Harvard, Grade Inflation, and the Very Special Snowflakes

A recent article in the Harvard Crimson has generated substantially more buzz on the national scale than is common for college newspaper fare.  That’s because of its subject, a 25-page report authored by Dean of Undergraduate Education Amanda Claybaugh regarding rampant grade inflation at the university.  “Our grading,” she writes, “no longer performs its primary functions and is undermining our academic mission.”

Certainly the rapid and apparently inexorable rise in average GPA scores threatens to make grades obsolete, if we haven’t reached that stage already.  There has been a lot written about the situation over, well, about as long as Curmie has been paying attention, which is to say when he started his own collegiate career over a half-century ago.  There are manifold causes of the phenomenon: from a political attempt to help men retain their student deferments in the Vietnam era to an over-reliance on student course evaluations for decisions about merit pay, retention, and tenure to concerns about student well-being during COVID. 

Increased emphasis in secondary schools on standardized testing and the accompanying teach-to-the-test mentality also contributes, as students arrive at college having memorized a few names, dates, and formulas, but without having developed the thinking skills required for advanced study in any academic discipline, especially those in which personal interpretation is foregrounded.  Curmie has often said he doesn’t care whether you think Sam or Hally is the protagonist in “Master Harold”… and the boys; he cares about the thought process that gets you there.  (And it had better be more than simply parroting what some teacher told you.)

There’s a good article on the gradeinflation.com website that looks into both the statistics and the causes.  Curmie encourages you to at least glance through it, Gentle Reader.  But keep in mind that the information included there is over a decade old, and things have gotten far worse, especially but not exclusively during COVID.

How bad is it?  Well, there are literally dozens of articles out there, examining a lot of universities, but let’s stick with Harvard, where the problem seems to be worse than anywhere else.  (Curmie devoutly hopes this is true, because if any university’s grading integrity is more compromised than this, Curmie will run screaming into the night, never to be seen again.)  Over half of the grades at Harvard are now an “A,” and from what Curmie can decipher, that means an “A” as opposed to “A-range,” which would include A-minuses.  And get this: the cutoff for summa cum laude status is now 3.989, meaning that a single B-plus or a pair of A-minuses bars a Harvard student from getting summa.  Ah, but there a few fewer 4.0s in the most recent class than in the previous year’s; this is being touted as a sign of progress.  Sigh.

Ultimately, of course, whereas there are a lot of excuses reasons for grade inflation, they all ultimately boil down to the same thing: the faculty.  According to Claybaugh, “Nearly all faculty expressed serious concern… They perceive there to be a misalignment between the grades awarded and the quality of student work.”  Well, they could always… you know… give grades that corrected that “misalignment.”  True, there are pressures to keep passing out “A” grades like candy on Hallowe’en, especially in an era in which students are perceived as consumers rather than clients.  But grades are a professor’s responsibility, and a university that truly cares about the integrity of the process would encourage faculty to be a little more conscientious, not merely in words but in actions.

All of this (except a couple of specifics) has been a standard topic of conversation for a long time.  Curmie has written about it several times, most recently in a discussion of course evaluations, and he’s had dozens of conversations with colleagues from around the campus and around the country.  There’s one proposal from the Harvard administration he wants to talk about in a moment, but first, let’s look at Harvard students’ reaction to the suggestion that perhaps not all of them are the best in the class.

When Curmie started college many years ago, part of the orientation process was telling us (repeatedly!) that over 90% of us were in the top 10% of our high school classes, and that it was mathematically impossible for us all to do so in college, but being in the middle of a class at an Ivy League school was nothing to be ashamed of.  Our parents all got a letter with the same information.  One suspects that Harvard does roughly the same thing with their freshmen.

Ah, but the weeping and wailing from Cambridge drowned out the sounds of the jets at Logan Airport.  A follow-up piece in the Harvard Crimson described the horrors associated with requiring better than average work if you want to get an A.  One student described the report as “soul-crushing”: “The whole entire day, I was crying.  I skipped classes on Monday, and I was just sobbing in bed because I felt like I try so hard in my classes, and my grades aren’t even the best.”  Another worried about her ongoing ability to “enjoy [her] classes.”  A lacrosse player whined that “it’s not really accounting for what we have to do on a day to day basis, and how many hours we’re putting into our team, our bodies, and then also school.”

Way to play to the stereotype, guys!  Nothing says “snowflake” louder than this drivel.  You might end up with a 3.8 instead of a 4.0?  And that crushes your soul?  Get a damned life.  The chances are, of course, that these students never really had to work very hard in high school to get the grades that would get them admitted to an Ivy League school.  (Curmie didn’t.)  And the competition is tougher now. 

You don’t, or at least shouldn’t, go to Harvard for the extracurriculars; you go to get a Harvard-level education.  And prioritizing academics, at least somewhat, is, well, mandatory.  When Curmie started at Dartmouth, the cutoff for induction into the Phi Beta Kappa academic honor society was 3.4.  Curmie figured he could write and edit for the college newspaper, help out at the Forensic Union (i.e., the debate team), work on shows essentially non-stop, play intramural sports, etc., as long as he kept that GPA.  (They changed the standard for ΦΒΚ in his junior (?) year, so Curmie didn’t end up getting in, but he shifted his attention to being magna cum laude, and achieved that goal.)  You can do things other than study and still get decent grades.

The whole “I killed myself all throughout high school to try and get into this school” argument (yeah, that’s a quote, too), suggesting that the work should be easier now, is beyond stupid.  It’s the equivalent of an all-conference high school basketball player complaining about not being all-conference in college although he averages 2 points a game, can’t guard anyone his own size, and has more turnovers than assists. 

One argument seems, superficially, to have some validity: if Harvard gets tougher on grades and equivalent universities don’t, it places Harvard students at a competitive disadvantage.  Ultimately, however, this line of reasoning really isn’t very persuasive at all.  A Harvard degree means something—perhaps less than it once did, but still something—but good grades there are now meaningless from an institution where an A- GPA is below average.

