Victor Davis Hanson Calls DEI Loyalty Oaths in Higher Education ‘McCarthyesque’
“the new Left requires would-be faculty to swear loyalty not to the state but to the new deity of DEI”
The left has become authoritarian and they seem unable to see it.
Hanson writes at American Greatness:
The ancient idea of cancel culture—whether tribal banishment, ostracism, scapegoating, witch-burning, blacklisting, or Trostkyization—is back in vogue, despite its antitheses to the U.S. Constitution.
In 1950, good liberals fought “loyalty oaths” in college hiring that required one to profess loyalty to the United States and to disavow belonging to or associating with “subversive” organizations. There were plenty of snitches and sneaks—e.g., rivals for jobs—ready to rat out any professor or actor with youthful communist flirtations.
Today, the new Left requires would-be faculty to swear loyalty not to the state but to the new deity of DEI, or to state just how much they have been so far committed to “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” Should an applicant confess that such sloganeering is antithetical to the King dream of America, he would never be hired, and if hired, risk being fired.
Yet such diversity oaths, vows, and statements are becoming more popular across the existing curriculum and faculty on the theory that the problem with the old McCarthyesque loyalty oaths was not the suspension of individual thought and freedom of belief, but simply that such admirably effective suppression was aimed at the Left, rather than properly as now at the Right.
So, the message at UC Berkeley in 2022 is the same as it was in 1950, some 72 years ago: toe the line, accept orthodoxy, and ostracize the noncompliant—or else you are a DEI apostate and will suffer the consequences!
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
“…the new Left…” in reality it’s only another layer of lipstick on the same pig.
And Berkeley retains it’s grip on the name Berserkley.
“When I am weaker than you, I ask you for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles.”
–FRANK HERBERT, CHILDREN OF DUNE
I realize that it is somewhat overdone nowadays, but isn’t this reminiscent of membership in the Nazi, Communist etc. groups.
Naturally, the leftists (communists) will say that President Trump demanded a loyalty pledge from the likes of Comey, but that was an act of self defense from the deep state infiltrators.
Remember what a stink the leftists raised when that was “leaked” by Comey??
Academia, and many other things, will die (pun intended) on the altar of DIE.
An employer demanded that an employee pledge loyalty to him! Shocking!
The problem is that people like Comey insist they don’t work for the president, they work for the people, so their duty of loyalty is to the people, and that sometimes means being disloyal to the president. That sounds noble, but the constitution says otherwise. The constitution says the executive power of the USA is vested in the president, whomever that might be at any time, so if you are employed by the executive you are working for the president. He is the executive.
Not quite “L’etat est moi”, but close enough for government work. A king is the state itself; a US president is only one branch of its government. It would be wrong and absurd to demand that a congressman or a judge be loyal to the president, and it would be very wrong to demand that of an ordinary citizen. As I’ve said here in the past, Biden is not my president; he’s president of the United States, not of me. And the same was true of Trump. Likewise he is not my commander in chief; but he is the commander in chief of the armed forces. So if you’re in those forces, he is your commander in chief, and if you work in the FBI you have a duty of loyalty to him and shouldn’t have a problem pledging it.
The thing is, I don’t have any problem with McCarthyism, at least as I understand it to have actually been. I have no problem with demanding loyalty oaths of people who have a duty of loyalty.
I especially don’t have a problem with making such demands of those who would teach in public educational institutions, since at bottom the principal purpose of such institutions’ very existence is to turn out productive and loyal citizens. A school that produces traitors is betraying its mission, so it should not hire traitors as teachers. That’s just common sense.
I object to the oaths demanded now, not because I have a problem with such oaths, but because they’re oaths of disloalty to the USA and a pledge of allegiance to the enemy.
I also don’t agree that those who fought the loyalty oaths in the 1950s were good liberals. They may have told themselves that to soothe their consciences; they certainly told others that to avert suspicion. But in reality if they were not secret communists they were communist sympathizers. They didn’t really believe in the cause they claimed to. I doubt they would have had any objection to requiring teachers to abjure Nazism; they would instead have denied that the comparison was valid.
Old “china hands” John Paton Davies and John Service had their lives and careers wrecked by petty rivals and smear merchants. People will argue that HUAC did in fact snare communists. The Venona files back that up. But decent people were also caught up in the same snare. General Marshal’s post WWII mission to China was to facilitate a Kuomintang-CCP coalition government. He failed, yet he got smeared as ‘pinko curious’ for the effort.
So which phrase fits best:
Can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.
Ruin them all and let god sort them out.
I have yet to hear of an innocent person accused by either McCarthy or HUAC.
Stop thinking of it in the form of politics.
These “loyalty oaths” are religious requirements. They’re oaths to the Inquisition of the Progressive church.
Somebody running around down-voting comments without counter-arguments. Huh.