Mary Grabar Reviews NAS Conference

Ashley Thorne

Writer and English teacher Mary Grabar, who came to NAS's conference "A Mighty Maze" this month, reviews its reviewer in an article on her website Dissident Prof. She takes issue with Peter Schmidt's characterization of the NAS and our conference in his two Chronicle of Higher Education articles published the week of the event. 

An excerpt from Grabar's critique:

For Schmidt NAS clings to a “romanticized past,” a standard that never really existed.  And the motivations for those clinging to the romanticized past have to do with fear of “affirmative action, ethnic-studies departments."  Hence, Schmidt succeeds in dismissing NAS’s claim even as he pretends to simply describe it.  The complaint about the lack of willingness to engage in debate is met with lack of willingness to engage in debate.

Schmidt furthermore cites critics of the organization, and at that Cary Nelson, former president of the AAUP, the American Association of University Professors, who a few years earlier had been an invited panelist to the NAS conference, where he used terms of abuse like "fascist" and "reactionary" to describe the organization in his opening remarks, and where he insulted an undergraduate who had stepped up to the mic to ask about the biased readings in her journalism class.

h/t George Leef on Phi Beta Cons

  • Share

Most Commented

July 30, 2024

1.

Don’t Cry for Them, Academia

The dark secret of anti-Semitism is that ignorance alone cannot explain it away or absolve those who adhere to it. If anything, the most vivid episodes of history’s anti-Semitism have......

September 6, 2024

2.

Professor Alleges "Widespread" Discriminatory Hiring Coverup at University of Washington

Audio acquired by the National Association of Scholars describes allegations of coverup race-based hiring coverup at the University of Washington...

June 20, 2024

3.

Remembering Warren Winiarski

Peter Wood writes on the passing of Warren Winiarski, a long-time supporter and friend of the National Association of Scholars, who sought to cultivate civilization and the liberal arts......

Most Read

May 15, 2015

1.

Where Did We Get the Idea That Only White People Can Be Racist?

A look at the double standard that has arisen regarding racism, illustrated recently by the reaction to a black professor's biased comments on Twitter....

September 18, 2024

2.

DEI vs. Academic Integrity at University of Washington

FOIA requests found evidence of racial discrimination at the University of Washington. A professor now accuses the University of a cover-up. A leading scholar of "whiteness" is accus......

September 17, 2024

3.

Agents of Chaos at Columbia University

By the first day of class, Columbia University has managed to combine the blights of Chinese Communist influence, anti-Semitism, incompetent leadership, and intellectual disintegration....