Cont: Cancel culture IRL Part 2

d4m10n said:
In part because this wasn't a single point of failure event. Academic culture has largely bought into the idea that we should go straight to sacking people when they make a bad decision (especially ones involving allegations of _____phobia or _____ism) instead of taking a less vengeful and more restorative approach.
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How do you know this was the only bad decision that she made? What information do you have about her overall job performance? If anything, doesn’t her doubling and tripling down on her bad decision at least exacerbate it, if not constitute additional bad decisions?

Certainly they have the former.
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What not the latter?
 
johnny karate said:
How do you know this was the only bad decision that she made?
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Feel free to ask me about the decisions she has made publicly, but don't expect me to know about the other stuff.

johnny karate said:
What information do you have about her overall job performance?
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See above.

johnny karate said:
If anything, doesn’t her doubling and tripling down on her bad decision at least exacerbate it, if not constitute additional bad decisions?
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Help me out here. Where did she triple down?
 
d4m10n said:
So confidently that I bothered to mention the possibility of "good reasons which have yet to come to light," yeah?
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To be clear: I’m referring to the university president who hasn’t actually been fired, but has been asked to resign by the faculty. Sorry for confusing that and misstating it.

Assuming we’re on the same page, do you think the faculty asking for her resignation is justified or not?
 
d4m10n said:
Administrators make decisions which cause more harm than good on a weekly basis. This one made a bad call when pressured to do so by people who sincerely believe it is more important to show respect for Islam than to uphold the foundational values of academic freedom. She should be given the chance to make better calls, assuming she understands what she got wrong.
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d4m10n said:
I doubt it. Did they give any reasons beyond this one bad call which negatively impacts academic freedom?
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You understand that "academic freedom" is a not a law or some compulsory set of values that everyone in the world has to respect, agree with and adhere to, right?

Academic freedom is nothing more that an informal agreement among academics that they ought to have the freedom to say what they please, when they please and offend anyone they choose to without consequence or rebuke. That might have worked 50-100 years ago when no-one complained if a professor offended blacks, or Christians or Muslims or a member of some religious organization. The world has moved on since then, and too many of these academics have misused and abused the freedoms granted to them by their peers by making vile and objectionable comments directed to and about others (Boghossian, Adams, Negy, Staddon etc)

I see absolutely no reason why some adjunct professor should not be subject to the same constraints and rules regarding their conduct as everyone else. Academics do not deserve, nor should they be entitled to, some special status that makes them immune from the consequences of their behaviour!

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"When we invoke academic freedom as a way of defending our own peccadillos, we render universities into petty fiefdoms and academic freedom into a bludgeon."
- Shannon Dea (Dean of Arts and a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Regina).
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smartcooky said:
I see absolutely no reason why some adjunct professor should not be subject to the same constraints and rules regarding their conduct as everyone else. Academics do not deserve, nor should they be entitled to, some special status that makes them immune from the consequences of their behaviour!
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Should those constraints include avoiding visual depictions of religious founders, in your view? How about other religious taboos, such as the Hebrew taboo on pronouncing God's name aloud? Ought professors in secular institutions feel bound by the religious taboos of every student on campus (e.g. the evangelical taboo against teaching Darwinism) or just a select few?
 
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d4m10n said:
I doubt it. Did they give any reasons beyond this one bad call which negatively impacts academic freedom?
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Hamline is a private university. What makes you think that you’re entitled to information like this from a private institution?
 
d4m10n said:
Should those constraints include avoiding visual depictions of religious founders, in your view? How about other religious taboos, such as the Hebrew taboo on pronouncing God's name aloud? Ought professors in secular institutions feel bound by the religious taboos of every student on campus (e.g. the evangelical taboo against teaching Darwinism) or just a select few?
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Shouldn’t private universities be allowed to make these decisions for themselves?
 
johnny karate said:
Shouldn’t private universities be allowed to make these decisions for themselves?
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Shouldn't private universities be expected to live up to their stated principles?

Hamline University is dedicated to intellectual inquiry in its full depth, breadth, abundance, and diversity. It is committed to academic freedom and celebrates free expression for everyone. The University embraces the examination of all ideas, some of which will potentially be unpopular and unsettling, as an integral and robust component of intellectual inquiry. It is expected that the expression of ideas will be done in ways that are respectful of others and which do not include personal vilification based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, sexual identity, appearance, disability or political affiliation. Hamline University encourages all, whether it be on campus or off, to foster a respectful, and inclusive community defined by a concern for the common good, by developing relationships and through a culture that promotes the rights, safety, dignity, and value of every individual. A university community embracing these common values, consisting of students, faculty, staff, the Board of Trustees, and external constituents, is vital to the pursuit of excellence in research, scholarship, and creative activity.
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A while ago I watched a documentary about this old timey Italian guy who used a telescope to prove the Earth actually revolved around the sun. This upset some sort of inquisition who found that idea contrary to and offensive against their belief system that the Earth was the center of all things to they heavily censored him.

