If this quote is indeed representative, an account that bothsides Trump's sustained disinformation with universities responding to social justice concerns seems like it tells us something about our current world, but maybe not the lesson we need to learn.
One reason I get cranky about tales about declining standards at universities is that it just does not fit with my lived experience of two decades teaching students. By any reasonable standard the rigor of strong social science research has improve since when I started.
Since I'm feeling cranky, two other objections to the impression created by the quote highlighted above. First, there is no necessary tradeoff between rigor in research and attention to issues of inequality. I will immodestly point to an example of my own.
Second, the idea that students on the left are the biggest threat to free speech and research integrity ignores the influence of public funders of campus. State legislators were a much bigger threat when I worked at a state institution.
nytimes.com/2017/01/09/opi…
The trope of SJW students attacking research integrity ignores an entire media ecosystem on the right that is designed to attack faculty for not aligning with their political views (which @HdxAcademy has allowed me to write about).
heterodoxacademy.org/blog/academic-…
Again, I don't want to be unfair, I have not read the book, just what Jon posted, but I am tired of universities being incorrectly blamed for everything, since it is reinforcing a bias against intellectualism, expertise and evidence in this country. Which has consequences.
If someone wants to make the case about declining standards at universities, I challenge them to do it in front of the army of PhDs struggling to get a job who know that their research record would have landed them an R1 gig when the person lecturing them graduated.

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More from @donmoyn

11 Jan
Thread: I'd argue that its not just that defaults matter, but that they matter more in situations of choice overload where the choices are enormously complex. Medicare is just extraordinarily complex to navigate.
Nudges work when people need information or to direct attention. That is not the problem here. It is that people cannot manage the learning costs. They need help, not a nudge. Other options: fewer choices, or use AI to create better matches
Making bad decisions more costly does not help people when they are overwhelmed by the volume of information that they are being asked to process, and don't understand the outcomes.
Read 4 tweets
10 Jan
All the evidence needed for impeachment is already out there washingtonpost.com/nation/interac…
Read this: the head of the executive branch directed a mob to attack the legislative branch to prevent them from certifying an election. There is no way to just move past this without accountability. washingtonpost.com/politics/insid…
The mob the President directed to the Capitol were shouting "Hang Mike Pence" and "Where's Nancy?" In other words, they were targeting the next two officials in the presidential line of succession.
Officials were calling anyone who could help as they feared for their lives.
Read 5 tweets
8 Jan
The US is in a dark moment, requiring serious people who can recognize real problems. People like Scott Walker helped to get us here: a divider who has undermined democracy.
Fortunately, some of us were there in 2011 and can set the record straight. Thread.
The WI protests featured 100,000 people. They were angry that Walker went after public sector unions with no warning. They protested peacefully. But to Walker, that is the same as a violent assault by an armed mob on the Capitol (below). ImageImage
The WI protests were remarkably peaceful, so much so that a prank caller to Walker pretending to be a Koch brother suggested that Walker plant some troublemakers in the crowd. "We thought about that" said Walker, who would later compare the peaceful protestors to ISIS. Image
Read 11 tweets
7 Jan
Appreciate the sentiments calling for discourse here from the President of Wesleyan. But perhaps the most concrete signal that people in his position could take is to pledge not to host and normalize political figures on record of opposing US democracy.
Like this guy, who led the efforts to strip electors in the House yesterday based on a lie that the election was fraudulent and who is now justifying the actions of the insurrectionists based on the same lie.
To be clear, this is likely a bad idea, since it is always risky to put criteria on what is acceptable speech. But I want to draw out the idea a little bit, if only to illustrate some points about campus speech
Read 11 tweets
7 Jan
John Hawley complaining that people in Pennsylvania were allowed to vote by mail, a law passed by the PA legislature and accepted by the Senate.
Romney giving him dagger eyes.
Senator Casey from PA up next. Notes that the law to allow vote-by-mail was approved by Republicans and no-one suggested it was unconstitutional until Trump lost. Characterizes the type of claims that Hawley ( tho not mentioning him by name) made as lies that drove the mob today.
Romney: "Today was heartbreaking and I was shaken to the core...We gather due to a selfish man's injured pride...What happened here today was an insurrection incited by the President of the United States." Those who support him are "complicit...that will be their legacy."
Read 4 tweets
6 Jan
Think it is safe to say that very few of us, even those of us who warned about the dangers of Trumpism, expected to see images like this in our lifetime. The damage to US democracy is profound. Image
US strength depends in no small part on our (imperfect) willingness to defend democratic ideals. The storming of the US Capitol will be cheered by the enemies of democracy, who will use it to reinforce authoritarian control over their people.
The desecration of the US Capitol feels so shocking that maybe it will cause some to wake up.
The reality is that there is a large anti-democratic faction in America. They have made clear that you are with them or against them, so make a choice. nytimes.com/live/2021/01/0… ImageImageImageImage
Read 4 tweets

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