I vaguely recall a couple stories over past years? The guy finally quit. Incredible experience, and his commentary has such clarity.

Text below substack link. I don't know how she got the letter, nor can I speak to it's authenticity. It resonates.

Peter Boghossian September 8, 2021

Peter Boghossian has taught philosophy at Portland State University for the past decade. In the letter below, sent this morning to the university’s provost, he explains why he is resigning.

Dear Provost Susan Jeffords,

​​I’m writing to you today to resign as assistant professor of philosophy at Portland State University.

Over the last decade, it has been my privilege to teach at the university. My specialties are critical thinking, ethics and the Socratic method, and I teach classes like Science and Pseudoscience and The Philosophy of Education. But in addition to exploring classic philosophers and traditional texts, I’ve invited a wide range of guest lecturers to address my classes, from Flat-Earthers to Christian apologists to global climate skeptics to Occupy Wall Street advocates. I’m proud of my work.

I invited those speakers not because I agreed with their worldviews, but primarily because I didn’t. From those messy and difficult conversations, I’ve seen the best of what our students can achieve: questioning beliefs while respecting believers; staying even-tempered in challenging circumstances; and even changing their minds.

I never once believed — nor do I now — that the purpose of instruction was to lead my students to a particular conclusion. Rather, I sought to create the conditions for rigorous thought; to help them gain the tools to hunt and furrow for their own conclusions. This is why I became a teacher and why I love teaching.

But brick by brick, the university has made this kind of intellectual exploration impossible. It has transformed a bastion of free inquiry into a Social Justice factory whose only inputs were race, gender, and victimhood and whose only outputs were grievance and division.

Students at Portland State are not being taught to think. Rather, they are being trained to mimic the moral certainty of ideologues. Faculty and administrators have abdicated the university’s truth-seeking mission and instead drive intolerance of divergent beliefs and opinions. This has created a culture of offense where students are now afraid to speak openly and honestly.

I noticed signs of the illiberalism that has now fully swallowed the academy quite early during my time at Portland State. I witnessed students refusing to engage with different points of view. Questions from faculty at diversity trainings that challenged approved narratives were instantly dismissed. Those who asked for evidence to justify new institutional policies were accused of microaggressions. And professors were accused of bigotry for assigning canonical texts written by philosophers who happened to have been European and male.

At first, I didn’t realize how systemic this was and I believed I could question this new culture. So I began asking questions. What is the evidence that trigger warnings and safe spaces contribute to student learning? Why should racial consciousness be the lens through which we view our role as educators? How did we decide that “cultural appropriation” is immoral?

Unlike my colleagues, I asked these questions out loud and in public.

I decided to study the new values that were engulfing Portland State and so many other educational institutions — values that sound wonderful, like diversity, equity, and inclusion, but might actually be just the opposite. The more I read the primary source material produced by critical theorists, the more I suspected that their conclusions reflected the postulates of an ideology, not insights based on evidence.

I began networking with student groups who had similar concerns and brought in speakers to explore these subjects from a critical perspective. And it became increasingly clear to me that the incidents of illiberalism I had witnessed over the years were not just isolated events, but part of an institution-wide problem.

The more I spoke out about these issues, the more retaliation I faced.

Early in the 2016-17 academic year, a former student complained about me and the university initiated a Title IX investigation. (Title IX investigations are a part of federal law designed to protect “people from discrimination based on sex in education programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance.”) My accuser, a white male, made a slew of baseless accusations against me, which university confidentiality rules unfortunately prohibit me from discussing further. What I can share is that students of mine who were interviewed during the process told me the Title IX investigator asked them if they knew anything about me beating my wife and children. This horrifying accusation soon became a widespread rumor.

With Title IX investigations there is no due process, so I didn’t have access to the particular accusations, the ability to confront my accuser, and I had no opportunity to defend myself. Finally, the results of the investigation were revealed in December 2017. Here are the last two sentences of the report: “Global Diversity & Inclusion finds there is insufficient evidence that Boghossian violated PSU’s Prohibited Discrimination & Harassment policy. GDI recommends Boghossian receive coaching.”

Not only was there no apology for the false accusations, but the investigator also told me that in the future I was not allowed to render my opinion about “protected classes” or teach in such a way that my opinion about protected classes could be known — a bizarre conclusion to absurd charges. Universities can enforce ideological conformity just through the threat of these investigations.

