E-Pluribus | May 16, 2024

The New Woke TImes; much ado about diversity statements; and, no, really, this is important.

May 16, 2024

A round-up of the latest and best musings on the rise of illiberalism in the public discourse:

Nellie Bowles: How The New York Times Went Woke

The Free Press’s Nellie Bowles is making the media rounds promoting her new book. Persuasion has posted an excerpt focusing on Bowles’ tenure at the New York Times. She writes that the paper went all-in on the “disinformation” narrative and describes the internal pressures it put her under as a young reporter.

I was, in those days [2020], a successful young reporter at The New York Times, a New Progressive doing the only job she had ever wanted. Donald J. Trump was the president when I joined. Subscriptions were surging, and subscribers wanted something specific for their money: The Times would be the heart of resistance. My stories—fun riffs from Silicon Valley, send-ups of conservative figures—fit right in. My work was cited in all-company meetings. I wrote big stories. I would go into the bureau on Sunday, and I never missed a happy hour.
[. . .]
The main group of in-house Narrative Enforcers at The New York Times were the Disinformation Experts, and, in due course, they clocked me as a problem. One day I was writing a profile of PragerU, a conservative viral-video production studio that had perfected trolling college campuses with funny student-on-the-street videos. After I’d done most of my reporting, I was told that I needed to meet with the in-house Disinformation Expert, a special person who would discuss how to incorporate disinformation analysis into my piece.
I’ll call him Todd. He’s cool, a prolific Slack presence.
Todd and I chat. He tells me that I need to more fully emphasize the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) “Hatewatch’s” assessment of PragerU.
The Hatewatch file was based on the work of a sociologist at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill named Francesca Tripodi. She had “analyzed scriptural inference in conservative news practices,” the SPLC explains:
[. . .]
In the meantime, I became fascinated by Todd and the movement he was leading inside the paper.
He spent a lot of time in the NYT Slack posting in the #Disinformation channel, which, when I was in it, had some hundred members who posted a stream of conservative news links as a sort of group disinformation watch. Sometimes people would ask about whether something is Bad, like a picture of some people holding three fingers up—Hey, is this white supremacy? (It wasn’t.) He’d post TikToks that were apparently disinformation—like a video made by some nurses making fun of Covid restrictions. He’d drop in tweets calling out right-wing internet activity from accounts with names like @socialistdogmom.
Todd was there in Slack to remind everyone that the idea Covid might have come from a lab was a conspiracy theory. He was the authority on these things.
Anyway, this is also not a story about my heroism, pushing back on the disinfo complex. The opposite. In the end, I wanted the hit of that byline. I needed a byline like I needed dinner, and they needed more on PragerU’s disinfo.
[. . .]
The piece ran. I got the praise I needed. Good placement too (A1, thank you very much). And I didn’t think much more about it.
Eventually, though, the compromises drove me too crazy. Eventually I didn’t want to say that everything slightly off message was “disinformation.” And so, eventually, I quit that dream job. And I started reporting for myself and for this book (what you’re reading now is an excerpt from the very start).

Read it all.

Paul Du Quenoy: Abolishing Diversity Statements Is an Empty Gesture at MIT

The news that MIT would abandon diversity statements for prospective new faculty members was met with widespread approval from the right, but Paul Du Quenoy at Chronicles Magazine says there’s much more work to be done at MIT if the new policy is to actually have any significant impact on the school’s operations.

