Just Resist - Courageous Ex-Williams College Prof. Eric Knibbs Rips Up Race Theology

WILLIAMSTOWN, MA - Thanks to Twitter, I have uncovered a real jewel for the readers of Williams Liberty and our beloved partner in wrong thought, Ephblog.

It is a blog called Pseudo-Isidore.

This blog site is the intellectual gift of a former, tenured Williams College professor named Eric Knibbs. He describes himself as a scholar of early medieval legal history, and the current editor of the False Decretals of Pseudo-Isidore. You can learn more about Pseudo-Isidore here. If that piques your curiosity, then you will enjoy reading about the Decretals of Pseudo-Isidore on Wikipedia.

In one of his most recent articles, Eric describes what it was like to be a recently tenured history professor at Williams College during the 2018-2019 school year. This was a year in which white liberal professors found themselves under attack for not being sufficiently woke. He does a compelling job describing what it was like being besieged by radical CARE Now students. As you may recall, these students were opponents of modest efforts to bring the Chicago Principles to Williams College. Moreover, they were the ardent acolytes of two of the most ridiculous black professors in living memory. Eric describes them and their flimsy cause as follows:

Kimberley S. Love, "storyteller, tree-enthusiast" and Assistant Professor of English; and the "poet, filmaker, and interdisciplinary scholar" Kai M. Green, Assistant Professor of Women‘s, Gender and Sexuality Studies.

These two paragons of learning experienced Williams College as a violent and an unsafe place, in part because of the free expression debates that unfolded during their third semester there. Thus they published a long screed at The Feminist Wire, detailing the hostilities they faced. “We are Black Queer Feminists, serious about our call to research, service, and teaching,” they declared. “We are not safe.”

What we have been doing to fit our bodies in these institutions is killing us and we WANT TO LIVE! And not even tenure is worth our Black joy.

They illustrated their unsafety by relating an argument they had with an automobile mechanic – unaffiliated with the college – who initially refused to give them a ride home after car trouble.

What is most alarming to Eric Knibbs is that the madness he saw at Williams College is a straightforward vision of what Antifa terrorists, enraged peaceful protesters, and statue haters want to impose on all of us. He summarizes his main point in a TLDR (Too Long; Didn't Read) paragraph:

What, a few years ago, seemed like the regrettable yet limited excesses of the campus left, has suddenly become a political force in the wider world. The Race Theology promoted by schools like Williams College is everywhere now. It’s important that reasonable people who are not part of this dubious religious revival voice their dissent.

I think it is important to read his article in full. Mainly, it demonstrates it is not so funny to be face-to-face with leftist, extremist students who are quick to assert racism as the motive for anything they dislike. These students have little to lose and nevertheless appear to have more influence with the administration than a well-meaning professor like Eric Knibbs. I should add that the article also displays Knibbs' entertaining writing, ability to explain things simply, and his conscientious research. His article is a telling reminder of what an elite Williams College professor would be like in a culture that promoted merit rather than identity politics.

By the way, there is now an interesting discussion of Knibbs' article over on Ephblog where it looks like David Dudley Field '25 will be doing a multi-day analysis. Knibbs is replying to comments made on the Ephblog article on his own Pseudo-Isidore blog.

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.

Hwang of Shame: Ex-Student, Kristina Hwang '18, Demands Williams College Fund Leftist Extremism

WILLIAMSTOWN, MA - It looks like the Williams College kids are complaining about Maud's most recent email deploring racism in America.

As far as I can figure it out, some of them think they can guilt her into giving away some of the school's vast resources to support their pet political causes. In their view, the wealth of the college has been extracted from the blood, sweat and tears of POC. This is odd, of course, because most of the school's endowment is based on long-term exposure to the stock market.

This is a truism that should cause an epiphany among leftist students. Or should I write ex-students?

One of the key leaders of this effort to shame Maud and perhaps even get her fired is Kristina Hwang '18.  She pronounces her name kur-TAYN HOO-hah. Two years after her graduation, she works as a Research Data Associate at NYU Langone Health.

