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2020-

2020-09-20 d
Higher Education Sinks Deeper

Another blow to intellectual freedom

The University of Chicago’s English department is this year only admitting PhD students in ‘Black studies’.

In the latest instance of illiberal academic wokery, the English department of the University of Chicago – a department that has already firmly established itself as, well, illiberally woke – has declared that in 2020-2021 it will be admitting only PhD students (five in all) who will pursue scholarship in ‘Black studies’.

That this brouhaha has arisen at the University of Chicago is seemingly surprising. No university in the world has historically been more committed to the principles of academic freedom and of freedom of expression than Chicago, and no university has such a storied heritage of scrutinising and upending the conventional wisdom and the shibboleths dominating higher education. From its founding in 1890 the university defined itself by its culture of fierce intellectuality, a culture characterised by relentless inquiry and robust debate. The university has recognised that such an environment demands protecting its faculty and students so that they can explore and develop the most unpopular ideas untrammelled. As Hanna Holborn Gray, a professor of history, emeritus, and the former president of Chicago, explained the university’s guiding principle: ‘Education should not be intended to make people comfortable, it is meant to make them think. Universities should be expected to provide the conditions within which hard thought, and therefore strong disagreement, independent judgment, and the questioning of stubborn assumptions, can flourish in an environment of the greatest freedom.’

To nurture and sustain that intellectually free environment, Chicago long ago recognised that it must commit itself and its constituent bodies – its departments, institutes and professional schools – to neutrality on political, social and moral issues, regardless of how right and settled the response to those issues might appear. (read more)

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