Curmie is reminded of a piece he wrote 15 years ago about the efforts by Loyola Law School to help its students be competitive, namely by simply raising GPAs by a third of a letter grade across the board, including instituting a new de facto A++ grade.  Yes, really.  But the thing is, the little ploy got a lot of attention, thereby diminishing the prestige of a Loyola degree and doing little to actually help students.  Here’s what Curmie wrote:

When I was applying to PhD programs, I was looking at one school that said something like “generally, we require a 3.5 GPA in your undergraduate work.” My undergrad GPA was 3.46 or something like that; it was considerably better in my major, but I didn’t meet the stated criteria. Still, there was that word “generally” in their statement. So I called them up. Their response, paraphrased, was “You have a 3.46 from Dartmouth? Of course we’re interested in you!” That’s what Loyola students used to have going for them: the reputation that a Loyola grad, relative to alums from a different school, was better than his/her GPA. Now the entire place is—or at least ought to be—a laughing stock. Oh, what a brave new world.

Harvard didn’t learn that lesson, apparently.  And, especially in light of the New York Times article a few weeks ago, the world knows just how little a good grade from Harvard now means.

There’s one more item to discuss before we get to the putain de stupide.  One of the arguments in favor of, shall we say, excessive grade generosity is that “For the past decade or so, the College has been exhorting faculty to remember that some students arrive less prepared for college than others.”  If a particular student needs remedial work in a single subject area, that’s understandable.  For example, Curmie had plenty of advisees who could handle all of the university’s general education requirements… except math.

The same phenomenon works in the opposite direction, as well, of course.  Years ago, Curmie taught a variation on the theme of English Composition at Cornell University when he was a grad student there.  One of his students was, from all accounts, a brilliant physicist.  But, curiously enough, he didn’t write as well in his third language (he was Korean; his second language was Chinese) as did the native English speakers in the College of Arts and Sciences at an Ivy League university.

Accommodating that student to the extent of dragging him kicking and screaming to a passing grade is one thing; giving him an A for barely passable work would have been something else.  More recently, Curmie has had a handful of students whose native language is Spanish.  All of them were learning English even as they were also learning Play Analysis.  All of them passed; all of them deserved to pass, without needing any accommodations, because they did the work, and their ideas were good even if they sometimes struggled with writing in their second language.  One, in particular, went on to become a star pupil in subsequent courses and got a Master’s degree from a quite reputable university. 

But if a student is “less prepared” across the board, that person shouldn’t be at Harvard.  One suspects, and you can be certain that the right-wing press will be asserting this, that we’re talking about what could be called DEI admissions.  There are certainly advantages to a diverse student body, but it does no one—not the student, not the other students, not the university, not the nation—any good to admit someone who just can’t cut it.  To this extent, the Trump administration has a point.

Ah, but it’s time for the grand finale.  You may recall, Gentle Reader, that Curmie described the part of the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education that demands that universities return tuition money to students who drop out in their first semester as “a contender for the stupidest fucking idea in the history of stupid fucking ideas.”  Curmie spoke too soon, as there is now a new leader in the clubhouse, a proposal so blazingly inane it could only come from a university administrator, and probably one at Harvard.

Get this: one of the proposals, apparently initiated by Claybaugh and sent to a faculty committee for discussion, is to allow a limited number of A+ grades (Harvard’s best grade at present is an A), thereby “distinguishing the very best students.”  You can’t make this shit up, Gentle Reader.  The way to fight grade inflation is to further inflate grades.  Curmie might have thought that a better course of action to curb grade inflation might be to give students whose work is very good but not exemplary an A- or (God forbid!) perhaps even a B.  Curmie clearly was never cut out for administration, at least at Harvard.

Harvard has brought this on itself.  There are other universities that are, no doubt, almost as bad, but this stuff surpasses credulity.  The pampered little snowflakes who make up at least a good share of the student body should be scorned, but they’re still post-adolescents and might be salvageable.  The administration and faculty, however, are beyond hope of redemption.

Four Stories about Libraries

Curmie confesses that he didn’t have libraries and librarians figuring particularly prominently on his Apocalyptic Bingo card.  He should have known better, but to be honest he thought that even the blustering buffoon occupying the White House would show a little restraint.  Of course, 47 is so far round the bend into incoherence that he makes Joe Biden look like Socrates, Cicero, Abraham Lincoln, Patrick Pearse, Winston Churchill, and Martin Luther King Jr. rolled into one.  Curmie may get around to writing about the folks actually calling the shots, but that will come at a later date, if indeed at all.

There are four very different stories involving libraries on Curmie’s mind at the moment.  They all involve some combination of censorship, incompetence, and a particularly noxious blend of racism, sexism, and xenophobia.  Curmie hastens to note that actual librarians are never the bad guys in these scenaria.  At worst, those folks might be too unwilling to risk their livelihoods by refusing to accommodate absurd demands from “superiors.”  At best, they almost literally man the barricades against authoritarian idiots.

Library Story #1: Back in late March, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who turns out to be even less qualified than Curmie believed when his confirmation was still pending, ordered the Naval Academy’s library to eliminate any books that promoted diversity, equity, and inclusion viewpoints.  Some 900 books were “reviewed,” and 400 were indeed removed.

This silliness (or it would be silliness if the effects weren’t so real) is even worse than the crap we’ve seen in schools in Florida, Utah, Kansas, and elsewhere.  At least there, the censorship was at the public school level where there is at least the whiff of validity to the plaintive cries of “think of the children.”  The examples linked above, of course, are just about book bans; there are plenty of other variations on the general theme of what can’t be said in a classroom (a student’s preferred name, for example) or, God forbid, shown on a stage (too many examples to mention).

But there are no little kids at the Naval Academy.  Its library should reflect its status as a respected institution of higher learning.  Every major book on whatever topic, from whatever culture or era, should be there.  Indeed, as the saying goes, “a truly great library contains something in it to offend everyone.”  Having a book on a library shelf is not an endorsement of its ideas.  Indeed, it’s vital that we understand the arguments of those with whom we disagree: otherwise, it’s impossible to effectively critique that reasoning.

And that means there should be a copy of The Prince, and Leviathan, and Das Kapital, and (wait for it…) Mein Kampf on those shelves.  And it sure as hell means that there ought to be at least some representation of more recent works by the likes of Robin DiAngelo, Ibram X. Kendi, and Ta-Nehisi Coates.

None of this is to suggest that these books should necessarily be required reading, or that a decision not to buy a particular volume is inherently problematic.  Removing already purchased books for no reason other than the capricious political predilections of a government official, however, is a little too far down the road to the scenario described in a not-so-coincidentally frequently banned book, Fahrenheit 451, for Curmie’s taste.  Book-burners, literal or metaphoric, are never, and Curmie does mean never, the good guys.

