A Social Psychology Hoax? (Or Is Social Psychology Itself A Hoax?)
[NOTE: THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED!] Remember the wonderful Alan Sokal hoax on the ponderously pontificating journal, Social Text? As the New York Times reported in May 1996, A New York University physicist, fed up with what he sees as the excesses of the academic left, hoodwinked a well-known journal into publishing a parody thick […]
The Lilly Ledbetter Chickens Come Home To Roost
Lilly Ledbetter still lives! Not the actual human person Lilly Ledbetter (although she too still lives), but the ostensible victim of pay discrimination who became the symbol of all things good and virtuous about the victorious Democrats in 2008 when, in 2009, the first bill President Obama signed into law was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair […]
Libya’s WMDs
In his speech tonight President Obush argued that his intervention in Libya was justified because “Qaddafi declared he would show ‘no mercy’ to his own people. He compared them to rats, and threatened to go door to door to inflict punishment.” In other words, we went to war in response to Qaddafi’s WMDs, his Words […]
Why Can’t A (Princeton) Woman Be More Like A Man?
I bet Lerner and Loewe never considered that the president of Princeton and the former president of Wellesley and Duke would turn out to sing the same tune as Prof. Henry Higgins. To see why they should have, see my Why Can’t a Princeton Woman Be More Like a Princeton Man? on Minding The Campus.
“Diversity” As Tribalism II
About two weeks ago I criticized a letter in the Chronicle of Higher Education from David Dixon, a Stanford graduate student. Dixon, who identifies himself as “an active member of the Choctaw Nation,” pointed out that in order to receive preferential treatment Native Americans must prove that they “maintain tribal affiliation or community attachment” and […]
Natural Selection?
In my last post I invited (well, maybe urged) you to take a look at my discussion on Minding The Campus of yet Another Report on MIT’s Female Faculty by Its Female Faculty. Shortly after that report appeared two new studies appeared of “the anemic underrepresentation on higher education faculties of another marginalized group, political […]
More On Women At MIT…
I have another discussion of women in science on Minding The Campus this afternoon. (If I keep writing about that topic enough, I may become an “expert” on it at some point.) If you’re interested, see Another Report on MIT’s Female Faculty by Its Female Faculty.
Anti-Racism, Anti-Anti Racism, And Liberal White Guilt
On his terrific blog, Legal Insurrection, Cornell law professor William Jacobson has a perceptive and instructive discussion (Saturday Night Card Game [“I didn’t call you racist, I just pointed out you’re white”]) of a revealing blog-based “spitting match” between Aaron Worthing of Pontifications and Matthew Yglesias of Think Progress over whether Yglesias argues, believes, writes, […]
Three Cheers For Obama’s Restraint!
It’s been a very long time since I’ve had anything unreservedly positive to say about Barack Obama — 6 years, 7 months, and 18 days to be exact (but who’s counting?). Yes, it’s true. 2,424 days ago, on July 28, 2004, I praised Sen. Obama’s keynote address to the Democratic Convention in which he declared […]
Beyond Anti-Affirmative Action Bake Sales
Reader Rick Palmer sends an interesting suggestion for how those opposed to racial preferences on college campuses can move beyond bake sales to highlight their opposition: I have read about bake sales on various campuses, where the prices are determined by the customer’s race or ethnicity. I do not believe this is an effective strategy […]
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