Three Courageous Williams College Profs Push Back Against Cancel Culture

WILLIAMS COLLEGE, MA - I was pleased to see a letter to the editor in the most recent Williams Record which featured three Williams College professors protesting against extremist students promoting a “cancel culture” in which they have demanded the immediate resignation of Suzanne Case ’78. Case is under attack for her role as the chairperson of the Hawaiʻi Board of Land and Natural Resources and her support for the construction of a Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT).

The professors wisely cited Barack Obama who inexplicably came out against cancel culture last week stating: “This idea of purity, and you’re never compromised, and you’re politically woke, and all that stuff — you should get over that quickly… The world is messy. There are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws.” 

The permanently enraged campus left is worked up over the construction of this telescope because they argue it will be built on a historical sacred site. The trio of responsible college professors point out the silliness of this claim. They assert it was already ruled by the Hawaiʻi Supreme court (Oct. 2018 decision), that there "...is no actual evidence that the site and Access Way area was ever used by Native Hawaiian practitioners." The telescope itself sounds outstanding. 

The Thirty Meter Telescope is a new class of extremely large telescopes that will allow us to see deeper into space and observe cosmic objects with unprecedented sensitivity. With its 30 m prime mirror diameter, TMT will be three times as wide, with nine times more area, than the largest currently existing visible-light telescope in the world. This will provide unparalleled resolution with TMT images more than 12 times sharper than those from the Hubble Space Telescope. When operational, TMT will provide new observational opportunities in essentially every field of astronomy and astrophysics. Observing in wavelengths ranging from the ultraviolet to the mid-infrared, this unique instrument will allow astronomers to address fundamental questions in astronomy ranging from understanding star and planet formation to unraveling the history of galaxies and the development of large-scale structure in the universe.

It is hard for me to figure out if these professors are joking when they suggest that a failure to build this wonderful telescope might exacerbate the state’s reliance on non-sustainable, low-paying, “colonializing” industries such as tourism. Really? At any rate, I'm glad to see there are faculty members at Williams College willing to point out that demanding people get fired because you disagree with them is getting to be a negative, self-destructive habit for too many Williams College students. 

The professors who authored the letter include Luana S. Maroja, an associate professor of biology, who has been at the College since 2010. Steven Miller, a professor of mathematics, who has been at the College since 2008. From my time at Williams College, I still remember the third professor from my face-to-face contact with him. He is Jay M. Pasachoff, the Chair and Field Memorial Professor of Astronomy, has been at the College since 1972. 

The Williams Record was also kind enough to provide space for two other pieces which pushed back against the unreasonable student protesters including a letter from David Y. Ige the Governor of Hawaiʻi and from Suzanne Case ’78 herself. All in all, it was a good weak for the opponents of cancel culture.

The full letter from these role-model scholars is below the break.

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.

Don't Hate Me Bro: Four Conservative Williams College Professors Speak Out

WILLIAMSTOWN, MA - The Williams Record interviewed four conservative professors (three with tenure and one without who is leaving soon) who spoke about their political views and the campus climate at Williams College. It was heart-warming to see their bravery in action. After all, their liberal colleagues can still do a lot to make their lives miserable.

Four professors agreed to go on the record for this article: Professor of Mathematics Steven Miller; Professor of Art Michael Lewis; Professor of Political Science Darel Paul; and Visiting Professor of American Foreign Policy Chris Gibson, who will depart the College and begin teaching at Siena College, his alma mater, at the end of the academic year.

While they all fit under the umbrella term of “conservative,” these professors hold a range of beliefs.

Gibson, a former congressman from New York’s 19th congressional district, described himself as a “founding principles conservative” whose beliefs developed during Ronald Reagan’s 1980 candidacy.

Miller called himself a “conservative libertarian” who agrees with portions of Ayn Rand’s objectivism.

Lewis, who spent much of his life as a Democrat, said, “I consider myself a cultural conservative forced by unfortunate circumstances to vote Republican.”

Paul is also a former Democrat, now “a cultural conservative and an economic liberal.”

In general, the four share themes which are common among ideological conservatives who have found a niche for themselves in the leftist educational system namely 1) there are more conservatives on the faculty than you think, 2) they get along with their colleagues, 3) they tend to shield their students from their conservative views, and they perceive themselves to be largely apolitical...that is simply as scholars searching after the truth.

They also provide support for the idea that conservative students on campus do need to have conservative role models and people to speak with who share their ideology.

As Miller indicates, conservative students benefit from like-minded voices. “I think it would be absolutely terrible if conservative students only talked to conservatives, or if liberal students only talked to liberals. But every now and then, it is nice to talk to some people, especially if you’re in a situation where you will be ostracized on this campus if you show happiness that Trump won,” he said.

I can't recall ever reading an article like this in the Williams Record before. When I taught at Williams College in the 1980s, there were maybe four registered Republicans in the faculty including myself. None of them, however, were in the political science department and none of them were vocal opponents of affirmative action. That is, except for me. While I was at Williams College we had a growing, vibrant conservative Republican movement on campus including our own newspaper, Garfield Republican Club, along with television and radio shows. Today, however, conservative students appear to be confined largely to students in the Society for Conservative Thought or Williams Catholic.

Ideally, future articles in the Williams Record will feature interviews with ex-conservative professors, those who found the campus environment exceedingly hateful and biased against them. Comme moi.

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.