The current war on DEI has proven to be unrelenting and highly destructive to the independence, academic freedom, and inclusiveness of American universities. And yet the values that gave rise to DEI initiatives throughout the country in the past two decades are deeply grounded in fundamental American values of equality, freedom, and community. How did …
The continuing reality of racism
source: https://www.kff.org/key-data-on-health-and-health-care-by-race-and-ethnicity/?entry=health-status-and-outcomes-birth-risks-and-outcomes The rightwing extremist war on DEI intensifies by the week, it appears. And the scope of its prohibitions expands as well. Universities throughout the United States are being bullied through the threat of the loss of Federal funds -- sometimes in the billions -- unless all traces of DEI programs, offices, webpages, and …
An absolutist Socrates
We often think of Socrates as the ultimate "critical free thinker". He antagonized many in Athens through his relentless questioning of shared assumptions about ethics, the gods, and the nature of knowledge and belief. And, as a result, he was also thought to have "corrupted the youth", leading many young men of the Athenian elite …
The generation of the Freedom Riders
The courageous Catherine Burks-Brooks passed in early July in Birmingham, Alabama, at the age of 83. The New York Times ran an extensive and moving obituary for her this weekend (link), and the piece is important reading in today's world of "forgetting" of our recent history of racist violence in the United States. Burks-Brooks and her fellow …
Trump, Hitler, and the politics of legality
Christopher Browning is a noted and respected historian of the Nazi period and the Holocaust (link). His October 2022 article in the Atlantic on "the politics of legality" during Hitler's march to power is an extremely serious warning to all of us who care about our democracy in the United States (link). It is a …
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New thinking about how authoritarian rule works
image: Russian police arrest Moscow anti-war protester The risk to democracy in the United States is more serious than it has ever been (link, link, link). Unabashed strongman wannabes like Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis have made it very clear that they have no allegiance to the principles and values of a liberal democracy, and their social …
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Authoritarian steps in Red state legislatures
Is it so hard to picture a United States that has succumbed to authoritarianism and the sacrifice of our basic democratic rights? Not really, because we can see this process at work in a handful of Republican-dominated state governments already. Here are just a few examples of states in which governors and legislatures are using …
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Origins of American right-wing extremism in the 1960s
photo: Pat Buchanan, Newsweek, March 4, 1996 The election of Donald Trump in 2016 presented mainstream America with a shocking wakeup: right-wing extremism, with its dimensions of Christian nationalism, white supremacy, racism, and anti-LGBTQ bigotry, had somehow wound up on the carousel, and was now in control. This shouldn't be a complete surprise, since the …
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Red-state authoritarianism
Think about the many fronts in the war on individual rights and freedoms in Florida and other red states: vague but harsh limitations on what teachers can teach in K-12 and public universities (link) faculty members fired for teaching about the racial history of the United States (link, link) widespread book bannings in libraries and public …
Mechanisms of extremist mobilization
The increase in public belief in core claims of far-right extremism in the United States is alarming. Central among those beliefs is the "Great Replacement" theory advocated by Fox News pundits, and contributing to white supremacist mobilization and violence. The Southern Poverty Law Center conducted a public opinion survey in spring 2022 (link) and found …
Understanding Society 