132 Comments
User's avatar
Brian Sack's avatar

Now we all understand how someone with Claudine Gay's résumé wound up as president of Harvard.

Christopher Messina's avatar

We never misunderstood it. This is just one more datum about the insane Marxist evil infesting our universities.

alexsyd's avatar

They're not Marxist. They're anti-white male. That's what the article relates to at the beginning.

Christopher Messina's avatar

They are ALL Marxists, and don’t even know it.

alexsyd's avatar

Kneeling Nancy's a Marxist? Funny kind of communist, no?

It's called oikophobia:

An extreme and immoderate aversion to the sacred and the thwarting of the connection of the sacred to the culture of the West appears to be the underlying motif of oikophobia; and not the substitution of Hellenic Christianity by another coherent system of belief. The paradox of the oikophobe seems to be that any opposition directed at the theological and cultural tradition of the West is to be encouraged even if it is "significantly more parochial, exclusivist, patriarchal, and ethnocentric". (Mark Dooley, Roger Scruton: Philosopher on Dover Beach (Continuum 2009), p. 78.)

The term also occasionally appears in psychology with the more literal sense of a fear of home.

Scruton defines it as "the repudiation of inheritance and home," and refers to it as "a stage through which the adolescent mind normally passes." Roger Scruton, ''A Political Philosophy'', p. 24.

Boulis's avatar

Super interesting. I’m wondering though if Marx and his disciples were not also suffering from a unique nineteenth century variant of oikophobia. I would say Rousseau, at least, and possibly all of the Romantics certainly were.

alexsyd's avatar

If you are interested in this topic please read my article:

https://ageofmuses.substack.com/p/western-oikophobia-a-study

Tommy Roth's avatar

Why would a marxist push to hire an anarchist? Those ideologies are strictly opposed to each other.

Christopher Messina's avatar

You give these generic leftist assholes too much credit for logical consistency and even the vaguest form of intellectual rigor. The short answer is they're all mental midgets with daddy issues throwing a tantrum by supporting whatever “radical” “Fight the Man” stupidity appears in front of them.

Tommy Roth's avatar

Probably its better to use a more accurate term for these people, like liberal. Actual economic Marxists in the academy are usually anti-woke.

Christopher Messina's avatar

I have no idea of your background, but having studied with “actual economic Marxists” at the University of Chicago, I have zero basis for agreeing with your idea of their being “anti-woke.”

Anyway, these fine haired, angels-dancing-on-a-pinhead subtle distinctions don’t matter to me - because they don’t matter to the screaming hordes of Soros-funded clowns marching in the streets to call for the death of Jews.

All leftist assholes love some group of themselves being in total charge of everyone else, no matter how you define those possible theoretical dividing lines.

Boulis's avatar

Seriously. It’s like Coke and Pepsi…I remember in the Greek elections thirty years ago my parents got two different ballots: one for the Marxist-Leninist party…and one for the Leninist-Marxist party!

john peterson's avatar

My wife works at a “ prestigious “ medical school as a Prof. I used to work there as well but my central nervous system couldn’t take it. She can. And yes the DEI blatant anti- white racism is real and right out in the open. And sanctioned by the Institution.

john peterson's avatar

I understand but I try to hold my outrage for those incidents that I know are true. I realize this is entirely likely to be true. The DEI nonsense is out of control

FacultyLeaks.com's avatar

These things take time. The wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine.

john peterson's avatar

I wish this was not posted anonymously. It would seem easier to believe if we had the institution and faculty involved. Hard to be certain this is not fiction.

Brian Sack's avatar

I can understand it. There can be repercussions for coming forward. My kid's private high school, Dwight-Englewood, had a DEI meltdown that made the newspapers in 2021. Parents were outraged and wanted to speak out, but someone pointed out that the school had quietly added wording to the tuition contracts that would allow them to expel a student if they or their parents challenged the DEI orthodoxy. The last thing a parent wants to do is get their kid booted, especially if it's during their senior year. So, lots of people spoke out anonymously knowing that it wasn't ideal, but their hands were tied.

