Weekly Roundup
Reading List
The Ideological Takeover of the Church I loved
For FAIR’s Substack, Dr. Kate Rhoads writes about how the Unitarian Universalist Church lost its way.
At its best, the Unitarian Universalist Church was a place where people explored ideas and spirituality, and started innovative projects for their communities. There was joy in the exploration and debate. Thinking outside the box was welcomed. These are the kinds of communities I spent my life building. The major reason people became Unitarian Universalists was for the freedom to be unorthodox in their opinions and spiritual quest. Now the leadership of the UUA and its ministry are filled with people who never truly loved the Unitarian Universalist Church or subscribed to the deepest principles of the faith.
Book Review: The Soul of Civility
For FAIR’s Substack, Julian Adorney writes a review of Alexandra Hudson's new book and how it tells us how civility could be the key to saving liberal democracy.
Cancel culture (across the political spectrum) is replacing coming together in a spirit of mutual connection and truth-seeking with walking on eggshells for fear of betraying our tribe. And we are often terrified of betraying our tribe at least in part because we are so scared of what will happen if the other side wins. According to a 2020 Pew survey, an astounding 90 percent of voters across the political spectrum feared that a victory by the other side would lead to "lasting harm" for the United States.
Yet all of us recognize on some level that our culture of incivility isn't working. Even if our tribe “wins” this culture war, many of us understand that it will be a pyrrhic victory, for we will lose the best parts of our culture in the process. We will be sacrificing love for vengeance and beauty for destruction.
Why Antisemitism Sprouted So Quickly on Campus
For his Substack After Babel, FAIR advisor Jonathan Haidt writes about why antisemitism has spread so rapidly on college campuses.
Why is Gen Z so tolerant of hate speech and verbal harassment of Jews, when it shows the lowest tolerance for such speech against other groups? The next three items show that the oppressor/victim mindset and common enemy identity politics are at work, but only for Gen Z. One item asked “Do you think that identity politics based on race has come to dominate at our elite universities, or do they operate primarily on the basis of merit and accomplishments without regard to race?” (p. 55). All generations agree that identity politics based on race is now dominant, but Gen Z, which has the most experience with current campus culture, agrees more strongly (69%, tied with those over 65).
In the aftermath of Claudine Gay's resignation, here's how Harvard can reform itself
For the FIRE Newsdesk, FAIR board member Angel Eduardo writes about how Harvard can reform itself after Claudine Gay’s resignation.
As Harvard looks to its future, it should consider its past. Without a substantial university-wide change to its approach to free speech and academic freedom on campus, Harvard’s next president will struggle to restore the university’s reputation as a leader in academic excellence.
The DEI machine has always been about toeing an ideological line — not meaningful change
For the New York Post, Zack K. De Piero (Professor De Piero is represented in his case against Penn State by FAIR Network Attorneys Michael Allen and Samantha Harris of Allen Harris Law) writes about how DEI statements have become standard practice in academia, but a tide might be turning against the practice.
What’s worse, though, is the type of educational environment that DEI-ified initiatives create for students — and the culprit is the “E”: Equity.
Here’s how “equity” played out in the misguided minds of my DEI-obsessed former colleagues. A former supervisor, who endorsed the view that “reverse racism isn’t racism,” also announced that “racist structures” exist “regardless of [anybody’s] good intentions” and that “racism is in the results if the results draw a color line.”
The apparent guiding subtext here: students should be graded on the basis of race so all achieve similar outcomes.
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