Duke University President Richard Brodhead, in his natural attire
Brodhead, disguised as a human being
By Nicholas Stix
Eleven years ago, Duke University President Richard Brodhead supported the Duke Rape Hoax, in which he, members of his faculty, administrators, and local law enforcement and DA Mike Nifong all sought to railroad three innocent, white men for “rapes” that had never happened, on the word of career criminal (including attempted murder on a policeman) and future murderer Crystal Gail Mangum.
Brodhead committed so many vile acts against the victims, including coercing them into sitting down with a Duke attorney who was working against their interests, and aiding and abetting a criminal conspiracy, that it’s a wonder he didn’t land in jail.
Not only did Broadhead not get arrested, he didn’t even get fired! The corrupt, racist Duke Board of Trustees responded to Brodhead’s atrocities by extending his contract! And so, Dick Brodhead is still president of Duke, and Duke is embroiled in yet another campus scandal.
The N.S. Duke File:
“N.Y. Times to Duke Rape Hoax Victims: Drop Dead”;
“Ten Years Later: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Duke Rape Hoax, but were Afraid to Ask,” aka “Nicholas Stix’ Absolutely Definitive Account of the Incredible Disappearing Duke Rape Hoax”; and
“Duke U Or Dupe U? Noose Hate Hoax Perp Probably Asian, But Administration Won’t Say.”
Paul Griffiths responded to a participate-or-else e-mail regarding anti-white diversity training, by saying (to the same university community) that such training was “anti-intellectual” and a waste of time, and urging his colleagues to not attend it.
His new, feminist, racist, dean of the Duke Divinity School, Elaine Heath, and the young activist professor, Anathea Portier-Young, pushing the racist re-education then retaliated by charging him with “unprofessional conduct” (Heath) and “harassment” (Portier-Young), simply for opposing them. They then initiated kangaroo court proceedings, that Griffiths refused to participate in.
However, instead of suing Duke, Griffiths tended his retirement, one year in advance.
While I applaud Paul Griffiths for standing up to Duke’s genocidal, totalitarian racists, his decision to retire at the end of the 2017-18 academic year was exactly the wrong thing to do. He should instead be refusing to retire, and suing Duke for millions of dollars.
A source at the Duke Divinity School sent Rod Dreher the e-mails, which he then published. I have copied and pasted the beginning of the correspondence. (An acquaintance, whom I thank, notified me of the campaign.) For the whole batch, and 197 comments, hit this link to The American Conservative.
Rod Dreher: A source at DDS sends me the original e-mail exchanges that have caused the current crisis. Here they are, chronologically presented:
1. On Mon, Feb 6, 2017 at 9:21 AM, Anathea Portier-Young wrote:
Dear Faculty Colleagues,
On behalf of the Faculty Diversity and Inclusion Standing Committee, I strongly urge you to participate in the Racial Equity Institute Phase I Training planned for March 4 and 5. We have secured funding from the Provost to provide this training free to our community and we hope that this will be a first step in a longer process of working to ensure that DDS is an institution that is both equitable and anti-racist in its practices and culture. While a number of DDS faculty, staff, and students have been able to participate in REI training in recent years, we have never before hosted a training at DDS. Those who have participated in the training have described it as transformative, powerful, and life-changing. We recognize that it is a significant commitment of time; we also believe it will have great dividends for our community. Please find the registration link below. Details about room location will be announced soon.
Duke Divinity School will host a Racial Equity Institute Phase I Training on March 4 and 5, 2017, 8:30—5 pm both days. Participants should plan to attend both full days of training.
“Racism is a fierce, ever-present, challenging force, one which has structured the thinking, behavior, and actions of individuals and institutions since the beginning of U.S. history. To understand racism and effectively begin dismantling it requires an equally fierce, consistent, and committed effort” (REI). Phase I provides foundational training in understanding historical and institutional racism. It helps individuals and organizations begin to “proactively understand and address racism, both in their organization and in the community where the organization is working.” It is the first step in a longer process.
ALL Staff and Faculty are invited to register for this important event by which DDS can begin its own commitment to become an anti-racist institution.
