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Mysterious right-wing assault on universities

I just want to know what exactly happened between panels three and four in this cartoon.  Apart from the change of seasons, that is.

Posted by on 12/13 at 09:17 AM

  1. something about a loyalty oath...by the way, I flipped across C-Span this weekend and saw some ghastly conference about “leveling the playing field” for conservatives in academia...can’t recall the name of the group...scholastic something something. Anyway, there was a right wing former congressman from Indiana (McIntosh I think) speaking and later on, Lowry from the Nat Review. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

    Posted by bulworth  on  12/13  at  10:36 AM

  2. I checked the C-Span page for this weekend’s show and the conference was for called the intercollegiate studies institute’s “collegiate network”. They were celebrating conservative writers for college newspapers. This ICS group is familiar to me...they have a presidential ranking score that ranks the presidents from best to worst. Needless to say, it differs widely from that of a survey of presidential historians.

    Posted by bulworth  on  12/13  at  10:44 AM

  3. Looks like a repeat from ‘82. The strip, not the CSPAN show. Although ...

    Posted by Roxanne  on  12/13  at  11:53 AM

  4. Bulworth’s “leveling the playing field” is probably a hint. Something to do with road graders and chainsaws.

    Posted by PZ Myers  on  12/13  at  02:27 PM

  5. Here’s the deal, I am hoping to devote the rest of my sorry existence to the study of Continental philosophy with an emphasis on religion and politics and there is already a slim chance of actually finding a job after such study.  If the republicans succeed in their latest campaign I will not only have less of a chance of finding a teaching job, but I will have to deal with the prospect of becoming a priest instead.  That is simply unacceptable.  Michael, please tell me that Leftist in academia have more of a spine than the DNC!  Tell me we won’t let them win!!  I’m starting to get really paranoid.

    Posted by Anthony Smith  on  12/13  at  03:30 PM

  6. I think what happened is that Canada suddenly found itself in possession of the greatest higher education system the world has ever seen.

    Posted by aj  on  12/13  at  03:38 PM

  7. Dear Anthony,

    Yes, leftists in academe have more of a spine than the DNC.  But that’s a little like saying that we have more bones than a squid.  Unfortunately, approximately 65 percent of academe’s liberals (according to a study done by me) are actually “liberals but.” You know-- “I’ve always thought of myself as liberal, but these _______s really go too far” (Negroes, gays and lesb***ns, radical feminists, pacifists, junior faculty members, pick your annoyance du jour).  So there’s always a chance that you’ll run into a search committee consisting of “I’m a liberal, always have been, but these young Continental philosophy Ph.D.s who emphasize religion and politics really go too far.  The field hasn’t been the same since Aquinas, anyway.” If I were you I’d start trying on the phrase “Father Anthony” just to see how it sounds. . . .

    Posted by Michael  on  12/13  at  03:58 PM

  8. Well, great. Once again, the collapse of western civilization becomes a recruiting bonanza for the Jesuits.

    Posted by  on  12/13  at  06:12 PM

  9. Ad maiorem dei gloriam, man.

    Posted by Michael  on  12/13  at  07:24 PM

  10. Was that a knock against squid? I’ll have you know that hydrostatic skeletons are very versatile.

    Posted by PZ Myers  on  12/14  at  03:20 AM

  11. Between panels 3 and 4: The flood of MLA papers with titles beginning “Quriddiq Al-Paeda Gadji”--accompanied by an incomprehensible string of parentheses, slashes, and diacritical marks widely thought to be Islamofascist code--marshaled public support behind the conservative purge of English and cultural studies departments nationwide.

    Posted by  on  12/14  at  04:57 AM

  12. David Price’s _Threatening Anthropology_ gives a pretty good description of the kind of spine that the lefty academy is capable of displaying.  During the McCarthy era, the fellow academicians of anthropologists deemed “subversive” (more on the grounds of standing up against racism than for any identifiable Communist activity) banded together with great force to wring their hands as one after another academic was thrown to the wolves.  Most heartwarmingly, the American Anthropological Association appointed a committee, and then appointed an informant to head the committee, while the AAUP issued a rather comforting statement.  Truly we can expect a similar display of academic solidarity this time around, right? I mean, look how they/we rallied to the defense of Nick deGenova when his “million Mogradishus” comment raised so much fuss a couple years back.

    Posted by Dustin  on  12/14  at  08:21 AM

  13. Roger Kimball became the new Minister for Toady Affairs and published the loyalty oath to wide acclaim?

    Posted by  on  12/14  at  08:29 AM

  14. [...]banded together with great force to wring their hands as one after another academic was thrown to the wolves.
    Ah, but this time around you wield the Almighty Flaming Blog of of Vengeance.

    Posted by  on  12/14  at  09:02 AM

  15. Was that a knock against squid? I’ll have you know that hydrostatic skeletons are very versatile.

    Come on, PZ. Enough already with the knee-jerk Physiological Correctness. You biologists have No Sense Of Humor(tm).

    Posted by Chris Clarke  on  12/14  at  09:21 AM

  16. I don’t know what happens in the cartoon because I don’t pay money to Salon or watch stupid ads for them.  But I just wanted to comment on this comment:

    “I think what happened is that Canada suddenly found itself in possession of the greatest higher education system the world has ever seen.”

    Truer words have never been spoken.  The public mission statement of my university’s Islamic Studies program basically says “we can poach all the good American scholars and students now.  Let’s do it.” Thanks to the US’s assent to NAFTA, it’s easier than ever.

    Tomorrow, or maybe the next day, I think I’m going to get out my social insurance card and go get a free flu shot.

    Posted by Jonathan  on  12/14  at  07:48 PM

  17. I’d watch it with the schadenfreude, Jonathan.  I hear those foreign drugs from Canadia can kill you.

    Posted by Michael  on  12/15  at  04:13 AM

  18. Ha, ha. Back in September, Glenn Thomas wrote a screed about how he’d noticed that all bookstore employees were liberal tools because he couldn’t find any copies of “Unfit for Command” in his local Borders. Looks like Tom T. hasn’t forgotten.

    http://www.darrelplant.com/blog_item.php?ItemRef=121

    Posted by darrelplant  on  12/15  at  07:14 AM

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