The Lancet’s editor jumps the shark, disses global health because of its racist and white supremacist history

May 25, 2023 • 9:30 am

I don’t know much about Richard Horton, the editor of The Lancet (one of the world’s top medical journals); but what is clear is that he’s uber-woke. He was, for example, responsible for this controversial cover:

 

 

There have been other political covers, other woke editorials by Horton, and a fair few woke articles that, in saner times, wouldn’t be published in The Lancet. But once someone like Horton is handed his bully pulpit (and is presumably supported by “allies”), he can go hog wild with proselytizing and virtue flaunting. Yes, he may mean well, but his latest op-ed is so over the top, so full of the drive to reform everything in the world, and so unhinged in its tone, that there was a reason I once called The Lancet “the medical Scientific American.”

Here’s my own brief summary of Horton’s op-ed that you can (and should) read by clicking the screenshot below. These are my words:

“Global health” is a manifestation of colonialism and white supremacy, an exclusive and structurally racist club that must be decolonized and dismantled. We shouldn’t waste our time pursuing the traditional version of this practice, which won’t be decolonized until the entire world is fixed: rid of war, racism, unequal wealth, climate skepticism, and all other manifestations of right-wing politics.”

But what is “global health”? Well, I use the Lancet’s own definition:

. . . . we offer the following definition: global health is an area for study, research, and practice that places a priority on improving health and achieving equity in health for all people worldwide. Global health emphasises transnational health issues, determinants, and solutions; involves many disciplines within and beyond the health sciences and promotes interdisciplinary collaboration; and is a synthesis of population-based prevention with individual-level clinical care.

This, then, involves not just improving health of people throughout the world, but achieving “equity in health,” which to me means that everyone gets equal opportunities to access health care. Well, that seems fine: equal opportunity for everyone is what I want. Note, however, that they emphasize “equity in health,” not simple “equity,” which means representation of  all underserved groups of people in professions—presumably healthcare here—in proportion to the groups’ occurrence in the population.  But, as you see below, “equity in health” has been reinterpreted by Horton, half intoxicated with wokeness, into simple equity in everything, which leads him to not only indict “global health” for racism and colonialism, but also to call for sweeping reforms of the entire planet.  Yes, most of these reforms would be nice, but right now there are sick people to cure, and we can’t wait centuries until everyone has more comparable incomes before we start making people well.

Click to read:

 

Seriously, Horton has gone the Scientific American route.  I don’t mind him noting the underlying cause of health disparities, but here he picks up a megaphone, mounts a soapbox, and shouts his own views to the world. I will quote him so that you’ll see that I’m not making this up. I’ve put the more interesting claims in bold:

Global health has become fashionably unfashionable. The case against global health is strong. Global health is the invention of a largely white and wealthy elite residing in high-income, English-language speaking countries. The discipline claims to be concerned about the health of people living in low-income and middle-income settings. But the resources—human, infrastructural, and financial—underpinning global health are mostly concentrated in those countries already replete with power and money. “Helicopter” research is not uncommon. The contribution of scientists and research funders to sustainable advances in health care in the countries of their alleged concern is minimal. More often, the relationship between western medical science and the countries they work in is extractive. Global health institutions are mostly led by western-educated men. Global health agencies are only superficially member-state organisations. In truth, influence lies with those nations providing the greatest resources. Global health has enabled public health schools and university departments to continue to enrich themselves through exorbitant student fees and generous research grants. Global health journals are no better. Most are creatures of western medical publishing houses, even those that proclaim radical open access histories. The unearned privileges of a few suppress the justified demands of the many. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that global health is little more than an exclusive club, disguising its colonial origins and practices in the stirring language of equity and justice.

That’s a big passel of accusations. (He doesn’t note that modern science is also largely the invention of a “white and wealthy elite”.)  First , I take issue with his claim that the desire to give everyone equal access to health care is the product of a “white and wealthy elite”, whose faux concern for sick people throughout the world really masks a desire to enrich themselves and their “colonialist” countries. Could it be that the powerful and rich countries like Britain and the U.S. (once colonialist, but no longer) simply had the resources and the moral wherewithal to do something about global health?

By the way, I happen to know a few people in global health, and I detect no whiff of colonialism about them, but rather a dogged determination to give medical care to people in poor countries. And believe me, they have not gotten rich doing so. Those are, of course, anecdotes, but Horton gives no data at all.

But you can see where he’s going.  He wants global health “decolonized,” which presumably means that the initiatives of rich, white, colonialist countries would give way to those of poorer countries. But right now that’s not possible—at least not without the help and funding from wealtheir nations.  I also note that to do so we must solve “inequities,” and by that he doesn’t mean just healthcare inequities, but even inequities in everything, including journal fees, which have already been tackled.

