Leave The Ivory Tower Alone: KKK at UT

The University of Texas has refused to rename a dorm named for William Simkins, a notoriously racist law professor at UT from the early 20th century.  Apparently, he used to espouse racist views during his classes and suggested that "Negros" should not be allowed in classes where there were lots of women.

While I agree that his comments were despicable, they were absolutely no different from the views of most other Americans at the time.  If we are going to rename this building why not rename EVERY building named for someone who lived during slavery?  Jefferson would disappear from campuses everywhere.  As would about half of all the names on buildings around campus.

We all recognize slavery as a moral atrocity from history, but these people were honored for their dedication and service to the school, not their social views.  Simkins may have been a D-bag, but he served the school and offered his time and life to education (even though he may have failed to provide it objectively at times).  He is still worthy of praise for that service.  He should not be crucified for social views, especially views that were mainstream at the time.  One of the most difficult tasks of any good historian is not to judge past figures by today's moral standards.  Otherwise, EVERY historical figure would be found wanting.

Everyone should chill out on this topic and remember that you don't need to get the school to change the name in order to draw attention to the topic.  In fact, keeping the name might offer a valuable learning experience for the students who live in that dorm if someone had the motivation and ingenuity to use it.

Seriously people, leave higher education alone.  Our minds are always 10-20 years ahead, but our campuses are about 10-20 years behind.  Change takes a little bit longer for us, but it always happens.  Be patient.

Common Sense.

On Education: Elitism Within the Tower

Thoughts on My Philosophy of Education...

Recently I had the opportunity to experience academic elitism second-hand.  You see, some of the administrative assistants and other staff members like to have lunch together in a make shift break room.  This break room is adjacent to three faculty offices and one can imagine that these faculty might want to close their doors around 12:00PM so as to not be distracted by the laughter and conversation of these staff members as they enjoy the lunch hour.

The reality of the situation could not be more shocking.  One of the faculty from the adjacent offices decided then rather than approach the situation with some dignity and poise, to burst from her office and throw a nearly violent temp tantrum.  To this, the staff members responded by rightly admonishing the faculty members behavior.  Unfortunately, this would not be the end of it.  The staff members were first disciplined for challenging a faculty member and then denied further use of the "break" area.  Where were they to eat their lunch?  that question remains unanswered.  To my knowledge the faculty faced no repercussions for her incredibly inappropriate behavior.

This smacks of one of Higher Educations most embarrassing realities: Classist elitism is alive and well on the university campus.  Don't get me wrong, I am a huge proponent of elitism, but there is a difference between elitism that glorifies learning and seeks to uplift society, and classist elitism that perpetuates societal dysfunction, the suppression of the less learned to second class citizens, and the insulation of the elites to a status of near infallibility.  This is clearly the latter.

When I say that I support elitism, I mean it in the strictest sense.  I believe that academics, intellectuals, and the highly learned should enjoy the same, if not greater, praise, respect, and admiration as celebrities, political figures, and business tycoons.  If for no other reasons this should be because without academics, intellectuals, and the highly learned, all the rest of these figures would not exists.  The contributions to society made by these intellectual elites overshadows anything and everything ever done by a celebrity, government, or business.  How could business function without the computers, market theory, or even intellectual training gained from an MBA programs, all of these things provided by the academics in engineering, economics, and business administration?  The answer is that we would advance exponentially slower, if at all, without these intellectuals.

However, this does not give these individuals the right to mistreat those who have not yet reached such a place, in fact, quite the opposite is true.  Intellectual elites have a unique responsibility to encourage and lift up the rest of us, especially those who provide them with support, ensuring that they are able to dedicate themselves fully to the task of creating new knowledge for the future of society.  Further, Deans have a responsibility to ensure that this happens.

In the situation outlined at the beginning of this entry, the Dean chose to placate the faculty member, most likely because he saw this as the best way to keep that faculty from leaving.  What he does not realize is that now, he has cost himself the productivity of his entire administrative support network, not to mention he has ensured that the faculty member in question will continue to act inappropriately in the future.  Both the dean and the faculty member have forfeited their right to the moral high ground here and acted in a way that goes against their call to educate.  They should not be counted among the truly elite, and instead represent a classist elitism that is poisoning higher education and sapping it of its credibility both publicly and internally.

The only cure for this is for faculty to begin to ACT beyond reproach instead of being afforded that right by edict of the deans.  We are better than this, and it is our responsibility to provide it once again.

Common Sense