Library Story #2: Speaking of book-burners… in April, a man checked out a total of 100 books over two trips to the public library in Beachwood, Ohio.  (That’s a little over a half hour away from the library where Curmie’s sister-in-law worked for over 40 years.)  The books were about black and Jewish history and LGBTQ+ education.  He then apparently burned them all in what he called a “cleansing,” posting a video to the Gab.com social media site, which is described by the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism as “an online hub for extremist and conspiratorial content” frequented by “conspiracy theorists, white nationalists, neo-Nazis, members of militias and influential figures among the alt right.”

That’s disturbing enough, but it appears that the library is powerless to do much until the books are overdue, and even then the punishment may be simply to pay the cost of the books, which is listed at approximately $1700.  That figure seems quite low to Curmie.  Might it be the original cost, or perhaps a “used copy” cost?  It’s difficult to imagine that new replacement copies would cost less than $17 apiece. 

Moreover, whereas the guy had to have a name and address associated with his library card (the library seems to think they can send him a bill), he is “unidentified” according to news reports, and there seems to be little interest on the part of the police to make this a criminal case.  It might be turned over to the city prosecutor for a civil case.

There is some good news coming out of this, though.  There’s a good deal of indignation on the part of the locals.  More importantly, there’s some action.  The Interfaith Group Against Hate describes itself as “a coalition led by Jewish, Muslim, and Christian congregations in solidarity with community partners united by the belief that we must confront white supremacy and create a society where people of all races and religions thrive together.” 

They’ve promised to collect and donate “1000 new books lifting up Black, Jewish, and LGBTQ+ voices.”  As of this writing, they’re up to 100 and counting.  Rabbi Robert Nosanchuk from Congregation Mishkan Or summed up the group’s response: “Whoever perpetuated the idea that you can burn us out of Cleveland, deport us out of Cleveland and deny our ideas and oppress us and frighten us to the corner… they picked the wrong community!”

And that, Gentle Reader, is how you do that.

Library Story #3: For a primer on how not to do that, we turn to Columbia University.  Columbia has been apparently rudderless for some time, somehow managing to suppress protected speech while simultaneously failing to take action against students (and others) who actually were breaking the law in pro-Palestinian protests dating all the way back to the Hamas attack in October of ’23.

The university leadership, and Curmie uses that term rather loosely, has spent most of this calendar year academic year groveling and capitulating to Trumpian bellicosity.  It has done them precisely zero good.  Worse, they’ve picked up on the recklessness and lack of concern for things like due process that have become the signature characteristic of the 47 regime.

Earlier this month, students at Columbia and its affiliate Barnard College occupied a reading room at the Butler Library as a response to Israel’s acceleration of attacks on Gaza.  This was, apparently, a violation of the university’s “time, place, and manner” restrictions.  Curmie has no opinion on whether those regulations are reasonable; such a consideration is irrelevant to the point to be made here.

Anyway, there were dozens of arrests.  Curmie isn’t going to comment on them, either.  Rather, he’s going to concentrate on the university’s actions, which included suspending a host of students, including at least four student journalists who were merely covering the protest and at least two who were simply studying in a different part of the library.  And that’s not just the affected students who are saying that; Columbia and Barnard de facto admitted as much by lifting those suspensions, all the while threatening the possibility of future sanctions.

Let’s get a couple of things established up front.  1). Criticism of a foreign government is protected speech, and criticism of Israel is not inherently anti-Semitic.  2).  Chanting “from the river to the sea” and similar slogans is not inherently illegal (irrespective of the claims of Trump and Rubio), but doing so in that place at that time (especially during finals!) may well be.  3).  Actual threats, violence, and vandalism are indeed subject to both criminal prosecution and sanctions, such as suspension, imposed by the university; actions have consequences.

The suspensions were effective immediately, meal cards were voided, and students were given 48 hours to vacate campus housing.  Is this an appropriate punishment for students willfully participating in a protest they knew to be a violation of the university’s code of conduct?  Sure.  But.  (Insert tired joke about a “big but” here.)  That’s a reasonable response after due process.  This wasn’t quite as bad as some of ICE’s kidnappings, but the “guilty until proven innocent” (“…and even then we won’t necessarily concede”) attitude is pretty similar.

Most if not all of the readers of this blog have undergone a finals week at a college or university.  Not the least stressful moments in your life, Curmie suspects.  So add to that not merely the threat of suspension, but a suspension per se and expulsion from your dorm room.  How the hell is any student supposed to be able to perform at their best under those circumstances? 

Apparently, the administration promised even those who really did participate in the protest they’d get due process should any disciplinary proceedings be undertaken.  They lied.  (Of course.)  And for at least several of those suspended, the “crime” in question turns out to be… not being able to leave the library when a bunch of people you don’t know block the exit.  Oh, and being brown-skinned and having a name like Samra Roosa, whose tale is told in the story in The Intercept, linked above.  Mustn’t forget that part. 

By the way, if you’re smart enough to get into Columbia or Barnard, you’re unlikely to be an intellectual pushover.  Here’s Ms. Roosa’s statement:

This accusation has caused me significant emotional distress and disrupted my ability to complete my final assignments. As a Muslim woman, I feel that Barnard has repeatedly failed to create a safe and supportive environment for students like myself. It is unacceptable for the College to claim inclusivity while subjecting students of color to racial profiling and false accusations.

This description, unlike those of too many students (and others) who seek victimhood as a substitute for accomplishment, rings true. 

As might be expected, the Trump administration’s task force on antisemitism (there is, of course, no such program to address Islamophobia) praised Columbia president Claire Shipman, despite (because of?) the obvious sloppiness and lack of anything approaching due process.  But, of course, the fact that the majority of the students suspended by Columbia/Barnard probably deserved it doesn’t change the fact that the administration acted too hastily and with little or no concern for the guilt or innocence of the individual students. 

Curmie has to agree with the assessment of Joseph Howley of Columbia’s Classics faculty: “Hasty punishments and violations of due process are exactly what we would expect when we allow our disciplinary and public safety policies to be dictated by political forces that value repression more than our community’s well-being.”

