WILLIAMSTOWN, MA - Math professor Chad Topaz, who earlier called for UC Davis to fire Abigail Thompson for wrongthink, has now descended to a new low in passive aggressive onanism.
Over on his personal website - https://chadtopaz.com/ - he has given up on making rational arguments for why his fellow college professors should obliterate the careers of liberals with whom he has disagreements. Instead, he is providing his readers with a set of test questions. I'm not joking. His response to the condemnation he has received is to provide his colleagues with what looks like a mid-term exam.
I believe Chad's low social IQ is evidence that he would be an cloying, overly enthusiastic prep school math teacher if he had not been fortunate enough to overcome the disadvantages of being a white dude from Harvard (boring) by leveraging his inter-sectional bonus points for being gay married and woke. For the fun of it, I'm submitting my answers below.
By the way, if you have found Ayatollah Chad has blocked you from viewing his personal or non-profit sites, you can still access them through the internet browser DuckDuckGo. In my case, I access them through links from third parties to which he seemingly has no objections. He has taken both his Facebook and Twitter accounts private. This is a big contrast from when he was using them as the key channels for his anti-free speech fatwa.
Since an outcry began in mid-November over Abigail Thompson’s essay in the AMS Notices, I have engaged in substantial discussion of and reflection on the events at hand. In case you are involved in our community’s conversation about this essay, and if you would like to reflect further, I offer the questions below as prompts.
1. Thompson’s essay states “Mandating diversity statements for job candidates is [a] mistake, reminiscent of events of seventy years ago.” The sentences immediately following this one discuss McCarthyism. How does mandating diversity statements resemble or not resemble McCarthyism?
Prompting Reflection
1. Thompson’s essay states “Mandating diversity statements for job candidates is [a] mistake, reminiscent of events of seventy years ago.” The sentences immediately following this one discuss McCarthyism. How does mandating diversity statements resemble or not resemble McCarthyism?
ANSWER: It is McCarthyism. You are McCarthy. Your department chair at Williams College is President Eisenhower. Your colleague Colin Adams is leading the effort to stop you. Even one of your female co-authors, Julie C. Blackwood, has turned against you.
2. I have posted several responses to Thompson’s letter through the Institute for the Quantitative Study of Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity. My initial response called out two entities with statements beginning “What is going on…” What are those two entities? Which entity did I call out first?
2. I have posted several responses to Thompson’s letter through the Institute for the Quantitative Study of Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity. My initial response called out two entities with statements beginning “What is going on…” What are those two entities? Which entity did I call out first?
ANSWER: No one cares about the details of your previous statements - especially the order of your fatwa demands - all they care about is your call for a white female professor to be publicly shamed and caused to lose her job. If you are going to be consistent, you should be pushing for a boycott of your own department. For example, Colin Adams has created the counter petition condemning your anti-free speech extremism. Your own department chair, Richard de Veaux against you. If you were a person of integrity you would demand they be fired too. To be consistent, you should resign after reading the petition they signed condemning you.
3. My initial response suggested six actions. To whom was the first action addressed? How many of the actions related to UC Davis? Did any of the actions center disempowered people in professional spheres potentially affected by the publication of the essay? Did any of the actions encourage personal attacks? What is the difference between a professional action and a personal action?
3. My initial response suggested six actions. To whom was the first action addressed? How many of the actions related to UC Davis? Did any of the actions center disempowered people in professional spheres potentially affected by the publication of the essay? Did any of the actions encourage personal attacks? What is the difference between a professional action and a personal action?
ANSWER: Ouch! You low social IQ is cringe worthy. There is no difference between a "personal attack" and a "professional attack." When you are promoting a nation-wide boycott and pressuring her employer to fire her you are inflicting intense pain. Your vicious attack on a white female math professor was designed to hurt her...not her job title...not her CV.
