Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

Trump, a lifelong de facto criminal, now a de jure one

Thank goodness the New York prosecutors knew what they were doing, and secured a conviction against the monster child, now making him officially a convicted felon.   A quick jury verdict is almost always a finding of guilty, and this case was no different.  The monster child will appeal, and who knows, the conviction might be overturned on appeal.  But that process will take many months, and so the stain of being a convicted criminal may affect the 'independent' voters (those who cannot tell the difference between night and day) come November.

The outcome is gratifying, of course, especially since an acquittal would have been a huge boost for the monster child.  The irony is that this case was not nearly as significant or as strong as two other cases:  the election interference case in Georgia and the federal prosecution for making off with classified materials.  The latter has been derailed by the Trump-appointed hack judge Aileen Cannon, who is a unique embarrassment to the federal judiciary; the former has been derailed by the hack state prosecutor in Georgia, Fani Willis, whose world-historic bad judgment in appointing her unqualified boyfriend as one of the prosecutors now seems to guarantee that this case will not get to trial before the election.   (The third case, the federal prosecution for election interference, has been delayed by the super-legisature, i.e., the Supreme Court, but that case strikes me as far less sturdy than the Georgia and classificed documents cases.)  So everyone owes thanks to the New York prosecutors for moving with dispatch and success to secure a conviction.  (Trump is very unlikely to get a jail sentence, but that won't change the fact that he is a convicted felon.)

Cambridge University Press now asking authors whether they want to license their publications for LLMs

Curious to hear what readers think about this development.  A law professor elsewhere (who published a book with CUP a few years back) shared the email he received from the press:

Following developments in artificial intelligence (AI) during 2022 and 2023, Cambridge University Press has begun to receive content licensing requests from providers of generative artificial intelligence. We value our authors and editors and want to collaborate with you to establish a responsible and transparent way forward in this evolving space. As such, we are contacting you to provide more information on our approach and to request your permission for your work to be included in new licensing routes.

You will shortly receive an email link to a digital addendum to your author or editor contract with us for [book name removed] from a system called Ironclad / HelloSign. If you agree that your work can be included in generative AI licensing deals, click the link in this email to sign the addendum. Please note that this email may be in your junk or spam folder.

Context

Generative AI technologies offer opportunities and risks. The use of high-quality scholarly content in training generative AI models may improve the quality and accuracy of tools that are increasingly going to be used in everyday life. There may also be opportunities for your content to have greater visibility and impact if it is properly cited and attributed by AI tools, and to drive the creation of new and innovative products for a range of audiences. Many of our existing relationships with third-party vendors and discovery services, which help to distribute and sell publications, are likely to involve AI services in that process in future, too.

As use of AI grows, we believe that use of the content we publish should be:

• Subject to clear principles around attribution
• Governed by formal licensing arrangements with generative AI providers
• Founded on obtaining the relevant permission from all rightsholders
• A source of fair remuneration for author and publisher

It is a priority for us to work towards these guidelines as we negotiate and agree licences with prospective licensing partners.

Miranda Fricker's Whitehead Lectures at Harvard...

...on "Bernard Williams's Historical Self-Consciousness" are available here and here.  Professor Fricker's talk at the Williams conference in Lund several years ago was excellent.

Why are philosophy departments so good about disclosing job placement of PhD graduates?

I told this story back in 2008, but some recent chatter on Twitter made me think it's worth repeating:

Colleagues in other fields are often impressed by how much information about job placement philosophy departments now make available on their web sites.  It was not always that way, alas.  About six years ago [i.e., before the blog circa 2001-02], I used the Update Service [a large email list] to the PGR--which reached several thousand philosophers--to suggest that departments be more forthcoming about this information, citing some models and indicating that in future editions of the PGR I would call attention to departments that were not providing such information, since that should surely be a warning to prospective students.  Departments, for the most part, reacted constructively and did the right thing, posting information about recent job placement on the web.  

And that, prospective philosophy students, is why all departments list job placement information, although there is still some variation in quality, but mostly it is pretty good.

Job prospects are bad in academic philosophy, but they're terrible in academic German

This is an anecdote, but the data I've seen confirms it.  A German PhD graduate from here from awhile back, now in the private sector, told me there were only four German jobs in the U.S. last year.  Two of them were for what this graduate called "Afro-Deutsch," a "field" I did not know existed (they were, I take it, aimed at 'diverse' candidates).  Under these circumstances, this alum doubted whether the German Department at the University of Chicago could continue offering a PhD in the subject.  That would be extraordinary, if it comes to pass.