The view that global health is a colonial project underlies the call for decolonisation. As Franziska Hommes and colleagues wrote in The Lancet Global Health in 2021, the goal of decolonisation must be “to critically reflect on [global health’s] history, identify hierarchies and culturally Eurocentric conceptions, and overcome the global inequities that such structures perpetuate”. The democratic promise of global health to be an inclusive enterprise has been broken. Some critics argue that global health can never solve inequity. Some go further and suggest that global health is structurally racist. It is hard to disagree with these conclusions. Although global health journals might mean well, the operation of waiver policies for article processing charges has created a culture of humiliation for scientists who cannot afford western journal open access fees. Journals have worsened Northern ventriloquism, where scientists from lower-income settings feel forced to adhere to high-income norms and standards to be permitted to publish in their pages. In Global Health in Practice, Olusoji Adeyi offers a compelling analysis of how imperialism and colonialism became the “founding pillars” of global health. And his observation that “The din of protest against colonialism in global health is getting louder and it has merit” should provoke those of us who work in global health to pause. For Adeyi is surely right that “the Global North decides the narrative and assumes the omniscience to tell the Global South what the latter needs, when it can have it, how to do it, and on whose terms it must be done”.

But science journals, as Horton admits, have already waived publication fees for scientists and doctors from poor countries. Yet even in that gesture Horton finds sin, as fee waivers have created a “cultural of humiliation.” Okay, Dr. Horton, what’s the alternative? If there are to be publication fees, should we eliminate the “humiliation” by hitting authors from poor countries with those huge (and, to my mind, exorbitant) charges? Only a Pecksniff would find in an attempt to achieve equity yet another form of inequity!

And what are the “high-income norms and standards” to which those from poorer countries need not adhere for publication? Does he mean that we should give up standards of merit when refereeing papers from that group? Apparently! Let us lower the bar for papers coming from scientists in underserved countries. Perhaps we shouldn’t require them to have control groups, or use statistics instead of “lived experience”?

Well, I might as well cite the the rest of Horton’s short article. At the end the editor seems to lose it, calling for impossible (though desirable) reforms that must replace the effort we put into global health care. What he means is that we must get rid of right-wingers—the true opponents of global health:

When I was a medical student, I remember those attached to various causes arguing with passion among and against ourselves, viewing one part of our group as betraying the real truth that we were seeking to defend. Those on the progressive wing of politics are supremely good at introspective annihilation. And that same process of internal obliteration is now unfolding in global health. While we identify enemies among ourselves, we miss the larger story of just who our opponents really are—those trying to destroy the conditions for achieving the right to health, equity, liberty, and social justice. For the real enemies of the values we stand for do not sit within the ranks of global health. They are to be found in governments that instinctively mistrust—and who wish to undermine and defund—global organisations. They will be found among those who demonise refugees. They are the climate sceptics, anti-vaxxers, and purveyors of scientific misinformation. They are those who attack the redistribution of wealth, those who believe that war brings peace, and those who defend racism under the guise of patriotism. Global health practitioners should certainly engage in robust discussions about the meaning of their discipline. But they should be clear about who our struggle is really against. It is not global health. Instead, we must work harder together to create a new political frontier and forge a new collective against the true enemies of health.

This has very little to do with making people in poor countries better, for it is a political and ideological program to which he’s calling The Lancet’s readers.  (Note the language of war: “enemies”.) High-sounding words indeed, and some of them I agree with (who could help but criticize anti-vaxxers and climate skeptics?). But demonisizing refugees? That is a viable discussion in the U.S. right now, and those who call for limits in immigration can hardly all be tarred with “demonising refugees.” This is hyperbolic, divisive, and inaccurate language. In the end, Horton calls us to follow his own program, for apparently he alone has identified the “true enemies of health.”

Even on her worst days Sci. Am. editor Laura Helmuth has never written stuff like this, even if she believes it. But Horton is turning The Lancet from a medical journal into Mother Jones. I wonder how many doctors adhere to his hyperbole and to his political program. Does he represent the views of British medicine? And what gives the editor of a medical journal the right to spout his personal politics as if it were official doctrine? Yes, if there are root causes of global health inequality that can be pinpointed, he has a right to mention them. But note that he gives no evidence for his claims, and in the end calls for all readers to join him in forming The New Collective.

Curiously, in an earlier editorial opposing Brexit, Horton, citing John Gray, asserts that the idea of progress itself is a “dangerous fallacy”:

Scientists and those educated scientifically are prone to a dangerous fallacy—we believe in progress. The notion that human beings are forever moving forwards towards a better place. It is a noble vision: the accumulation of knowledge, self-correction, the application of science to enhance society’s wellbeing and wealth. The discipline of medical history is almost entirely based on this admiringly Whiggish precept. But it is mistaken, philosophically and historically. John Gray shattered the notion of progress two decades ago in his bitter polemic, Straw Dogs.

No he didn’t. Only a fool could say that progress hasn’t been possible, and medicine is one of the areas where it’s been profound. Since 1900 the average global life expectancy has more than doubled. You’d have to be a fool to say that that is not progress. (I could go on about medical progress, but there’s no point; you all know about it.)

So, in the paragraph above, Horton apparently rejects an overweening characteristic of liberalism and Englightenment values: belief that progress can be made. Yet what is he doing in this entire editorial but laying out a path for progress and “health equity”?  Either he is confused or has rejected what he wrote in 2019.

It is Horton’s dead certainty that he alone is right, combined with the accusations that his opponents are rich white  colonialist supremacists who promote “global health” not to help others, but to enrich themselves—that combination is the sign of wokeness.  He is sure his critics are wrong, and he will brook no discussion.

As usual, I don’t like publicly calling for people’s jobs, for that’s a woke tactic. But I do think that those who publish The Lancet should take a hard look at what Horton is doing to the journal.  “Bodies with vaginas” indeed!