I eventually became convinced that corrupted bodies of scholarship were responsible for justifying radical departures from the traditional role of liberal arts schools and basic civility on campus. There was an urgent need to demonstrate that morally fashionable papers — no matter how absurd — could be published. I believed then that if I exposed the theoretical flaws of this body of literature, I could help the university community avoid building edifices on such shaky ground.

So, in 2017, I co-published an intentionally garbled peer-reviewed paper that took aim at the new orthodoxy. Its title: “The Conceptual Penis as a Social Construct.” This example of pseudo-scholarship, which was published in Cogent Social Sciences, argued that penises were products of the human mind and responsible for climate change. Immediately thereafter, I revealed the article as a hoax designed to shed light on the flaws of the peer-review and academic publishing systems.

Shortly thereafter, swastikas in the bathroom with my name under them began appearing in two bathrooms near the philosophy department. They also occasionally showed up on my office door, in one instance accompanied by bags of feces. Our university remained silent. When it acted, it was against me, not the perpetrators.

I continued to believe, perhaps naively, that if I exposed the flawed thinking on which Portland State’s new values were based, I could shake the university from its madness. In 2018 I co-published a series of absurd or morally repugnant peer-reviewed articles in journals that focused on issues of race and gender. In one of them we argued that there was an epidemic of dog rape at dog parks and proposed that we leash men the way we leash dogs. Our purpose was to show that certain kinds of “scholarship” are based not on finding truth but on advancing social grievances. This worldview is not scientific, and it is not rigorous.

Administrators and faculty were so angered by the papers that they published an anonymous piece in the student paper and Portland State filed formal charges against me. Their accusation? “Research misconduct” based on the absurd premise that the journal editors who accepted our intentionally deranged articles were “human subjects.” I was found guilty of not receiving approval to experiment on human subjects.

Meanwhile, ideological intolerance continued to grow at Portland State. In March 2018, a tenured professor disrupted a public discussion I was holding with author Christina Hoff Sommers and evolutionary biologists Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying. In June 2018, someone triggered the fire alarm during my conversation with popular cultural critic Carl Benjamin. In October 2018, an activist pulled out the speaker wires to interrupt a panel with former Google engineer James Damore. The university did nothing to stop or address this behavior. No one was punished or disciplined.

For me, the years that followed were marked by continued harassment. I’d find flyers around campus of me with a Pinocchio nose. I was spit on and threatened by passersby while walking to class. I was informed by students that my colleagues were telling them to avoid my classes. And, of course, I was subjected to more investigation.

I wish I could say that what I am describing hasn’t taken a personal toll. But it has taken exactly the toll it was intended to: an increasingly intolerable working life and without the protection of tenure.

This isn’t about me. This is about the kind of institutions we want and the values we choose. Every idea that has advanced human freedom has always, and without fail, been initially condemned. As individuals, we often seem incapable of remembering this lesson, but that is exactly what our institutions are for: to remind us that the freedom to question is our fundamental right. Educational institutions should remind us that that right is also our duty.

Portland State University has failed in fulfilling this duty. In doing so it has failed not only its students but the public that supports it. While I am grateful for the opportunity to have taught at Portland State for over a decade, it has become clear to me that this institution is no place for people who intend to think freely and explore ideas.

This is not the outcome I wanted. But I feel morally obligated to make this choice. For ten years, I have taught my students the importance of living by your principles. One of mine is to defend our system of liberal education from those who seek to destroy it. Who would I be if I didn’t?

Sincerely,

Peter Boghossian

Wish him away to the corn field!

Portland State University -- They voted for an unarmed police force, so the University police are unarmed. Dumb, Dumb, Dumb.

It stems from 2 years ago when they shot some stupid drunk guy who reached for a gun on the ground after he was told to leave it alone.

These idiots think that if armed cops are needed, they can just call for mutual aid from the Portland City Police. Yeah, that will work

I vaguely remember the dust-up caused by his published articles and I recall having a good laugh at some of the subjects. Too bad the Provost won’t read this letter and learn from it, I can tell you this nonsense is too deeply embedded in our universities.

Assistant Professor for a decade? Is that normal? His content is well written an I applaude the sentiment but too little too late.

This is sad. Mr. Boghossian's third paragraph illustrates my concern:

quote:

I invited those speakers not because I agreed with their worldviews, but primarily because I didn’t. From those messy and difficult conversations, I’ve seen the best of what our students can achieve: questioning beliefs while respecting believers; staying even-tempered in challenging circumstances; and even changing their minds.