Although German was the lingua franca of scholarship throughout the 19th-century and into the first half of the 20th-century, it has been fully displaced by English since WWII.  One result is declining demand from students--the rationale given for the recent decision by the University of Chicago Lab School (the K-12 school run by the University) to close its excellent German instruction program (one of my kids was a beneficiary of it).  (German, alas, can not sustain demand based on the number of countries where it is spoken [contrast Spanish] or the Anglo fascination with its food and culture [contrast French].)   Still, a genuine research university has to support the subject, not just for the sake of offering language instruction (although that is the main "service" such departments provide) but for the sake of preserving and sharing knowledge of the literature and culture of the German-speakng world.

Harvard to adopt Chicago's Kalven Report, after getting burned by pontificating administrators this past fall

That's the good news.  The bad news is that two Harvard professors (including philosopher Alison Simmons) felt the need to try to pretend what their committee recommended was different from the Kalven Report.   Just reading the latter makes clear how inapt their characterization of it is--it stood for a lot more than "neutrality."  It was predicated precisely on a statement of the university's values and missions, and made clear the University and its officers and units should always be free to speak in support of those (including the university's admissions policies).  Even if Harvard narcissism prevents them from acknowledging it, I am glad they have adopted Kalven principles--the university's leaders, but also its faculty, will be better for it.

(Thanks to Jerry Coyne for calling this to my attention.)

"Beat AI" from PhilPapers

Philosopher David Bourget writes:

I'm writing to invite you to check out Beat AI, an online game for philosophers that I just released with the PhilPapers team. Our aim with this game is to collect data that will allow us to train philosophy-aware AI models, which will allow us to improve search on PhilPapers. You can try it out here: 

https://philpeople.org/beatai

It would be awesome if you mentioned it on your blog. The more people play, the better the data, and the better we can serve the community's search needs.

Another journal that can't follow its own procedures: the case of "The New Bioethics"

I had never heard of this journal previously, and I can't imagine anyone wanting to submit to it (unless the article is utterly anodyne) in light of its recent misconduct.   Briefly:  Dr. Perry Hendricks, a recent PhD in philosophy from Purdue University, submitted a paper to a special issue on the end of Roe v. Wade; the article was revised in response to two referee reports, then conditionally accepted pending minor changes (which were made), and then officially accepted for publication (I have seen the acceptance email, it is unambiguous). 

That's when the trouble started, as recounted here;  a Twitter mob, incensed by the title of the article ("Abortion Restrictions are Good for Black Women") after it was uploaded to PhilPapers, went on a rampage, leading the journal to put the publication on "hold," solicit two new referee reports (one mixed, one negative), and then rescind the acceptance.  Dr. Hendricks received an email from Matthew James, the editor of the journal, who teaches at St. Mary's University in London (he does not hold a PhD in philosophy or in any subject, but he does have MA degrees).  Mr. James claimed that due to a technical failure, he had not seen the article prior to the original acceptance; he explained that in his view the article did not meet the journal's standards (contrary to the earlier referee reports which led to acceptance) and also offered the following observations:

Legitimate academic debate should not be reserved for scholars of a particular race or gender, or ought to be off-limits for certain scholars.  Nevertheless, in cases such as this one where white authors write about racial inequalities, or when male authors write about women's rights, this needs to be done with a considerable degree of circumspection, humility, and sensitivity.  This manuscript falls short in that regard....

Diversity and viewpoint diversity: from Weber to Haidt

This CHE essay was quite interesting; an excerpt:

Where did viewpoint diversity come from? In the 2010s, American social psychologists began to argue over how to deal with the fact that most of them were liberals (in the American sense) and looked at human social behavior and cognition through that ideological lens. The quarrel had been triggered by Jonathan Haidt’s argument that, for epistemological reasons, their field needed more political diversity. Only a system of ideological checks and balances would enable them to rein in the otherwise-unquestioned prejudices of the majority.

This intervention represented a challenge to the discipline’s hitherto dominant epistemic value of value neutrality because it requires the identification of researchers with a political stance. Amid the widely discussed replication crisis of psychology and other scientific fields, many of Haidt’s colleagues took seriously the concern that their moral and political biases could be part of the reason that so many of their findings could not be reproduced. The liberal-bias controversy contributed to a larger push for reforming the institutions of science to curb the inherently biased thinking of human beings.