Let me finish by saying that Horton and I probably agree on many political issues. But that doesn’t mean that were I to become editor of a science journal, I would splash my views all over its pages.

Readers’ wildlife photos

May 25, 2023 • 8:15 am

Today we have warbler photos from Paul Edelman at Vanderbilt University. Paul’s narrative is indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

It’s springtime and an old birder’s mind turns to migration.  In particular, warbler migration.  Here are some of the warblers that have come through Nashville, some on their way north and others to settle down and breed.

Two of the many species that are just passing through are the Bay-breasted Warbler (Setophaga castanea) and the Blackpoll Warbler (Setophaga striata).  There was an unusual number of these two species, which is why I was able to get some decent pictures. 

Bay-breasted Warbler:

Blackpoll Warbler:

Of those coming in to breed we had Yellow Warblers (Setophaga petechia), the Common Yellowthroat (Geothlypis trichas)  but did not include it in the list of warblers that breed here. Prothonotary Warblers (Protonotaria citrea), Prairie Warblers (Setophaga discolor), Black-throated Green Warblers (Setophaga virens), Kentucky Warblers (Geothlypis formosa) and Worm-eating Warblers (Helmitheros vermivorum).

Yellow Warbler:

Common yellowthroat:

Prothonotary Warbler:

Prairie Warbler:

Black-throated Green Warbler (Setophaga virens):

Kentucky Warbler (Geothlypis formosa):

Worm-eating Warbler (Helmitheros vermivorum):

We also get two birds that are considered warblers for reasons I don’t really understand.  The Ovenbird (Seiurus aurocapilla) looks and behaves a lot more like a thrush than a warbler.  The Yellow-breasted Chat (Icteria virens) looks more like a vireo and sounds more like a mockingbird.  I am sure there is a method behind this madness, but it escapes me.

Ovenbird:

Yellow-breasted chat:

Obviously there are birds other than warblers migrating to and through here.  But that will be a subject for a different post.

Thursday: Hili dialogue

May 25, 2023 • 6:45 am

Welcome to Thursday, May 25, 2023, a good day because it’s National Wine Day. Drink some today: it’s good for you (assuming that you abide by the Federal Alcoholic Intake Regulations). Perhaps you are lucky enough to have this, which I would kill for ($700/bottle):

It’s also Geek Pride Day, International Plastic Free Day, National Missing Children’s Day, National Tap Dance Day, and, of course, Towel Day in honoring the work of the writer Douglas Adams,.

Here’s a nice tap number with Fred Astaire and Rita Hayworth. The bandleader is Xavier Cugat, and Shorty George was a real person. I particularly like the sequence of steps from 3:37-3:42.

Hayworth was a fantastic dancer, but nobody ever made it look easier than Astaire. He was the greatest.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this by consulting the May 25 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Obituaries:

  • Tina Turner passed away yesterday at age 83 after a long illness. I was never a big fan, but many readers were, and they’re invited to weigh in below with their remembrances.
  • The NYT finally published an obituary of Robert Zimmer, ex-President of the University of Chicago, who died Tuesday of what the paper says was “glioblastoma multiforme, a virulent form of brain cancer.” (I wrote about him yesterday, emphasizing his concern with the Botany Pond mallards.) It’s a decent but not outstanding obituary, but does end with this:

According to Mr. Stephens, Mr. Zimmer balked at the notion that unfettered free speech would jeopardize the cause of inclusion because it might upset, among others, some of the people who were seeking to be included.

“Inclusion into what?” Mr. Zimmer had wondered in a speech that year. “An inferior and less challenging education? One that fails to prepare students for the challenge of different ideas and the evaluation of their own assumptions? A world in which their feelings take precedence over other matters that need to be confronted?”

For Mr. Zimmer, the mathematician, that kind of education wouldn’t count.

*The endless, tiring discussions between Biden and the Republicans over the debt ceiling continues; it now appears to have come down to two strategies: the Democrats’ “freeze” or the Republicans’ “cut”:

Reining in government spending has become the central focus of negotiations over raising the debt ceiling, with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) under pressure from conservatives to secure deep cuts, while the White House has offered a spending freeze.

GOP negotiators have said that any deal with Democrats must result in lower discretionary spending next year than this year, calling it a critical step in starting to address the country’s growing debt, which now stands at $31.4 trillion.

“You have to spend less than you spent last year. That’s not that difficult to do,” McCarthy told reporters Wednesday, while adding that he is hoping to make progress in talks. A top negotiator, Rep. Garret Graves (R., La.), said the administration “thinks they can continue in the future on the same [spending] trajectory. And we’ve made it clear that that’s a nonstarter.”

Democrats say the GOP demand to cut spending is unreasonable, particularly after the White House has signaled it could agree to freeze discretionary spending next year and increase spending by 1% in fiscal year 2025.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.) noted a freeze on spending was a position many in his party “might even be uncomfortable with.” But he said House Republicans rejected that “because they want to impose draconian cuts.”

Well, we have a week left.  The problem is that I don’t know what would happen if they eliminated the debt ceiling completely, something Biden has pondered. From what little I know, the debt ceiling has been raised before without catastrophic circumstances. The catastrophes are supposed to occur only when the ceiling is hit and the government is forced to default.

