Comment by jl6
5 days ago
> Viewpoint Diversity in Admissions and Hiring. By August 2025, the University shall commission an external party, which shall satisfy the federal government as to its competence and good faith, to audit the student body, faculty, staff, and leadership for viewpoint diversity, such that each department, field, or teaching unit must be individually viewpoint diverse.
I kind of hope they go through with this just for the comedy. If students and staff have to fill out some kind of viewpoint survey, the only rational strategy is for them to randomize their answers to minimize the chance of being in the group that gets told “sorry, we have too many of your type this year”.
I think the intent is to reduce the politically leftward trend in universities, as well as the fact that not all viewpoints are presented anymore. Universities used to be billed as a "marketplace of ideas".
Also, the hermeneutics used for interpreting literature on the fringes in the 1980s are now mainstream -- students aren't learning the methods of interpretation used everywhere in the west up until the turn of the century.
Or one can view it as the increasing intellectual vacuousness of ideas on the "right". (In quotes because the dividing line between left and right itself has shifted rightward over the years.)
As far as the "left", one need only consider the ideological rigidity around the topic of transvestites to see that specific, thoughtful, deep, data driven, and evidence based rhetoric is abandoned in favor of not hurting the feelings of a group of people prone to threaten harm to themselves for political and social gain.
Don't ever forget that the left cant clearly articulate what a woman is without resorting to circular reasoning.
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This isn’t new. Buckley is the best they could manage in the entire last century or so, and that’s… not a great high water mark.
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I don't understand why "rightward" viewpoints need affirmative action in the form of government regulations?
That's very reasonable.
Viewpoints are essentially grounded in actions, and actions are grounded in values or ways of being.
Values are acted out by individuals and groups through a relative hierarchy, and generally guide which actions are taken.
People generally consider what's true to be what works, and what works is relative to what action is being taken, and what action is being taken depends on the persons underlying values.
Because almost all of the universities' leadership has shifted far to the left side of the US political spectrum over the last 50 years, there is now a hostile environment to many right leaning values. You can argue that this was natural and that right leaning values are worse, but that would be unwise. There is good and bad in everything, and it's not helpful to over generalize. The reality is that there are both "good" and "bad" values on both sides of the political bias, but even that is probably too generalized. What makes a value good or bad is contextual. Some values are more helpful in certain situations or environments than others.
Even more important is that values don't naturally exist on one spectrum... The idea of "right" and "left" values is artificial.
So while I agree that the constriction of values being supported within universities is unhealthy like a stool that's had three legs chopped off, the idea that top down authoritarian enforcement on these organizations is the solution is somewhat terrifying.
Scary times.
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because they would otherwise fail in the "marketplace of ideas" among educated people
> not all viewpoints are presented anymore. Universities used to be billed as a "marketplace of ideas".
That's true. Universities no longer present the viewpoint that black people are inferior to whites and deserve to be slaves. They no longer present the viewpoint that human health comes from the balance of the four humours. They no longer present the viewpoint that women are the property of their fathers/husbands. They no longer present the viewpoint that nature is fundamentally made up of earth, aire, fire, and water. How dare they abandon these ideas and still call themselves a "marketplace of ideas"! Hypocrisy!
Indulging in your blatant straw man argument for a moment, what if discussing these ideas and the downsides of them to society helped the world transition away from them faster and minimized the chance of backslide?
There is nothing wrong with discussing bad ideas, especially with students that aren't familiar with them, if done responsibly, with respect for the student, and facilitation of critical thinking.
This attitude that certain topics or ideas are taboo and shouldn't ever be acknowledged or discussed because they are bad is a big part of what is increasing extremism and pushing America to the brink. It's authoritarian, and it makes the nation more fragile, not stronger.
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how dare people slander the right like this. Are you saying you can’t make a right leaning argument without government help?
The right should have pride in their selves, and build their own universities, if not their own realities!
Sounds like "The soft bigotry of low expectations" to me!
> If students and staff have to fill out some kind of viewpoint survey, the only rational strategy is for them to randomize their answers to minimize the chance of being in the group that gets told “sorry, we have too many of your type this year”.
University students love messing with surveys.
My prediction: They'd coordinate to answer according to the groups they don't belong to. Right-leaning people would claim to be on the left. Left-leaning people would claim to be on the right.
I think in practice everyone would just claim to be right. Clearly "viewpoint diversity" is code for more (if not mostly) right wing students and faculty.
> If students and staff have to fill out some kind of viewpoint survey, the only rational strategy is for them to randomize their answers to minimize the chance of being in the group that gets told “sorry, we have too many of your type this year”.
This seems obviously preferable to "Sorry, we have too many of your race."