The storied career of James Webb as the second administrator of NASA (responsible for the Apollo missions) led to the naming of the space telescope in his honor. Now, however, he is the subject of a cancel campaign to remove his name after professors accused him of being anti-gay. That cancel campaign also now includes a black astrophysicist, Hakeem Oluseyi, who published a study exonerating Webb. He is reportedly being banned from leading journals after finding no evidence to support the claim. Regardless of the ultimate conclusions that one can reach on the Webb controversy, there should be universal concern over the growing intolerance for opposing views in academic institutional and journals.
The New York Times reported that Oluseyi, president of National Society for Black Physicists, was asked to look into the allegations made by physicist Chanda Prescod-Weinstein of the University of New Hampshire. She joined three other scientists in writing a Scientific American article demanding the renaming of the telescope because Webb “acquiesced to homophobic government policies during the 1950s and 1960s.”
The focus of the objection was the “Lavender Scare,” a period in which homosexual government officials faced intense investigations. President Dwight D. Eisenhower had declared in 1953 that homosexual government officials were a national security threat. That crackdown is the subject of a documentary film.
Many of us are familiar with this terrible period and how homosexual scientists and officials were often unable to serve their country due to the prejudice against their sexual orientation. The powerful movie “The Imitation Game” tells the story of World War II code-breaker and early computer pioneer Alan Turing, who was hounded over his homosexuality. It is a disgraceful chapter in our history.
While media like CNN have reported that Webb “isn’t mentioned in most government records or sources” about these investigations, historian David Johnson noted in 2004 that Webb had met with President Truman on the issue of gay officials when he served in the State Department.
Prescod-Weinstein and her co-authors put forward a petition to change the name. In addition to references to the “Lavender Scare,” they noted one particular case:
Notably, in the case Norton v. Macy, former NASA employee Clifford L. Norton sued for “review of his discharge for ‘immoral conduct’ and for possessing personality traits which render him ‘unsuitable for further Government employment.’”
Even though the Norton v. Macy case rose to prominence in 1969, the actual incident that led to Norton’s dismissal took place in 1963 while James Webb was NASA administrator. Norton was arrested by DC police after having been observed speaking with another man, and was brought in for questioning on suspicion of homosexuality. While at the police station, NASA Security Chief Fugler was summoned to the police station, where he participated in Norton’s interrogation. Upon Norton’s release by DC police, NASA Security Chief Fugler then took Norton to NASA Headquarters, where he continued to interrogate him until the following morning. NASA subsequently fired Norton for suspicion of homosexuality, based on activities he was suspected of conducting during his personal time. We do not know of any consequences for NASA Security Chief Fugler, who conducted an extrajudicial interrogation on federal property.
It was government policy at that time that you could not hold a clearance or work in sensitive areas if you were a homosexual. Some 1700 people signed the petition to remove Webb’s name without any further investigation.
NASA ultimately did conduct an investigation. In October, the agency reported that:
“NASA’s History Office conducted an exhaustive search through currently accessible archives on James Webb and his career,” the agency told CNN in October. “They also talked to experts who previously researched this topic extensively. NASA found no evidence at this point that warrants changing the name of the James Webb Space Telescope.”
That did not sit well with Prescod-Weinstein or others. They ultimately focused their ire on Oluseyi who was asked to study that history. He said that he was initially “sympathetic” to these claims but, after researching the actual records, he wrote in Medium that “I can say conclusively that there is zero evidence that Webb is guilty of the allegations against him.”
I can understand that some may contest those findings. However, what followed was a cancel campaign that shifted to those who opposed it, particularly Oluseyi. Prescod-Weinstein insisted that NASA assigned Oluseyi to “impugn” her concerns and to provide a “shield” for Webb.
Others did not care what the investigation found. The New York Times reported that the Britain’s Royal Astronomical Society declared that “no astronomer who submits a paper to its journals should type the words ‘James Webb.'” The American Astronomical Society, and the publications Nature, New Scientist and Scientific American have also reportedly declared the case closed against Webb.
