Letting Go

 

With deep regret, I am detaching fully from The University of Chicago. 

The University of Chicago  has meant a great deal to me throughout my life.  I fell in love with the university from the beginning—its magnificent gothic architecture, its synthesis with the city, its intellectual vibrancy, and its connection with my family history (one of my grandfather’s first jobs as an immigrant was as a busboy at the Shoreland Hotel).   I have so many wonderful memories of strolling through the Quadrangles, studying in Harper Library,  having a beer at Woodlawn Tap, where the fellow sitting at the barstool next to you might be reading Ulysses.  I had some incredible professors—Frank Kinahan and Joe Williams, William H. McNeill and Daniel Pipes, Donald Fiske, and Robert Streeter.  I was married in Bond Chapel.  In 2010 and 2013, I helped organize reunions of our football teams from the late 70’s on campus.  Last year, this group raised a memorial fund for Daniel Tepke, one of the coaches and former administrators of the school.

I have made it a habit to return to Hyde Park for Reunion Weekend almost every year to renew my connection with the university, renew old friendships and make new and interesting ones.   A few years ago, I attended a wine and cheese event during Reunion Weekend and chatted with a young woman that was just graduating and planned to do graduate work in Poland the following year.  She confided to me, “This is the first place where I felt like I fit in.  I am terribly afraid that I will never find another place with so many people like me.”  I smiled and responded, “Well, I have some bad news for you.  You won’t.  But you can always come back and visit.”  I have had similar conversations over the years with graduating students.

The skies have darkened over Hyde Park recently,  and not just because of pandemic.  Since the university unveiled the Chicago Principles, the university has conceded a great deal of ground to Critical Race Theory (CRT) proponents.  Recently, one of the architects of the Chicago Principles, Geoffrey Stone, caved to demands that he stop using the “N” word in class, because a student found it offensive.   Although he used it only as an illustration in his First Amendment class, Stone conceded and agreed to cease.  While the usage of that word is hard to defend, Stone’s concession was notable.  It silenced the mob for a bit, but it was the first small chink in the armor.  CRT never stops with initial, small victories.

Then there were the mob attacks on Harald Uhlig and Dorian Abbot.   The university responded to Uhlig’s case by vowing to review all of his social media posts for hints of “racist content.” It found none.  Abbot had the temerity to suggest that the university look to talent in admissions and appointments rather than race.  And the mob promptly descended on him.  In Abbot’s case, the university did affirm its free speech principles, in a communique but in the same message also affirmed its commitment to its diversity, equity, and inclusiveness (DEI) policy.  The fact that students and faculty attempted to “cancel” both Uhlig and Abbot for espousing eminently defensible positions tells us that the Chicago Principles and DEI will be in conflict over the long run—and DEI now has the upper hand. 

 Last summer, the English Department announced something of a de facto “no whites” admissions policy, stating that it would only admit graduate students that are interested in Black Studies for the coming year.  This decision made national news.  Not just some of the spots were reserved for Black Studies students--- but ALL of them.  With some twisted logic, the English Department sought to fight purported systemic racism with… systemic racism.  So much for Dickens, Hemingway, and Jane Austen. 

All of these events are direct outgrowths of Critical Theory and its inherent aggressive activism that has begun to tighten its grip on the institution.   Now we learn that the university is seriously contemplating an entire department devoted to CRT. 

I will make some predictions about the direction of the university if it continues down this path.  Having already taken over an entire formerly esteemed department (the Department of English), and graced with its own entire department, CRT will begin to consume the entire university, and all of its disciplines.  As an inherently activist movement, it will elbow its way in to become the self-appointed overseer of permissible publications and faculty and staff appointments.  It will scour publications and university communications for any hint of racism.   The kinds of attacks suffered by professors Uhlig and Abbot will become commonplace, and faculty will begin to fear having a label attached to them by this department.  The calls for decolonializing reading lists and required reading will become irresistible.   The heralded machine of the economics department that produced so many Nobel Laureates will grind to a halt with the sand of CRT in its gears.  The department will never again produce another Robert Fogel.  Reading lists that formerly featured the Iliad, Max Weber, Alexis de Toqueville and Adam Smith will inevitably give way to the work of the likes of Ibram X. Kendi, Nikole Hannah-Jones and Robin DiAngelo.   

I also predict that within 3-5 years, the university will establish a committee to review the Chicago Principles for “appropriate and necessary adjustments” as a result of a push by the Critical Race Theory Department.  The result will be less freedom of speech, a lower level of intellectual rigor and an adherence to a doctrine that seeks to impose its framework on all other disciplines.  Its anti-Enlightenment approach will be felt across the university (the Booth School of Business is already sponsoring workshops on “white privilege”).   None of this will happen overnight---the university has some great momentum---but so does CRT, and we’ve already seen it exert a powerful influence over the school and it is gaining velocity.  Elevating its status by granting it an entire department will forever change the character of the university.

Much is made by CRT proponents of “inclusiveness.”  That word began to creep into university messages in a letter to incoming students by president Zimmer a couple of years ago.  On its face,  the word is benign, welcoming, and warm sounding.  In practice, however, CRT assigns a very different meaning in corporate and academic environments.  Like the fellow that was able to force Professor Stone to adjust, “inclusiveness” shifts power.  By claiming certain speech makes them feel “unsafe,” it enables individuals to shut off speech they don’t like, that makes them uncomfortable, and less included.   Exposure to ideas that make one uncomfortable or “unsafe” is one of the reasons people flock to The University of Chicago. 

The University of Chicago is not, and should not be, inclusive, but rather EXCLUSIVE—not by skin color, gender, sexual preference, origin, religion or any of those dimensions, but by intellectual capability, passion and desire to engage in free inquiry and free thought.  The university necessarily can and should EXCLUDE individuals that are not dead serious about scholarship and intellectual development, and those that are timid about having their intellect challenged.

I would probably actually be less troubled if the university  sought to establish a Department of Astrology rather than one devoted to CRT. A study by The Pew Research Center showed that approximately 25% of Americans believe in astrology and  I would not be surprised if a similar percentage of people also believed in CRT.  There is about as much empirical evidence to support Astrology as an academic discipline as there is in support of CRT.  And unlike a  CRT Department, an Astrology Department would not make demands on other departments.  An Astrology Department could then legitimately claim that “the fault lies not in ourselves but in our stars.”

It is ironic that the university that gave me sufficient critical thinking skills to understand the toxicity of Critical Theory is now drinking its poison in large gulps. It is corrosive to the university and to society writ large.  Consequently, I have to detach.  I won’t be coming around anymore.  I’ve unsubscribed to mailings.   I won’t be attending reunions even when pandemic clears.  I just can’t bear to watch the inevitable decline that will inevitably follow the university’s embrace of CRT as an academic discipline while the ideology simultaneously undermines the university’s foundations.  It is like watching a parent destroy themselves with alcoholism.

I had high hopes that, unlike other universities,  The University of Chicago would remain a bulwark against Wokeism and CRT.  But the institution that has been a source of great pride for me is now well on the way to “just the place I went to school.”