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VP for Research at Michigan State U. Forced to Resign After Blog Posts Deemed ‘Racist’

VP for Research at Michigan State U. Forced to Resign After Blog Posts Deemed ‘Racist’

“The Twitter mobs want to suppress scientific work that they find objectionable. What is really at stake: academic freedom, open discussion of important ideas, scientific inquiry. All are imperiled and all must be defended”

https://youtu.be/N6etSuned3w

Dr. Stephen Hsu is a professor of theoretical physics at Michigan State University, where he also served as the vice president for research and innovation. He is now one of the latest casualties of the manic cancel culture currently gripping academia.

He is still on the school faculty as an educator, but recently resigned from his VP position when the mob declared him racist and sexist.

The charge against Hsu was led by the grad student employee union.

The Lansing State Journal reports:

MSU President Samuel Stanley Jr. in a press release Friday announced Hsu’s resignation from the position while confirming he will return as a tenured faculty member. The announcement comes after the Graduate Employees Union called for MSU to remove Hsu after statements he made about work by other researchers on intelligence and genetics and prior comments he made which the union members consider sexist and racist…

Hsu refuted the claims of racism and sexism on his blog, “Information Processing.”

“The attacks attempt to depict me as a racist and sexist, using short video clips out of context, and also by misrepresenting the content of some of my blog posts. A cursory inspection reveals bad faith in their presentation,” Hsu posted on June 12. “The accusations are entirely false — I am neither racist or sexist.”

“The Twitter mobs want to suppress scientific work that they find objectionable. What is really at stake: academic freedom, open discussion of important ideas, scientific inquiry. All are imperiled and all must be defended,” he added.

See if you can spot the key words in this part of the report:

The union petitioned and called for Hsu’s removal on June 11. Hsu “cannot uphold our university mission or our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion,” the union wrote in an open letter to the university.

In other words, the people committed to diversity and inclusion get to decide who is included. It’s Orwellian.

Supporters of Hsu appealed to MSU President Samuel L. Stanley with a petition of their own:

Dear President Samuel L. Stanley:

We, the undersigned, write out of concern with the risk of principles of academic freedom, scientific integrity, and fair play currently posed at Michigan State University (MSU) because of baseless allegations against a respected colleague, Dr. Stephen Hsu, VP for Research and Innovation.

The charges of racism and sexism against Dr. Hsu are unequivocally false and the purported evidence supporting these charges ranges from innuendo and rumor to outright lies. (See attached letters for details.) We highlight that there is zero concrete evidence that Hsu has performed his duties as VP in an unfair or biased manner. Therefore, removing Hsu from his post as VP would be to capitulate to rumor and character assassination.

President Stanley, you have the unique opportunity to show the leadership required to guide this great institution of higher learning through a difficult situation during this pivotal moment in history. The power is in your hands to reaffirm free inquiry and free expression as the core values of the academic institutions and show how they align with the other values to which we are all committed and have spent time and energy promoting. The voices demanding Hsu’s removal are exactly wrong in pitting diversity and inclusion against free inquiry and freedom of speech. Instead, true diversity flourishes best under conditions of free inquiry, because such a philosophy demands that everyone have a seat at the table and that views be evaluated on the basis of cogency of the supporting reasoning and strength and internal consistency of the accumulated evidence rather than the identity, power, number, or vociferousness of the people expressing them. Free inquiry is the most democratic and most inclusive method of engaging with the world.

Hsu posted his resignation letter on his blog:

President Stanley asked me this afternoon for my resignation. I do not agree with his decision, as serious issues of Academic Freedom and Freedom of Inquiry are at stake. I fear for the reputation of Michigan State University.

However, as I serve at the pleasure of the President, I have agreed to resign. I look forward to rejoining the ranks of the faculty here.

It has been a great honor working with colleagues in the administration at MSU through some rather tumultuous times.

To my team in SVPRI, we can be proud of what we accomplished for this university in the last 8 years. It is a much better university than the one I joined in 2012.