Her current effort to harvest alumni email addresses and contact information appears to be an illustration of still another truism: "You can take the girl out of the leftist extremist college, but you can't take the leftist extremist college out of the girl.

During her time at Williams College, Kristina Hwang '18 was affiliated with CARE Now. This was a hideously evil organization led by one of the school's most famous hypocrites. The primary leader of the group was Isaiah Blake '21. As you may recall, he is the Williams College student who rose to national attention on the basis of his videotaped, hateful rant against white men on the College Council. He famously said: "Every time to be here is like sucking white dick every fucking day."

"We don’t have dialogue, because every time we try to talk to you we get shut down by the white moderate white liberal bullshit," he said.

Kristina Hwang signed the petition being promoted by CARE Now that was hostile to any effort among the faculty to protect free speech on campus by adopting something like the Chicago Principles.

She was part of a team that won funding from the school’s first Towards Inclusion, Diversity and Equity (TIDE) grants. This was a series of grants of up to $5,000 that went to various Williams College departments, offices, faculty, staff and students. The grant that Kristina Hwang won seems to have foreshadowed her post graduate employment. It was titled “Radical Care: Practices in ‘Alternative’ Healing Towards Inclusion, Diversity & Equity.” The aim of the grant was to bring in outside educators and speakers to campus for three workshops on alternative healing practices.

If you check out her Instagram account -- which is @psyfieri -- you will find links to a Williams College shaming site called tinyurl.com/payupwilliams If you are interested in the full extent of the present (ex-)student online protest, then you can read the full thing below the break. If you are like me, you may want to harvest some of the contact information they share and use it to send your own message condemning the wasting of Williams College funds on organizations which are seemingly indifferent to looting or the murder of law enforcement officers.

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.

Who Is This Mystery Professor? She Threatened Violence If Williams College Adopted the Chicago Principles

WILLIAMSTOWN, MA - Williams College biology professor Luana Maroja saw her colleagues behaving badly at a meeting meant to discuss bringing the Chicago free speech principles to campus on November 15, 2018. She wrote about her alarming experience that day in "Freedom of Speech at Williams College: Art the Walls Closing In," an article which first appeared in Jerry Coyne's blog, "Why Evolution is True" on November 29, 2018. Maroja wrote:

While most professors at the meeting were highly supportive of free speech and many sent me grateful emails, I was shocked at the behavior of some of my colleagues. For example, one professor turned to the students and said that they should read the names missing from our list of signatories, as “those were professors that were with the students” (an appalling tactic that created an “us vs them” atmosphere).

Even more appalling than this divisiveness was a threat of actual Antifa-style violence. "Another professor," Maroja said, "stated that she was involved in creating violence in UC Berkeley for Milo Yiannopoulos’s disinvitation and would be ready to do the same at Williams."

Here's my quesiton. Does anyone know the name of that professor?

I'm assuming a lot of people know exactly who Luana Maroja is talking about. There were a number of professors at this meeting and a number of students as well. Maroja, so far, has declined to name the mystery professor. Nevertheless, we do have some interesting clues.

Obviously, we know the suspect is most likely a woman and we can guess that this woman was most likely someone who was at UC Berkeley around January, 2017. Although I'm not an FBI profiler, I think it is reasonable to assume that the mystery professor is someone who is still fairly young, someone who has a grudge, who has poor impulse control, and perhaps has a history of aggressive campus activism. All in all, it is hard to imagine we are talking about an older person when we think about running along with the Antifa crowd.

If you know the name of the mystery professor for sure, then please call me at 949-338-5921 or send an email to johndrew25@msn.com.

I'd be happy to do some research about them. What disturbs me the most about this professor is that her willingness to engage in violence is potentially dangerous to students and other faculty members. Secondarily, I'm concerned that the sight of a Williams College professor willing to threaten violence to stop free speech sets a bad example for student activists and may, in fact, have encouraged the ugly behavior we was during the last school year, particularly the bigoted, anti-white tirade which disrupted the College Council meeting on April 9, 2019.

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.

