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Professor: Intellectual Rigor Is Racist

The exciting antiracist pedagogy of Williams College paleontologist Phoebe Cohen
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Phoebe Cohen, a paleontologist at Williams College, is featured in this story in The New York Times, about the scandal over MIT cancelling a prestigious science lecture by climate scientist Dorian Abbot, because Abbot had co-authored an op-ed criticizing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies. Behold, this passage:

Phoebe A. Cohen is a geosciences professor and department chair at Williams College and one of many who expressed anger on Twitter at M.I.T.’s decision to invite Dr. Abbot to speak, given that he has spoken against affirmative action in the past.

Dr. Cohen agreed that Dr. Abbot’s views reflect a broad current in American society. Ideally, she said, a university should not invite speakers who do not share its values on diversity and affirmative action. Nor was she enamored of M.I.T.’s offer to let him speak at a later date to the M.I.T. professors. “Honestly, I don’t know that I agree with that choice,” she said. “To me, the professional consequences are extremely minimal.”

What, she was asked, of the effect on academic debate? Should the academy serve as a bastion of unfettered speech?

“This idea of intellectual debate and rigor as the pinnacle of intellectualism comes from a world in which white men dominated,” she replied.

::::::chin drops to chest::::::

“This idea of intellectual debate and rigor as the pinnacle of intellectualism comes from a world in which white men dominated.”

An actual college professor said those words. And you wonder why this country is decaying. Look who leads our institutions. If I were the president of Williams College, and one of my professors said something so utterly disqualifying to The New York Times, I would have her butt in my office first thing the next morning to explain how denouncing “intellectual debate and rigor” as racist influences her pedagogy.

Of course Prof. Cohen will not be called to account by the president of Williams College, because the president of Williams College doesn’t give a rat’s rear end. Neither do the Board of Trustees of Williams College. Neither would the presidents or trustees of just about any college in America. None of the parents paying $59,350 in yearly tuition to Williams College will phone the president demanding to know why they are sending their kid to a college that charges that much money but employs professors who think rigorous intellectual debate is racist. No parent at just about any college would. Because we are a country where giving a rat’s rear end either does you no good or even becomes a liability.

Meanwhile:

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