University of Austin

[Manderleyagain]

Some people in America are trying to launch a new university. It will have a physical campus in Austin Texas.

Kathleen Stock is listed as an academic advisor. Their advisory board is very impressive.

The many gc feminists who post here who work in academia might be interested in this development.

They have published a blog on Bari Weiss Web site.
bariweiss.substack.com/p/f0ee620b-e8f7-43f0-a9b9-0caff5d76d55

It is a response to the censorious and group think prone nature of American Unis.

"Universities are the places where society does its thinking, where the habits and mores of our citizens are shaped. If these institutions are not open and pluralistic, if they chill speech and ostracize those with unpopular viewpoints, if they lead scholars to avoid entire topics out of fear, if they prioritize emotional comfort over the often-uncomfortable pursuit of truth, who will be left to model the discourse necessary to sustain liberty in a self-governing society?"

Their Web site.
www.uaustin.org/our-principles

My instinct is its too difficult a thing to pull off, but still worth watching I think.

What has gone wrong with universities (with students? With management?) such that the existence of one single person with dubious views can make the entire place feel unpleasant to work in? When I was at university (Oxbridge) in the 90s there were multiple people in senior positions with extremely unpleasant views, whether political, misogynist or homophobic, in my university. It wasn’t great but we knew there were plenty of people (probably a majority) on our side. How has one person suddenly gained the power to make a whole institution unbearable despite an increasingly large majority being on the other side to him?

Thanks for answering Obakarama. I appreciate your honesty, although I don't think that kind of protectiveness would have stood me in good stead when I went into in my first job, where I really had to stand and argue my corner.

My impression is that Kathleen Stock would have liked to have stayed in her old job had she been able to do so without intimidation. But I can understand why some people might prefer to believe otherwise.

if you have one person arguing Bell Curve ideas about the intelligence of Black people, in a university with a high proportion of BAME students, that Prof might be alienated from all colleagues, but gets bigged up by the amplifying world of social media. So people who are targeted in such rhetoric do feel alienated and wonder why he was employed and what this means in relation to the university. And some lecturers get exhausted having to spend time mopping up after him.

How has one person suddenly gained the power to make a whole institution unbearable despite an increasingly large majority being on the other side to him?
Yes I find this really strange. It could be that now that the academic can publish their personal opinions on twitter all the time, the students and staff all know that person's views and don't like them. But that alone doesn't explain the difference compared to when I was at uni either.

My impression is that Kathleen Stock would have liked to have stayed in her old job
Yes my impression too. In fact that she tried for a long time to stay, despite the open letters against her and everything. The police were clear only a week or so ago that they are investigating harrassment and have advised her on personal security. I think it's significant that it got to the level of police involvement before she actually went.

She has said it's part time and she will stay at home (her wife's expecting).

My impression is that Kathleen Stock would have liked to have stayed in her old job had she been able to do so without intimidation. But I can understand why some people might prefer to believe otherwise.

This. Especially 'prefer to believe'. The cognitive dissonance is very evident sometimes.

Pinker (one of the big name academics associated with this) wasn't just a buddy of Epstein, he even provided a defence for him in court.

Anyway it's a lot of names for a project with only one course. I imagine at most they'll just be a lot of guest lectures on the topic of their specific area of controversy.

Not sure it's a coherent way to learn stuff, but it could be an interesting primer (from one side) on battles of the culture wars.

I'll ask you the same question I asked Obakarama then StillPerplexed: Do you think this person and Kathleen Stock 'belong together'? And if yes, please could you explain how?

There's a column in the Times today on this

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/at-last-the-us-has-a-truly-liberal-university-tqvw3dgs7?shareToken=7a4138ede795958e8304b68481a863df

@Obakarama

hmmh, I think what I do is real teaching. Also all my colleagues do real teaching and real research. This is all a bit of a fiction for people to splutter over their cornflakes. Reminds me of when it was considered outrageous to study English Literature at university (province of weak minded women....) Would be useful if all the snarky liberal-conservatives were gathered in one place though. The rest of us could get on with our real research and teaching.

That's nice for you, but there are quite a lot of people, for some time, who have been finding that universities have been squeezing out what they seem to have decided is wrong-think. Tenured faculty manage, but others, less so. And there is less and less tenured faculty.

And many students are less inclined to pay incredible sums of money to try and get what they can out of it.

If the university doesn't provide a place where people can think about challenging things, they will think elsewhere. It wouldn't be the first time the best thinkers began to move outside of universities.

And honestly, if students can't cope with faculty who think things they don't like, they need to choose another place to study, and maybe a different career path.

@Floisme Stock would have liked to continue her old job, while to my knowledge Pinker still has a cushy place and isn't cancelled by the students. Disagreements about gender ontology is pretty normal for academia, while travelling on the Lolita Express to an island with some 14 year olds, not so much.

@LobsterNapkin

And honestly, if students can't cope with faculty who think things they don't like, they need to choose another place to study, and maybe a different career path.

This absolutely, however its not as simple as that to argue in real life, as I have definite limits. There is some academic ive seen on the gc Twitter who’s written a book suggesting we normalise and accept pedophilia. I haven’t read any more about it and said academic is unsurprisingly queer, but obviously my gut instinct is let’s NOT do that, and no it’s NOT ok to suggest it. Ditto anyone suggesting the Holocaust wasn’t so bad, and maybe Jews are inherently a problem race. I have zero tolerance for that and could support a hate crime charge for it. So I don’t know how to simply and eloquently articulate my stance on freedom of thought. I also haven’t put a lot of time into thinking it through, but you always have to be prepared for people to come up with these counter examples, and your philosophy to handle them.

but obviously my gut instinct is let’s NOT do that, and no it’s NOT ok to suggest it.