Oluseyi was soon also tagged and said that he has been unable to have letters published in the journal that attempted to point out the allegedly flawed evidence cited by Prescod-Weinstein and others. So, not only are journals declaring the matter effectively closed, but they will not allow readers to see opposing views.
Even former colleagues publicly denounced Oluseyi. George Mason’s Peter Plavchan, who said that he welcomed Oluseyi to that school as a visiting professor, tweeted a note to Prescod-Weinstein that “I do believe [Oluseyi] owes you and LGBTQ+ astronomers an apology.”
Yet, other academics have raised concerns over this intolerant and anti-intellectual response.
David Johnson teaches history at the University of South Florida and is the author of “The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government.” He objected that Prescod-Weinstein and others “ignore the historical context.” He further noted that “Mr. Webb did not lead efforts to oust gays; there was not yet a gay rights movement in 1949; and to apply the term homophobe is to use a word out of time and reflects nothing Mr. Webb is known to have written or said “No one in government could stand up at that time and say ‘This is wrong.’ And that includes gay people.”
The campaign is continuing to rename the telescope. Prescod-Weinstein wants the telescope be named for Harriet Tubman. She insisted in a CNN interview that
“There are people who have argued that Harriet Tubman wasn’t a ‘real scientist.’ But to do science is to apply rational knowledge of the physical world. Harriet Tubman represents the best of humanity, and we should be sending the best of what we have to offer into the sky.”
Prescod-Weinstein, who publicly identifies as “all #BLACKandSTEM/all Jewish. queer/agender/woman,” has previously been herself the subject of controversy with critics noting that she previously argued that antisemitism by black people are due to the influence of white gentiles: “White Jews adopted whiteness as a social praxis and harmed Black people in the process […] Some Black people have problematically blamed Jewishness for it.”
In the end, being a free speech advocate means that you support all of these figures in this debate. I would be equally opposed to efforts to seek to fire or cancel Dr. Prescod-Weinstein.
This is the type of debate that was once welcomed on campuses and in academic journals. Reasonable minds can disagree on the underlying facts and their meaning. What concerns me is that, despite a division of opinion among academics, there is yet another cancel campaign that will not tolerate opposing views to be voiced.
It is, unfortunately, all too familiar today. Cancel campaigns have become a type of academic credential. It is not enough to disagree with a fellow academic. You must now seek to silence him or fire him. If you believe in a cause, anyone voicing an opposing position is now viewed as intolerable.
In my brief review of these articles, there does not appear to be much in terms of direct evidence against Webb. I am certainly open to allegations based on new evidence, but it is less likely that we will see such discussions after the treatment of Dr. Oluseyi and others who have raised objections.
We have reached a point where allegation is now synonymous with conviction.
If I’m understanding the basic facts correctly, it was official government policy to withhold security clearances for homosexuals. And Webb wasn’t guilty of establishing this policy, but rather he acquiesced to it? Sounds like Webb didn’t want to get cancelled back in the day. Had he objected to this policy and stood up for scientists that were homosexual, he most assuredly wouldn’t have run NASA during the Apollo period. Butterfly effect comes to mind.
Dear Prof Turley,
Sir. Time can move slow writing history through the lens of modern revisionism. Probably best to let the past bury its dead.
*I was somewhat surprised to learn the Marine Corps is considering dropping traditional salutations for drill instructors in an effort to promote a gender-neutral force for good.
https://americanmilitarynews.com/2022/12/marine-corps-may-drop-maam-and-sir-for-drill-instructors/
We are living in an age of pipsqueaks, who measure themselves against the giants of the past and resent the fact that they find themselves wanting. Their only recourse is to denigrate those giants, and drag them down in any way possible, to compensate for and avenge their feelings of inadequacy. It is hardly a surprise that any effort to correct the record, especially an honest and reasonable one, would instantly become the focus of their hostility; it threatens the pretense that they have concocted that allows them to feel superior to the giants of the past, who they could otherwise never approach.
@KB
I really believe that. People who are now 40 or so grew up in perfect privilege and comfort, being told incessantly how brilliant and special they were. This obviously doesn’t align with reality or lend itself to critical thinking or even real compassion, so they manufacture crises. It is all about them and their personal levels of comfort, nothing more. Psychologically, it’s a tale as old as time.