I want to thank all the individuals who signed our petition and who submitted letters of support. The fight to defend Academic Freedom on campus is only beginning.

We are witnessing the American version of Mao’s Cultural Revolution.

Featured image via YouTube.

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Comments

buckeyeminuteman | June 21, 2020 at 10:07 am

It’s okay to be prejudiced towards Asians at colleges. Don’t you know?

    That was a mistake , big thumbs, it was suppose to be an up vote

    Communists have long hated Jews and Christians. Now Asians are being targeted, since they are perceived as being an academically successful group, and therefore part of the “systemic racist system”.

      Aren’t the Chinese Asian and communists?

        To be a Communist is to renounce one’s humanity and be joined body and soul to a nihilistic death cult. It doesn’t matter what you were before (Jew, Gentile, black, white, Chinese, male, female, etc) since everything that made you what you were has been subsumed by a demonic lust for absolute power – and a genocidal passion to completely destroy anyone who gets in your way. The more rapes, murders and destruction a Communist causes, the more virtuous and powerful they feel.

        I would recommend to all LI readers the book “Wild Swans”, by Jung Chang. The passages about the author’s mother are particularly heart-rending. The mother became a Communist and joined Mao’s Communist army just before it triumphed militarily. Yet even before Chiang Kai-shek was driven completely from mainland China Chang’s mother found herself losing everything in order to satisfy her Communist overlords. She lost a baby through miscarriage because of a pointless forced march ordered by Mao, she was ordered to break ties with her friends and family because they were considered “insufficiently revolutionary”, and even her marriage to Chang’s pitiless, cruel father was completely controlled by the Communists (once he ordered her to march hundreds of miles on foot while burning up with fever, and threatened to have her denounced to the authorities if she ever cried or complained because of the pain). Every part of Chang’s mother’s life was twisted or ruined in her frantic attempts to please the Communists, but to the Communists she was nothing at all.

        To become a Communist is to lose all traces of your past life while the Party seeks to transform you into a monster.

    It should be OK to be prejudiced towards anyone, in almost any setting except a courtroom. It’s prejudice against people that is generally considered a bad thing.

    I have never understood those who insist that it’s just as bad to assign good traits to a racial group as bad ones. I remember hearing Phil Klass (William Tenn) talk about how John Campbell had told him he was a a philosemite, and how he’d lectured him on how that was just as bad as being an antisemite. He said Campbell didn’t get it, and sitting in the audience I had to agree because I didn’t get it either.

      healthguyfsu in reply to Milhouse. | June 21, 2020 at 1:18 pm

      Because it is all about thought control.

      LukeHandCool in reply to Milhouse. | June 21, 2020 at 1:21 pm

      One great counterproductive problem in the black community is the charge of “acting white,” especially when it comes to education.

      When my Japanese wife (who admits she herself was a mediocre and unserious student in Japan) volunteered in our kids’ elementary school classes, she was aghast at how unchallenging the curriculum was.

      How many times did I have to listen to her say things like, “The kids in class can’t do arithmetic in their heads. We were starting algebra at this age!”

      My wife saw these white children of extremely successful Westside L.A. parents as being coddled and entertained into being academically lazy and unaccomplished.

      Without a single PC bone in her body, (even I am taken aback by her brutal straight talk at times) having grown up working class (I’d say borderline poor) in Japan where all excuses are deemed worthless, she would say …

      “These white kids need to start acting Asian.”

      So says the “tell it like it is” Howard Cosell of Japanese women.

      But in public she usually acts refined and polite as is expected of Japanese women. At home she can be brutal.

      pst314 in reply to Milhouse. | June 21, 2020 at 3:10 pm

      Thanks for relating that Tenn/Campbell story; I’d forgotten all about it.

      artichoke in reply to Milhouse. | June 22, 2020 at 12:15 pm

      Because you’re not allowed to like anyone who isn’t flavor-of-the-month unless you like or at least give some stuff also to those who are flavor-of-the-month.

      It’s about breaking friendships now, they’re called conspiracy. Unless of course a member or preferably two of flavor-of-the-month are included.

