What’s The Opposite Of Diversity?

16 Replies to “What’s The Opposite Of Diversity?”

1. It’s a step in the right direction, but better would be if the entire system was torn down and rebuilt from scratch. If nothing else, it would get rid of that abomination known as tenure.

   1. Normally I would agree with you about tenure. This year however, things are weird, and I am happy that Dr. Byram Bridle has tenure at the University of Guelph. He is covid recovered and has publicly stated he will not be getting vaccinated. So he has been banned from the campus for the year. If I were not for tenure, I am sure he would be on unpaid leave as is Dr. Julie Ponesse from Huron University college.

      1. Tenure, unfortunately, protects the lazy, corrupt, and incompetent. Firing them can a long, messy process.

         I saw that first-hand as a grad student and that changed my mind about the sanctity of academe.

         1. I also saw my share of useless and less than useless tenured academics at U of C and UBC. Imho Dr. Bridle is an exception. Sorry if I was not clear about that in my previous post.

            1. As I mentioned earlier, tenure is a safe haven for the lazy, corrupt, and incompetent. If the institution wants to get rid of him, it’ll find a way quickly and easily enough, even if it has to invent the evidence.

               I saw that while I was teaching at Armpit College.

         2. BA …. add “batshit crazy” and “vindictive” to your tenure list.
            Most of my profs were excellent and had your best interests in mind but that was in the mid to late 1970’s and I’m sure it is much different now.
            I stopped donating to my uni ( U of Ottawa) when they went full retard for GLO-BULL warming.

            1. Most of my profs were excellent and had your best interests in mind but that was in the mid to late 1970’s

               Same here. Once I started grad studies, though, I saw that things weren’t what I was led to believe.

   2. All universities should be private; there is no compelling state interest in providing higher education, even a classical liberal one. But that’s not going to happen, even in states like South Dakota. The best we can hope for is that small private colleges reject the insanity and try to provide a better quality product.

      Unfortunately I’m skeptical this will prove a viable project. Not every university/college in the US is a haven for bedlamites; there are a lot of trade/vocational colleges that do a solid job providing a real education to the working class who need it the most. Unfortunately even those are closing due to financial pressures, as the Legal Insurrection blog has been chronicling.

      I tend to think that there’s a glut of colleges/universities, being propped up by free government money. A huge number of those institutions are providing technical or vocational training that really ought to be provided by employers who have outsourced that responsibility – or at best technical training institutes. Universities ought to be private institutions offering a classical liberal education to those who want it for enlightenment. The various other things universities do now don’t belong in a university.

   3. But some universities seem to avoid the tenure problem. Look at the natural science faculty of Stanford and MIT for example. They have remained world beating in many many disciplines.

      1. Tenure was originally established to protect those academics whose research may have been considered unconventional, often bringing into question the established orthodoxy of the discipline in question. Often, those academics were eventually proven right, partly because they were able to continue their investigations and find sufficient results to support their theories.

         Unfortunately, it’s become, as I sometime put it here on SDA, the golden hog trough, a job for life, which often encourages certain academics to retire while on the job. My own Ph. D. supervisor was an example of that, though he may have been a clever researcher earlier in his career.

         1. My point is universities are not always golden hog troughs, and there is a specific reason for that, which can undoubtedly be applied to all universities to avoid the ght problem.

            1. I’ve seen my share of professors who work hard to get their seat at the golden hog trough of tenure. Once they get it, they sit back and quietly go to seed. They’re like the Dilbert character Wally. They’re shameless about it and, worse, they know they can get away with it.

               The good professors don’t need tenure.

2. Bravo!

   Here in Alberta we are still trying to stop forced vaccination and keep personal medical information private. Dr. Ed McCauley the President and Vice-Chancellor @ University of Calgary was recently sent a letter regarding the illegal nature of covid policies.

   The introductory paragraph: they, refers to students, staff and faculty.
   “Under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FOIP), they are under no legal obligation to disclose to you private protected medical information. Any demand that anyone disclose their vaccination status constitutes an unlawful request for information under the terms of the FOIP and accordingly requires no response.”

3. “ There are students who demand it, along with even greater restrictions on academic freedom.”

   I sincerely hope the response to anyone looking to attend this institution will be that they are free to pursue their version of academic learning at one of the many institutions offering that kind of academia.
   Or in the vernacular the proper response to such requests will be

   Fill yer boots sunshine

4. I’m glad to see Ayaan Hirsi Ali on the faculty list.

5. I hope this works. I just skimmed the material so I may have overlooked this. Will this institution be online? If it has an online component, I think it could succeed.