naomiriley.com
Naomi Schaefer Riley.
Working for a show hosted by a college professor, we might be unusually attuned to the times when academia makes the news. Just as with stories in all corners of the news, those academic stories doesn't always make for good television. But when we read an April 30 post written and published by Naomi Schaefer Riley in the Chronicle of Higher Education, I was relieved as the editor of this space to learn that Melissa would be expanding a planned "Office Hours" column intended for this blog into a perfectly-named "Footnote" segment concluding Sunday's show. (You can find that at that bottom of this post; I recommend watching it, then picking up this post from here.)
That's because I couldn't wait to hear how Melissa would respond to Schaefer Riley, a conservative scholar at the Institute for American Values. Responding to an earlier Chronicle piece about up-and-coming Black Studies Ph. D. students, Schaefer Riley wrote a post entitled, "The Most Persuasive Case for Eliminating Black Studies? Just Read the Dissertations" -- wherein she gave Cliffs Notes-worthy summaries of three dissertations from Northwestern students which she hadn't read, and used those to declare the following:
What a collection of left-wing victimization claptrap. The best that can be said of these topics is that they’re so irrelevant no one will ever look at them....
Seriously, folks, there are legitimate debates about the problems that plague the black community from high incarceration rates to low graduation rates to high out-of-wedlock birth rates. But it’s clear that they’re not happening in black-studies departments. If these young scholars are the future of the discipline, I think they can just as well leave their calendars at 1963 and let some legitimate scholars find solutions to the problems of blacks in America. Solutions that don’t begin and end with blame the white man.
What's really compelling about her snarky, cavalier post -- in a can't-avert-your-eyes-from-a-car-crash sort of way -- is that Schaefer Riley wholly dismisses any claims to systemic racism or criticism of conservative Black academics raised (per her description) by the three doctoral candidates who she put on blast in the post. Oh, and the fact that her post is called "The Most Persuasive Case for Eliminating Black Studies? Just Read the Dissertations," and she hadn't read any of them.
She later responded to her critics by writing dismissively that “there are not enough hours in the day or money in the world to get me to read a dissertation on historical black midwifery." (The firm response from the students she ridiculed can be found here.)
Today, the Chronicle, after fumbling their earlier public response to the controversial post, dismissed Schaefer Riley as a writer for their blog:
We now agree that Ms. Riley’s blog posting did not meet The Chronicle’s basic editorial standards for reporting and fairness in opinion articles. As a result, we have asked Ms. Riley to leave the Brainstorm blog.
The Chronicle promised to review its editorial policies, which, it seems, involves allowing writers to publish posts without their having been reviewed by editors. Their last statement in their "Note to Readers" really hit home for me:
One theme many of you have sounded is that you felt betrayed by what we published; that you welcome healthy informed debate, but that in this case, we did not live up to the expectations of the community of readers we serve.
You told us we can do better, and we agree.
Outlets like Commentary and the Wall Street Journal (where Schaefer Riley was once employed) can try to take her dismissal and shape it a conversation about censorship in liberal academia -- but that is a self-serving, and most importantly, incorrect judgment. Her post-firing complaints in an Poynter interview speak to that as well, and that goes to the heart of conservative self-victimization and willful misunderstanding of the First Amendment. Schaefer Riley's right to free speech does not guarantee or secure her employment with a publication.
(Still, I fully expect her to be making guest appearances on conservative media outlets in short order, gesturing to her new academic stigmata, all the while alleging that she was nailed to the cross of political correctness. I value her freedom to do just that.)
And all that considered, let's not forget that it was Schaefer Riley who used ridicule in an attempt to not just silence three doctoral students making arguments which she didn't like, but to go so far as to casually propose the elimination of their entire academic discipline to address her grievances.
As noted earlier, Melissa's "Footnote" is below.
Melissa Harris-Perry challenges The Chronicle of Higher Education's Naomi Schaefer Riley for her rant against college and university-level African-American studies programs.
Leave a Comment:
I don't think that Schaefer Riley's 'free speech' overreach are necessarily the result of her being a conservative. Many people who are used to a position of privilege from which to speak begin to think of it as an entitlement.
Years ago, Princeton Professor Peter Singer had a speaking engagement in Germany cancelled due to protests from the disability community. They objected to Singer getting a privileged soapbox from which he could promote his public policy proposals that would legalize the killing of disabled infants and individuals with significant cognitive disabilities of *any* age.
He complained about 'being silenced." And he still whines about it even though it's been a couple of decades since it happened.
I still shake my head every time this person (Singer) gets a platform
Unfortunately, Jean, the last person I know of to have Singer on to give him a podium was Chris Hayes - maybe 2 months ago. He had him on as some kind of ethics/morality expert. Hayes might have been impressed by some of Singer's writing on poverty and his anti-Bush book. He probably has never heard about Singer's policy proposals regarding the killing of infants with disabilities, adults with severe cognitive disabilities, or advocating a health rationing plan that would limit total care to people with significant disabilities as published in the NY Times Magazine. Or he has heard - but like most hosts on MSNBC - doesn't regard disability issues in a civil rights frame or as a population whose human rights come under assault with regularity.
Yes I've seen at least one of Singer's appearances on UP with Chris Hayes, and I was profoundly dissapointed that they had him on without doing adequate research about any other policy positions he holds. I often like UP, but not that day.
Thanks, Professor, for another great class. I'm going to look over my shoulder when I write this, but I've know quite a few university professors that were dumber than dirt. Seems I need to add another to the list. (Too many are driven by ego and fear.) Keep up the great work, Melissa, at enlightening our society's more thoughtful group, and in doing it in such a specific, yet universal, way.
Just to clear things up: Riley is not a professor--she is an independent researcher affiliated with the Institute of American Values and a 'journalist'. I find it is perhaps due to her unfamiliarity with academic rigour that she felt both compelled and confident in making such baseless claims.
The Chronicle only removed her after a petition was signed by over 6,000 subscribers, most of whom threatened to unsubscribe. And I think the problem, for many of us, stemmed beyond race. In order to 'create knowledge', which is what a PhD dissertation does, one must be incredibly narrow to break open the barrier of our understanding. Part of me wonders if Riley did this due to subconscious racism, or if it was an attack on the academy. After all, wouldn't a topic like shifting public opinion in response to eighteenth century satire--my topic--be worth eradicating the discipline of English literature? :-P