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UD is...
"Salty." (Scott McLemee)
"Unvarnished." (Phi Beta Cons)
"Splendidly splenetic." (Culture Industry)
"Except for University Diaries, most academic blogs are tedious."
(Rate Your Students)
"I think of Soltan as the Maureen Dowd of the blogosphere,
except that Maureen Dowd is kind of a wrecking ball of a writer,
and Soltan isn't. For the life of me, I can't figure out her
politics, but she's pretty fabulous, so who gives a damn?"
(Tenured Radical)

Wednesday, June 08, 2005

LOOSE LIPS SINK
CULTURAL COMPETENCY PROGRAMS


Who could have predicted that the first nail in the coffin of mandated cultural competency tests and disposition requirements in the American university would come not from the right, but from the very heart of the left?

Heedless of the damage his words may inflict on diversity sensitivity programs all over the country, Timothy Shortell (who has now “declined the election” as chair of the sociology department at Brooklyn College after his published statements calling religious people “moral retards” made people question whether he can treat non-atheists fairly) writes the following in his own defense:

“What most commentators seem to forget is the nature of professional ethics. I don’t worry when I visit my dentist, for example, that I am going to receive substandard care because he is a conservative Republican and I am not. I trust that he is a professional and when he is wearing his dentist’s hat, as it were, he treats his patients to the best of his ability. When he is off-duty, sitting in an overstuffed chair at the country club, let’s say, he is free to criticize my left-wing views and even insult me if he chooses. …

It is a mistake to believe that simply because I have expressed my political views as a private citizen that I am unable to treat people fairly in my professional role. Any public university is going to attract a great deal of diversity. Indeed that is one of the things I enjoy most about Brooklyn College. I work all the time with people who are different from me in almost every way. There has never been any trouble. I treat people with respect and they reciprocate. That is how we all get along despite our differences. … Just like any competent adult, I can switch roles when necessary. I know when I am playing the role of political actor and when I am playing the role of teacher.”


Note Shortell’s insouciance about his ability to switch roles between public and private, on-duty and off-duty, teacher and political actor, hat on and hat off. The man clearly believes he can be a competent teacher in a diverse pedagogical and collegial setting without any formal training in respect for others.

It’s a serious blow to institutionalized diversitarianism when a high-profile man of the left acknowledges that any competent adult can do what multi-million dollar diversity initiatives insist he cannot do.




Of course UD agrees with Shortell. Diversity training is an insult and a waste because competent adults are competent adults. UD does not doubt that despite his intemperate views about anyone with an inkling of interest in non-material matters Shortell is perfectly able to teach responsibly. And she respects the right of sociology faculty at Brooklyn College to vote as they wish for chair. She does not think Shortell should have been forced to resign.

She also believes, however, that, in a democracy, bigots like Timothy Shortell are fair game.