Library Story #4:  A little over a fortnight ago, the White House, to quote the CNN article, “notified Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden that she was removed from her position.”  There was no immediate explanation, but Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt (Bullshit Barbie) later responded to a reporter’s question by asserting that “there were quite concerning things she had done at the Library of Congress in the pursuit of DEI, and putting inappropriate books in the library for children.”

Blessed Athena, tell Curmie where to begin!  With the very questionable assertion that the Executive Branch has any damned business making any decisions whatsoever about the Library of Congress without legislative approval?  With the fact that every book published in the country is housed in the Library (provided only that a copy is sent there), so the content is irrelevant?  With the lack of specificity with respect to the “DEI” allegations, which likely wouldn’t stand up to even casual scrutiny?  With the fact that the Library of Congress is a research library, not a lending library, and you have to be over 16 to even get through the door?  This administration can’t even be bothered to make their lies plausible.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries argues the firing is, “a disgrace and the latest in his [Trump’s] ongoing effort to ban books, whitewash American history and turn back the clock.”  That seems a little foam-flecked for Curmie’s taste, but he does strongly suspect that the real reason for Hayden’s dismissal (that’s a photo of her at the top of the page) had a lot to do with her surplus of melanin and X-chromosomes. 

Well, on second thought, not necessarily.  Perhaps she was terminated, as was Shira Perlmutter a couple of days later from her position as the Registrar of Copyrights: because they were impediments to what Congressman Joe Morelle describes as “a brazen, unprecedented power grab with no legal basis. It is surely no coincidence [Trump] acted less than a day after [Perlmutter] refused to rubber-stamp Elon Musk’s efforts to mine troves of copyrighted works to train AI models.”

So maybe Trump was acting as a grifter rather than a bigot, which, of course, would make everything all better, right?  Curmie will let you decide, Gentle Reader.

But here, too, there’s some good news.  After appointing his personal lawyer, Todd Blanche, who, needless to say, has literally no relevant experience for the job, as the new Librarian if Congress, 47 then appointed a couple more DOJ minions, Paul Perkins and Brian Nieves.  Perkins was to take over for Perlmutter, Nieves was to be Blanche’s deputy.  But when they showed up to work, they “were not allowed into offices.” Curmie can’t find a follow-up, or even determine if Perkins and Nieves were shown the door by staffers—you know, actual librarians—or by Capitol Police.

This is likely a blip in the seemingly inexorable and not-so-gradual take-over by Demented Don, (F)Elon, and their cabal of billionaire cronies and sycophantic underlings of literally every vestige of independent thought, Constitutional protections, or a meritocracy.  There is not a Republican in Congress with the patriotism, courage, or common decency to stand in Trump’s way when it really matters.  When the closest thing to a principled conservative in DC is Amy Coney Barrett, the future does not look bright. 

The damage that has already been done will take decades to fix, even if the process can start soon after the 2026 elections.  But the American Dream is not dead yet, and for at least one shining moment, the anti-intellectuals, authoritarians, and plutocrats were held at bay.  It’s not a lot, but it’s something.

Another Law School Violates Due Process

Scott Gelber

DEI practices are all over the news of late, but this post is about something that happened nearly two years ago.  Well, it started then.  In April of 2023, campus police entered the classroom of tenured law professor Scott Gelber at Ohio Northern University and marched him to a meeting with the law school dean, Charles H. Rose III.  Rose demanded that Gelber resign or retire, or he’d be fired.

Gelber did not comply, and he was escorted off campus, allegedly “to ensure [his] safety, the safety of others, and to protect the instructional integrity of the college of law’s program of instruction.”  (Curmie notes the lack of parallelism in that sentence from a law school dean with wry amusement.)  Gelber was charged with “repeatedly violat[ing] the provisions of the ONU Faculty Handbook and ONU Staff Handbook governing collegiality”; and his conduct supposedly “r[ose] to a level sufficient to support separation.”

Wow, he must have done something really, really, bad to merit de facto arresting him in front of his students and denying him due process, right?  Ah, Gentle Reader, you’re ahead of Curmie once again.  The fact is, we still don’t know exactly what Gelber allegedly did.  What we do know is that he was a vocal opponent of the school’s DEI policy, and that the right-wing press was all over this case when it first broke, with headlines like “Lawsuit describes appalled law professor who witnessed illegal hiring in name of ‘diversity.’”

Law students, as Curmie has noted on several previous occasions are apparently remarkably fragile creatures, and law schools are, ironically, even worse than other kinds of higher ed institutions at upholding the constitutional rights of their faculty.  (See Curmie’s commentaries on four such stories here, here, here, and here.)

OK, a couple of things upfront.  First, Curmie knows nothing about what, specifically, Gelber is alleged to have done.  Perhaps he really did do something egregious.  Curmie raises a skeptical eyebrow, but grants the possibility.  But even if the university is “right” on the facts of the case, there’s no excuse for the denial of due process or the unwillingness even to spell out the specifics of the charges. 

Curmie went through a similar situation with less dire potential consequences a couple of decades ago.  The college claimed he’d done something wrong, but wouldn’t say exactly what.  So the opportunity to defend against those charges was significantly curtailed.  Claiming you didn’t do anything problematic is evidence that you think it’s okay to do Big Horrible Thing; wondering if you’re being accused of X is granting that X is a Big Horrible Thing (and that you probably did it).  Curmie believes Joseph Heller created a term for this situation.

“Collegiality,” of course, is a squishy term in the best of times.  Curmie was once accused of uncollegial behavior because he argued against requiring students to participate in a colleague’s pet project (not that the project shouldn’t be available, only that it shouldn’t be required).  And the only way mere uncollegiality ought to prompt a response like what ONU did to Gelber would be if it rose to the level of illegality (a “true threat”), which should be handled by law enforcement, not the university.

It is well within the realm of possibility that Gelber said something that made one or more students “uncomfortable.”  Good!  Students, especially law students, ought to be confronted with ideas that challenge their pre-conceptions and prejudices.  The only way Gelber’s stating his personal beliefs is actually a problem is if he punishes students who disagree with him (or rewards those who agree).  If there’s evidence of that, ONU hasn’t made it public.  Of course, it appears they still haven’t told Gelber or his lawyer… or perhaps they did, privately, after the case had gone to trial.