NagsHeadLocal's avatar

I worked in higher ed admin (yes, part of the bloat) for 25+ years before I retired. I wish I could say your story is unbelievable but, well, I have a few stories of my own. Three years before retirement a faculty member invited me to apply for a department position answering to the chair, i.e. a high-level slot with a number of responsibilities. I prepared packets for each member of the hiring committee containing a CV and a thick pile of recommendation letters including one from a state senator and a previous university president. A USB stick containing a slide deck of a proposed re-org for greater output with estimated cost savings. When I sat down before the committee they had only one question, which I can still remember: "What have you done to advance diversity and what are your plans to promote diversity in this department?" I looked at the committee, each member being white, and answered that I thought diversity was a worthy goal but did they have any questions concerning the tasks mentioned in the job posting or my materials? They did not. Interview concluded. They got up and left. A week or so later the faculty member asked if I had been interviewed yet. She was astounded when I said I had and a bit angry they had not communicated the outcome to her. The committee eventually hired a young woman right out of school who was wildly unqualified for the job.

Shoveltusker's avatar

I've been on a lot of search committees and all of this feels familiar, but this is an order of magnitude more appalling than anything we've ever done. Maybe STEM disciplines just don't attract as many terrorists?

Alistair Penbroke's avatar

Terrorists often have engineering backgrounds. It's more that STEM doesn't attract leftists as much, and it's always the left that's violent.

Andrew Keenan Richardson's avatar

The data shows that politically motivated violence is much more associated with the right than the left.

The real difference is that engineering departments are busy doing actual work, so they are motivated to care about engineering ability.

Alistair Penbroke's avatar

Are you referring to the claim by Cato? If so it's wrong. When people examined the database they found it was riddled with mistakes and omissions that, when fixed, showed the left being far more violent than the right. For example:

https://substack.com/home/post/p-174301047

And that is still a left-biased result because Cato started counting in 1975, an arbitrary date presumably chosen to exclude the wave of leftist terrorism shortly predating that time. It also ignores communist political violence elsewhere in the world.

Grape Soda's avatar

Data shows no such thing

Christopher Messina's avatar

The data SHOW no such thing.

publius_x's avatar

Bull. Shit. Like the unite the right rally paid for by the splc?

Odysseus's avatar

During the 1960s and 1970s, many extremists joined left-wing groups, often spurred by the civil rights movement or the Vietnam War. "Underground movement" radicals associated with groups like the Weather Underground, the New World Liberation Front, Chicano Liberation Front, and the Symbionese Liberation Army claimed responsibility for hundreds of small-scale bombings in the 1970s.[29] In an eighteen-month period between 1971 and 1972, the FBI recorded 2,500 bombings in the U.S.—nearly five per day.[29] They were usually detonated with prior warning or at night, resulting in few casualties and limited public outcry.[29][2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_violence_in_the_United_States

Kip 🇺🇸🇮🇱🟦's avatar

🤣 Sure it does, dipshit. Oh, you work in A.I. What a … surprise. 😂 Go suck off a trannie at a No Kings march, commie.

Christopher Messina's avatar

The GRAMMAR shows that the data might show any number of things.

I would challenge you to share the data upon which you make your insane claim.

mzlizzi's avatar

Oh, they do. They do.

JD Free's avatar

I mean, the entire Weather Underground took over academia 50 years ago (after going completely unpunished for all of their terrorism). Why are we surprised?

Garry Perkins's avatar

I never understood how those murderers avoided jail. I guess the lives of poor minority janitors do not matter as much as those of cowardly rich white people.

Ian McKerracher's avatar

I have much sorrow for the state of what some call “higher education.” It no longer serves those “Higher” ideals. That phrase should be abandoned.