*From reader Ken:

Did you see the piece in WaPo about school book bannings? The paper reviewed over a thousand book banning requests in 153 school districts across 37 states and found that 60% of the book banning requests had come from just 11 people.

Here’s what the article says:

The Post requested copies of all book challenges filed in the 2021-2022 school year with the 153 school districts that Tasslyn Magnusson, a researcher employed by free expression advocacy group PEN America, tracked as receiving formal requests to remove books last school year. In total, officials in more than 100 of those school systems, which are spread across 37 states, provided 1,065 complaints totaling 2,506 pages.

The Post analyzed the complaints to determine who was challenging the books, what kinds of books drew objections and why. Nearly half of filings — 43 percent — targeted titles with LGBTQ characters or themes, while 36 percent targeted titles featuring characters of color or dealing with issues of race and racism. The top reason people challenged books was “sexual” content; 61 percent of challenges referenced this concern.

And the perps:

The majority of the 1,000-plus book challenges analyzed by The Post were filed by just 11 people.

Each of these people brought 10 or more challenges against books in their school district; one man filed 92 challenges. Together, these serial filers constituted 6 percent of all book challengers — but were responsible for 60 percent of all filings.

LOCK ‘EM UP!

Here are the top reasons books were pulled in 2021-2022 (LGBTQ books seem to be the main target):

*In his op-ed “The DeSantis delusion,” NYT writer Frank Bruni argues that while DeSantis is marketing himself as an alternative to Trump, Republican voters don’t want that. (But maybe centrists leaning right do!):

But do Republican voters want an alternative to Trump at all? The polls don’t say so. According to the current Real Clear Politics average of such surveys, Trump’s support is above 55 percent — which puts him more than 35 percentage points ahead of DeSantis. Mike Pence, in third place, is roughly another 15 percentage points behind DeSantis.

There’s an argument that Trump’s legal troubles will at some point catch up to him. Please. He’s already been indicted in one case and been found liable for sexual abuse and defamation in another, and his supporters know full well about his exposure in Georgia and elsewhere. The genius of his shameless shtick — that the system is rigged, that everyone who targets him is an unscrupulous political hack and that he’s a martyr, his torture a symbol of the contempt to which his supporters are also subjected — lies in its boundless application and timeless utility. It has worked for him to this point. Why would that stop anytime soon?

But if, between now and the Iowa caucuses, Republican voters do somehow develop an appetite for an entree less beefy and hammy than Trump, would DeSantis necessarily be that Filet-O-Fish? The many Republicans joining the hunt for the party’s nomination clearly aren’t convinced. Despite DeSantis’s braggartly talk about being the only credible presidential candidate beyond Biden and Trump, the number of contenders keeps expanding.

The other Republican wannabe candidates face the same situation:

Most of these candidates are in a pickle similar to DeSantis’s. It’s what makes the whole contest so borderline incoherent. Implicitly and explicitly, they’re sending the message that Republicans would be better served by a nominee other than Trump, but they’re saying that to a party so entirely transformed by him and so wholly in thrall to his populist rants, autocratic impulses, rightward lunges and all-purpose rage that they’re loath to establish too much separation from him. They’re trying to beat him without alienating his enormous base of support by beating up on him. The circus of him has them walking tightropes of their own.

So what do Republicans want? Don’t ask me; I’m not a Republican!

*Hallelujah! (If that’s the right word.) The Texas legislature, poised to pass a bill mandating the posting of the Ten Commandments in every secondary-school classroom, failed to pass the bill.  But the fight isn’t yet over:

Texas lawmakers had been scheduled to vote Tuesday on whether to require that the Ten Commandments be posted in every classroom in the state, part of a newly energized national effort to insert religion into public life.

. . . Texas’s biennial legislative session is short, chaotic and packed, anda midnight deadline passed without a vote on the Ten Commandments bill, meaning the measure is dead for the session. But several other measures promoting religion in public spaces still have a shot at passage before the regular legislative session is scheduled to end May 29.

Here’s the arrantly ignorant mindset behind this clearly unconstitutional bills:

“There is absolutely no separation of God and government, and that’s what these bills are about. That has been confused; it’s not real,” said Texas state Sen. Mayes Middleton (R), who co-sponsored or authored three of the religion bills. “When prayer was taken out of schools, things went downhill — discipline, mental health. It’s something I heard a lot on porches when I was campaigning. It’s something I’ve thought about for a long time.”

. . . Josh Houston, who has advocatedat the Capitol for progressive and minority religious groups since 2005, said the kinds of bills passing chambers this year would have gone nowhere in the past in Texas. Even though religious expressions in public places in Texas are common, he said, there was an understanding that public employees represent the government and that legally the government shouldn’t impose religion.

But now the theocracy—Christian nationalism—is ascendant, and only Ceiling Cat knows how Texas will violate the Constitution. The scary thing is that if bills like this pass and are challenged, there’s good reason to think that the hyperconservative Supreme Court will uphold them. That’s why they’d best be defeated at the State level, as you can’t challenge a defeated law.

*This has been reported in several places, but here’s the NYT’s report on an amazing advance in medical technology: “A paralyzed man can walk naturally again with brain and spine implants.”