Last week, media reports revealed that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will no longer require diversity statements in faculty hiring. The news did not break in a proud official press release from that institution, but in response to an e-mail inquiry to MIT from the journalist John Sailer, who published excerpts from the reply he received from an MIT spokesman.
In use since the late 2010s and now required by almost half of large universities, diversity statements have become an element of applications for many university professorships. They can also be required at later career stages, including in applications for promotion and tenure. Some graduate study programs require them for prospective students. The relevant instructions typically ask applicants how they conceive of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and what proactive steps they have taken, are taking, and plan to take to promote the controversial ideology in their work.
[. . .]
MIT’s decision to abandon the practice came from its embattled president Sally Kornbluth, supported by MIT’s provost, chancellor, and all six academic deans. In a widely quoted statement, Kornbluth said, “We can build an inclusive environment in many ways, but compelled statements impinge on freedom of expression, and they don’t work.”
[. . .]
Kornbluth did not indicate why diversity statements “don’t work,” but there is no indication that she has seen the light. Even if diversity statements are out, DEI appears to be at MIT to stay. A survey of its website indicates that virtually every division continues to incorporate the concept at a fundamental level, guided by an institution-wide “strategic action plan” that announces more than 50 DEI-related “actions” to unfold by 2027. There is no indication that the plan has been scrapped, suspended, or subjected to even the slightest critical scrutiny.
Even before MIT introduced its DEI-infused strategic action plan, it employed DEI deans in all six of its main schools. Notably, two of those individuals, Tracie Jones-Barrett, initially of MIT’s School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences and now deputy DEI chief for all of MIT, and Alana Anderson, formerly of MIT’s Schwarzman College of Computing (she voluntarily left MIT in 2023 for a private-sector DEI job), stand accused of plagiarism in a 71-page complaint filed on Saturday and excerpted in the Free Beacon. The allegations include information strongly suggesting that they copied entire passages without attribution for their doctoral dissertations. In Jones-Barrett’s case, this extended to her section on “ethical considerations.”
MIT has yet to comment on the plagiarism allegations, but its “Institute Equity and Community Office” employs 16 individuals who work on what appears to be exclusively DEI programing. Only four of them are male, only two appear to be white, and just one appears to be a white male. MIT’s Human Resources Office separately offers an exhaustive list of “resources” specifically intended “to enhance diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)” and insists that DEI is “necessary for a full realization of the potential of any group and organization.” MIT’s Discrimination & Harassment Response Office lists not merely a (female) Title IX coordinator, but 13 Deputy Title IX coordinators, only two of whom are male.
Virtually all MIT departments include thorough DEI programming. The Department of Mechanical Engineering’s website says that it “has pledged to develop and implement actions that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in our students, faculty, and staff” and includes a lengthy departmental strategic action plan intended “to build a community that is actively anti-racist.” The department also intends to raise over $500,000 for “DEI and mentorship programs” and additional funds for “underrepresented group (URG)-focused fellowships to increase graduate student diversity.”
[. . .]
[A] search of all MIT programs yields largely the same DEI-drenched results. Diversity statements may be out, but unless and until Sally Kornbluth ousts DEI from all other areas of her troubled institution—as the University of North Carolina’s Board of Trustees did on Monday—she has no business leading it and should resign or be removed in disgrace.

Read it all here.

Natalie Alkiviadou: Article 17 of the ECHR and the Run-Down to Lenis v Greece

Granted, the title of this article from the website HumanRightsHere is not exactly clickbait, but the issue described is significant nonetheless. In the article, Natalie Alkiviadou warns that, as is always the case, attempts to use the European Convention on Human Rights to shut down “hateful” speech will have far-reaching unintended consequences.

Article 17 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), commonly referred to as the ‘abuse clause,’ provides that:
“Nothing in [the] Convention may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein or at their limitation to a greater extent than is provided for in the Convention.”
This provision emerged in response to the historical context marked by the atrocities of World War II, with its fundamental purpose being to furnish democratic systems with the necessary legal mechanisms to prevent the recurrence of egregious acts perpetrated by past totalitarian regimes.
[. . .]
In relation to ‘hate speech’ cases, the ECtHR either excludes them from protection without the legal analysis conducted under Article 10. Article 10 grants the right to freedom of opinion and expression but subjects it to limitations on the grounds of, amongst others, protecting the rights and reputations of others. When a case is considered in the framework of Article 10, the Court conducts a multi-fold test through which it determines whether there is a pressing social need for the interference, whether it is necessary and proportionate and whether it is prescribed by law. Applying Article 17 to cases involving speech can have a chilling effect to one of the fundamental freedoms of a democratic society, that of freedom of expression.
[. . .]
Lenis v Greece (2023) involved the speech of Amvrosios, a high-ranking church official and is the first case in which Article 17 has been employed in relation to homophobic speech. During the material time, the Hellenic Parliament was close to debating proposed legislation to introduce civil unions for same sex couples. The applicant published an article on his blog with the title “The scum of society have reared their heads! Let’s be honest spit on them”. The article was reproduced by several outlets, mostly with derogatory titles in relation to the applicant such as “the raving of Amvrosios” and the “unbelievable raving of Amvrosios against homosexuals…”. As a response to the upheaval the applicant published a second article entitled “Let’s get things clear – love the sinner but deal with the sin.”
Amvrosios was convicted of inciting violence against a group based on sexual orientation. The applicant argued that his article and statements referred to politicians and not homosexual persons. The ECtHR agreed with the conviction and relied on Article 17 to do so, finding that the speech constituted hate speech and incited violence against the LGBT community. The Court found that it was “immediately clear that the statements sought to deflect Article 10 from its real purpose…for ends clearly contrary to the values of the Convention” (para 53). It noted that criticism of certain lifestyles on moral or religious grounds does not fall outside the Article 10 framework, but that this case involved ‘denying LGBTI people their human nature’ (para 54) in addition to inciting violence.
[. . .]
While the ECtHR's aim to protect marginalised groups is commendable, the use of Article 17 to restrict speech poses challenges. Such utilization of Article 17 warrants careful scrutiny, as it significantly impacts the exercise of freedom of expression by circumventing the requisite balancing of competing interests inherent in an Article 10 assessment. The broad interpretation of Article 17 raises concerns regarding the potential erosion of democratic principles, as it risks inadvertently fostering intolerance and self-destructive tendencies within democratic societies.

Read the whole thing.