MiloandTock1's avatar

Some comments saying that this is too much or too hard to believe. I don't find it hard to believe at all. I know a hiring committee in a STEM field - several very woke women and 1 meek male. They made it all about DEI. The original matrix for evaluating applicants-candidates was a certain percentage DEI but it was really the only thing. The search net was so wide - and research in the scientific field was soooo wide and generic, it opened itself to anyone and everyone in the field as a whole. It was an open secret the committee googled-social media-linkedin candidates to eliminate all white men and most white women. The finalists visited the campus - all intersectional minorities. The committee apparently told the candidates to avoid meeting with or talking to any of the men in the department. There was discussion as to why the most disadvantaged candidates should be chosen but they ended up going with a white woman - who of course claimed they-them and some other victim or oppressed status - and that angered the more extreme woke because she is white. There are other stories from other departments over the past few years about such hirings. So I can believe yours as it is very omnipresent and lurking around most universities and colleges.

Victor's avatar

Oh it’s not hard to believe at all. How many 1960s revolutionaries ended up being university faculty by the 90s and 2000s?

Utter's avatar

As Jon McWhorter has frequently pointed out, a major effect of such DEI hiring is that it casts the shadow of suspicion as to the validity of all minority group staff. This is not anti-racism, it is racism - minorities need these (often white) saviour tactics like a hole in the head. Something they'd realise if they applied a bit of, ahem, academic rigour to the matter. But they did not, perhapas because the facts just get in the way of their moral posturing, and/or grifting.

White Race Hustler's avatar

Well, luckily, once it is no longer, white people can go back to never questioning the merit/employment of black people like they used to. ;)

Utter's avatar

Hah yes, there is that! However, I think that kind of racism (the stark assumption that black people cannot be good Drs, lawyers, etc) is old and aging (if not actually dead yet); whilst the accusation/suspicion of 'only there due to positive discrimination' is younger and growing. As McWhorter and others point out, most of the problem would go away if you simply gave affirmative action on a socio-economic class basis rather than a skin colour basis. As it is, we have a system that rates for Malia and Natasha as severely disadvantaged, and Cletus and Brandi as privileged.

White Race Hustler's avatar

Sure it would go away. ;)

The biggest beneficiaries of affirmative action have been white women.

Judy Parrish's avatar

Yeah, but we still faced the same kinds of questions. I was actually glad to learn that, when I was hired at university (with tenure, by the way, which rarely happens), they'd actually offered the job to a white man first (he and I were in slightly different aspects of the same field and the faculty had been divided which direction they wanted to go). But I could confidently say I didn't get the job because I was a woman, if it had been offered to a man first. Up till then, I'd heard the whispers questioning my competence (something that died out when I was hired with tenure, by the way).

White Race Hustler's avatar

No, nowhere near the same questions historically or currently.

Of course you can confidently say that ;)

Utter's avatar

Sure of little, but it makes more sense to me.

White women have excellent PR.

publius_x's avatar

Actually, looking at AOC, it appears that PR women have even better PR.

alexsyd's avatar

Why would the problem (i.e., lack of confidence in ability) go away if you base admittance criteria on how much money the candidate has, or doesn't have?

Utter's avatar

a) It wouldn't be linked to race, which is the problem I was pointing out; also b) surely almost everyone can get on board with the idea that, eg, someone from an impoverished backround, poor schooling, who gets 70% on a test is probably at least as smart as someone from an elite background, schooling who gets 80%.

alexsyd's avatar

Thanks. Sounds like it would be linked to race since "impoverished background" and "poor schooling" means blacks and browns in a multiracial society. Especially when you, or McWhorter, then hedge on grading these groups on a different scale. You're just rephrasing the current practice of racial quotas to make it less obvious.

To give you an example, in ultra liberal Washington, DC, not only have they been grading on a racial scale (90% or better correct answers is an A for white students, 85% for brown students and 80% for blacks) but they have a lottery where a certain percent of all DC public school students can attend in Upper Caucasia, NW quadrant, if they win.