4. My initial response said that we should be concerned that the AMS published a piece equating diversity statements with McCarthyism, and that we should be concerned about the impact of that stated equivalence on disempowered people in Thompson’s professional sphere. How has the pushback to my response engaged with those points?
4. My initial response said that we should be concerned that the AMS published a piece equating diversity statements with McCarthyism, and that we should be concerned about the impact of that stated equivalence on disempowered people in Thompson’s professional sphere. How has the pushback to my response engaged with those points?
ANSWER: You need to get some perspective. Abigail Thompson, Colin Adams, Julie C. Blackwood and Richard de Veaux are all liberals who are okay with affirmative action and promoting diversity. Your bizarre effort to position these people as hostile to the "disempowered" is an illustration of why you are alarming and scaring them.
5. What did my response say about Thompson’s individual, personal commitment to diversity?
5. What did my response say about Thompson’s individual, personal commitment to diversity?
ANSWER: Your response tried to make it look like Abigail Thompson was a closet white supremacist trying to pass herself off as a free speech activist. In reality, she is a white female liberal trying defend herself against Maoist totalitarians.
6. What does “free speech” mean, and do you think pushback against Thompson’s piece imperils it?
6. What does “free speech” mean, and do you think pushback against Thompson’s piece imperils it?
ANSWER: Free speech will disappear in a generation if leftist extremists like you gain the power to fire anyone who disagrees with them.
7. Are you aware of the paradox of tolerance, as described, for instance, here and here? What do you think about it?
7. Are you aware of the paradox of tolerance, as described, for instance, here and here? What do you think about it?
ANSWER: Wow! You just doesn't get it. Your take on the paradox of tolerance is a vivid example of the assumptions which make your hostility to free speech a threat to the academic mission of Williams College.
8. Sixteen co-authors and I drafted a letter (“Letter A”) in response to Thompson’s piece which has now been signed by hundreds people. Then came a counter letter (“Letter B”), also signed by hundreds. How does Letter B engage with the points of Letter A and/or my original response?
8. Sixteen co-authors and I drafted a letter (“Letter A”) in response to Thompson’s piece which has now been signed by hundreds people. Then came a counter letter (“Letter B”), also signed by hundreds. How does Letter B engage with the points of Letter A and/or my original response?
ANSWER: You tried to shame Abigail Thompson, get her fired and boycott her department. That effort backfired on you. Now one of your colleagues at Williams College has launched a petition shaming you. Your own department chair, Richard de Veaux, has signed on to the effort to shame you back. So has one of your co-authors. If you are focused on anything thing other than this fundamental reality, then you don't understand their argument.
9. What similarities and/or differences do you notice in the demographics of the signers of Letter A versus those of Letter B?
9. What similarities and/or differences do you notice in the demographics of the signers of Letter A versus those of Letter B?
ANSWER: The most significant difference between your petition and the anti-Chad Topaz petition is their signers include some of the most significant and admired scholars in mathematics, namely four winners of the prestigious Fields Medal including David Mumford and Terence Tao. The anti-Chad Topaz petition is also signed by eight past presidents of the American Mathematical Society. In contrast, the people who have signed your petition are generally unknowns who have a selfish interest in deploying partisan identity politics as a tool for edging white males and females out of the job market.
10. What motivation might I and the other drafters of Letter A have? What motivation might the drafter of Letter B have?
10. What motivation might I and the other drafters of Letter A have? What motivation might the drafter of Letter B have?
ANSWER: You and your supporters appear to be motivated by greed, the desire to obtain incomes which you would never get in the private sector and which you are only getting now due to the edge you possess in the hierarchy of inter-sectional privilege. The motivations of your opponents are more complex and less easy to figure out. David Mumford appears to be a pro-Palestinian leftist. I imagine he is shocked you have become a virulent opponent of free speech. I'm guessing Mumford probably fought off censorship during his career. Terence Tao's family left Hong Kong for Australia. I'm confident Tao is watching the way the Communist Chinese government is attempting to censor freedom fighters in Hong Kong. I'm guessing Tao gets anxious when he sees the same sort of suffocating totalitarianism coming from you and your followers.