The approach used by this professor is exactly what an institution of higher education should offer, access to ideas. In this sound bite world that concept is lost, too easy to be told and not listen.

quote:

Originally posted by GA Gator:
Assistant Professor for a decade? Is that normal?

Maybe a bit out of the ordinary. On a normal tenure clock, he should have hit associate by 7 years, but he could well have had a visiting assistant appointment (i.e. non tenure-track) for a few years first, or could even have been on a series of 2 or 3 year appointments. That might not be uncommon in esoteric disciplines like Philosophy.

And I'm a huge fan of Boghossian (and James Lindsay). Their videos are supremely informative if you want to actually understand the origins of the current crazies and see how to actually take them on intellectually (not hard, but best to be prepared).

I attended a conservative University, but pretty much anyone was invited to share their views. Stokely Carmichael, RFK, Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, Muhammed Ali etc. Every time one of these guys came, some alumni resigned.

Delete the name Portland state and add any other university's name, and most of it would apply just the same.

Unfortunately, this letter is about 30 years too late.

While it’s probably too late to reverse course without a lot of pain I don’t think it’s too late to fix this.

quote:

Originally posted by stickman428:
While it’s probably too late to reverse course without a lot of pain I don’t think it’s too late to fix this.

I do agree. It is just that it falls on purposely defended ears at this point.

Its not just universities, this shit has penetrated deep into the entire educational system. I'm glad my kids are finishing up school. Unfortunately, just starting college. Two of the three are conservative, my oldest I'm afraid fell off the wagon and has fought us tooth and nail every step of the way.

If you are just married and starting out, plan on home schooling your kids. Private schools...well, just do your homework on them and I'll leave it at that.

quote:

Originally posted by jcsabolt2:
Its not just universities, this shit has penetrated deep into the entire educational system.

Sadly, this is true I've said it here, before, many times: Our "education" system no longer educates, much less enlightens, but indoctrinates.

I'm pretty certain I've related the following story, before, too.

A couple young men came by one election race not long ago, campaigning for a Democrat. I politely told them they'd be wasting their time on me, as I would never again vote for any Democrat. To their credit, they asked why. So I told them. Again: Politely.

They seemed rather taken-aback at what I had to say.

So I started asking them "Did you know...?" questions about our nation's history, the U.S. Constitution, our Constitution's roots, and some civics-related things.

Unsurprisingly, they did not know any of what I asked them.

Then I told them "These are things I learned in high school, fifty years ago. And I still recall them."

I hope all that made an impression on them, but, the reality is they'd probably forgotten all about it by the time they got home.

The fact they knew none of the things we discussed was not their fault. It was the fault of their parents and an indictment of our "education" system. It was yet another example of why I'll never again vote for even a school millage renewal, much less increase.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:

quote:

Originally posted by jcsabolt2:
Its not just universities, this shit has penetrated deep into the entire educational system.

Sadly, this is true I've said it here, before, many times: Our "education" system no longer educates, much less enlightens, but indoctrinates.

Your "no longer" spans decades. In the fall of '92 our second grader came home from school one day and said, "Mrs. Cooper said you should vote for Bill Clinton because he believes in a woman's right to choose". Second grader. Seven years old.

Mrs. Cooper was his teacher and the wife of the Superintendent of Schools.

Yeah, this has been going on for a long time. This is why they want to mandate pre-K, so they can start even sooner.

I was going to launch into a long ran …, discussion about home schooling, but I’ll just offer a couple of observations.

To do it properly requires much more time and effort than most families can afford to put into the process. It also requires the teachers to be far more intelligent and more broadly educated than the average American. If not done properly one ends up with offspring who are just as ignorant as the product of public schools, albeit in different ways, but without the benefit of having at least been exposed to different ideas that could be challenged and corrected at home.