    The Legal Insurretion Fund should be raising money for this man’s federal lawsuit.

“We are witnessing the American version of Mao’s Cultural Revolution.”

It’s far worse. The Chinese never had any real freedom. We are destroying the greatest bastion of freedom and liberty ever seen.

    “We” aren’t doing anything – and that’s the problem!

    Where is Lisa Murkowski? Collins? McConnell? Bush? Boehner? McCain? (Oh, forgot he’s dead – given the shit that controls the GOP, it’s hard to tell).

    Lindsay Graham is showing his true colors, too.

    DESTROY the GOP as a political party. ABANDON IT COMPLETELY. THEY ARE IN BED WITH THE ENEMY.

    Just donate to individual candidates and entities like Legal Insurrection Fund, Judicial Watch, etc. – and to Trump PACs.

      notamemberofanyorganizedpolicital in reply to TheFineReport.com. | June 21, 2020 at 4:16 pm

      PHEARLESS PHARAOHMedium
      @thedevman1

      “Oh it’s JUST a mask”

      “And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name” Rev 13:7

      If they can tell us we can’t buy or sell without a mask, and make it normal, whats next?
      #coronavirus is a test run.
      #WWG1WGA

      notamemberofanyorganizedpolicital in reply to TheFineReport.com. | June 21, 2020 at 4:18 pm

      J e f f T h o m a s

      Do people understand why this is so Huge?? The southern district of New York is where the Anthony Weiner laptop is ???‍♂️?????

    JusticeDelivered in reply to Barry. | June 21, 2020 at 6:01 pm

    “We” are not destroying, they are trying. We need to make them so sorry, maybe even start putting those who rioting, destroying, killing… down.

What were his Thought Crimes, you ask?

“Hsu’s research has talked about intelligence difference between races, and argued against diversity hiring initiatives.”

“If you study the history of science or technology, you’re going to inevitably come to the conclusion that it’s people who are of above average ability who make these breakthroughs and generate a disproportionate amount of value for humanity,” he told the Lansing State Journal in 2012.

    fscarn in reply to Paul. | June 21, 2020 at 11:26 am

    If others like BLM insist on ruling over us, is it too much to ask that they at least know arithmetic?

      JusticeDelivered in reply to fscarn. | June 21, 2020 at 6:04 pm

      BLM are not competent to rule anyone, anywhere. Their movement is built on a rotten foundation of lies.

    Milhouse in reply to Paul. | June 21, 2020 at 11:30 am

    Yep. Facts are racist and sexist. Ask Charles Murray, or Lawrence Summers.

      alaskabob in reply to Milhouse. | June 21, 2020 at 12:56 pm

      We are in a global war against nations (especially China) that value objective outcome rather than subjective appearances.

      That pesky “Bell Curve” keeps popping up. As pointed out by Jordan Petersen … The U.S. Military has keep records for over a century (anymore?) That 10 percent of the US population is too mentally deficient for any work. With over three times the population, China by numbers alone has a larger pool of capable people. Add to that tougher goals for education and the Woke West is in trouble.

      The Profs want every factor of life to be fluid including reality.

    rhhardin in reply to Paul. | June 21, 2020 at 11:39 am

    Sorry, reply accidently hit thumbs down.

    The invisible systemic racism hides, in its invisibility, that American blacks have an average IQ of 86. The invisible systemic racism, like phlogiston (“the cause of fire”), exists to explain why lieutenants’ exams etc, the equivalent of IQ tests, reveal the same aggregate difference as IQ tests.

