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January 17, 2005

excommunicating Dr. Rice - another kind of 'racism'

Do you have a child that will soon enter college? Have you wondered at how much truth there is about the insularity of the community, their religious tenets and how they treat apostates? Then here is a must read from Jim Lundgren following up on Eugene Volokh's post in regards to a "newly minted Political Science Ph.D." who sneers:

I don't think there is a tent big enough to hold me and one of the chief architects of the present war in Iraq [Condoleezza Rice]. And I have to wonder about our collective pretensions to positive social science when someone can hold onto her political science credentials while acting as one of the most persistent defenders of that "weapons of mass destruction" trope.

So I've been thinking: shouldn't political science have its equivalent to disbarment or excommunication? After all, if we want the term "political scientist" to mean something, then a doctorate shouldn't be a one-way ticket. When political scientists promulgate ideas or institute policies that violate even the most generous interpretations of our collective wisdom, they are not only disregarding their own academic training, but devaluing the intellectual authority and standards of our field. So shouldn't there be some threshold — it can be a generous one — beyond which one loses the right to practice political science?

No, that is not parody. I wish it were because the self-important writer, Ms. Samuel, flush with the credentials of her own :::ahem::: superiority, will more than likely soon be teaching ... maybe at a university your children will attend. If your child decides to write a paper that disagrees with "the most generous interpretations of our collective wisdom", would you be surprised that Ms. Samuel will probably flunk him or her? Campaign amongst other professors to ride your child out of the university on a rail? Many parents will counsel their child to just lay low and get a grade ... and with such seemingly classroom "consensus" in agreement with Ms. Samuel's anointed "collective wisdom", she, like many other clearly superior beings, will feel free to continue in the cacoon of academia forever sneering at the drooling masses who disagree with their revealed wisdom.

As my youngest daughter, the most political of my four, is now contemplating which college to attend (she's already received her acceptance at ASU, she awaits a few more before deciding). She is well aware of teachers With An Agenda. At the high school level where there is a limited number of students and said students have direct access to teachers, counselors and administrative staff, Siobhan felt secure in challenging teachers in the classroom knowing that any "revenge" on her could easily be taken handled by merely walking into the admin offices and talking with the staff. However, in a university setting with thousands of students and a staff of allied admins and professors will be quite different.

What with the now decades-old trend in universities that demand diversity of melanin content but absolute conformity in thought (and as such, can we not say Ms. Samuel embodies all the classic traits of a racist, only where it applies to thought?), then there should be little surprise at rise of projects like Evan Coyne Maloney's followup to his film Brainwashing 101.

Each college student who finds themselves in a classroom headed by a professor such as Ms. Samuel will have to make some moral decisions. The minimal advice I'd offer is tape record everything.

Posted by Darleen at January 17, 2005 08:26 AM

Comments

As I had said about this... she has totally misunderstood what "science" means. Granted I hate the fact that political sciense uses the term science in the first place.

She also apparently responded to some of her critics.

Posted by: Nick at January 17, 2005 12:40 PM

- As Irony is often lost on the "Intelligentia" elitist left, Mz. Samuel would no doubt overlook the fact that, by her own guidelines, she'd be the first to be "branded" a non-academic zeolot, and therefore betraying her own educational credentials....but then what else is new....

Posted by: Big Bang Hunter at January 17, 2005 01:15 PM