Chronicle of Higher Education ousts blogger over black studies post
Naomi Riley
The Chronicle of Higher Education says it now agrees with the “several thousand of you [who] spoke out in outrage and disappointment that The Chronicle had published an article that did not conform to the journalistic standards and civil tone that you expect from us,” and has dismissed the writer, Naomi Schaefer Riley.
She wrote in her April 30 Brainstorm blog post that the most persuasive case for eliminating black studies departments was reading the dissertations written by black studies grad students. “What a collection of left-wing victimization claptrap,” she wrote. “The best that can be said of these topics is that they’re so irrelevant no one will ever look at them.” (Here is the Chronicle piece that she was commenting on.)
If these young scholars are the future of the discipline, I think they can just as well leave their calendars at 1963 and let some legitimate scholars find solutions to the problems of blacks in America. Solutions that don’t begin and end with blame the white man.
The Chronicle says the blog post did not meet the publication’s “basic editorial standards for reporting and fairness in opinion articles. As a result, we have asked Ms. Riley to leave the Brainstorm blog.”
* A Note to Readers (Chronicle.com)
* The most persuasive case for eliminating black studies: read the dissertations (Chronicle.com)
* Black studies, Part 2: A response to my critics | Riley and her respondents (Chronicle.com)
* Why Riley should have never opened her mouth (Clutch)
* Rod Dreher: White lady can’t say that (Read the comments) (American Conservative)
To be clear, her first post was headlined “The Most Persuasive Case for Eliminating Black Studies? Just Read the Dissertations.”
Her second post on the topic said, “I’ll forgive the commenters for not understanding that it is not my job to read entire dissertations before I write a 500-word piece about them. … there are not enough hours in the day or money in the world to get me to read a dissertation on historical black midwifery.”
As has been pointed out other places online, this is just poor journalism, representing that you’ve read dissertations and then admitting that in fact you didn’t, and wouldn’t.
I’m a journalist with a Ph.D. What happened to informed opinion?
What is the purpose of having an opinion writer if she is not allowed to express her opinion — right or wrong — without fear of being fired? What happened at the Chronicle is a symptom of what’s wrong with this country. Unless your opinion is PC, most of us, including me, are afraid to express it publicly for fear of being branded a racist or a sexist or whatever. The truth is that this country has many problems that we will never be able to fix because we can’t discuss them. Frankly, I did not have a problem with the article’s “civil tone.” And for “journalistic standards,” it was, after all, opinion. If there are errors, the marketplace will correct them. But firing her just sends a further chill out on the iceberg of discourse. All of which is why it is okay to use my sentiments — but not my name.
I think the marketplace did correct the errors here. You should celebrate the triumph of the free market.
Well, publishers are free to hire and fire whomever they want, to publish what they see fit to publish, and to refrain from publishing nonsense. Freedom!
For my part, I would immediately fire anyone who wrote “…sends a further chill out on the iceberg of discourse.”
This woman’s Facebook page, by the way, is filled with similar sentiments from her friends, who seem to think that the First Amendment not only guarantees everyone the right to write for any publication, but is also meant to protect everyone from any negative consequences, including criticism, that might arise from what they write.
Watch your back as the growing ranks of the pious in journalism scold opinionated writers about “civil” discourse. Censors love alleged offenses against “civil” discourse. And of course, anything you don’t agree with or, gasp, that you find offensive and challenging to your views, can be described as lacking civility, and shut down.
Let it be said that Riley does cite and quote several specific examples of the content she finds ridiculous. So she’s not just tossing off opinions on the basis of nothing.
As for her firing, publications do have the right. But readers have the right to judge publications, favorably or not, on such decisions. Riley also has the right to launch her own blog.
“Riley does cite and quote several specific examples of the content she finds ridiculous”
Actually that’s not the case. She cites “the sidebar explaining some of the dissertations” alone. Even that required no research – she simply looked at an article in the published Chronicle of Higher Education, and responded to it.
It’s pretty straight forward blog practice, sure, and you’re right that she has the right to launch her own blog. This is the type of posting I think people would expect at a personal blog, without the imprimatur of a publication.
THIS CAN’T BE RIGHT:Fired by the politically correct, left-leaning, mainstream media for publish FACTS. No way. . .
FACTS
Jim, for the record, it is becoming harder and harder to find PhD dissertations (full-text) online. (Higher paywalls?) More and more writers have to depend on the PhD dissertation abstract for info.
Also, you should know, living near Northwestern Univ., 99.999% of dissertations are NOT read. They’re boring and pedantic. Which makes “PhD study shows” stories so absurd – few, if any, will actually read it and check the math and statistics.
Henry K. allegedly repeatedly said “politics in academia are so small because the stakes are so small.” Res ipsa.
Your quote is wrong, R.P.
