! Except…Lefthanded people stopped being systematically attacked and excluded from society for some time (and have been actively re-included), and we literally have a comment among your contemporaries calling people of certain races” sinful, covetous, illegal alien, foreign hyphenate, dependent parasite invaders.”
So if the lefties go back to being systematically excluded, then yeah, we absolutely should.
Are lefthanded systematically excluded? Then yes, honestly.
“When I took American Literature at my alma mater the white professor had almost exclusively white male authors in his syllabus.”
That race is your focus (as opposed to the *ideas* being taught) means that you are a racist. That racism is the essence of “diversity.”
S@@tlibs love to go on about diversity and racism but I will take them seriously when they give up their jobs, kids admission to an exclusive school, move to a minority neighborhood or accept “undocumented” migrants (i.e. Martha’s Vineyard).
Of course, they won’t, will only call you a bigot when you object. Fortunately for them being a s@@tlib doesn’t require getting one’s hands dirty, it only requires having the right sign in your yard.
I feel absolutely no sympathy for s@@tlibs when their money or status cannot protect them for policies they force on others.
And don’t listen to what they say, watch where the live and associate. S@@tlibs are no different than the KKK in their mating and migratory habits.
I don’t want to understand, reconcile or dialogue with these people, I want a divorce.
antonio
The USA will end up with “academics” who are not well-qualified in their specialties – but love identifying as supporters of DEI. Down the proverbial tubes we go because it is no longer what you know – but how woke, progressive, lefty left, socialist, communist, etc you are.
We are there.
I think I’m beginning to understand the mindset of Pinochet and his methods.
Some say lead poisoning killed the Roman mind and, therefore, Rome. Today Wokeism is destroying the American mind as much as lead poisoning did to the Romans. In the process, Wokism is killing America.
More of the famous leftist tolerance we keep hearing so much about.
So censorship isn’t enough for you s@@tlibs now, it’s compelled speech and loyalty oaths.
Just waiting for some s@@tlib to explain why compelled speech is actually a good thing and why this professor happens to be a ‘nazi’ too.
antonio
You gain nothing by throwing up your hands and quitting….ritual suicide only kills the person doing it.
Stand your ground and fight….point out all of the wrongheadedness of the Left and let them hoist themselves on their on Petards!
That is the only way we put an end to the loony thinking they are trying to impose on the rest of society.
I am old…tired….and completely fed up with those without backbone.
When they threw the first rock, set the first fire, and damaged the first monument…..we should have gone after them with everything society has to offer in the way of punishment.
Karen S, well stated except for the bit about the ancient horses. See
https://www.horsetalk.co.nz/2012/11/29/why-did-horses-die-out-in-north-america/
for a review. I suggest that the introduction of C4 grasses was a major factor.
Mandates for pledges to DEI, CRT, and anti-racism violates the First Amendment, and the Civil Rights Acts. Disparaging anyone’s race is wrong, including whites and Asians. Demanding that anyone feel ashamed of their ancestry is utterly racist.
Academia is no longer a bastion of rigorous debate, higher learning, and reason. It’s become a madrassa for brainwashing.
We need more professors with a spine to stand up to this.
The First Amendment is a restriction on government actions. It does not restrict this professional society’s actions.
Poor Anon…
It does when these are Federally funded schools.
It’s a professional society, not a school, and not an agency of a school.
If the school gets federal grants, it becomes a First Amendment issue
It’s not a school. It’s a professional society.
Jonathan Haidt showed true courage and will.
DEI is racist. The idea that all American institutions exhibit “settler colonialism” or “indigenous dispossession” is historically inaccurate, and opposes Western Civilization.
Academics should cease depicting Native Americans as hippies. Tribes did not ascribe to any idea that land permanently belonged to the descendants of the people who first lived there. In fact, there is no written record of which tribe first lived anywhere. There is archeological evidence and oral histories that help us piece together some of their movements. That would include conquering lands and chasing weaker tribes out, enslaving them, engaging in sex slavery, committing genocide, killing small children, torturing prisoners to death, keeping trophies of their kills, and when they did adopt prisoners or captives into their tribes, they were forbidden to ever speak their original language or use their original names. They kept and held lands, or they lost it.
There is currently a movement to “return” the Black Hills to the Lakota Sioux. Yet before the Sioux conquered it, the Black Hills belonged to the Cheyenne, Kiowa, Pawnee, and Crow. Before that were the Arikara. If I recall correctly, the Arikara were the earliest residents that we know of, around 1100 AD though likely not the very first. It was the Arikara who held the Black Hills the longest, NOT the Sioux.