Why, you ask? Because that's where the best schools are located. Demand is the same for blacks with high income from SE quadrant, or even Maryland if they cheat. They just don't want to send their kids to black schools. It's also why more affluent white liberals send their kids to private schools.

It's like, compared to Mexico the gringos have the best roads north of the border. Have you ever noticed that all the mass migration moves in one direction?

The whole point of education should be to encourage excellence, not social engineering. The rich whites will escape the black/brown undertow regardless.

Utter's avatar

The point of elite education should be to train the best to run the country - medicine etc. One of the best ways you can do that is to look for brilliance in lower echelons - and not just in the upper classes (they alreadyhave the best teachers, tutors, elite training in etc - they do not need a louder voice or another advocate to be heard!). Black does not equal deprived - there is a huge black middle class . Deprived equals deprived. Otherwise we have a system where, eg, the Obamas kids get positive discrimination to get into Ivies (B grades), whilst 'Cleetus' from Appalachia doesn't get in, even for higher grades!

Jimmy Slim's avatar

The reason these people were willing to advocate so relentlessly for this candidate is because he's evil.

There are nuances, of course -- he's the right color, he has the right politics -- but the evil is what inspires their very real passion to go above and beyond.

ECB's avatar

Another chapter in the story of why Americans have lost faith in higher education. Doesn’t sound like anyone learned anything from this mess either.

MarrHar's avatar

Angela Davis has a chair at USC Santa Cruz.

Garry Perkins's avatar

She was an a FBI tool for decades. That was her get out of jail free card.

Lee's avatar

Believe every sentence. Trust me, this level of shenanigans occur with equal levels of self delusion and smug stabby assholery in the private sector - the chief delineator being the grotesque levels of payment for uselessness.

Will Jerome's avatar

Why not disclose the the name of the university? Such a disclosure would strengthen your credibility.

Dolores G. Morris's avatar

I wish I had trouble finding it credible.

FacultyLeaks.com's avatar

That's the thing — this university isn't unique. How many other universities have emails like these sitting on their servers right now?

Judy Parrish's avatar

Many. I agree you don't need to reveal the university because this is a near-universal story. I retired 15 years ago, before it got really insane, but the insanity was already setting in. What really bothered me was how condescending the white committee members were to minorities. This is, at best, only partly about elevating minorities. It is much more about making the white faculty members feel good about themselves. I had a conversation with a black scholar who had been derailed in his academic career by a university president who wanted to make him VP of diversity or something like that. He was still a junior faculty member so was he going to say no? Of course not. The president probably made the job sound like he could do real good for minorities, but when he got into the job, it turned out to have no power, no authority, and no funding. He was just a bauble on the administration's staff list and by the time he realized it, his academic cred had expired. I narrowly diverted a black colleague in my field from getting sucked into the same kind of decorative position. I told him in no uncertain terms that the ONLY reason the president was interested in him was because he was black and that he could make the (white) president look good. Fortunately, he heard me and has continued to make huge contributions in our science.

Richard Bicker's avatar

And get his house firebombed...

Neris's avatar

You have so many stories that seem entirely unbelievable; however, if you work as faculty at a university, you know that these stories are accurate. It's all true.

MF Gloom's avatar

This hasn't just been restricted to academia. This same scenario has been happening across the culture - in media and the arts, education and medicine, politics and the law - for at least the last 15 years. All the major institutions across the West have examples like this. These stories aren't aberrations, they are the unspoken new norm. This shouldn't be shocking to anyone paying attention.

mzlizzi's avatar

Yeah, this is all top-down stuff.

Who (or Who’s Money) is the ultimate Director is what I want to know.

Herodotus II's avatar

One terrorist was stopped, after a long struggle, from teaching our children. In this one instance. Imagine how many have gotten through. Our education system has been CAPTURED.

TwKaR's avatar

Fabricated, boomer slop.