The university claims Gelber’s opinions on DEI were not the real problem, that Gelber was “intolerant of opposing opinions, disruptive, uncooperative and demeaning of faculty and staff members.”  These protests to the contrary notwithstanding, it appears that Gelber’s outspoken criticism of ONU’s DEI policies, which, as we know, came down from the mountaintop with Moses, was at the center of complaints.  (Again, even if those accusations of intolerance, etc., are true, marching the guy out of his classroom and denying due process is certainly not ethical and probably not legal.)

DEI policies, run correctly, search out qualified people from certain demographics.  They get some small preference, all other things being equal.  (Veterans get even more of an advantage at state schools in Texas.)  Straight white guys still get the job if they’re clearly the best person for the job.  Of course, inevitably, that “all other things being equal” part sometimes fades away, and a demonstrably less qualified candidate is selected.  That, say proponents, is precisely what happened for decades, just in the other direction.  This is where we avoid that issue and remind you, Gentle Reader, that this is more about Gelber’s First Amendment rights and ONU’s procedures, not the legitimacy of their concerns.

Show that Gelber discriminates against the kind of people who might benefit from a DEI initiative, and there’s a case.  Even then, there’s no apparent reason to attempt to embarrass him in front of his students or to not even tell him what he’s supposedly done to precipitate this situation.  FIRE (the Federation for Individual Rights and Expression), as well as Gerber’s attorney (obviously) tried repeatedly to the ONU to specify what he had done to merit this response.  The university blithely ignored those requests.

Attempting to fire Gelber for expressing his political views (which university officials knew about when they hired him and when they granted him tenure) without presenting literally any actual evidence and without allowing him due process, perpetrates a greater injustice than what they’re accusing him of. 

Anyway, Gelber sued.  It may or may not have been a good idea to hire America First Legal as his representatives.  As you probably guessed from their name, Gentle Reader, they’re primarily interested in right-wing causes.  That offers the advantage that they’d be particularly zealous about Gelber’s cause.  The downside is the temptation to make the case about what he said or did instead of the more compelling argument about the procedures the university followed.

The university tried to obtain a summary judgment to quash the suit.  They were partially successful, knocking out a couple of the counts of Gelber’s suit.  Other parts of the suit were allowed to go forward, however, with the judge declaring that ONU’s “lack of regard for particularity is either naive or a callous disregard for due process.”  But that ruling happened last September.  Why write about it now?

We turn to the headline on FIRE’s follow-up story, published last week: “Ohio Northern sues professor for having the audacity to defend his rights in court.”  Ouch!  Anyway, here’s the key paragraph:

But for defending his rights in state court, ONU sued Gerber in federal court on Jan. 20, claiming Gerber’s “perverted” lawsuit is apparently an “attempt to accomplish . . . personal vendettas” and “unleashing political retribution” against ONU — notwithstanding the state court holding Gerber’s claims warranted proceeding to a jury. ONU’s suit claims Gerber’s “true goal is to manufacture outrage, to influence political retribution, and to extract vengeance against” ONU. According to the lawsuit, Gerber’s attempt to hold the university to its own policies is an unlawful “abuse of process.” 

Oh, bloody hell.  FIRE’s Zach Greenberg calls ONU’s suit a SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation), an all too common practice by litigants who don’t have much of a case, but who think they can outlast their opponents because their pockets are deeper.  Curmie is tempted to agree.

About the only thing no one can dispute here is that Scott Gerber is a controversial teacher.  It’s admittedly a small sample size, but the fact that of 13 respondents on the Rate My Professors site, 11 rated him either “awesome” (the highest ranking) or “awful” (the lowest ranking) sort of says it all.  Curmie has literally never seen anything like that inverse bell curve.  It certainly does make one suspect that Gerber’s politics play a role in students’ responses to his courses.

So… where are we?  The chances that Gerber did something that should get him fired: possible.  Chances that Gerber is an asshole: quite likely.  Chances that ONU violated their own policies, denied due process, and damned well ought to be humiliated and forced to cough up major moolah: bordering on ontological certitude.

If the Dog Hadn't Stopped...

Still at large

Curmie knows next to nothing about his great-grandfather (his paternal grandfather’s father) except that he was a fount of aphorisms.  His cruder, and therefore in times like these more appropriate, version of “if frogs had wings…” was “if the dog hadn’t stopped to shit, he’d have caught the fox.”

That saying resonates in Curmie’s mind as he gazes at the dumpster fire that is the American political scene.  (Curmie wishes his commentary from 17 months ago were a little less apt.)  On the one hand, we have a convicted felon who is walking the streets at all only because judges he appointed have made up ridiculous reasons to let him off the hook.  Was his prosecution political?  Probably.  But the fact remains that the lawyers for the guy who boasts that he hires only the best people were there for the voir dire.  If a single one of the jurors they helped select had as much as “reasonable doubt” that Donald Trump had done the things that he was accused of doing, and that they were felonies, he wouldn’t have been convicted.

One could make the case that Trump wasn’t the worst President in US history (he’s a contender, though), but he is surely the most vulgar, narcissistic, mendacious, and authoritarian.

On the other hand the Democrats have apparently anointed one of the most singularly unaccomplished vice presidents in American history, a smug but not terribly intelligent partisan hack who got the gig by demographics rather than competence.  (Yes, Curmie knows that could be said for a lot of white men, too.)  She was polling in single-digits even in her home state in her presidential run in the last election before dropping out before primary voting even started.  Once elected as VP, she lasted about a month on the job before she was shunted to the background, as she offered little in the way of policy expertise and made the often gaffe-ridden Joe Biden look like Cicero himself by comparison.  Jolly.

So… how’d we get here?  Well, a lot of dogs stopped to shit.

If the press hadn’t given Trump far more free media coverage than all the other Republican candidates combined in the 2016 primary season, we’d have caught the fox.

If the Clintonites didn’t actually encourage that practice, believing (wrongly, of course) that Trump would never win the nomination, let alone the presidency, but would push the more viable candidates to the right, making Hillary’s path easier, we’d have caught the fox.

If the GOP didn’t have a ridiculous policy of giving all the delegates from a primary election to the “winning” candidate, even if that person got barely a quarter of the votes, one of the not-Trump Republicans would have emerged as the nominee, and we’d have caught the fox.

If the DNC hadn’t colluded to get Hillary Clinton the 2016 nomination, there’s a good chance we’d have caught the fox.