In a study published on Wednesday in the journal Nature, researchers in Switzerland described implants that provided a “digital bridge” between Mr. Oskam’s brain and his spinal cord, bypassing injured sections. The discovery allowed Mr. [Gert-Jan] Oskam, 40, to stand, walk and ascend a steep ramp with only the assistance of a walker. More than a year after the implant was inserted, he has retained these abilities and has actually showed signs of neurological recovery, walking with crutches even when the implant was switched off.

“We’ve captured the thoughts of Gert-Jan, and translated these thoughts into a stimulation of the spinal cord to re-establish voluntary movement,” Grégoire Courtine, a spinal cord specialist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, who helped lead the research, said at the press briefing.

In the new study, the brain-spine interface, as the researchers called it, took advantage of an artificial intelligence thought decoder to read Mr. Oskam’s intentions — detectable as electrical signals in his brain — and match them to muscle movements. The etiology of natural movement, from thought to intention to action, was preserved. The only addition, as Dr. Courtine described it, was the digital bridge spanning the injured parts of the spine.

I don’t quite get that las paragraph about philosophy. It’s straight naturalism: the brain commands for walking are electrical patterns in the neurons, and if these can be decoded and fed to the muscles, then there’s a possibility of walking again. Screw the philosophy: what’s amazing here is that we now have the technology and AI methods to translates the brain patterns into the muscles they normally control

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili still hasn’t completely warmed to Szaron:

Szaron: Is there room for me here?
Hili: We have a big garden, we don’t have to crowd together.

In Polish:
Szaron: Czy jest tu jeszcze miejsce dla mnie?
Hili: Mamy duży ogród, nie musimy się tłoczyć.

********************

From The Cat House on the Kings; this is who calls you about your car warranty:

 

From Science Humor:
From Now That’s Wild:

Masih is interviewed on MSNBC about Iran’s increasing number of executions–all protestors against the regime:

From Bob Zimmer’s wife, announcing his death:

A tweet about Bob’s death from Barack Obama (h/t Simon):

From Luana, and yes, this is real (Luana notes, “Prof was fired.  She was adjunct.  There goes the academic freedom to attack people with knives… “). An excerpt:

The manic Manhattan college professor who threatened a Post reporter with a machete has been fired, the school said Tuesday — as it emerged she is suing the NYPD for allegedly abusing her during the 2020 George Floyd protests.

Shellyne Rodriguez was sacked by Hunter College just hours after the adjunct professor was caught on camera holding the blade to the veteran reporter’s neck while threatening to “chop” him up outside her Bronx apartment.

From Barry. I’m not sure this is a woodpecker, but it has found some fine nesting material:

From the Auschwitz Memorial, a 13-year-old boy, gassed on arrival:

Tweets from Professor Cobb. First, Sir Martin Wagstaffe?

Matthew says, “This is Florida. Among the books is The Encyclopaedia of Mammals.”

A moggy at the bar:

A short Forbes magazine interview with Peter Singer

May 24, 2023 • 1:00 pm

I’m posting this clip for two reasons. First, it’s a Forbes Magazine interview with a philosopher I much admire: Peter Singer. He’s admirable because he deals with philosophy’s original purpose: to figure out how to live a good life; because he deals with tough questions (one of them here: the euthanasia of terminally suffering newborns, which he discusses at 6:45); because, even when attacked he defends his ideas with tenacity; because he walks the walk, giving a lot of his income to others; and because does a lot of charitable work. Despite calls to get him fired because of his views on infant euthanasia, he maintains his equanimity and simply proffers a defense of his stand that I, for one, find convincing. And, of course, he spends a lot of time dealing with animal welfare, which a biologist has to admire (sadly, I’m too hypocritical to give up eating meat, but Singer abjures it).

Second, because he’s one of the founders of The Journal of Controversial Ideas, I was chuffed to hear that he talks about our paper recently published there, “In defense of merit in science” (between 9:30 and 13:00). I’m not sure who the interviewer is, but she seems to push on our merit thesis because in some ways it opposes racial diversity. Singer, in response, seems dubious about the idea of equity trumping merit.

They begin by discussing Singer’s new book (an update, actually): Animal Liberation Now: The Definitive Classic Renewed, which came out on Tuesday. I read the original book  (Animal Liberation), which was when he first came to my consciousness. I also admire his book The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress., which suggests how our evolved ethical system has been extended to all humanity.

p.s. Singer has compiled a list of charities where, he thinks, you can get the most relief of suffering for your dollar. I’ve used that list, which you can find here, to decide who will get my money when I die.

The AAUP rebukes Hamline University for academic mistreatment of a professor

May 24, 2023 • 11:45 am

I’ve discussed “Muhammadgate” at Hamline University quite a few times before, and, at any rate, the details are given in the update below from the American Association of University Professors (AAUP; click on screenshot) and especially in the AAUP’s report here and pdf here. 

In short, in June, 2022, an adjunct professor of art history, Erika López Prater, was giving a class on World Art that included two sessions on Muslim art.  Those sessions included showing two images of the prophet Muhammad from famous paintings. In one his face was visible, in the other it was blotted out.  López Prater had given the students a “trigger warning” in the syllabus and also right before the online class, so they knew what they were going to see, and had the opportunity to leave. (The warning came because some Muslims, but not all, consider showing an image of Muhammad to be blasphemy.)  López Prater also vetted the syllabus and its warning to the administration and  the chair of the Art and Digital Media department, who had no problem with it.