Black Lives Can't Be Bothered - Protest Against Williams College Safety and Security Fizzles Out

WILLIAMS COLLEGE, MA - In one of the more humorous stories in this week's Williams Record is a brief article which describes how the previously all consuming effort to restrain and investigate the supposedly racist Williams College Campus Safety and Security (CSS) department has evaporated like steam on a dry sunny day.

Laughably, only five participants showed up at a recent listening event regarding the CSS. According to the Williams Record staff reporter, Lucy Walker, the meeting was stacked with pro-CSS students, most of them had come in order to listen to those with differing opinions. In fact, one of the major takeaways from the pro-CSS student's comments was their "...frustration with what they perceived to be the tendency of debates on campus to be one-sided. The majority of the participants had come hoping to change that culture and provide an opposing perspective."

The pro-CSS students asserted the CSS cared about the student body and was just trying to do its job. “I’ve worked with them for three years now. I think what some students don’t understand is that their only concern is the safety and well-being of the students,” said Nick Landry ’21. “They have people who work there who are retired and come in part-time because they genuinely enjoy doing what they do.”

This was pathetic denouement for a cause which black students on campus had tightly embraced, seeking to establish hatred for the Williams College CSS on par with what outside activists had ginned up through the Black Lives Matter movement.

For example, Isaiah Blake ’21 described the POC community as a “magnet” for CSS, at a Black Student Town Hall event in November 2018.

Blake, as you may recall, was the high-visibility CARE Now student leader who this year became frustrated at a CC meeting because of the rules and regulations which he perceived slowed down the fulfillment of a simple request which he artfully described as: "To have niggers sit in the fucking quad and eat hot dogs."

In a pale imitation of the Black Lives Matter protests, black students complained that they felt "unsafe" around CSS officers. According to an earlier report in the Williams Record, "Some examples of alarming behavior that attendees gave included POC-organized parties, where room capacity was arbitrarily and significantly lowered on more than one occasion, as well as examples of condescending and rude tones some CSS officers have taken with POC."

The listening event was part of a larger effort to solicit student opinions regarding CSS which was conducted by Margolis Healy, a campus security consulting firm, hired to conduct an external review process of the College’s campus safety and security (CSS).

On student, Eli Cytrynbaum ’20, a member of Minority Coalition’s (MinCo) steering board, explained away the failure of anti-CSS students to gin up much support this year for their cause as due to the fact that "...people are very tired from last year and have issues from their home communities to deal with,” he said.

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.

 

Accountability for Thee, But Not for Me: Williams Record Admonishes Williams College Council

WILLIAMSTOWN, MA - In the Williams Record today, we can find a nifty opinion piece where the unnamed authors ignore the vicious, bigoted abuse of white students on the College Council, while demanding new standards for elected student leaders that the Williams Record would never live up to itself. How charmingly New England...

1. Transparency

For example, there is now a demand for greater accountability from the CC, particularly a call to stop the abuse of power we saw last semester when student representatives took the cowardly approach of discriminating against a Jewish student organization, Williams Initiative for Israel (WIFI), by failing to reveal their vote records. This way student representatives managed to bring negative national/international attention to their decision in a manner which shielded them from appropriate individual consequences.

Pro Tip: The Williams Record should also also list its editorial board members and how they vote on each collective opinion. The current practice of saying that an editorial opinion was the product of a majority of the board members is a subterfuge designed to give each member of the board the opportunity to plausibly deny they supported any particular editorial position. 

2. Diversity and Equality

The major news from last semester was not the process of approving funding for Black Previews. It was the outright, hateful, bigot tirade that two CARE Now black activist students directed again white male students on the College Council at the April 9, 2019 meeting. Watch the video (the shouting begins at 45:00).

The verbal attack on the young white men was so intense that it brought some of them to tears. This display of emotion only emboldened the verbally abusive students. Seyi Olaose '21 used these tears to further the white student's humiliation.

Seyi Olaose: This is white liberal s***.