If she’d run a competent campaign focusing on swing states instead of smugly assuming an easy victory, we’d have caught the fox.

If presidential elections were won by the person who got the most votes instead of following an archaic system designed to appease slave-owning states, we’d have caught the fox.

If the DNC hadn’t colluded to get Joe Biden the 2020 nomination, there’s a good chance we’d have caught the fox.

If Biden hadn’t made a stupid pledge to select a BIPOC woman as his running mate, we’d have almost certainly caught the fox.  [N.B., Curmie grants that Harris is a far better choice than either of Trump’s VP choices.]

If Trump were appropriately held responsible, either by the courts or by the populace (including Republican voters), for the events of January 6 and for his clear attempts to overturn a fair election, we’d have caught the fox.  [Side note: if you want to say that the press treated Trump unfairly, Curmie will listen.  But if you want to dispute the testimony of a series of Republican governors and secretaries of state that Biden had won their state, please leave.  This blog is for people who can think.]

If the GOP had said, as they certainly could have, that you’re not going to be our nominee if you don’t participate in the primary debates, we’d quite possibly have caught the fox.

If the GOP had literally any other candidate who might conceivably attract the attention of a swing voter, it’s pretty likely we’d have caught the fox.  But when Nikki Haley is the most palatable of the alternatives…

If Trump had been jailed for contempt of court, as literally any other defendant who pulled his antics would have been, we’d be well on our way to catching the fox.

If SCOTUS had refused to hear Trump’s absurd assertion of absolute immunity instead of delaying… and delaying… and delaying… and then finally granting partial immunity, denying intent as a determining factor and sending rest of the whole business back to the lower courts, thereby ensuring there would be no real ruling before the election, we’d have caught the fox.

If, indeed, any Trump-appointed judge (Curmie’s looking at you, Aileen Cannon) cared more about the nation than about their blubbery hero, catching the fox would be within reach.

If Joe Biden’s inner circle and the major media hadn’t so obviously lied to the public about the man’s mental health issues, we’d be closer to catching the fox.

If Joe Biden, his advisors, and pundits from the left really cared about their country (and their party), he’d have announced that he wasn’t going to seek re-election a year ago, when his faculties were clearly already in decline.  Then at least a sizeable chunk of the $100 million or so in Biden’s campaign coffers would have gone to a candidate whom actual voters would have had at least a little say in selecting.  Yes, the DNC would have stacked the deck for Harris, but Curmie still doubts that she’d have emerged victorious.  If she did, however, the process would have had at least some legitimacy.  Either way, we’d be in a better position to catch the fox.

If Biden had trusted his own delegates to come to their own conclusions about who should be the nominee after his withdrawal from the race, we’d be closer to catching the fox.

There’s a reason the cover photo on Curmie’s Facebook page is of John McEnery as Mercutio in the Zeffirelli film of Romeo and Juliet, uttering the character’s most famous line, “A plague o’ both your houses.” Since the only alternative, Baby Bobby, is a full-fledged wackadoodle, our choice, it appears, is between about the worst possible candidates for both major parties, although to be fair Biden (or DeSantis or Haley or Ramaswamy) would have been awful, too.  Curmie is going to vote for the mediocrity instead of the hubristic sociopath, but, Gentle Reader, we’re going to need a bigger pooper-scooper.

And the fox is still at large.

Musings on the Elimination of DEI Offices in Texas State Universities

Curmie had coffee with a friend and former colleague last week. We talked about many things, including that our former employer’s website had been cyber-attacked over the weekend, leading to the very real possibility that email and other such services will be down for an extended period of time. 

But he also asked me what I thought of the move by Governor Greg Abbott and his legislative majority to eliminate DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) offices from all state colleges and universities, effective as January of 2024. I replied that I was ambivalent, thereby placing myself, no doubt, well to the political right of the majority of my friends in academe. 

Wait ‘til they find out that I don’t think the state’s new restrictions on tenure are particularly onerous, either! And yes, Curmie is well aware that Abbott and his acolytes (and future governors of either party and their minions) are more than likely to do everything in their power to abuse the new, (intentionally?) vague, rules; that doesn’t mean that habitually failing to show up for class or being convicted of a serious crime are insufficient reasons for having tenure revoked. Expressing a view contrary to those of the university president, regents, or state governor (or even calling them wanker bastards) had damned well better be protected by tenure, however. We shall see. 

There is no question in my mind that there is a purpose to be served by inclusivity, and not simply for reasons of political philosophy. Broadening horizons has direct benefits: by learning about others, you also learn about yourself, and exposure to different cultures and perspectives can only result in more mature analysis. Maybe that comes in the form of an argument that alters your view; maybe it’s something you consider but ultimately reject, secure in the knowledge that you’ve considered a different solution to a problem. 

One of Curmie’s first publications in a scholarly journal was an analysis of what plays are included in dramatic literature anthologies. It came as no surprise that the works thus canonized were overwhelmingly written by white males. What was a little more eye-opening was the fact that the disproportionality was greater when I was writing the article in the early 1990s than would have been true two or three generations earlier. 

This was a problem, not only in the classroom, but also because the implicit understanding that these were the superior works also led them to be produced more often, thereby exacerbating the imbalance. I don’t want to bother to look up the exact numbers, but I’d guess that of the first 75 shows my department produced after my arrival at the university from which I recently retired, only only four or five specifically required any non-white actors. I directed two of them, “Master Harold”… and the boys and Trojan Barbie. Another one, the musical Hair, actually had one of the “black boys” of the song played by a white guy in a wig and dark makeup. Ew. 

There were, of course, plenty of roles that could be, and indeed were, played by non-white actors. But I do not reject outright the argument that a BIPOC actor faces a different challenge to play a character written as white, even if there’s nothing specific about race in either the character’s description or action. There may not be a significant difference, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. 

As I told my friend, if you’re teaching a course in the history of the modern theatre (as I did for a couple dozen times overall) and you don’t talk about William Henry Brown, Ira Aldridge, Lorraine Hansberry, Douglas Turner Ward, et al., you’re not doing your job. But you’re also not doing your job if, all things being equal, you spend an entire class period on Suzan-Lori Parks and five minutes on Tennessee Williams. 