That the proponents of viewpoint diversity focus on science does not mean that their project is free of moral-political views. In fact, their political epistemology is very much rooted in the classical liberalism of John Stuart Mill and emerged in response to the American culture wars. Part of their political mission is to emphasize scientific knowledge production rather than the reallocation of status and power among different social groups. Beginning in 2015, the nonprofit advocacy group Heterodox Academy carried the demand for more viewpoint diversity into the wider moral economy of higher education....

Blast from the past: Three cultures of Facebook

Back in 2016, with reader discussion.

APA election results

Here.  The VP elections (who will be next year's "President" of a division) are quite respectable (Harry Brighouse, Susan Brison, John Carriero), even in the dysfunctional Eastern Division.  As I wrote more than a decade ago:

The Eastern Division represents the extreme of [interest group capture], with the result that many philosophers no longer participate there because for the sake of alleged “inclusiveness” and “diversity”—meaning neither racial nor ethnic diversity, nor even philosophical diversity, but simply pandering to organized interest groups—the program is no longer very good.  As I understand it, The Journal of Philosophy stopped publishing papers from the Eastern because of this problem many years ago.  The Central and Pacific have avoided the fate of the Eastern....

In the latest election, Carol Hay was elected to the "Nominating Committee."  Talk about "no consequences" for unprofessional behavior!  Oy veh.

Great moments in obscure rock 'n' roll: Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band, "Sure 'Nuff 'n' Yes, I do," 1967

The lead number on the eccentric Captain Beefheart's debut album, I find it quite a bit more likable than anything from the 1969 album for which he is "famous" (at least among diehard fans of the period), Trout Mask Replica:

Feel free to add links to your favorite Captain Beefheart performances/songs.

Who are the current members of the Oxford University Press Board of Delegates?

This seems to be a closely guarded secret, but maybe it is online somewhere.  Any ideas?

Quantum physics, free will, and determinism...

...at Scientific American, with contributions by philosophers Eddy Keming Chen (UCSD), Emily Adlam (Chapman), Alastair Wilson (Leeds), and David Wallace (Pittsburgh).  More discussion welcome.

"Transgender politics and academic witchhunts"

A video of the recent event at Cornell with philosophers Kathleen Stock and Rebecca Tuvel (earlier [link fixed]).

Analogical reasoning by AI systems compared to humans (albeit humans paid on the Internet)

This is interesting, although the "human" comparison class is not the strongest one.  The humans still outperform AI, but AI is not that far behind.  Curious to hear how informed readers (not random passersby!) interpret these results.

All editors (except the EIC) and the entire editorial board of Philosophy & Public Affairs resign, and will start a new open access journal

The public announcement is here:  Download Philosophy Public Affairs Public Letter of Resignation -.   PPA was also a Wiley journal (like the now-defunct Journal of Political Philosophy), and comments by the  EIC of PPA in 2023 foreshadowed this development.  (The EIC has a separate contract with Wiley, and was not part of this mass resignation.)  Whereas JPP was founded and strongly identified with its lead editor, Bob Goodin, PPA has been around for a half century, and none of the current editorial team founded the journal.  But their mass migration to a new journal should suffice to sustain the reputation of the PPA successor journal, as of yet unnamed.

As we learned during the JPP crisis, not all editorial experiences with Wiley as a journal publisher have been bad.  Wiley still publishes a number of other prominent philosophy journals, including Analytic Philosophy, European Journal of Philosophy, and Philosophy & Phenomenological Research, among others.  

ADDENDUM:  One of the resigning editors tells me that, "The founding editors (including Marshal Cohen, Tom Nagel, and Tim Scanlon) were consulted about this decision and have given their full support to it."

On the "upside down" flag outside the house of SCOTUS Justice Samuel Alito

This is a sharp and informative commentary by law professor Michael Dorf; an excerpt:

Using a symbol of support for Trumpist political violence as a means of responding to a personal insult accusing one of having supported Trumpist political violence is a way of identifying with Trumpism at its most repugnant. It aligns the Alitos with Ginni Thomas and other Trumpist conspiracy theorists. And it works as a rejoinder to the neighbor only insofar as it invokes the crude bullying of Trump and his movement.

Where does that leave us? To my mind, this event is part of a larger pattern I discussed earlier this month: as Trump has taken over the Republican Party, people who continue to identify with its policies increasingly normalize him and his authoritarian movement. One sees a version of this in the suggestion by Professor [Josh] Blackman (in the post linked above) that calling out Alito reflects a "double standard" in light of the fact that Justice Ginsburg didn't face nearly the same level of outrage for her (entirely accurate but nonetheless inappropriate) criticism of Trump in 2016.

Respectfully, that's not a double standard.

Final exam for Harvard's course on "The Economics of Socialism," 1940...