The class went forward, and shortly thereafter a student, Aram Wedatalla, who was also president of the school’s Muslim Student Association, was outraged, and reported the incident to President Fayneese Miller and Dean Marcela Kostihova. Wedatalla also expressed her dissatisfaction to López Prater.

Read this summary by clicking on the link, but I especially recommend the AAUP report to show you what happened next: a perfect storm of outrage that led to the total violation of López Prater’s academic freedom

This ensued:

1.) López Prater  met twice with the dean about the complaints.

2.) Her Department chair suggested that López Prater tender an apology to the student body and her art class. But the apology that she wrote was just for the offense she caused; López Prater deliberately did not apologize for showing the images, which would have been ludicrous given the context.

3.) The University Vice President then issued a fulsome and apologetic statement about the Islamophobia supposedly caused by López Prater’s showing the paintings. It was almost a direct rebuke to the faculty member.

4.) López Prater was informed that she would no longer be teaching in the school. Effectively, as an adjunct, she was fired.

5.) The university held a “community conversation” that was clearly meant to reinforce the dastardly Islamophobia of López Prater. The topic was in fact “Islamophobia,” the panel of students were all black women (Muslims, I suspect), and a professor who tried to speak in defense of López Prater was told to shut up.

6.) The story had now become national news with a New York Times article devoting a front-page story to it on January 8 of this year.  Other people wrote in defending López Prater.

7.) The administration, realizing it had embarrassed itself and violated academic freedom, walked back its statements on January 17. The President and Chair issued this statement:

“Hamline University is the epicenter of a public conversation about academic freedom and students with diverse religious beliefs,” the statement began, and “many communications, articles, and opinion pieces . . . have caused us to review and re-examine our actions.” It continued, “Like all organizations, sometimes we misstep. In the interest of hearing from and supporting our Muslim students, language was used that does not reflect our sentiments on academic freedom. Based on all that we have learned, we have determined that our usage of the term ‘Islamophobic’ was therefore flawed.” The statement ends with a retraction: “It was never our intent to suggest that academic freedom is of lower concern or value than our students—care does not ‘supersede’ academic freedom, the two coexist. Faculty have the right to choose what and how they teach.”

8.)  “That same day Professor López Prater filed suit against the university in Ramsey County District Court, seeking damages for violations of Minnesota’s Human Rights Act, breach of contract, promissory estoppel, defamation, and “intentional infliction of emotional distress.”

8.) Meanwhile, the regular faculty met and overwhelmingly gave a vote of no confidence to President Miller.

9.) President Miller resigned.

I’ll reproduce just two documents that were part of this kerfuffle. First, López Prater’s “trigger warning” on her syllabus (again, she also gave a verbal one right before class):

I aim to affirm students of all religious observances and beliefs in the content of the course. Additionally, this course will introduce students to several religious traditions and the visual cultures they have produced historically. This includes showing and discussing both representational and non-representational depictions of holy figures (for example, the Prophet Muhammad, Jesus Christ, and the Buddha). If you have any questions or concerns about either missing class for a religious observance or the visual content that will be presented, please do not hesitate to contact me.

That’s pretty good, right? Nobody could object to being blindsided by being shown the two paintings, which I reproduce here.

And here is the damning statement that the school’s Vice President issued, which was then shared with the student body by the Dean of Students:

Several weeks ago, Hamline administration was made aware of an incident that occurred in an online class. Certain actions taken in that class were undeniably inconsiderate, disrespectful, and Islamophobic. While the intent behind these actions may not have been to cause harm, it came at the expense of Hamline’s Muslim community members. While much work has been done to address the issue in question since it occurred, the act itself was unacceptable. . . . I want to make clear: isolated incidents such as we have seen define neither Hamline nor its ethos. They clearly do not meet community standards or expectations for behavior. We will utilize all means at our disposal, up to and including the conduct process, to ensure the emotional health, security, and well-being of all members of our community.

It makes my blood boil to read this even now. There was NO Islamophobia, no disrespect, no harm, and certainly lots of consideration.  This, more than anything else, I think, brought down the AAUP’s wrath on Hamline.

Oh, one other comment. The reports says this, which may account for why the school’s reaction was so strong:

In 2019, a new strategic plan set a goal of increasing enrollment by diversifying the demographic makeup of the student body and improving student retention. According to faculty members who worked on the plan, an unstated goal was to recruit more students from the growing population of East African Muslims in the Twin Cities.