And here’s where my commentary veers rightward. That article about anthologies I mentioned earlier came as a follow-up to a conference paper for a panel I organized on theatre textbooks. One of the panelists I recruited for that panel was an editor at Random House. A year or so later, I got a letter (these were the Olden Times, pre-email) from a different editor at Random House asking me to comment on the prospective contents for a dramatic literature anthology they were considering publishing. 

These were the days when “diversity” was based more on gender than on race, so publishers were scurrying to find plays by women to include in their anthologies. So far, so good, right? This book was to include a play by Susanna Centlivre (if, Gentle Reader, you’re asking “Who?,” you have plenty of company) but to omit Molière. The problem here is not the inclusion of Centlivre (although Aphra Behn would have been a better choice, imho), but rather doing so while excluding arguably the greatest comic playwright in history. 

This collection was, in other words, a good idea—recognizing the fact that women like Hrotsvitha, Sophie Treadwell, Rachel Crothers, Lillian Hellman, Lorraine Hansberry, Caryl Churchill, and many others deserve to have their work read and appreciated. But that admirable intention gets lost in the silliness of Molière’s absence. 

Similarly, it is difficult if not impossible to argue that there is no place in a university curriculum for, say, Critical Race Theory. Just as you can’t claim to understand theatre history if you can’t string together a couple of sentences about Ira Aldridge or Amiri Baraka, you can’t claim to understand the political history of the nation without at least encountering the work of Ibram X. Kendi or (before there was something called CRT) James Baldwin. 

But here’s the thing: You shouldn’t have to agree with them. The idea that faculty should have to conform to the credo that not being racist is insufficient (you have to be actively anti-racist, and prove it) is no different from the loyalty oaths of past decades, except the authoritarian impulse now comes from the left instead of the right. Similarly, I don’t want someone (administrator, politician, whoever) who doesn’t know an onnagata from a verfremdungseffekt telling me, even indirectly, what is and is not important to cover in a theatre history course. 

I can’t decide which is worse, though: telling people like me, who actively sought out diverse perspectives on the theories, literature, and production of theatre long before it became de rigeur to do so, that we aren’t doing enough because we think Molière is vastly more important than Centlivre, or to insist that someone teaching, say, math or physics, which have literally nothing to do with sociocultural perspectives, prove their anti-racist bona fides or risk not getting the job or tenure or whatever. 

It is indeed possible that someone in my discipline really does exclude the study of people or ideas that should be there, but that should lead to a discussion with a department chair, not a sweeping indictment of a professor’s presumed prejudices. The Modern Drama course I took as an undergrad centered exclusively on white male playwrights. But it stopped chronologically around 1950, so Lorraine Hansberry was excluded on that basis. Caryl Churchill’s first really significant play was first produced literally as I was taking that course; August Wilson’s wasn’t even written yet. Maria Irene Fornes wasn’t unknown, but she hadn’t yet written any of the works that now come most immediately to mind. (And so on.) 

Also, we studied only Western dramatists who had written multiple significant works, so that took Sophie Treadwell out of the picture. Yes, one could make a case for Lillian Hellman, but probably the most important playwright we didn’t read was George Bernard Shaw… because the prof didn’t like his stuff.  Curmie isn’t a huge fan, either, although he didn’t know that at the time.

Should the domain have been different, to include a broader demographic spread of playwrights? Maybe. But not inherently so. The fact is that it wasn’t until about the time I started work on my PhD that the Western theatre world wasn’t in fact completely dominated by white men. That’s simply a statement of fact. Were there women or BIPOC authors, actors, directors, etc., who would have been at least as successful as the white guys in a fairer society? Almost certainly. But that more equitable world did not exist, and the dominant Western theatrical artists were who they were. Cultural literacy in the E.D. Hirsch sense may be a problematic configuration, but it’s not unreasonable to expect functioning adults to have a basic understanding of canonical figures and their works. 

The only consolation in all this is that the art itself survives. We are indeed finding out more about wonderful artists, scientists, and other professionals who didn’t (or don’t) fit the White Guy paradigm. That’s a good thing, and the same impulse to search for information about these often unfairly overlooked individuals that drives those new discoveries is also behind the establishment of DEI offices. 

Curmie has a friend, a former student, who has gone into the Student Affairs side of university life. He’s now a director of residence life or some such title at a small university. He recently wrote on his Facebook page that DEI offices “… can help first-generation students navigate college life, or help nontraditional students integrate into the campus culture, or even advocate for improved handicapped accommodations…. While they mainly support students from marginalized backgrounds, I've never known a DEI office that is purely exclusionary. As one professional I know said, ‘white students are part of diversity, too.’” 

Yeah, maybe, except for the part about not being exclusionary. But whereas all of those functions—working with first gen students, nontraditional students, handicapped students—are indeed valuable, they can be handled by other offices. How does Curmie know? Because they were before DEI offices existed, still are to a large degree, and thus will certainly be in the future if there’s no DEI office. 

But with the exception of being another layer of high-salaried administrators gobbling up salaries two or three times those of tenured faculty, the problem isn’t DEI offices per se. Besides, most of those people will be transformed into associate deans or something and do pretty much the same thing they’re doing now, only a little more under the radar. Greg Abbott knows that, so he’s doing little more than playing to his base. It’s an exercise in cynicism all around. What it isn’t is “forward-thinking legislation,” whatever State Senator Brandon Creighton, the bill’s sponsor, might think (or pretend to think). 

The problem, I hope obviously, is not that some people prioritize the promotion of the ideas of folks from a particular demographic or political perspective. Indeed, to the extent that such views challenge dominant paradigms, they generate conversations that are the very essence of what educational institutions ought to be about. It’s the expectation that literally everyone—faculty and students alike—must conform (or at least pretend to conform) to a particular philosophy. 

The gap between the left and the right has widened in recent years. We live, to coin a phrase, in a house divided against itself. I need hardly mention here that I find myself far more often on one side of the political schism than on the other, but the dominant forces on my side of the fissure demand absolute and unequivocal adherence to 100% of their ideology. (So do those on the other side, or I might be tempted to cross over.) 

A couple of years ago, when I was still teaching full-time, my department floated a proposal that would have demanded that all students and faculty in the program read a particular set of “anti-racist” books, in order (!). Curmie noted that it’s hard enough to get students to read the plays or textbooks we assign. Oh, and I called the proposal “Stalinistic.” I stand by that analysis. 