...taught by Paul Sweezy.  Pretty serious exam! 

The Israel/Gaza catastrophe--(plus the question of 'academic boycotts')

The NYT, which used to be an almost shameless apologist for any US-funded Israeli crimes, has turned a corner, it appears:  this article about the rise of the religious crazies in Israel (in the immortal words of the Revolutionary Association of Women in Afghanistan, "Fundamentalism is the mortal enemy of civilized humanity") and then this opinion piece revealing what is increasingly obvious to the whole world:

America’s romantic mythology and wishful thinking about Israel encourage a tendency to see Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the main cause of the ruthlessness in Gaza, where Israel has killed more than 35,000 people. The unpopular, scandal-ridden premier makes a convincing ogre in an oversimplified story.

But Israel’s slaughter in Gaza, the creeping famine, the wholesale destruction of neighborhoods — this, polling suggests, is the war the Israeli public wanted. A January survey found that 94 percent of Jewish Israelis said the force being used against Gaza was appropriate or even insufficient. In February, a poll found that most Jewish Israelis opposed food and medicine getting into Gaza. It was not Mr. Netanyahu alone but also his war cabinet members (including Benny Gantz, often invoked as the moderate alternative to Mr. Netanyahu) who unanimously rejected a Hamas deal to free Israeli hostages and, instead, began an assault on the city of Rafah, overflowing with displaced civilians.

(The failure of Israeli leadership to secure the freedom of Israeli hostages, or even to priotize their freedom, is really quite extraordinary.)

I recommend this talk by my colleague John Mearsheimer about what a disaster all this is for Israel.  John is from New York City, and he has a slightly disarming way of speaking about atrocities, but he is a realist:  his basic view is that morality has nothing to do with the behavior of states, which live in the proverbial Hobbesian state of nature (notwithstanding the recent arrest warrants for Netanyahu and various Hamas criminals--but no one will be arrested, unless Israel captures the Hamas criminals).  As John says, there are four options for Israel, given that they control land (the West Bank, Gaza) that includes over seven million Palestinians: a democratic state for everyone (the benign meaning of "from the river to the sea"); a two-state solution; the existing apartheid; or ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.  As John says, quite correctly, the first two options are off the table as far as Israel is concerned (barring a political revolution there:  see the NYT article, above, about the rise of the religious zealots in Israel), so the media blather about a two-state solution is just pure propaganda:  no one with political power there wants it.  I seem to recall Steve Salaita saying on Twitter (I don't have the energy to track it down), that the real problem for Israel is that the Palestinians still exist.  And that means apartheid (which is tough to maintain), or ethnic cleansing--with the conduct of the war on Gaza suggests ethnic cleansing is the real goal by making Gaza uninhabitable and driving out the population. 

Idealism without God

Philosopher Helen Yetter-Chappell explains.

Ron Orban, Viktor DeSantis and the crypto-fascist war on education

Philosopher Jason Stanley comments; an excerpt:

Today’s GOP is laser-focused on education, trying to frighten parents about supposed “Marxist indoctrination” in schools and universities (a common tactic in today’s fascist international; see Brazil under Jair Bolsonaro). As a sign of the topic’s importance, the GOP campaign against schools and universities was central in Trump’s 2020 election bid. In a speech at an event called the White House Conference on American History, Trump declared:

'Students in our universities are inundated with critical race theory. This is a Marxist doctrine holding that America is a wicked and racist nation, that even young children are complicit in oppression, and that our entire society must be radically transformed. Critical race theory is being forced into our children’s schools, it’s being imposed into workplace trainings, and it’s being deployed to rip apart friends, neighbors, and families."

Critical race theory is not "a Marxist doctrine," indeed has nothing to do with Marx, and little to do with Critical Theory.  It's amazing how Marxism serves as an all-purpose bogeyman for these malevolent ignoramuses.

A program on Philippa Foot on BBC Radio 4...

...with several philosophers discussing her life and work (Anil Gomes, Sophie Grace Chappell, Rachel Wiseman).  I was not aware how privileged her upbringing was!  Although I greatly admire Foot's work, especially the essays collected in Virtues and Vices, I was always puzzled by her thought that an adequate response to the Holocaust required rejecting emotivism (at least in its strongest form, Stevenson's).

