The University of Pennsylvania has long been criticized as a one of the “least diverse” institutions of higher education in the country — not in matters of race or ethnicity, but in the viewpoints of its faculty. Recently, however, there was talk about mandating “viewpoint diversity” at the school, and that prospect, according to the student newspaper, led to panic among the faculty.
More on the frightening prospect of having more conservatives on the faculty can be found here:
The Daily Pennsylvanian student newspaper this week ran a story on how some faculty members are panicked at what they consider an existential threat to the safety and future of the institution. No, it is not another pandemic or a wave of terrorism. It is being forced to accept “viewpoint diversity.” The very prospect of hiring faculty with opposing views has led at least one professor to pledge to retire rather than teach in a diverse intellectual environment.
Pennsylvania has been regularly criticized as one of the least diverse institutions in the country and one of the most anti-free speech environments. It is ranked at the very bottom of colleges and universities on free speech protection in the annual survey by FIRE [Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression].
We have discussed the intolerance at Penn for years. Professors who have even allowed students to discuss issues like transgender status have been attacked for allowing diverse opinions to be heard in class.
Even questioning anti-racism statements are enough to trigger cancel campaigns and calls for termination at the school.
Conversely, it is a school where faculty are lionized for radical statements on the left, even racist language like calling Dr. Ben Carson a “coon.” [Carson is a conservative Republican]The same professor, Dr. Anthea Butler, claimed that police held back rescuing children in Uvalde, Texas out of racism and declared that evangelical Christians are white racists who “may end up killing us all.” The MSNBC commentator was given a prestigious academic chair. She is also the chair of the department of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. If a conservative were to espouse the countervailing views, the reaction on campus would be swift and predictable.
Penn has been long maintained such orthodoxy by purging faculties of conservatives and showing little tolerance for dissenting views.
Now faculty are raising the alarm that they could be forced to teach on a campus with conservative faculty. History and sociology Professor Harun Küçük went on to warn that there could be pressure to hire academics with opposing viewpoints. Such diversity, in his view, is nothing short of “a hostile Republican takeover of a distressed institution. He explained that the “viewpoint diversity” question is “a code word for Republican hires” and that initiatives to protect free speech are nothing other than an effort to “re-engineer the University.”…
The very idea that conservatives deserve greater representation on the UPenn faculty, given that only a handful are now on the campus (likely even a smaller percentage than the 2.5% of Harvard faculty who describe themselves as “conservative”), has panicked the existing faculty at UPenn, who are outraged that they should be expected to hire those whose views they so dislike. Trustees and donors, exercising the power of the withheld purse, may yet bring about the diversification of viewpoints that the faculty at UPenn have so far successfully avoided. Wish them well.
Bull Herman says
The DumboCrap modern KKK’ers wouldn’t have it any other way.
Marxist indoctrination is the only way for them.
From slavery to abortion to censorship to energy control to prevent freedom of movement to attempts at gun confiscation to encouragement for the elderly and disabled to self suicide to instructions for US to eat bugs to ceding our rights to WHO and UN to appeasing Islamists to anti Semitism to climate change hoax.
Wellington says
There are eight and only eight Ivy League Schools—Penn, Harvard, Yale, Brown, Dartmouth, Columbia, Cornell and Princeton. They are presently competing to see which of the eight can be the most morally stupid and objectionable overall. Reasonable minds can disagree which one is, to date, the “winner” here but Penn is definitely giving the other seven a run for their money.
Responsible parents should not send their children to any of the now “pathetic eight” listed above. Doing so is arguably a form of child abuse—as well as “being taken to the cleaners.”
Yes, there was a time when the eight Ivy League schools led the road to a greater America by way of superb higher education. But, sadly, those days are long gone. They may come back (don’t count on it), but for now the Ivy League is significant evidence of how the Left destroys everything it gets its hands on, including decimating alternative points of view because the Left is so very much rooted in totalitarian thinking.
As at Penn. What a waste. But then the Left and waste are tied at the hip. A given.
James Lincoln says
Wellington says,
“Responsible parents should not send their children to any of the now “pathetic eight” listed above. Doing so is arguably a form of child abuse—as well as “being taken to the cleaners.”
100% true.
Parents paying mighty big bucks to have their children “fundamentally transformed” into Leftist / Marxist / Globalist / Anti-Semite / snowflakes.
OLD GUY says
I wonder how much foreign money is in their endowment fund, and who really controls the narrative of their Administrations.
Seems like there is an awful lot of anti-America taught in our schools now days. Who could be paying for that?
arthur facteau says
Good, seems to me like a good idea if they want to quit. Let them quit. Hire the conservatives, and let the Liberal/Marxists quit, which will be a big help. Seems like a good deal all around
RalphG says
My wife and I are UCLA retirees and we would not donate a dime to that far-left bastion of closed mind thinking.
Our estate will go to Hillsdale College, which encourages the truth by demanding full and diverse discussion of all subjects. Hillsdale students are taught to THINK, not to memorize pre-determined dogma.
James Lincoln says
RalphG,
Very smart choice re: not donating to UCLA.
I have also heard that Hillsdale College does not accept any type of government funding: federal or state.