It was then, not when the university proposed a buy-out, that I first contemplated retirement. Actually retiring may have been a cowardly response, but I have no regrets. I’m note sure that academia is (yet) hopelessly corrupted, but in this place at this time, I’m happy to be emeritus. 

Side note: my friend told me that an editorial in the Dallas Morning News made essentially the same points I did, that DEI should be revised rather than eliminated. But it’s behind a paywall, so I’m just taking my friend’s word for it.

Scattered Musings about Critical Race Theory

Critical Race Theory is rampant in American elementary and secondary schools, according to the Right.  Or non-existent, according to the Left.  Or, according to others on the Left, necessary.  What’s key here is that no one this side of Humpty Dumpty can agree what the term means.  Are there some zealots who would think reparations ought to be paid to anyone with a sufficiently high melanin count?  Yes.  Are there similarly some people who think it “un-American” to mention the name of Sally Hemings?  Yes.  Do either of these things fall under the heading of CRT?  Uh… maybe?

Curmie takes what he’s going to call the “Competitive Diving” approach to many such matters.  That is, an athlete’s score in a diving competition is determined not by the average of all judges’ opinions (and also by degree of difficulty, but that’s irrelevant to this argument), but by that average after the high and low scores are discarded.  Maybe we should ignore the foam-flecked ideologues on both sides, in other words.

Curmie, in some ways, represents the quintessence of privilege: white, male (and born that way), heterosexual, Ivy-league educated, at least culturally Christian.  His grandparents weren’t rich, by any means: one grandfather owned a rocky New England hillside farm of about 100 acres; the other managed a neighborhood grocery store.  But Curmie grew up in a decidedly middle-class environment.  Nor has he ever been truly poor: falling further into debt because there isn’t enough in the bank account to cover the entirety of the credit card bill is different than having to choose between eating and buying needed medicine.

Curmie’s personality features an independent, libertarian streak; his personal Facebook page announces his politics as “contrarian.”  This isn’t (merely) being cute.  Rather, the more he sees of any ideology, the more the faults in that approach are highlighted.  He’s never been ultra-conservative, but he was certainly more likely to vote for Republicans when he lived in the town with the biggest Democratic caucus in the state of Iowa than he’s been more recently.  Indeed, he’s probably never been more liberal than he is now, in a time and place in which an idiot like Louie Gohmert can get re-elected without even any real opposition. 

Curmie’s politics are, of course, (currently, at least) well to the left of the national center.  He voted for Democrats against Donald Trump in the last two Presidential elections, and indeed hasn’t voted for a Republican for any Congressional or gubernatorial position since moving to Texas over two decades ago.  (Kay Bailey Hutchison would have been a real possibility, but she was defeated in the primary by the odious Ted Cruz; John Cornyn, who is probably no worse than most other party hacks on either side of the aisle, actually had a reasonable opponent last time out.  Curmie would vote for Voldemort over Greg Abbott, Ken Paxton, or Louie Gohmert.)

Having now entered semi-retirement, Curmie is no longer accepting new advisees, but is keeping the four holdovers who chose to keep him as their advisor.  Three of the four are non-binary.  Coincidence?  Probably.  But there’s no question that he’ll advocate for both their general and specific interests, as he has done for years for black and Latinx students.  Still, he recognizes that terms like “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” are not redundant, and that sometimes, for example, equity and diversity are in fact at odds.  In such cases, Curmie will always choose the former; a lot of university administrators will choose the latter, primarily because at the moment it’s the path of least resistance (they’re intellectual cowards, and having actual principles is hard!).

Contemplations of gender, sexual orientation, and especially race are therefore far more complex and nuanced than the True Believers on either side would have us believe.  So whereas Curmie feels no personal guilt nor any need to make amends with respect to what happened over a century and a half ago, hundreds of miles away from any of his forebears, acknowledging not merely that life isn’t fair, but that it’s often been more unfair to some groups of people than to others seems appropriate.

Curmie’s netpal Jack Marshall wondered this morning, “How many supposedly educated American[s] know about the significance of this date?”.  Well, that depends on how you frame the question.  If it’s about the date per se, Curmie would have struck out without getting the bat off his shoulder.  But mention that it’s the anniversary of Kristallnacht, and I’ll do a lot better.  Curmie learned about this horrific event in a world history class in high school—a class taught (perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not) by a US Army WWII veteran with a German surname.

What Curmie didn’t learn about in high school were the massacres at Wounded Knee in 1890 or Tulsa in 1921, or the fact that the original GI bill was structured to deny benefits to black veterans, or the wartime internment of US citizens who happened to be of Japanese descent.  Intentionally or otherwise, what we learned in history classes was filtered, sanitized and viewed through a very Caucasian lens.  Of course, Curmie’s hometown was overwhelming white and overwhelmingly Christian, so these omissions and commissions were both more and less insidious than would have been the case in a more integrated environment.

Noticing the “other” in an increasingly more heterogeneous society is, of course, imperative.  But what do we do with those now-foregrounded recognitions of subjectivity, which are at the core of CRT?  Treating someone differently because they’re different from you may be an admirable exercise in empathy… or it may be a toxic cocktail of virtue signaling and condescension: “we can’t expect that person to compete on a level playing field; after all, they’re [insert demographic marker here].”  This latter example is one of tolerance, the evil cousin of inclusion: “you are inferior to me because of objective factor X, but I will treat you well, ostensibly at least, because I wish to be regarded as a good person… all the while comfortable in my presumed superiority.”

Finally, of course, it’s important to differentiate between equal opportunity and equal outcomes.  Professional sports are in some ways the ultimate meritocracy: teams want to win.  (Perhaps the Colin Kaepernick case is the exception that proves the rule.)  But it would take a real fan to name even two or three American-born white players currently in the NBA.  The flip side is true in swimming, despite the presence of the likes of Cullen Jones and Simone Manuel.  Socio-economic factors and availability of training facilities and venues account for some of the discrepancy… but all of it?  Curmie can’t muster more than a “maybe” on that one.

Untangling all these strands is rather like trying to get the mats out of a long-haired pet: maybe it will work, but there are times we have to clip the tangle out rather than hoping to unravel it.  A little good will towards our fellow travelers, who are as confused and fallible as ourselves would go a long way.