    So that genetics result cannot be brought up, no matter how scientific it is, and you get cancelled, if you’re in a position that can be cancelled. Not retired, say.

      gonzotx in reply to rhhardin. | June 21, 2020 at 1:01 pm

      86? Where’s your proof of that

        Paul in reply to gonzotx. | June 21, 2020 at 2:14 pm

        “Proof?” I don’t know. But here is a citation:

        The Bell Curve (Herrnstein & Murray, 1994) presented general readers an update of the evidence for the hereditarian position along with several policy recommendations and an original analysis of 11,878 youths (including 3,022 Blacks) from the 12-year National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. It found that most 17-year-olds with high scores on the Armed Forces Qualification
        Test, regardless of ethnic background, went on to occupational success by their late 20s and early 30s, whereas those with low scores were more inclined to welfare dependency. The study also found that the average IQ for African Americans was lower than those for Latino, White, Asian, and Jewish Americans (85, 89, 103, 106, and 113, respectively; Herrnstein & Murray, 1994, pp. 273–278).

        https://www1.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/30years/Rushton-Jensen30years.pdf

        JusticeDelivered in reply to gonzotx. | June 21, 2020 at 6:49 pm

        Actually, American blacks have consistently scored an average of 85.

        The year I started 7th grade cross district busing was started. Those being bused in had nearly no interest in learning, they were generally crude and rude.

        That was the same year that I gained access to a university, and by and large my friends were much older than I.

        I clearly remember the raging discussion about nurture versus nature. At that time people were desperate to believe that the black achievement problem was due to poverty.

        There was huge pressure to push this narrative. When it turned out that there were not enough blacks which could perform at college level, they started dumbing down curriculums, and later started creating puff majors and whole departments.

        It is time all of this is canceled. What we have is lipstick on a pig.

          artichoke in reply to JusticeDelivered. | June 22, 2020 at 12:24 pm

          The interesting question is, what to do about it?

          I think that part of the solution, for able students, is to give them earlier access to universities. Don’t make them wait in HS, taking all sorts of layers of the same thing. If they’re qualified to start college, give them a citizenship test in lieu of the social studies requirement, and SAT in place of English and math requirements, and move them on to university.

          This also eliminates the question of what College Board should do with its AP tests, when a proper AP exam can’t be given, and what about the embarrassing racial differences in AP results, are they to be suspected of racism? Just don’t have AP. When someone’s ready for AP, it’s time to dual-enroll them, or quickly graduate them and they move on.

          Stop wasting time and money, stop holding the better students hostage for a social agenda that should not slow their education.

    alohahola in reply to Paul. | June 21, 2020 at 11:58 am

    Like you, Prof. J, Prof. Hsu has decided not to leave.

‘Diversity and inclusion’ are not hallmarks of Western Civ, they’re by-products of it. An ‘academic pursuit of the truth’, the ‘mission’ of any university worth its weight, is paramount.

“Hsu refuted the claims of racism and sexism…”

Not when you capitulate and resign. Unless and until we all punch back twice as hard against the blood libel woke mobs, they will only be emboldened to continue their ‘long march’ slaughter.

MSU President Stanley is a wimp! He should be the next to “resign.”

Albigensian | June 21, 2020 at 1:18 pm

And you thought STEM would be exempt from the cultural revolution, perhaps just because it does its best to base its conclusions on evidence?

Nothing, it seems, is quite so infuriating to a cultural revolutionist as a statement that is both politically incorrect, and provably true. We seem to be entering a particularly grim phase of this revolution, wherein if/when truth-seeking contradicts the party line then it must be suppressed (at all costs, and By Any Means Necessary).

And, yes, truth can be dangerous. But nowhere near as dangerous as a revolution that has declared war on the very assertion that truth assertions must be based on evidence (and not on their perceived political impact).

(See also: https://quillette.com/2020/06/20/exploring-other-ways-of-knowing-the-new-religious-threat-to-science-education/ )

    CorkyAgain in reply to Albigensian. | June 21, 2020 at 4:20 pm

    Of course STEM won’t be exempt, as long as accomplishments in that area lead to an increase in wealth or social status.

    The levelers can’t allow that, and will reject any justification of unequal outcomes as obviously racist, sexist, or whatever.

      artichoke in reply to CorkyAgain. | June 22, 2020 at 12:31 pm

      I was watching a black man on CNBC complaining that black people are being hired into HR and Marketing, but that they should be hired more into Finance, Operations and Engineering.