KB,
Well said.
These woke Leftists see themselves as being enlightened, or morally superior.
They are neither.
They are using their absurd standards to measure people from the past to those standards today.
Of course the dead cannot defend themselves.
“. . . denigrate those giants . . .”
Very astute. Theirs is the wicked psychology of envy — a desire to destroy. They are the culture’s drive-by-shooters. Once a target’s been decimated, they drive drunkenly to the next one.
“We demand an investigation!”
Investigation concludes there is no evidence to prove the case of Webb being anti-gay.
“We demand those who conducted the investigation are wrong! We also demand our opinion on the topic to be declared as FACT! Anyone who is not tolerant of our intolerance, they must be anti-whatever! Your words are violence!”
Just call it the “Chanda Prescod-Weinstein Telescope” and be done with it already!
We need to dig up Eisenhower’s skeletal remains; have some homosexual we hold in high esteem give him a proper beheading; and then insist that President Biden put his skull on a pike and proudly display it in front of the White House to show how wrong he was.
Sure, he may have helped defeat the Naziification of the world. But that is just so inconsequenatial compared to holding the belief that perhaps a person who is not attracted to the opposite sex and thus lacks the primal urge to reproduce to pass on his genes may have a screw loose.
It’s an unforgiveable sin that his campaign slogan was “I Like Ike” when every decent, normal person knows it should have been “Ike Likes Dykes”.
Obviously.
Did you notice the ‘early life’ entry at wikipedia for Chanda Prescod-Weinstein?
I am noticing.
Wikipedia is just Twitter before Musk, it needs to be avoided whenever possible. I get a kick out of them asking me for a donation when they are slanted against everything I believe in. Get lost Wiki!
Typical of today’s scientific world. You stand accused and are pronounced guilty just because you have been accused. So a biracial, homosexual, agender, woman who is married, and appears to make racist statements, is accusing Mr. Webb of being Anti Gay. Really! It’s nice to accuse someone of something when they’re dead. No context for the time or the culture which was vastly different from where we are now. I note that she was born in 1982 so obviously she has minimal context or even experience of that time. How truly brave of her. Even the New York Times published an article implying that she used false, ad-hominem attacks against Dr Oleseyi. Sounds like great fodder for a slander/libel suit since she is trying to get him banned from publishing which is an essential part of his livelihood. Maybe Dr Oleseyi should should engage the attorney who helped Nicholas Sandman get large sums of money from multiple mainstream media corporations after the confrontation at the Washington Monument.
She is no doubt brilliant, after perusing her CV, but maybe she should learn to self examine and self criticize and try to grow some humanity to go along with her outrage. There is a lot of humanity outside of her little silo which marches to a far different drum. Her multiple minority outlook is no armor towards criticism and condemnation and someday she may find the wheel has turned and the other side has come for her and her views. Unbridled hate has destroyed more people than humanity, compassion and love.
I was also suggest that James Webb’s descendants also file a slander suit. Some successful Slander and Libel suits might go a long way to curbing some of this stupidity.
GEB – as someone is bound to note, there is a legal rule that the dead cannot be slandered. But it would be a pleasant action against this gracious lady, if it were available.
It just makes her “bravery” even less appropriate. And who are we to say for sure. Maybe we could break new legal ground. There could be assets of the family that might have suffered loss due to her “lander”. Sometimes I still wish for a time when slandering a person’s family, dead or not, might bring down full scale wrath upon such an individual. Family name and integrity was everything.
Appreciate you pointing out the rule. It was a wish. Integrity, a word quickly disappearing from the English Language.
“. . . the dead cannot be slandered.”
The reference was to Dr. Oleseyi, who is still alive.
sam – “I was [sic] also suggest that James Webb’s descendants also file a slander suit.”
“’I was [sic] . . .'”
I missed that. Thanks.
The ninnies of cancel culture, of which Prescod-Weinstein is the latest infantile example, ought to be ignored or fired for being so stupid. Shunning the scientist who did some actual research on the Jim Webb trope and found it false is utterly contemptable. Smart people playing dumb to earn social media cred is the very definition of lunacy.