What did the AAUP do about this? I haven’t read the longer pdf file of the report, but I’m not sure that the AAUP can really do anything to Hamline University save censure and embarrass it.  Further, the faculty have already spoken in opposition to the President, Dean’s, and Chair’s mishigass, and the President is toast. Nevertheless, the AAUP’s judgment will stand as a warning to other schools. The last half of the report censures Hamline for doing these things:

a. Retracting López Prater’s teaching assignments.

b. Not affording López Prater academic due process. There was no formal procedure used to assess what she did before they got rid of her.

c. Denying López Prater her academic freedom to teach what she wanted (courts have ruled that so long as material like these pictures serve a didactic purpose, they are protected by academic freedom.

d. Relying largely on part-time appointments, meaning that faculty like López Prater get low pay, not many benefits, and huge workloads. This practice is increasing in American Universities, and it must stop, as it’s a form of indentured servitude.

e. Not creating a climate of academic freedom at the school. As the AAUP report notes:

The implications for academic freedom in art and art history of the events recounted in this report are clear. If a Muslim student can prevent the display of an image of the Prophet Muhammad, why cannot an evangelical Christian student seek to censor a work like the controversial Piss Christ by Andres Serrano or a devout Hindu student object to studying the work of Indian artist M. F. Husain? But art history is not the only field of study potentially at risk. Indeed, as Professor López Prater wrote the committee, “My situation presents a slippery slope not only for the discipline of art history, but for all of academia.”

They do praise the University’s governing board for acting rapidly and forcing the University to retract the charge of Islamophobia. They probably also asked Miller to resign, though it’s not clear.

Finally, the AAUP made a number of conclusions and recommendations, which I’ll put below the fold as this is getting too long. Click “read more” below to see them:

Continue reading “The AAUP rebukes Hamline University for academic mistreatment of a professor” →

Bob Zimmer died

May 24, 2023 • 9:30 am

Bob Zimmer, former President of the University of Chicago, died yesterday of brain cancer at the young age of 75.  He was stricken several years ago, but lived longer than anyone expected, and for that I’m glad. I’m writing this not to ape all the encomiums that will be printed in the next few days, but to show a side of the man that only I knew—until Mary Schmich wrote about it in the Chicago Tribune.

I met Bob in person only once (we were both inducted into the AAAS at the same time, and he introduced himself to me at the associated lunch in Cambridge, MA.). At that one meeting, I found him affable, easy to talk to, and not the least arrogant. As President and then as Chancellor, Bob distinguished himself not only in the REAL job of a President—raising money, which he was very good at—but, more important, in defending the Chicago Principles, including free speech and our policy of institutional neutrality embodied in the Kalven Report. That’s why, back in 2017, Bret Stephens (an alum who got his undergrad degree here in philosophy) wrote a NYT column calling Bob “America’s Best University President.” (A NYT obituary hasn’t yet appeared, but I’ll link to it here when it does.)

Small-fish professors like me have almost no contact with University presidents; when they do the prof is either in trouble or wants something. My second contact with Bob involved the latter: I wanted to feed the ducks.  As the covid pandemic started to grip America, we were told that the campus would be closed except for “essential research workers”, but I wasn’t one since I’d retired a while before that. Since I was busy feeding up Honey for her nesting season, I was upset that they might prevent me from going to Botany Pond. After fretting over it one evening, I sat in front of my laptop and banged out an email to Bob and Provost Ka Lee (March 19, 2020):

Dear President Zimmer and Provost Lee,

I am terribly sorry to bother you with a trivial request when I know that both of you have huge issues on your minds, trying to balance the mission of our University with the need to protect our community and its environs from contagion.  But in light of the possibility that the University may close almost completely, with non-essential people barred from campus, I wanted to request a small favor should that happen. I will be brief.

For the past three years I’ve taken it upon myself  to feed the breeding mallards at Botany Pond during spring and summer, and have been inordinately successful at bringing the young to fledging (in the last few years my associates and I have fledged 39 ducklings with only one loss, a mortality rate of <3% compared to over 50% before I took over). I attribute this to constant care and good food (duck chow, corn, and mealworms), and have worked with Facilities to ensure that pond remains “duck worthy” (they have constructed  a duckling ramp and raise and lower the water level for me so the young can be safe).

The presence of healthy ducks and ducklings has been a big draw for the community, with frequent visits from schoolchildren and others who come to watch them. Some of the females who migrate south return every year (I recognize them), and they have just returned and will soon begin building nests on the ledges of Erman.

What I would like to ask is whether, if the campus closes and I am not considered an essential research worker, I would still be allowed to visit the pond at least twice a day to feed the ducks. This is a solitary activity and nobody helps me, nor would I stand near anybody else. I would not work inside my building (I have an office in Zoology), but merely tend the ducks outside for a brief period. As far as I know from the CDC, there is no danger in spreading the coronavirus if you’re alone outside. (I am healthy and have experienced no symptoms.) I would simply feed the animals, which takes about ten minutes, and then leave campus.

I am asking your permission because our department is not the appropriate chain of command given that my request is not connected with research. But it is connected with animals—animals that have chosen to live and breed on our campus. There is an old Jewish saying that goes “If you have saved one life it is as if you saved the world.” Some of my colleagues say, “Well, they’re just ducks,” but their lives are important to themselves, to me, and, I think, to our University community.

I hope you’ll find yourself able to grant me this small favor if the campus is shuttered. I enclose two photos of our successes from the last year.

Thank you for your attention during these distressing times.

Cordially,
Jerry Coyne
Professor Emeritus
Department of Ecology and Evolution

This could be considered presumptuous, and also a burden on the President at a difficult time, so I didn’t expect an answer. But early the next morning I got this response:

Jerry,

Ka Yee and I are in full agreement that you should be able to do this.  And I fully sympathize with the view that they are not “just ducks”.  Please take care of them, “our ducks”, as you have been.  We are appreciative of this.