If, however, one wants a good start on being able to understand and counter the allure of the various shades of leftism, a recommended reading list (that I update from time to time):


KGB: The Secret Work Of Soviet Agents; John Barron
KGB Today: The Hidden Hand; John Barron
Special Tasks (murder and espionage by the KGB); Pavel Sudoplatov
The Haunted Wood (espionage in the US); Weinstein & Vassiliev
Spies (the rise and fall of the KGB in America); Haynes, Klehr & Vassiliev
* Mao; Chang & Halliday
* Reds (Communism and McCarthyism); Ted Morgan
* The Strange Death of the Soviet Empire; David Pryce-Jones
* The Forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin’s Russia; Tim Tzouliadis
The Sword and the Shield; (archival history of the KGB); Andrew & Mitrokhin
The World Was Going Our Way (archival history of the KGB); Andrew & Mitrokhin
Alger Hiss: Why He Chose Treason; Christina Shelton
* Black April (the fall of South Vietnam); George Veith
Circle of Treason (espionage by Aldridge Ames); Grimes & Vertefeuille
* Iron Curtain (the “crushing” of Eastern Europe); Anne Applebaum
* Why We Were in Vietnam; Norman Podhoretz
The Soviet Biological Weapons Program; Leitenberg & Zilinskas
A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal; Ben Macintyre
A Very Expensive Poison (murder of Alexander Litvinenko); Luke Harding
* The Soviet Tragedy: A History of Socialism in Russia, 1917-1991; Martin Malia
Bureau of Spies; Steven Usdin
VENONA: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America; John Haynes and Harvey Klehr
Trinity: The Treachery and Pursuit of the Most Dangerous Spy in History; Frank Close
Betrayal in Berlin; Steve Vogel
In Denial: Historians, Communism & Espionage; John Haynes and Harvey Klehr
The Bureau and the Mole: The Unmasking of Robert Philip Hanssen, the Most Dangerous Double Agent in FBI History; David A. Vise
* Stasiland: Stories From Behind the Berlin Wall (life in East Germany under the control of the security service); Anna Funder
Man Without a Face: The Autobiography of Communism’s Greatest Spymaster [sic] (autobiography of the head of East Germany’s Foreign Intelligence Service); Markus Wolf with Anne McElvoy


* Most of the books listed are about espionage, but the ones with asterisks are more about Communist socialism in general. And although it’s a novel based on her personal experiences in the early Soviet Union, the true classic is We the Living by Ayn Rand. I read that long ago shortly after Atlas Shrugged, but when I tried rereading it a few years ago it was so depressing that I gave up after a few pages.

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:
Your "no longer" spans decades.

Yes, indeed.

Our academic institutions have always been bastions of leftist thought, as it was a 'safe space' where believers could 'express their opinions' without the rest of society beating them down with reality.

The academic-types of that generation continued on in higher education, attaining tenure in the 80's, and began to wield their authority by the 90's as Roe v Wade, early tech-economy developed and Clinton-policies became the center of discussions. Today, they are the senior figures, department heads, chancellors, presidents and board members. They crafted policies which construct a 'just society' on campus, the profession is about conformity not free-flow of thought and view points. Title IX is their velvet hammer, broad and far-reaching, written so all manner of situations and scenarios can come under its purview. Students are their foot-soldiers, invigorated to pull fire alarms during speeches, engage in inane and frivolous debates and physically lash-out, blaming it on 'triggering' and incitement.

Boghossian, Weinstein and other academics who've publicly come forward with their resignations, have only realized that the monster that they were once apart of, has now overwhelmed them. They are dripping wet with realization that their colleagues, the ambitious ones (Noam Choamsky, Laura Nader, etc) are 'winning' and have come to dictate their vision to others.

The platform host, Bari Weiss, was fired from the NYT as an option writer, blackballed out of news media as she wasn't 'woke' enough, questioned positions and challenged accepted conventions. She's no doubt a leftist however the Overton Window shifted on her.

I regularly ask my son about what they are teaching him in public school, looking for signs of leftist teachers. So far it seems he has not experienced any signfiicant indoctrination and has a reasonable sense of reality. But we live in a suburb in a very Republican and conservative county (Hendricks) in a red state (Indiana).

I usually have Fox News on, or possibly Newsmax, and am pretty relentless about stressing the importance of liberty and all of our rights. He showed me Jordan Peterson's stuff on YouTube not the other way around, so that's good to see.

I have warned him about how things will be when he goes to college and he may very well have to tell professors what they want to hear instead of what he thinks, lest he get a bad grade or worse. This will be especially so if he majors in any social science.

As for Professor Boghossian, his fake papers are hilariously written and so full of absurd academic doublespeak that it is hard to believe anyone thought they were legitimate and should actually be published. He proved his point - "studies" programs and their faculty are intellectually, morally, and scientifically bankrupt. They are just a charade to siphon money from more useful programs.

There are Republicans in teaching. Not every college is devoted to promoting leftist ideas. Just do your homework. Purdue used to be pretty conservative and it is close to you. Tatortodd would know.

I wish Boghossian the best.