This is a sad state of affairs where one can't even have a meta discussion about a topic without having to tip toe around ill-defined lines.
In the long run, this has the potential to turn people how want to stay out of politics and draw them in out of necessity, or they may also be cowed into something they disagree with to protect their livelihood.
In either case, it's not a good thing that one may not seek science in academia. The thing that got us to where we are. Without science and inquisitiveness, even into controversial subjects (many normal things were at one time controversial) we would not be where we are today.
This is being undermined by dogmaticism and we can only hope science prevails.
since when is invoking Godwin's law so bad as to prevent a talk about extra solar planets?
Godwin's law remains a jest about ridiculous roads online discussions can go down, its not a means of identifying those that should be silenced on other subjects.
Did he actually lose his job? There's a big difference between your boss or, since he's an academic, someone on the promotion panel saying that and some internet stranger who has no impact on his career.
Contrast that with the Germans in question where “cancellation” had best case outcomes like economic ruin and fleeing the country. I'm not saying I support calls to have him fired — although I don't see people getting this lathered about about, say, all of the retail workers or service reps who get worse for even pettier reasons — but these are simply not remotely comparable situations.
> it’s dishonest and disrespectful the Jewish people
Is it? Bari Weiss, who I think is Jewish, seems not to think so. I happen to be Jewish, and I don't think so. An inopportune comparison, yes, but not malicious. A lot of otherwise highly educated people in STEM lack a broad knowledge of politics and history. The Nazi comparison is quite often literally the only one they have available! Certainly Abbot and his co-author would have been better served by an example that didn't directly precede a genocide – in my opinion, the most apt is what went on in the Soviet Union.
He doesn't, he compared it to the state of German universities shortly before the Nazis came to power and there are certain parallels. I think it is worth listening to him.
> He directly equates DEI efforts to Nazi Germany:
Specifically, he equated active racial, gender, etc. inclusion with active racial exclusion. Like the rest of his piece, it is part of a pile of nonobvious (but with a very high affinity for a particular political tribe, despite the author’s claim to be apolitical) conclusions offered without significant justification; the one place this seems to be noted at all os an invitation to the reader to do research and disprove the conclusion that the author has declined to support.
> he equated active racial, gender, etc. inclusion with active racial exclusion.
I believe this to be correct. Explain the difference. People use it to stick it to some people they don't like. They justify it with oppression. There isn't any technical difference.
The alternative is to not do it. No option for contemporary progressive and national socialists alike.
That's the thing about of posting bare conclusions without support. It appeals to those who already agree with you, while doing nothing to convince those who don't.
> Explain the difference.
One targets a group and excludes them from the institution in question, the other a
seeks to prevent any group from being excluded from the institution.
> People use it to stick it to some people they don't like.
No, DEI isn't about sticking it to people that the advocates don't like.
> They justify it with oppression.
No, German racial exclusion want justified by past oppression it was justified by racial supremacist ideology (in no small part inspired by American White supremacy.)
> seeks to prevent any group from being excluded from the institution
No group is being excluded from the institution. That's been illegal for decades. Many individuals are being excluded because they aren't part of the "right" group.
The victims of that exclusion are mostly Asian and don't matter to "progressives". The author's proposed "academic evaluations based on academic merit" would open elite universities to tens of thousands of Asian students currently being excluded by race-based admissions.
In the long run, this has the potential to turn people how want to stay out of politics and draw them in out of necessity, or they may also be cowed into something they disagree with to protect their livelihood.
In either case, it's not a good thing that one may not seek science in academia. The thing that got us to where we are. Without science and inquisitiveness, even into controversial subjects (many normal things were at one time controversial) we would not be where we are today.
This is being undermined by dogmaticism and we can only hope science prevails.