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Notes -
There seems to be a small movement by Republican lawmakers to put legal pressure on the excesses of woke universities.
The STEM Scott writes about several bills up for consideration in the Texas state senate:
Florida is considering a similar bill, HB 999, that would place restrictions on DEI-related initiatives and majors at public universities. Already the effects are being felt at SLACs like the New College:
I'm in a bit of an odd place with regards to these issues. I don't fit neatly onto the woke "how dare you attack our most hallowed and sacred institutions!" side, nor the anti-woke "stop teaching this pinko commie crap to our kids!" side.
I really do have an almost naive faith in free speech for all, even for my worst enemies. Despite being an avowed rightist, I not only want leftists to be able to speak, but I want them to be platformed! I want to help you get the word out! I think our public life really should play host to a diversity of viewpoints. I think the university should be a hothouse of strange and controversial ideas. By all means, keep teaching CRT and women's studies and black studies and whatever else you want. I know that leftists don't extend the same courtesy to me, but that doesn't invalidate the fundamental point that I should extend that courtesy to them. Even just beyond extending formal charity to my political outgroup, I actually enjoy a lot of this type of scholarship and I find value in it, I like Marxist literary criticism and the obscurantist mid-20th century French guys and German phenomenology and all the rest of it, and I think it should continue to be taught and studied on its own merits, even if I don't necessarily agree with the politics.
But! It really is hard sometimes. When things like this happen, when a book chapter that was, by all accounts, a completely anodyne explication of the official party ideology, whose only crime was that it didn't go far enough in advocating the abolition of all gendered pronouns, is met with public humiliation and a tarnishing of the reputation of the author... it does make my blood boil and it's hard to maintain my principles. It makes me want to go "ok, yeah screw it, ban all liberal arts programs at universities, I don't care, whatever, I just want these people to lose." I'm on their side on a lot of the key object-level issues and I still want them to lose! That's why I constantly feel like I'm of two minds on these questions.
In spite of all the problems with the modern university, I still think it's important that we have at least one institution that acts as a countervailing force to utilitarian profit-maximizing techbroism. The university as it stands now leaves a lot to be desired. But if the choice is between the university we have now, or nothing, I'll stick with the university.
I don't have an opinion on tenure, and I lean on the side of thinking that legislation ought not to interfere with the operations of even public universities to the extent of banning it. Likewise, I'm not sure that legislation ought to specifically compel firings of professors spreading odious views, including "belief that any race, sex, or ethnicity or social, political, or religious belief is inherently superior to any other race, sex, ethnicity, or belief." As described by Aaronson, the professor would have to at least attempt to "compel" this belief, but that could mean something as innocuous as stating it in class and winking, for all I know. I don't know if setting the precedent for such legislative micromanaging causes more harm than good.
But for SB17, as described by Aaronson:
seems like a very straightforward implementation of the first amendment religion clause. DEI is clearly a religion, a specifically and openly faith-based worldview with certain morals that follow downstream of that faith, and much like how public universities ought not push Christianity or Islam on its faculty or students, it ought not push DEI on them either. The devil's in the details, I suppose, since public universities certainly can make accommodations for religions including having services, and maybe this law might go too far. I would think that such a specific law wouldn't even be required, though, since the Constitution already covers this.
I see where you’re coming from, but disagree that DEI is a religion. Or, at least, not “specifically and openly” one.
It obviously has moral claims, and distinguishes between right and wrong. But this is not unique to religions. Take something from my line of work. People get really into Agile. Your scrum master will tell you there is a right way and a wrong way to plan a sprint. He will ask that you participate in self-effacing rituals. Comply, he will warn, lest your team falter under a backlog of your sins. In doing so, he will have the blessing of the company—presumably because someone had good marketing and a couple of case studies.
And you know what? Agile is a bit cultish. It has hierarchies and rituals and, God, it has evangelists. But this is not sufficient religious character to bar it on First Amendment grounds. From Cornell Law:
Agile clearly fits neither. It offers answers about workflow and planning, not cosmology or morality. Its duties are purely materialistic. Likewise, DEI does not attempt to answer any of these comprehensive questions. It anchors the assignment of duties to material benefits like “diverse viewpoints” or “not alienating talent.” Failing both prongs of the religious definition, DEI is secular in nature.
It seems like it would cover Buddhist, Hindu, and maybe Confucian thought.
The Unitarians definitely push the limits, to the point where the government occasionally questions their tax exemption. Even internally, they struggle with how much Christianity to include. UUs do have covenants and principles. I suspect that those would be dispositive in any case where UUs’ religious character was in question. For a practitioner to try and claim religious exemption, there would have to be some conflict with “fundamental questions.”
Do you have an alternate, better definition in mind?
My understanding of Confucianism was that it’s got a lot to do with the “mandate of heaven” answer to is/ought problems. Looking it up, I guess that predated Confucius by several centuries, and I might have confused it with other threads in Chinese philosophy. There are still some spiritual features which DEI lacks:
But it’s clear that I’m not familiar enough, so I guess I’ll punt.
I would agree with your formulation of the problem, and I’m trying to avoid splitting little hairs. Appealing to legal definitions was my attempt to describe the “similar-enough place in thought and practitioners’ lives.”
It’s not enough to say that DEI feels cultish, because so do a lot of other decidedly-secular business practices. Neither is having a code of behavior—that’s not unique to religion. “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” are secular values, so policy made in their service is secular. Insofar as DEI cites similar principles, I think it rates as secular, too.
Extreme cases are surely capable of leaving that umbrella. By citing Christian metaphysics, Ms. Higgenbotham has no pretense of secularity. You can’t accept her argument without accepting some of the axioms of Christianity. That doesn’t prevent coming at similar proscriptions from a secular background.
While there is a religious Confucianism that expands on his approval of religious ritual and rites (he having lived in a period of widespread animist belief), Confucius himself was (and the Confucian classics more generally are) quite humanistic. Essentially all instruction and rhetoric is based on the physical; references to the supernatural are vague and nonspecific; and the few references to 天命 (usually translated in most contexts to Mandate of Heaven) in the Analects are moreso appeals to some sort of spiritual/natural/moral law (as you noted).
I suppose you could say it’s spiritual in that sense, but given the teachings are entirely preoccupied with human and not divine action, and the classics themselves are uninterested in discussing the supernatural beyond acknowledging the native animism and ancestor worship of the time, …I guess it walks like a duck, swims like a duck, but clucks like a chicken?
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