But there have always been academics arguing that. And I don't think they have made much headway, pedophilia is certainly much less acceptable now than it was a few decades ago. Of course we don't know the counterfactual, but I don't think the pro-pedophile academics did much damage directly with their pro-pedophile stance.

In fact now that speech taboos are becoming more stringently enforced, it's the pedophiles and paedophile-adjacent who are leveraging them to their advantage. (I don't know if there are examples of that directly in academia, but there have been countless examples of it on social media. -e.g. the LGB Alliance getting suspended on Twitter for condemning an article by a zoophile, everything that's happened to Reddit.)

And there have been many other examples in history of sexual abusers taking advantage of tabooed speech to silence their victims and get away with their abuse. It's what they do. Putting limits on free speech helps pedophiles and abusers.

So I would say of course let's not do that, and I'm not going to invite anyone who suggests it to any dinner parties and I'd probably also avoid getting in a lift with them, but it has to be okay to suggest it, because that's the price we pay for free speech.

This absolutely, however its not as simple as that to argue in real life, as I have definite limits. There is some academic ive seen on the gc Twitter who’s written a book suggesting we normalise and accept pedophilia. I haven’t read any more about it and said academic is unsurprisingly queer, but obviously my gut instinct is let’s NOT do that, and no it’s NOT ok to suggest it. Ditto anyone suggesting the Holocaust wasn’t so bad, and maybe Jews are inherently a problem race. I have zero tolerance for that and could support a hate crime charge for it.
So I don’t know how to simply and eloquently articulate my stance on freedom of thought. I also haven’t put a lot of time into thinking it through, but you always have to be prepared for people to come up with these counter examples, and your philosophy to handle them.

Honestly, I don't understand this perspective. If these ideas are bad, then discussing them won't make them better. If they are compelling and bad, barring from the university is not a solution.

There are academics in philosophy who have argued that abortion rights ought to be extended to include infants up to three months of age. They make a case for this that I don't find at all compelling, but which is quite interesting in a number of ways. And maybe that was their point.

There are not viewpoints that we all just know, without any need to think about it, are wrong. The university is meant to be a protected space, not for students who might get their feelings hurt, but for the most crazy, radical, surprising, offensive, unlikely, profound ideas to be discussed, if those are the ideas that people are having. And if they are compelling that will become clear, no matter how they offend our little god and work against our biases and assumptions, and if not, we can all see it.

There is a kind of deep humility in this as a human exercise, because it says that we may be wrong about the things we hold most dear, and we much subject those things to scrutiny. Whether questions about the Holocaust, or infanticide, whether it's ok to have sex with children, the nature of God, whatever.

Currently waiting to board a flight to Austin - it's the wokest place in Texas! Interesting news. Right on!

If it goes ahead I wonder how the students will react when they find out who Ms Stock is.

@MargaritaPie

If it goes ahead I wonder how the students will react when they find out who Ms Stock is.

Probably a lot will be delighted. And delighted to have the freedom to say so.

@MargaritaPie

If it goes ahead I wonder how the students will react when they find out who Ms Stock is.

She's not Vlad the fucking Impaler.

Honestly the monstering of an ordinary, polite and rational lesbian woman is utterly ridiculous and reprehensible.

@MargaritaPie

If it goes ahead I wonder how the students will react when they find out who Ms Stock is.

Who is she, Margarita?

And how, specifically and rationally, is she arguably MORE of a danger or impediment or threat to students - keep in mind, some of those will be ACTUAL women and same sex attracted people and trans people and other marginalised and oppressed groups - than, let's say, YOU? (Just as a common point of comparison for everyone reading this thread/board and familiar with both of your ouvres, of course! )

You're sensible to be skeptical when the story looks just a bit too good Mummyford but in this case it's a real story:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10173131/Oxford-accepts-12m-gifts-Max-Mosley-trust-inheritance-fascist-father.html

Reminds me of when it was considered outrageous to study English Literature at university (province of weak minded women....)

Eh? When was that?

In the 1920s when FR Leavis came along

@Obakarama

In the 1920s when FR Leavis came along

So entirely irrelevant to the points being discussed.

God, @KimikosNightmare, you are a pain. Ok, let me put it simply for you. I am drawing a historical parallel. 'Ooh, all this critical theory is just rubbish, shouldn't be taught in university, is stuffed full of wrong headed and dangerous ideas'. That was said about Eng Lit back in the day. Things shift and become accepted. My gambit, us that the focus on CT and CRT and all that as poisoning the minds of the nation and part of a new Nazi mind think - an idea pushed incidentally by the fascist Right with its coinage Cultural Marxism - will be replaced by some other bugbear once the peabrains get bored. It is just the latest think to get worked up about by those who don't really get it. Did you see Marc Thiessen ridiculous mangling of Kant? This is where the impetus to tear down places comes from and it is ignorant.
Anyhow I find it hilarious that, in a discussion of a new college whose professed aim is free speech and exploring things from all sides, my historical parallel is slammed as irrelevant blah blah blah. Wonder what you'd be like in the seminar room! 'No can't say that, can't say that...it happened yesterday, not today.....'