Mike: I would argue that “Smart people playing dumb to earn social media cred is the very definition of . . . malice.”
Harriet Tubman? The agenda is clear — replace all white males with black figures, in the name of “racial justice.” Reading Prescod-Weinstein’s brief bio, one understands why: no matter what she calls herself or what her “credentials” say, she’s an activist, not a scientist. And no self-respecting scientist would associate with BLM, or any gender studies department. But when you can’t “make it” on your talent, you step on others (the dead are a safe target). Hopefully, Prescod-Weinstein’s 5 minutes of fame will be enough to satisfy her, because the country doesn’t need anymore dumbed-down, untalented and gullible scientists.
Count on the best and the brightest to make excrement of a nation and its culture, and the lemmings who follow, to dance over the edge of the cliff to the playing of the pipers.
https://www.britannica.com/event/Wannsee-Conference
Anytime this sort of thing pops up I look at the ages of the authors. Yep, the usual suspects, they are younger folks; there is an army of privileged AOCs in prominent positions these days. These kids have been brainwashed and discouraged to think critically to the point of mental illness. It is the height of irony that the word ‘critical’ appears in their dogma. Absurd, and we are all so very tired of the childhood games and temper tantrums. My eighth grade, public school social studies class was more intellectually adroit, and they had more imagination and heart. Progress on this earth will grind to a standstill (and indeed, modern progressives have at this point actually *erased* decades of progress) unless we address this meaningfully.
As an aside, I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas.
Scientists are supposed to be rational thinkers, but there’s nothing rational about Prescod-Weinstein. When you need to add a trail of “identities” to your name just to assure your permanent victim status, you need therapy. If you have to go back 70 years to nail a guy to the wall, you need lots of therapy. These sanctimonious bullies cherry pick history and use it as a weapon. Then they hide behind their “identities” to cover up their true despicable and sadistic natures. The pogrom against Webb and Oluseyi by the scientific community gives us just one more reason not to trust anything scientists say, from vaccines to climate. “Woke” scientists and teachers are tuning out to be the poster children for hysteria, hatred and irrationality.
@GioCon
That’s the thing – the dogma is the point. The woke are taught that quite literally woke is all there is, whatever the particular subject at hand might be, it is secondary if not completely marginal to the wokeness. These folks do not practice science, or math, or art, or even latte making; they practice their woke religion in every interaction or thought process they engage in each day. Hold up an apple and they see an orange; consensus reality is not where they live. They are not well in the way Patty Hearst wasn’t well.
Agreed. And adding further, they don’t even understand how their intolerance – nay, utter rejection and destruction – of anything & anyone who does not think (or at least espouse to think) like they do not only discredits them, but also their fields of study & work, and ultimately, their own extremely fragile ideology. These sad, angry, emotionally crippled boobs utterly ignorant of history don’t even understand that they are discrediting and destroying their own fragile ideology built upon ignorance and lies simply by putting it into practice! I say to them – KEEP GOING!!! Let’s burn this BS out of our culture and society NOW and be done with it.
“The (program) against Webb and Oluseyi by (their own) scientific community gives us just one more reason not to trust anything scientists say, from vaccines to climate.” That’s a great point GC. When advocacy and woke thinking overtakes rational thought and scientific practice in the sciences, what exactly makes the actual science trustworthy?
There are way too many people in colleges. We need to get back to serious subjects, serious students, and strict admission guidelines. Ad hominem campaigns, which is what cancel culture is, appeal to small people with limited talents and slight intellectual curiousity. The censors, the persecutors belong elsewhere.
Marxists think in terms of revolution and Alinskyite tactics. Destroying our universities is one way to make such a revolution easier.
Well I guess they can check that one off. Universities destroyed
What this woke culture reminds me of is that grade school clique of little prissy girls who won’t play with the less fortunate looking other girls and calls them names and shuns them. Intolerant, self-possessed spoiled brats. Only now we are faced with a few generations of these aging spoiled brats who can do far more damage to a culture or an individual because we can’t find sufficient adults to smack them down and put them in the corner for acting that way.