Workshop capacity is 40 participants. Registration is FREE to DDS employees and students.
Snacks, breakfast, and light lunch will be provided. A 7:30 am liturgy will precede the Sunday training for those who wish to participate. Child care can be made available upon request.
2. From Paul Griffiths:
Sent: Monday, February 06, 2017 4:26 PM
To: Anathea Portier-Young
Cc: Divinity Regular Rank Faculty; Divinity Visiting Other Faculty
Subject: Re: Racial Equity Institute Phase I Training–March 4-5
Dear Faculty Colleagues,
I’m responding to Thea’s exhortation that we should attend the Racial Equity Institute Phase 1 Training scheduled for 4-5 March. In her message she made her ideological commitments clear. I’ll do the same, in the interests of free exchange.
I exhort you not to attend this training. Don’t lay waste your time by doing so. It’ll be, I predict with confidence, intellectually flaccid: there’ll be bromides, clichés, and amen-corner rah-rahs in plenty. When (if) it gets beyond that, its illiberal roots and totalitarian tendencies will show. Events of this sort are definitively anti-intellectual. (Re)trainings of intellectuals by bureaucrats and apparatchiks have a long and ignoble history; I hope you’ll keep that history in mind as you think about this instance.
We here at Duke Divinity have a mission. Such things as this training are at best a distraction from it and at worst inimical to it. Our mission is to thnk, read, write, and teach about the triune Lord of Christian confession. This is a hard thing. Each of us should be tense with the effort of it, thrumming like a tautly triple-woven steel thread with the work of it, consumed by the fire of it, ever eager for more of it. We have neither time nor resources to waste. This training is a waste. Please, ignore it. Keep your eyes on the prize.
Paul
——————–
Paul J. Griffiths
Warren Chair of Catholic Theology
Duke Divinity School
Rod Dreher: On the thread, a couple of DDS professors said that they were actually looking forward to the training. Then the Dean weighed in:
3. From Elaine Heath:
On Behalf Of Elaine Heath, Ph.D.
Sent: Monday, February 06, 2017 8:24 PM
To: Ray Barfield; Mary Fulkerson
Cc: Paul J. Griffiths; Anathea Portier-Young; Divinity Regular Rank Faculty; Divinity Visiting Other Faculty
Subject: Re: Racial Equity Institute Phase I Training–March 4-5
Dear Colleagues,
First, I am looking forward to participating in the REI training, and I am proud that we are hosting it at Duke Divinity School. Thea, thank you for your part in helping us to offer this important event. I am deeply committed to increasing our school’s intellectual strength, spiritual vitality, and moral authority, and this training event will help with all three.
On another matter: It is certainly appropriate to use mass emails to share announcements or information that is helpful to the larger community, such as information about the REI training opportunity. It is inappropriate and unprofessional to use mass emails to make disparaging statements–including arguments ad hominem–in order to humiliate or undermine individual colleagues or groups of colleagues with whom we disagree. The use of mass emails to express racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry is offensive and unacceptable, especially in a Christian institution.
As St. Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, regardless of how exquisite our gifts are, if we do not exercise them with love our words are just noise.
Sincerely,
Elaine A. Heath, Ph.D.
Dean
Professor of Missional and Pastoral Theology
Divinity School
Duke University
Rod Dreher: Whoa, whoa, whoa! Do you see “racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry” in Griffiths’s message to his colleagues? Of course not, because it is not there! Objecting to this training as a waste of time is not racist, sexist, or bigoted in any way!
N.S.: The reader comments I read overwhelmingly supported Paul Griffiths. One comment, by a DDS alumna, claimed that there had been a series of “racist” incidents on campus directed against “African-American” students, but that when she suggested that the racism be confronted, some people on campus acted as if she were the racist.
I was pleased to see a commenter argue that the “racist” incidents were almost certainly hoaxes staged by those claiming to be the “victims.”
One comment that was completely in support of the Gestapo follows, with my response (Dreher’s blog says my comment is “under moderation,” but AMCON hasn’t published my comments in years).