11. Are there any axes of identity along which you yourself are marginalized? Here, I am thinking of gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, race/ethnicity, religion, disability status, family status, and so forth.
11. Are there any axes of identity along which you yourself are marginalized? Here, I am thinking of gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, race/ethnicity, religion, disability status, family status, and so forth.
ANSWER: I represent the most dis-empowered people in the nation when it comes to starting an academic career a Williams College, white boys and girls. At your campus, two black activists verbally abused white male students during an extended tirade on April 9, 2019. As far as I can tell, no effort was made to punish those students...nothing was done to prevent another bigoted tirade in the future. I'm representing all the victims of your Evergreen State College-style race hatred.
12. Do you think the mathematical sciences community is sufficiently equitable, diverse, and inclusive? If not, do you think members of the community should try to make it more so? If so, and if you are a member of the mathematical sciences community, what work do you yourself do to promote equity, diversity, and inclusion within our field?
12. Do you think the mathematical sciences community is sufficiently equitable, diverse, and inclusive? If not, do you think members of the community should try to make it more so? If so, and if you are a member of the mathematical sciences community, what work do you yourself do to promote equity, diversity, and inclusion within our field?
ANSWER: Math is one of those fields where it helps to have a high IQ. As far as I can tell, the field of math appears to mirror the incidence of high IQ in the general population. For better or worse, there is nothing you can do to change people's IQ. No amount of shaming, hatred, or reverse discrimination will change it or improve it. What can be changed, however, is the anti-white ideology and undisguised hatred which makes it harder for completely innocent white boys and girls, particularly white working class boys and girls, to eventually secure jobs as math professors.
13. In situations like the one surrounding Thompson’s essay, whom do you choose to center? The powerful or the dis-empowered?
ANSWER: I'm centering the interests of folks like the young white men who were verbally abused on the Williams College campus on April 9, 2019. See, Black students explode in anger at white students in vulgarity-laced rant (VIDEO)
14. What do you think about social justice work given the various responses to Thompson’s essay?
ANSWER: Social justice, as you use the term, is a thinly veiled form of hate speech against whites - male and female - and those of us who identify as white. (I'm Armenian-American.) It is a way for you to advantage yourself politically and financially by heaping condemnation on highly intelligent, well-meaning people who do not deserve to be the subject of your hostility, employment threats or boycotts.
As I said earlier, if you had real integrity you would use Richard de Veaux's willingness to defend Abigail Thompson as a tool for shaming him, getting him fired and boycotting your own department. Until you do that you remain a vile hypocrite.
John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist and a former Williams College professor. He is an occasional contributor at American Thinker, Breitbart, Front Page, PJMedia and WND. His pronouns are Master/Commander.
13. In situations like the one surrounding Thompson’s essay, whom do you choose to center? The powerful or the dis-empowered?
ANSWER: I'm centering the interests of folks like the young white men who were verbally abused on the Williams College campus on April 9, 2019. See, Black students explode in anger at white students in vulgarity-laced rant (VIDEO)
14. What do you think about social justice work given the various responses to Thompson’s essay?
ANSWER: Social justice, as you use the term, is a thinly veiled form of hate speech against whites - male and female - and those of us who identify as white. (I'm Armenian-American.) It is a way for you to advantage yourself politically and financially by heaping condemnation on highly intelligent, well-meaning people who do not deserve to be the subject of your hostility, employment threats or boycotts.
As I said earlier, if you had real integrity you would use Richard de Veaux's willingness to defend Abigail Thompson as a tool for shaming him, getting him fired and boycotting your own department. Until you do that you remain a vile hypocrite.
John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist and a former Williams College professor. He is an occasional contributor at American Thinker, Breitbart, Front Page, PJMedia and WND. His pronouns are Master/Commander.
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