Let us all anticipate the day when “cancel culture” itself will be cancelled. It will come. We just don’t know when. The “cancelers”, having nothing else to cancel, will turn on themselves. Cancelers being cannabalistic.
Tsk. Tsk. What a pity!
Presentism–past history is now based on present knowledge and with that you can possibly get cancelled. Don’t do or say anything as a silly teenager with your teenage like-minded group because in 10-20 years it will come back to bite you in the tuchus. That group may have changed their views but remember what you said or have recorded someplace. Many times cancelers eventually become a target of other cancelers.
I languish and have pined for the days when academic discourse was valued and even believed to be necessary. As an undergraduate, I can remember academic debates being canceled and re-scheduled if one of the debaters could not attend. Academic freedom and diversity of thought/expression was welcomed and celebrated. Students attending the debate were not disruptive and asked questions of the presenters when called upon at the end of the lecture or debate.
Beyond a rare denunciation of a speaker in the campus newspaper or on campus radio, picketing a speaker never occurred but once that I can recall. Police protection inside and outside of the debate hall was visible, but I never witnessed any arrests. People were CIVIL and POLITE to the presenters. That was the case in graduate school also but is not the case today.
Quite simply, I am living in a world I don’t understand.
It seems that each day presents another example of historically respected institutions finding progressively more idiotic ways to demonstrate that they may no longer be worthy of respect.
I was recently at Colonial Williamsburg with my grandchildren and was shocked to hear one of the guides tell a large group that over 10M African slaves were brought to the 13 colonies. When I said that the actual number was less than 500K – the remaining 9-10M going to Brazil and Caribbean islands. His response was to say to the group that he didn’t know where I got my facts. “My facts” I assume meaning actual facts that don’t support the current narrative he was presenting. Ignorance of the facts would be a problem, but intentionally ignoring the facts to support an agenda was worse.
So it’s politicians in general, the FBI, Boy Scouts, Catholic Church, CDC, Twitter, Corporate Media, teacher unions and so many more formally respected organization that have worked hard to demonstrate that their leadership probably never did deserve our respect.
RE:”he didn’t know where I got my facts”. “;From a more reliable source than you obtained yours”, might have been your retort. Next time!
By 1776 the population of the Colonies was barely over 2M
First of all I agree with the physicist arguing against the renaming due to actually finding no evidence of Webb actually being “anti-gay”, but why oh why is there a thing like the “Black Physicists” group in the first place? Is there a White group? Jewish group? Hispanic group? Asian group? Stop it already, we are all sick to death of it.
Hullbobby
You are absolutely correct.
If I were paranoid, I would suspect that that there is a deliberate effort being made to marginalize white people.
Or conversely, to fuel racial tensions.
Whether deliberate or not, race relations are not improving.
Race relations are not improving on purpose… This is the Marxist destruction of them. Divide and conquer is the technique, and we see it being deployed with destructive force in virtually every aspect of modern life, and by mostly young people because they are ignorant of history and easily psychologically manipulated into believing lies by disingenuous liars, bent on bending all to their own will and beliefs. The hubris is astonishing – that they believe that whatever they believe is 100% correct, and anyone challenging that is 100% incorrect. Talk about fragile personalities! However, what these sad, ignorant individuals don’t understand, yet, is that they are destroying their own extremely fragile ideology simply by putting it into practice. If their own thoughts and actions were examined in the light of their own judgment, they wouldn’t pass either. Their extreme intolerance for anything and everything not approved by them gives them away as BULLIES. And THAT is what they need to be reminded of.
Leftists are now conducting show trials on dead white men. The glaring irony is that Democrats think the dead should vote but still vilify them as racists and homophobes. Ballot harvesting moves in mysterious ways.
McCarthy may have been sloppy, but he was correct about the left. Most are really communists in practice and principle whether they admit it or not. The Constitution has always been just a game they played for advantage.
“McCarthy may have been sloppy, but he was correct about the left. Most are really communists in practice and principle whether they admit it or not.”
Short, understandable and correct. Had you said it earlier I could have saved several hundred words. 🙂