Robert Levine says:
May 9, 2017 at 6:33 p.m.
I’ve been working in labor relations in an environment very similar to a university for over two decades, and that experience strongly suggests to me that there is an extensive backstory to this incident. I don’t blame Rod for not talking about it; it’s probably complex and likely comes in multiple conflicting versions.
The email that Professor Griffiths sent in response to the invitation was, at a minimum, discourteous and inflammatory. He wasn’t being forced to attend the training; nothing in his email suggests he felt coerced in any way to do so. Was a mass email the proper response? IIs sending such an email to colleagues protected by the concept of academic freedom? Arguably, but simply crying “academic freedom” does immunize all expression.
The concept of “fighting words” as a basis for employment discipline is well-established in employment law, and his use of terms like “bromides, clichés, and amen-corner rah-rahs in plenty” and “illiberal roots and totalitarian tendencies” might well qualify as such in an academic environment. I have no idea whether or not DDS has a written standard of professional conduct for faculty, but, if it did, I’d be surprised if such intemperate language – especially when directed against a younger faculty member – couldn’t be considered a violation. I have no doubt that basic collegial courtesy is expected of tenured faculty in most institutions, and Griffiths’ email is notably lacking in that respect.
The accusation that he refused to meet with his supervisor (which is technically what his Dean is, I suspect) is far more serious. In no workplace in America can one refuse to meet with one’s supervisor and not expect discipline, if not outright termination.
Griffiths claims that he simply hasn’t agreed to meet under his Dean’s conditions. But employment law is clear that, in the absence of a union, the employee can’t make conditions. (The Clinton administration extended the right to have a representative present at disciplinary meetings to non-unionized employees, but the Bush administration took it away again.)
I also found the reference in the Dean’s letter to “inappropriate conduct in faculty meetings over the last two years” telling, as was the fact that the Dean requested a meeting with Griffiths before the email in question. Both suggest that the email was simply a continuation of a pattern of behavior that was problematic. Was that behavior protected by academic freedom as well? It’s impossible to say without knowing more. But, pretty clearly, his way of expressing his opinions was an issue with his employers. And, like it or not, a university is a workplace, and employers are granted a fair amount of control over even the most employee-friendly workplace.
The harassment complaint is more problematic, as it does appear to be in retaliation for the email. But it’s not hard to imagine a backstory that would make the email look like bullying, if not necessarily the kind of harassment that Title IX addresses. There is, of course, no evidence of that in anything posted so far.
This really doesn’t give the appearance of DDS trying to shut down views that the administration doesn’t agree with. I suspect that, had Professor Griffiths expressed himself with the kind of thoughtfulness that Professor Pfau demonstrated in defending him, there would be no story here at all.
To Robert Levine, May 9, 2017 at 6:33 p.m.:
[I googled “Robert Levine” and “labor relations,” and was immediately informed that this individual deals with symphony orchestras.]
I’m not aware of any “environment very similar to a university” that isn’t a (college or) university, and certainly not an orchestra.
A tenured university professor enjoys an independence, both by contract and custom that no orchestra musician, not even a first fiddler, ever enjoys.
Your comment leaves no doubt that you are completely hostile towards Paul Griffiths’ position. Said hostility has nothing to do with “labor law,” and everything to do with the politics of racial totalitarianism.
“For anyone reading this quickly who isn’t already locked into the ideological assumptions of your amen corner, the message is that you believe anti-racism is anti-intellectual. As such, that comes across as not being an attack on ineffectual bureaucracy but on the scholarly work of several of your colleagues and on the personhood of your students of color.”
Of course, so-called anti-racism is anti-intellectual. It is also totalitarian and genocidally racist.
“[an attack on] the scholarly work of several of your colleagues”
Well, I should hope so!
“and [an attack] on the personhood of your students of color.”
You are adopting the zero-sum logic of Elaine Heath and Anathea Portier-Young, and weaponizing “students of color.” Thus, you imply, unless one submits to the totalitarian, genocidal racism of so-called anti-racism, one is a racist.
I don’t think that Paul Griffiths has been aggressive enough.
No comments:
Post a Comment