JtT, I’d have a lot more empathy if people weren’t so fast to buy into non-factual information just because they find it on the Internet. At this point, anything that keeps the crap out of the feeding tube has some merit.
WT?
M claimed: “Your quote is wrong, R.P.”
And?
So fix it.
“So fix it.”
Fix what, O Wise One? Where is “it?”
“Politics in academia are so small because the stakes are so small.”
And those involved, obviously.
Unless, of course, you think you’re 1/32nd Cherokee and need to get to Harvard? Heck — try “hope and change” — banks will understand.
More on the Witch Burning at The Chronicle of Higher Education.
http://chronicle.com/blogs/innovations/rileys-arrow/32467?sid=pm&utm_source=pm&utm_medium=en
Riley’s Arrow
By Peter Wood
Look it up yourself. You have it wrong twice now. No one ever said the politics were “small.” That makes no sense.
I weep for the future generations who will have to suffer with the legacy of awful writing.
DUH
“Look it up yourself.”
Translation: “I’m just being mindless.”
“No one ever said the politics were “small.”
Uh .. Henry K is being quoted, Einstein. Duh.
This has been another example of the mindless dork-ness epidemic in the USA and academia. Where, of course, there are more authentic Communists than in China and Russia.
As in this OWS bozo who expects $80K/year to urinate on the working class –
http://bit.ly/IU2FVu
WAR ON FREE SPEECH
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304363104577391842133259230.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
” .. My longtime familiarity with the absurdities of higher education did not, I confess, prepare me for this most absurd of results. The content of my post, after all, is hardly shocking; the same thing could have been written 30 years ago. And perhaps that’s the most depressing part of all this. Despite the real social and economic advancement that has been made by blacks in this country, the American faculty is still stuck in the 1960s.”
Hey, even OweBama told WaPo, he was tired of hearing 50-year-old Bob Dylan songs at OWS “protests.”
You have to be kidding me. I pointed out the mistake in what you typed, and you still defend it. Also, it’s not even a guarantee that Kissinger — who you mindlessly refer to as Henry K. — said it.
Let’s go slowly: You have the quote wrong. Look up the correct version and get back to us.
Jesus. It took me 20 seconds to find the following. What is *wrong* with you people? You’ve heard of Google, right?
The commonly cited quote attributed to Kissinger is: “Academic politics are so vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.”
But according to “The Quote Verifier” by Ralph Keyes:
“ACADEMIC politics are so vicious precisely because the stakes are so small” This observation is routinely attributed to former Harvard professor Henry Kissinger. Well before Kissinger got credit for that thought in the mid-1970s, however, Harvard political scientist Richard Neustadt told a reporter, “Academic politics is much more vicious than real politics. We think it’s because the stakes are so small.” Others believe this quip originated with political scientist Wallace Sayre, Neustadt’s onetime colleague at Columbia University. A 1973 book gave as “Sayre’s Law,” “In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the stakes at issue–that is why academic politics are so bitter.” Sayre’s colleague and coauthor Herbert Kaufman said his usual wording was “The politics of the university are so intense because the stakes are so low.” In his 1979 book Peter’s People, Laurence Peter wrote, “Competition in academia is so vicious because the stakes are so small.” He called this “Peter’s Theory of Entrepreneurial Aggressiveness in Higher Education.” Variations on that thought have also been attributed to scientist-author C. P. Snow, professor-politician Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and politician Jesse Unruh (among others). According to the onetime editor of Woodrow Wilson’s papers, however, long before any of them strode the academic-political scene, Wilson observed often that the intensity of academic squabbles he witnessed while president of Princeton University was a function of the “triviality” of the issues being considered.
Verdict: An old academic saw that may have originated with Woodrow Wilson but was put in modern play by Wallace Sayre.”
And I won’t comment on the irony contained in this flamewar being fought over this quote, except to note it.
Dan: Let the record show that one of us chose to keep repeating the same mistake. And it wasn’t me.
DIM
Anyone who has been around academia knows the quote about the small common-ness of academia. Duh.
Others are just ignorant, period. And they keep repeating it.
In a courtroom, judges end their ignorance with contempt citations and holding cells.
Jim — again, full-text PhD dissertations are becoming harder and harder to find online, even with ABI and Lexis-Nexis. You’re welcome.
Says the person who refuses to admit he got the quote wrong. Do you still not realize that? Talk about repeating it!
M, thanks for your obvious ignorance. You are proving Ms. Riley correct, with every posting. Congratulations on your obtuse scrawls.
Jim — Ms. Riley’s piece in WSJ notes this attack on free speech began at Northwestern University.
What a coincidence, all these events, in the Evanston area. Res ipsa, sir.
Obtuse is probably better defined by someone who gets the quote and the source wrong and then continues to ignore those flaws. No one ever said politics in academia were “small.”