The reason the Lakota Sioux were even in the Western Plains was because they lost wars with the Anishnaabe and Cree in the late 1600s. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Anishnaabe pushed the Sioux farther through the use of muskets they obtained from the French.
What did Native Tribes do the moment they obtained horses and guns? They used them in the ongoing wars with other tribes. The Sioux weren’t even a horse culture until the Cheyenne introduced them to horses in the 1700s. Once they became a horse culture, then stealing horses from other tribes became accepted practice. AGAIN, ownership of land, horses, or possessions was not recognized. You held it, or it was taken from you.
The Sioux took the Black Hills from the Cheyenne around the time of the American Revolution, and before that, the Cheyenne conquered the Black Hills from the Kiowa.
The idea that colonial settlers dispossessed indigenous from “ancestral homelands” is utter bullocks. Like human civilizations everywhere on planet Earth, Native American tribes fought over land and unfortunately, women. Europeans, and later Americans, were the stronger tribes who moved in, just as previous ones had.
The formation of the US brought Western Civilization to Native Americans. It eventually ended the practice of slavery even among Native Americans. It brought the wheel, horses, textile advancements, refrigerations, cars, planes, trains, shipping, computers…In short, Native Americans lived in the Stone Age, because they did not experience the same pressures as Europeans. Their ancestors wiped out native horses through hunting, and thus never had the advantage of beasts of burden or transpiration. While the ancestors of Europeans domesticated the Aurochs, no similar attempt was made to domesticate bison.
Stop cherry picking which movement of nations to unwind, ignoring all others.
What’s the goal by these movements to make Americans feel guilty for existing? Do they expect us to erase all traces of Western Civilization, try to send everyone back to Europe and Africa, tear down all buildings, remove all infrastructure, and return the United States to the Stone Age, and thus back in the possession of Native Americans? Are we to believe that the last tribe to live on land are eternally the owners, but not the tribes they took that land from?
There were tribes who lived in the deserts of the South West, with drastically shortened lifespans, because they were pushed out of more resource-rich lands by other tribes. They wore their teeth down until they could no longer eat, because they consumed rock dust mixed in with nut and seed flours ground with stone, one of the only food sources in the desert.
The Celts are not going to get Ireland back. The Picts won’t get Scotland back. The Saxons won’t get England back. Druidism is not going to return as the national religion of England.
Native American activists need to fully join the US. Stop the otherness. The separateness. Get rid of the reservations that keep their people poor. No one lives well on government assistance. Be fully One People with the rest of Americans. A stronger tribe conquered the land, like their tribes did. Preserve the culture and history, but above all, be one with Americans.
But:
The Irish are the descendants of the Celts.
The Picts were all killed or enslaved in massive Viking raids; the Scots then moved in, taking over Pictland.
The English are the descendants of Saxons in the south, of Angles in the north.
Benson:
There was tremendous movement of the European tribes, plus the practice of slavery, especially when practiced by the Romans, dispersed people and severed ties.
There are frequent wars, and land changed hands frequently. People did not, actually, remain in just one place, where the only residents were descendants of only that one particular European tribe who lived there before. The tribes were absorbed by those who came later, were displaced, had their diaspora at times, and spread out.
Just like in the New World, stronger tribes took ownership of land in Europe, and changed nation boundaries. There was double dealing, broken treaties, people forced to join armies, injustice, as well as the evolution of military theory and efficacy over the eons. Those wars and their consequences cannot be unwound as if they never happened.
The mental health community began to fail in the late fifties, since, they’ve become ever more lazy while becoming ever more reliant on chemical amendments.
True, for some they are necessary but giving them to large percentages of even young children and a huge percentage of college age people is sickness in itself.
Or is there a political component?
All the more reason for a parallel society to continue to emerge that doesn’t interact with or depend on these fascists for anything. We have our own stores, businesses, employers, restaurants, media, schools, etc.
Then they came for Jonathan Haidt and there was no one left to stand with me.
I will.
Off-topic, the Oath Keepers’ seditious conspiracy trial starts today. Should be interesting.
Also off-topic, today the 2nd Circuit punted E. Jean Carroll’s defamation suit against Trump to the DC Court of Appeals, in re: whether Trump is immune / whether his statements were made as part of his official duties.