In Memoriam: Nenad Miščević (1950-2024)

I was not familiar with Professor Miščević, but philosopher Marko Jurjako from the Universit of Rijeka (who is also the EIC of the European Journal of Analytic Philosophy) shared this very interesting message about his contributions and career:

I'm not sure if you have ever met him, but he was a highly influential figure in analytic philosophy in Central and Southeast Europe, particularly in post-Yugoslav countries including Croatia and Slovenia. He was one of the most cited philosophers from Croatia and a pioneer in analytic philosophy in the post-Yugoslav region. His work spanned philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, epistemology, ethics, and political philosophy. In international circles, he was perhaps best known for his work on philosophical thought experiments and nationalism studies in political philosophy. Although he was trained in the continental tradition of philosophy, he later turned to analytic philosophy, which didn't stop him from continually working to bridge the two traditions. From the late 1970s until the early 1990s, he worked at the Philosophy Department at the University of Zadar, Croatia. From there, he was basically expelled in the early 1990s by influential political figures backed by the nationalist Croatian government for being a political liberal and an analytic philosopher. As Nenad's colleague Dunja Jutronić described at his funeral in Rijeka yesterday, he and his colleagues in Zadar were targeted as proponents of "the false liberalism and Western democracy, and that so-called analytic philosophy....". After that, since 1993, Nenad's main affiliation was with the Department of Philosophy at the University of Maribor (Slovenia), where he worked until his untimely death.

APA announces Spring prizes for philosophers

Here, including the Dewey Lectures, Romanell Lecture, Barwise Prize and others.

More fun with Judith Butler

Here; an excerpt:

Butler’s 320-page long manifesto-cum-call to arms...should have been desk rejected by any editorial board or publisher worthy of the name had it not been written by an academic celebrity with an iconic status, and a brand that is highly sought after by the niche clientele of the ever-flourishing identity economy (the book was #1 in LGBTQ+ Demographic Studies, #2 in Literary Criticism and Theory, and #2 in General Gender Studies on Amazon at the time of writing). And that’s probably what led Farrar, Straus and Giroux, one of the so-called “Big Five” dominating the publishing industry, to turn a blind eye to the text’s egregious errors, distortions and omissions tirelessly documented by a number of sharp critics since the day it hit the shelves.

Blast from the past: Why review a book of philosophy when you can sneer at it?

Back in 2006.

The financial crisis in UK higher education

This page (listing redundancies and cost-cutting measures throughout the UK) certainly makes clear how widespread the problem is.

"The NY Times doesn't cover college"...

...it covers a small number of elite, mostly private, universities.  Apt and amusing.

Buckner from Houston to Florida

Cameron Buckner (philosophy of mind, cognitive science, and AI), currently Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Houston, has accepted an appointment as a Chaired Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Florida, Gainesville, effective this August.

Most campus demonstrations about the war in Gaza have been peaceful

From The Guardian:

An analysis of 553 US campus demonstrations nationwide between 18 April and 3 May found that fewer than 20 resulted in any serious interpersonal violence or property damage, according to statistics from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (Acled).

Over the same period, Acled documented at least 70 instances of forceful police intervention against US campus protests, which includes the arrest of demonstrators and the use of physical dispersal tactics, including the deployment of chemical agents, batons and other kinds of physical force.

"Behind the Ivy Intifada"

Some interesting points in this essay; an excerpt:

In most cases, the successful pursuit of political goals requires building broad coalitions by appealing to superordinate identities, shared goals, and common values, while de-emphasizing points of contention. People often have to make compromises, deal with difficult tradeoffs, and adjust their aims, strategies, and goals in light of realities “on the ground.” Effective political action requires discipline, patience, and persistence, to the extent that Weber famously likened it to the “slow boring of hard boards.” 

Because the denizens of elite institutions are largely insulated from the consequences of politics, however, they often feel free to approach politics as a combination of a sport, a holy war, and a means of self-expression. For instance, one of the few people arrested at Hamilton Hall with no ties to the university was a multimillionaire lawyer descended from wealthy ad executives, who is married to a model, lives in a $2.3 million townhouse, and regularly engages in violent agitation for sport.

Among the Columbia students, we could see this dynamic at work when the writer and activist Norman Finklestein warned demonstrators that, even if slogans like “From the River to the Sea” and “intifada” aren’t anti-Semitic, they are nonetheless highly polarizing. So if the goal is to bring in people who aren’t already on board, Finkelstein warned, then protesters should probably tone down this kind of rhetoric in favor of more broadly appealing language. The students responded by doubling down on their “From the River to the Sea” chant the moment Finkelstein handed off the mic.

Hobbies of the philosophers

Philosopher Michael Smith and his Politics colleague Robbie George perform:

(I came across this via the page for 'Michaelfest' to mark his retirement from Princeton later this year.)

