This broke Thursday, I guess, as I was on my way to Richmond. Here's Omri's take. He doesn't give a ... well, I don't use that kind of language here. You'll have to click through. I don't entirely agree, either with his take on Barnard or his dismissal of the significance of this idiotic tenure farce, but as usual he makes a provocative and entertaining case.
That's more than I can do. I guess the lines are being drawn here and we ought to pay attention. Holocaust denial is still not ok. Any other creative denial, obfuscation or revision of history is protected under the rubric of academic freedom, but only so long as it does not offend women of a particiular political stripe or "people of color."
What offends me so deeply about this entire sorry episode is that such an intellectually shoddy, unsubstantiated and bigoted piece of political propaganda has been lent credence as "scholarship" by a doctoral dissertation committee, two tenure committees and a respected publisher. What does this say about the judgment and the future of these institutions? I shudder to think.