Isaiah Blake: This is the s***, the tears…

Seyi Olaose: Because nobody wants to talk. Because you had a lot of questions. You had a lot of questions. And I’ve had classes with you. I know what kind of d***heads you are. I’ve had political science with you. It’s s*** that opens up all a yo white moderate f***ing liberal bullshit. I know the type of person you are. So what do you want to say?

The Williams Record conveniently forgets its responsibility to preserve a healthy learning environment for white male students on campus, students who should have never been verbally abused in this manner.

Pro Tip: The Williams Record should start printing up anonymous comments from white students who wish to complain about the way their are being mistreated by members of the administration, faculty and student body. Failing to protect white male students is clearly racism by any definition. 

3. Communication

The Williams Record insists The CC site should be updated more frequently to reflect weekly developments. Meanwhile, the paper only reports once a week and censors comments from those it disagrees with including outside political activists.

Pro Tip: The Williams Record should permit its opponents to register their objections to their news articles. This way full communication might be restored...especially for ex-faculty and ex-students who have been harmed by the leftwing bias of the campus.

4. FinCom Reform

The Record wants the student body to elect the members of the committee that approves requests for funding. I assume this is because the FinCom is dominated by white guys. The Record probably thinks fiscally responsible, white men would be less likely to make those decisions if they were subject to direct election. 

Pro Tip: Likewise, the Williams Record should open up the deliberations of its editorial board. In fact, the members of the board should be directly elected by the students. The editorial board should be expected to behave in a manner more consistent with its own seemingly Maoist ideology. 

5. Acknowledging Mistakes and Revising Policy

The Williams Record asks the CC to correct some of its "mistakes" while ignoring the most glaring, alarming mistakes which caught national attention. There is no suggestion that the CC should properly and accurately record its minutes, enlist a Sargent-at-Arms to police their meetings, or follow its own bylaws for the achievement of a quorum. The CC meetings I watched last semester were poorly led, poorly policed, and conducted with little attention to the CC's own, written rules and regulations. This is an affront to anyone with a sincere interest in democratic governance. It also opens up members of the CC to public ridicule for their fecklessness and inexperience with obvious political norms. 

Pro Tip: The Williams Record should follow its own procedures and immediately do everything in its power to make the campus more hospitable for white male students, Republicans, Jews, and conservatives. This means appointing conservative columnists, developing positive stories about the white race and its cultural achievements, protecting pro-Israel students from physical threats and verbal abuse, and providing opportunities for conservative students, faculty and alumni to add their opinions and recommendations in a fair and balanced manner within each article. 

The most significant question on campus is whether or not the Williams Record has the guts needed to apply the standards it expects of the CC to itself. Does it, in the end, do the right thing or not? 

John C. Drew, Ph.D. is a former Williams College political science professor. He is an occasional contributor at American Thinker, Breitbart, Front Page, PJMedia and WND.

Jerry Coyne: Williams College Indoctrinates Its Students

CHICAGO, IL - Over at Jerry Coyne's website, Why Evolution is True, we can read an erudite evaluation of the degree to which Williams College has ceased functioning as a liberal arts college and instead become something of a brainwashing facility. In this instance, Coyne tears into the school's absurdly biased insistence that students fulfill a requirement by taking at least one course concentrating on “Difference, Power, and Equity.” There is a pdf of the DPE courses here.

Coyne remarks: "Granted, this is only one requirement, and to fulfill it students need take only a single course. But those courses are almost all about oppression narratives, and all would appeal to the Authoritarian Left. To my mind, they’re intended, as is the requirement, not to convey knowledge or to get students to question things critically—I haven’t found a single course that takes a conservative point of view—but to inculcate students with an Authoritarian Leftist attitude in order to get the students to become agents of change. That means agents who will enact the social changes that their professors and administrators want. In other words, puppets of social change."

The irony is that Coyne is a liberal. He thinking that he is probably in agreement with what Williams College administrator want to see for the future. Nevertheless, he asks: "...should a college curriculum be designed to make the students behave in ways the administration wants them to behave?"

Previously, Coyne criticized efforts by the student activists in CARE Now who sought to prevent the adoption of the Chicago Principles at Williams College.