"Protest" at the University of Chicago

Since last week's CHE essay by Professor Ford appears to have misled a lot of folks, it might be worth quoting from a 2014 Report at the University of Chicago on "Protest and Dissent," chaired by my law colleague David Strauss, the year before the Chicago Principles, which was produced by a committee chaired by my law colleague Geoffrey Stone (and which also included input from Professor Strauss).   From the 2014 Report:

In our view, dissent and protest are integral to the life of the University. Dissent and protest should be affirmatively welcomed, not merely tolerated, by the University.  Especially in a university community, the absence of dissent and protest—not its presence—is a cause for concern. The passionate expression of non-conforming ideas is both a cause and an effect of the intellectual climate that defines this University in particular. In addition, dissent and protest—and public demonstrations by groups and individuals—play a role in the University’s educational mission: being a member of an educational community that values dissent and protest is, in part, how people develop as citizens of a democracy.

The absurd idea that the Chicago Principles do not protect protest is the product of a kind of flat-footed literalism that wholly ignores the university's actual practice, in addition to ignoring the explicit statements of the 2014 Report.

CHE also published my letter about Professor Ford's essay from last week, which is below the fold:

Pasternak from Toronto to Maryland

Avia Pasternak (political philosophy), Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto, has accepted appointment as Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Maryland, College Park, effective this fall.

(Thanks to Peter Carruthers for the information.)

Van Leeuwen from Georgia State to Florida State

Neil Van Leeuwen (philosophy of mind and psychology), Associate Professor of Philosophy at Georgia State University, has accepted appointment as Professor of Philosophy at Florida State University, effective this August.

UChicago President Alivisatos's explanation for ending the encampment

This is a pretty good statement; a short excerpt (relevant to yesterday's post):

Protest is a strongly protected form of speech in the University of Chicago culture, enshrined in the Chicago Principles for a reason. In times of discord, protest serves as a mechanism for democratic societies, and places of reason like universities, to find a way back toward dialogue and compromise. This has value even if protests result in disruption or violate the rules—up to a point. When a protest substantially interferes with the learning, research and operations of the university, when it meaningfully diminishes the free-expression rights of others—as happened with this encampment—then it must come to an end, through dialogue or intervention.

This is how to handle Republican Representatives in their fake hearings

Watch NYC Public School Chancellor David Banks deal with the appalling Rep. Stefanik and another bozo.  Thank God for New Yorkers!  He should have prepped the university Presidents on how to handle these posturing charlatans.

You can learn a lot about people by how they treat janitors

From a NYT report about the student takeover of a building at Columbia University:

Mariano Torres, a maintenance worker at Columbia University, was cleaning on the third floor of Hamilton Hall in his signature Yankees cap one night last week, when he heard a commotion downstairs. He said he figured it had something to do with the pro-Palestinian encampment on the lawn outside and kept working.

He was shocked, he said, when he suddenly saw five or six protesters, their faces covered by scarves or masks, picking up chairs and bringing them into the stairway.

“I’m like, what the hell is going on? Put it back. What are you doing?” he recalled.

He said he tried to block them and they tried to reason with him to get out of the way, telling him “this is bigger than you.” One person, he recalled, told him he didn’t get paid enough to deal with this. Someone tried to offer him “a fistful of cash.”

He said he replied: “I don’t want your money, dude. Just get out of the building.”

It was the beginning of what would be a frightening time for Mr. Torres, who goes by Mario, and two other maintenance workers in Hamilton Hall, who were inside when pro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia took over the building....

 

Mr. Torres and his colleagues called for help from the police and the school’s public safety officers, but no one arrived in time to assist them. The university eventually asked the police to clear the building and other protesters around campus, but they did not come until nearly 20 hours later.

That meant the workers, who were briefly trapped inside, had to make their own way out.

Some pretty clear audio evidence that the UChicago encampment was interfering with teaching

Professor Laura Zoloth, from UChicago's Divinity School, confirms that this is an audio recording of a graduate seminar trying to discuss an article by Charles Taylor with noise from the encampment protest in the background (or the 'foreground' as it were!).  This is pretty bad!

A brief comment on philosopher Anton Ford's commentary on the "Chicago Principles" in CHE

If I have time I may say more about this odd and very misleading essay by my colleague Anton Ford (it's a shame we did not have an opportunity to discuss this before he published it, since I might have saved him from some obvious errors).  He writes:

In what would seem to many to be a flagrant violation of freedom of expression, the University of Chicago’s president, Paul Alivisatos, has threatened to break up an encampment of nonviolent student protesters....