      He was quite clear that so far the discrimination in their favor has not been enough, so more must be done. He did not deny that there is already discrimination in their favor. He did not make an argument that more blacks are capable of being effective in Finance, Operations or Engineering.

healthguyfsu | June 21, 2020 at 1:41 pm

Sounds like he channeled James Damore in his blog. You can’t have that kind of wrong-think!

SpaceInvader | June 21, 2020 at 2:05 pm

All the great professors who are getting fired should start a university that actually teaches useful information. Being fired from an SJW university should be a badge of honor.

And yet we hear that America resembles 1930s Germany because of Trump and the deplorables. Go figure.

CapeBuffalo | June 22, 2020 at 5:08 am

When does the real pushback begin??

Write all you want about the Lefts origins, methods, atrocities und so weiter, when does the action begin? What is the action? All we have is verbal reaction. People are backing down and surrendering to the Left because they don’t have any visible or vocal support..
“Cancel Culture “ is too polite a term for the annihilation of a persons career, psyche, life. It can’t be countered by reasoned arguments or political position, it requires organization and physical presence. At this point it is going to require physical pushback as well

Dedicated to Dr. Bill Wattenburg and pushback.com.

harleycowboy | June 22, 2020 at 9:33 am

He’s a minority so he can’t be racist.

Maybe an inquiry into some possibly material, ie, financial, entrepreneurial, etc, or substantive philosophical, or both — or other significant matters — between Professor Hsu and President Stanley might be helpful.

Much of the rhetoric flying around the last few days might just be smokescreen, even decoy, so that the actual substance of trouble, maybe even involving MSU, itself — a real hotbed of institutional trouble recently — isn’t searched and identified. (Is there a Board connection, maybe?)

It just all sounds so thin and tenuous to my ears. It’s possible we’re being misled down a rabbit hole. Or maybe not; hard to say.

In any case, Stanley (who’d committed some noteworthy administrative missteps at his prior presidency at SUNY Stony Brook), might very well have wussed on this, whether or not he already whiffed at a solid chance to request, accept, and evaluate, maybe with the advice and counsel of a balanced commission weighing in considerably, the kind of scrutiny perfectly detailed in the faculty support letter for Professor Hsu, a Petition of President Stanley, a choice excerpt of which is restated here, from above, for your convenience:

” . . . President Stanley, you have the unique opportunity to show the leadership required to guide this great institution of higher learning through a difficult situation during this pivotal moment in history. The power is in your hands to reaffirm free inquiry and free expression as the core values of the academic institutions and show how they align with the other values to which we are all committed and have spent time and energy promoting. The voices demanding Hsu’s removal are exactly wrong in pitting diversity and inclusion against free inquiry and freedom of speech. Instead, true diversity flourishes best under conditions of free inquiry, because such a philosophy demands that everyone have a seat at the table and that views be evaluated on the basis of cogency of the supporting reasoning and strength and internal consistency of the accumulated evidence rather than the identity, power, number, or vociferousness of the people expressing them. Free inquiry is the most democratic and most inclusive method of engaging with the world.”

Mike, the present LI article’s author, has also provided above a link to the complete letter of support, the Petition.

Note well the breadth and extent of the character and professional support Professor Hsu’s received; the hundreds of signatories shown might even be shortened for practical purposes.

Gauging by the intensity and nature of this support, I think we’ve reached a major crossroad in resisting the present American Cultural Revolution, a major existential crises in its almost 244-year history.

It appears, finally, that the cavalry, ie, the big pushback, has finally arrived.

If so, President Stanley, a well-paid, brilliant, and capable researcher, stands in history’s crosshairs as a pivotal figure — in my estimation — several, but not very many levels below those who questioned Galileo, and left him to rot. Pontius Pilate is a bit more distant, but spiritually for many, not off this critical grid.

In the balance, it seems to me, is the status of our national integrity, its character, unity and wholeness, and plenty more, but nothing less.

Yes, I view free thought as important to our Western culture as whether or not we live in a helio- or geocentric system of celestial bodies. It’s crucial that we get this moment right, and that the key players in this scene are properly identified and understood.