If we take one of the names of the list posted in post 2747, John Stoddard, we can see the same sort of anti science parallel at play here. A minor cancellation for sure, like getting banned from Reddit for wrongthink but a case of wanting something that's true to not be true.

IIRC, the church didn't admit that they were the ones doing the anti-science wrongthink until several hundred years later.
 
d4m10n said:
Should those constraints include avoiding visual depictions of religious founders, in your view? How about other religious taboos, such as the Hebrew taboo on pronouncing God's name aloud? Ought professors in secular institutions feel bound by the religious taboos of every student on campus (e.g. the evangelical taboo against teaching Darwinism) or just a select few?
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I think the professor in question should have been more mindful of her classroom demographic. Dr. Erika López Prater is an Art History professor whose specialization is Islamic and Middle-Eastern art. It is beyond any question that she would have known a depiction of Mohammad would have been offensive to any Muslims present in her class.

What would I have done in her situation? BEFORE showing the artwork in question, I would have made it clear that I was about to do so, and offered anyone who thought they might be offended for religious or other reasons to leave. I would have required the whole class to sign a disclaimer acknowledging their choice to remain, and signing away their right to complain about the showing of the piece later.

As for her firing, and the firing of the person who fired her? Not my problem.
What some University does with its staff is up to them. I don't care one way or the other.
 
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smartcooky said:
I think the professor in question should have been more mindful of her classroom demographic. Dr. Erika López Prater is an Art History professor whose specialization is Islamic and Middle-Eastern art. It is beyond any question that she would have known a depiction of Mohammad would have been offensive to any Muslims present in her class.
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Any Muslims?

smartcooky said:
BEFORE showing the artwork in question, I would have made it clear that I was about to do so, and offered anyone who thought they might be offended for religious or other reasons to leave.
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According to the NYT:
In the syllabus, she warned that images of holy figures, including the Prophet Muhammad and the Buddha, would be shown in the course.
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In class, she prepped students, telling them that in a few minutes, the painting would be displayed, in case anyone wanted to leave.
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You might want to read the rest of that article to get the relevant background, and then tell us why Prater deserved to be sacked.
 
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d4m10n said:
Any Muslims?
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And?

d4m10n said:
According to the NYT:
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Not enough.

What part of "I would have required the whole class to sign a disclaimer acknowledging their choice to remain, and signing away their right to complain about the showing of the piece later." are you failing to grasp?

(I notice you snipped that part out in your reply, because, well, of course you did, as you always do when people's replies don't fit your narrative, or aren't what you expected/predicted.)

d4m10n said:
You might want to read the rest of that article to get the relevant background, and then tell us why Prater deserved to be sacked.
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I did, and careful you don't set light to all that straw... I never said she should be sacked - and I don't think she should have been.

You asked for my view and I gave it to you... if you don't like it, or my view chap's your arse, that's just tough biscuit!!
 
smartcooky said:
I never said she should be sacked - and I don't think she should have been.
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This does not grok with your earlier comment that you don’t care one way or the other. Yet here you say she she shouldn’t have been. Don’t you realise that it’s extremely difficult to debate with you when you hold contradictory opinions?
 
lionking said:
This does not grok with your earlier comment that you don’t care one way or the other. Yet here you say she she shouldn’t have been. Don’t you realise that it’s extremely difficult to debate with you when you hold contradictory opinions?
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Don’t you realise that it’s extremely difficult to debate with you when you don't understand something as fundamental as the fact that it is possible to have an opinion about something without actually caring about it? The two are not mutually exclusive!

Just because I don't care one way or the other does not mean that I cannot be of the OPINION that Lopez-Prater should not have been sacked

See what I did there? Likely not... :rolleyes:
 
smartcooky said:
Don’t you realise that it’s extremely difficult to debate with you when you don't understand something as fundamental as the fact that it is possible to have an opinion about something without actually caring about it? The two are not mutually exclusive!

Just because I don't care one way or the other does not mean that I cannot be of the OPINION that Lopez-Prater should not have been sacked

See what I did there? Likely not... :rolleyes:
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Oh for goodness sake, if you don’t care one way or another, how on earth can you even have an opinion? You must live in Humpty Dumpty land.
 
I can have the opinion that chips are better than crisps and still not care which I get with my sandwich.
 
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