The encampment, as we discussed the other day, was alleged to be interfering with teaching in the surroudning classrooms; it was also, in any case, in violation of a pre-existing, content-neutral prohibition on encampments on university grounds, which exists for all the obvious reasons.  It's central to the "Chicago Principles" and any sensible rules on freedom of expression that such expression can be restricted in a content-neutral way for the sake of the ordinary activities of the university (teaching and research).  But Anton suggests, instead, that the encampment was broken up because, "The Chicago Principles equate freedom of expression with freedom of discussion."  This is also not true, and rather obviously so in this case, since in his very first statement about the encampment on April 29, the University President stated that, "Given the importance of the expressive rights of our students, we may allow an encampment to remain for a short time despite the obvious violations of policy," i.e., the policy regarding encampments on university grounds.  The free expression principles here trumped the content-neutral prohibition on encampments as a form of protest.

I may say a bit more about this curious piece, but let me note that the University of Chicago is not a political community, but, as the Kalven Report says, a "community of scholars."  That fact (I hope it is a fact) would require a bit more nuance in thinking about the relevance of majority-vote procedures to such a community than is in evidence in this essay.

Stilz from Princeton Politics to Berkeley

Anna Stilz, a political philosopher in the Politics Department and University Center for Human Values at Princeton University, has accepted a senior offer from the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley, where she will also have a courtesy appointment in the Department of Philosophy.  Berkeley has made a big investment in moral and political philosophy in recent years, with appointments of Johann Frick (from Princeton) and Danie Viehoff (from NYU) in philosophy, in addition to existing prominent faculty in those areas (e.g., Niko Kolodny, R. Jay Wallace).

(Thanks to Alva Noe for the information about Professor Stilz.)

Philosophers at University of Arizona object to their University's handling of student protests

Philosopher Tom Christiano at the University of Arizona kindly shared this letter he and colleagues sent to university leadership:

 

May 7, 2024

Dear University Leadership,

We, the undersigned faculty at the University of Arizona, wish to express our support and respect for both our undergraduate and graduate students who stood by their convictions in peacefully protesting during recent events. We also wish to express our shock and dismay at the University’s heavy-handed response. We as faculty do not wish here to take any collective position regarding Israel's recent response to the outrageous October 7 terrorist acts of Hamas, or the grievous concerns of the Palestinian people who now face devastating conditions. The matter is complex, and we do not necessarily agree amongst each other. But we fully stand by our students who have bravely engaged in respectful and perfectly legitimate political protest. We strongly object to the University's disingenuous, excessive, and militaristic response to these students, who are taking part in activities on a university campus that is supposed to celebrate the free expression of difficult and often controversial ideas.

The university secured the departure of protestors on Monday night with the promise that they could return the next day, and then broke the promise by cordoning off the mall.  Swat teams, police in riot gear, and military assault vehicles on our campus in the days leading up to the recent police action on Tuesday night were counter-productive and reckless, displaying a propensity to authoritarian leadership where compromise, dialogue, and understanding were needed. The disastrous consequences of such excessive interventions have become abundantly evident over the last few weeks across the United States. 

Blast from the past: Berit Brogaard on group polarization and the Internet

Back in 2015 [link fixed], but anyone who reads blogs or Twitter should refresh themselves on this post at least once per year.

Theunissen from Pittburgh to Rice

Nandi Theunissen (ethics), Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh, has accepted a tenured offer as Associate Professor of Philosophy at Rice University, effective this fall. That's a good catch for Rice!

Some thoughts about the "encampment" at the University of Chicago (and its end)

(I started drafting this on the evening of May 6--the "encampment" was disbanded in the early hours of May 7, a topic I will address, below)

For a week (since Monday, April 29), there has been an "encampment" at the University of Chicago protesting a variety of things (more on that, below), but primarily, the University's "involvement" with Israel  given the atrocities it is committing in Gaza.  The encampment violates what are known as "time, place, and manner" regulations regarding speech and protest:  e.g., there is a bar on "encampments" on university grounds (for fairly obvious reasons, or they would proliferate, and not only by students!) that is general, and applies to all political points of view.  Despite that, the University President Paul Alivisatos (a very eminent chemist, who was previously Provost at Berkeley) took the view last Monday that, "Given the importance of the expressive rights of our students, we may allow an encampment to remain for a short time despite the obvious violations of policy," the policy being the aforementioned content-neutral prohibition on encampments.  I think that was the right decision, since the expression at issue involves speech on matters of great political importance right now, so unless the encampment posed serious problems it should be allowed to remain.