Stay well, and with best wishes,

Bob

Now I ask you: who but an empathic and humane man would even deal with an issue like this?  Bob even wrote the campus police telling them not to remove me were they to find me taking care of the ducks.

Ten days later, Mary Schmich, the Pulitzer-winning columnist for the Chicago Tribune, found out about Honey and me from her former colleague who had moved to the University. Schmich then wrote the first of three columns about a professor and his duck, “The pandemic, a professor, and a duck named Honey: a story of life in a time of death.” (Her other two are here and here.) They were all written as feel-good stories: tales about how duck life goes on even as people fall ill. As always, Mary wrote a fantastic piece (inquire if you can’t see it) and followed it up with two columns that were equally good.

The first one appealed to the University administration, for it told people about the pond and the ducks, and the solace they gave everyone, and it was good publicity for the school. They put up a webcam at Botany Pond, and Facilities gave me lots of help making the pond duck-friendly, adding fences, duck ramps, and so on. They even built a trampoline to cushion Honey’s jumping ducklings when she’d nested right over a cement porch! When I needed help, Bob was always there for me.  Here are a few of the notes from his side (I would send him photos to keep him up to date.)

Jerry, Thanks for your report on the ducks which was certainly welcome and encouraging.  And thanks for the wonderful photos.  Thanks also for the offer to show me around.  I may wait until my granddaughter is back in town before taking you up on it.  Stay well.

With very best wishes and appreciation,

Bob

Here’s another written after I asked him to help me get fencing in one place to keep the ducklings safe from human intrusion. Since we were both Jewish, I told Bob that I gave one drake a Jewish name: Shmuley. (I also told him how a human mother tried to release two whopping flightless domestic ducks into the pond, which I prevented just in time):

Jerry,  Thanks so much for keeping me up to date.  If you need help to get fencing in place, please let me know.  And Shmuley – fantastic.  “Gotta have duck with Jewish name” – love it.  Maybe you are on your way to having a duck minyan.  That was a somewhat sad story about the domiestic ducks and the kids worried about their pets.  But it sounds as if it ended ok…..

Thanks again Jerry.  I hope you are doing well.

With best wishes and appreciation,  Bob

Every six months or so I’d send him an update, often with photos. Here’s one from July, 2021:

Hi Bob,

I’m just sending an update as the duck season at Botany Pond winds down.  It’s been a good year: we had four broods with a total of 27 ducklings that have fledged or are about to fledge, and it’s been very peaceful.  Lots of people have come to the pond to find respite by watching the birds (I met a woman the other day whose husband was having a transplant in the hospital, and she comes by every day to chill out by watching the waterfowl), and the Labbies have some of their drawing classes here.

Anyway, they plan to dredge the pond this fall, and I hope they do a good job, as they’ll have to preserve the turtles and fish who live there too.  As you transition to Chancellor, I hope you retain some of your “duck powers”!

At any rate, all is well, and I enclose some photos of this year’s crop; I hope they aren’t too large to get through.

Best,Jerry

And the response (this is only one of many exchanges), from July 20, 2021:

Jerry, thanks so much for the update and the wonderful photos (which came through very well.)  It is nice to hear that those who are under great stress, particularly medical stress, find respite at the pond.  As for dredging the pond, I am sure this needs to be done carefully, and I will make sure that they have someone who knows how to do this in a careful and protective way.  And I will still be here for the ducks (and more!)  Thanks again for the wonderful work taking care of our ducks.  It is important and I greatly value it.

I hope you are well and doing well more generally.

With best wishes and appreciation,

Bob

From the winter of that year, after I made a duck Christmas card for him:

Jerry, thanks very much for the lovely card.  And thank YOU for all you are doing for the beautiful ducks and ducklings and helping them all flourish.  I walk by Botany Pond occasionally (without our dogs) and it is great to see them all and see how they are doing.  Keep up the great work which is of value to us all.  I wish you and family all the best for a safe, healthy, happy, rewarding, productive, and gratifying new year.

With warm and best wishes, Bob

Now this isn’t a huge deal in the scheme of things or in the running of our University, but I have to say that a lot of the help I got with the ducks was because of Bob. He always answered my emails within a couple of days, and I felt secure knowing that the President considered the Botany Pond mallards as “our ducks”. I am sure that his help, and that of Facilities, saved the lives of many ducklings.

Then Bob had a seizure, and was diagnosed with brain cancer. I kept sending him emails with photos until about a year ago, but the answers stopped coming.  Of course I understood, but I was sad. I had even saved one of Honey’s molted speculum feathers to give him, but I never got the chance. And now he’s gone.

I wanted to put this on the record because it’s a side of Bob that won’t be lauded in his obituaries but shows his humanity.

I could also describe how several of us worked with him to ensure that the provisions of the Kalven Report on institutional neutrality were maintained, but that story appears on the University website and is a more conventional tale of academia. Further, Bob’s work on free speech (which continued after he resigned as President and became Chancellor) will also be described widely, so I needn’t repeat it.

We have a new President now, but I don’t know him, and thus dare not ask him about the ducks.  But rarely will you find a college president like Bob, who had all the power to effect change but remained concerned about the well-being of a few campus mallards.

RIP Bob; I will miss you, and so will the ducks.

Bob Zimmer

 

Honey and offspring