By Friday of last week, the President asserted that the time had come for the encampment to end because,

The encampment has created systematic disruption of campus. Protesters are monopolizing areas of the Main Quad at the expense of other members of our community. Clear violations of policies have only increased. Our students have issued a torrent of reports of disrupted classroom learning. Other disruptions include repeated destruction of an approved installation of Israeli flags, shouting down speakers they disagree with, vandalism and graffiti on historic buildings, incorporating walkways into the encampment, and co-opting the University flagpole to fly the Palestinian flag.

The most serious consideration here concerns "disrupted classroom learning," and I'll return to that in a moment.  Those responsible for removing Israeli flags or vandalism should be subjected to university disciplinary proceedings as individuals; such incidents do not justify ending the protest and encampment, except under an indefensible principle of collective punishment.  (That is one reason I did not sign this letter calling for the University to end the encampment; drafted, I am told, by Dorian Abbot [whose earlier maltreatment by a "woke" mob we discussed], the signatories are mostly part of UChicago Free, a group started by Professor Abbot and which I quit when it became clear many (vocal) members had no principled commitment to free speech or academic freedom, but were instead utilizing the group and its listserve as a grievance and self-pity forum for conservatives--the exceptions to the latter characterization among the signatories  [including some friends I respect] are those moved, I suspect, by their loyalty to Israel.)

MIT to eliminate use of diversity statements in faculty hiring

Let us hope this is the start of a trend:  MIT President Kornbluth said, “We can build an inclusive environment in many ways, but compelled statements impinge on freedom of expression, and they don’t work.”   "Diversity" statements, like "teaching statements," don't work, because talk is cheap and anyone can learn how to recite the required pablum.  Of course, their real purpose was probably not to insure that faculty were "competent" to teach "diverse" students (whatever that means).

"Remembering Charles Parsons," the Oracle of Delphi

This is fun and charming, by Parsons's former PhD student Peter Ludlow.

The "Executive Unbound": University President edition

Law professor and public law scholar David Pozen (Columbia) uses recent events at Columbia to look at university governance, drawing some striking analogies with problems familiar from American constitutional and administrative law.

More peaceful protesters subjected to manhandling and arrest: the case of Purchase College

Philosopher Emiliano Diaz, Chair of the Department at Purchase College (one of the smallest colleges in the State University of New York System) writes with a long account of the disturbing response to peaceful protests at his school and the aftermath:

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Philosophy students at SUNY Purchase have been deeply involved in the pro-palestinian protests on campus.  Sabrina Thompson, a junior in philosophy and president of the Philosophy Society, has been a key organizer.  

On the night of Thursday, May 2, a group of students, led by Thompson and others, attempted to establish an encampment on campus near the dormitories.  They were eventually persuaded not to set up tents, but they were steadfast in their commitment to remain.  At 10pm, when the university quiet hours began, they sat silent in observance of the student code of conduct.  This is when police moved in to disperse them with substantial and violent force (link to a video of the police action below).  In an email about what would transpire, President Milagros Peña cites the "quiet hours" policy as justification for the use of force.  She also notes that fire alarms were set off and that this was disruptive for students who are entering the final weeks of class.  Students have noted that the quiet hour rule is not uniformly enforced. Students regularly congregate in the quad after 10pm without issue. During "Culture Shock," a music festival held on campus near the end of the year, this rule is also flouted.  Fire alarms were set off, but this happened only after the police moved in, and some students are claiming that it was a diversionary tactic meant to distract police and give room to students who wished to flee the violence that unfolded.  President Peña also suggests that "outside agitators" were somehow threatening the safety of the campus.  There was no evidence of immediate or even inchoate threat as the police moved in.  Also, at least some of those who were "outsiders" (a difficult word to parse in the context of a public college) were human rights lawyers invited by a faculty member to observe the protest. 

In all, 70 people were arrested.  In order to jail all of them, Police spread them across Westchester County.  If not for their friends, many of them, college students with few resources and parents who do not live locally, would have been stranded.   According to reports, many were not told the charge during the arrest and were also denied information about arresting officers.  Faculty who were present only to observe, support the students' right to free speech, and help de-escalate the situation were among those arrested.  One of these faculty, who has participated in other protests, noted the lack of training on the part of the officers involved in the arrests. He cited the fact that students were told to disperse but then given no clear means of egress.  Some were even pursued as they tried to leave.  He also noted that he has never witnessed such violence in response to protests.  The next morning, arrested students would find the belongings they were forced to leave behind, pillows, book bags, blankets, and other things, in and strewn around a dumpster.