Showing posts with label academia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label academia. Show all posts

Monday, July 31, 2017

Citing the scientific research of white men now blamed for “marginalization” of women and people of color, claim delusional left-wing academics


There is no question about it: The academic far-Left has lost their collective minds and is now actively trolling for things to be upset/angry/offended about, and this is especially true for many of today’s college and university campuses.
As reported by Campus Reforma pair of feminist professors who teach geography — yes, geography — recently wrote in an actual academic journal that certain citations in scholarly articles do nothing but contribute to “white heteromasculinity” because they ignore research by minorities and women.
You just cannot make this stuff up.
Carrie Mott of Rutgers University and Daniel Cockayne made the claim in an article published last month in the Feminist Journal of Geography (I know — I couldn’t believe there was such a publication, either), noting also that citing works can be “a feminist and anti-racist technology of resistance” if they are specifically chosen with the intent to promote “those authors and voices we want to carry forward.”
So in other words, scholarly findings by white males are not to be advanced as vigorously as similar scholarly findings by persons of color and women, because if they are, then the author is somehow contributing to the oppression of both.
Campus Reform noted further:
Mott and Cockayne say citation practices are an issue of scholarly concern because whether a professor’s work is cited by other scholars has strong implications for hiring, promotion, tenure, and how “certain voices are represented over others” in academia.
“To cite only white men…or to only cite established scholars…does a disservice to researchers and writers who are othered by white heteromasculinism,” they actually wrote, further defining “white heteromasculinism” as “an intersectional system of oppression describing on-going processes that bolster the status of those who are white, male, able-bodied, economically privileged, heterosexual, and cisgendered.”
They also claimed that this ‘oppression’ only contributes to the “marginalization of women, people of color, and those othered through white heteromascline hegemony,” further asserting that “particular voices and bodies are persistently left out of the conversation altogether.”
In an interview with Campus Reform, Mott said she and her co-author wrote their piece after they observed that “white men tend to be cited in much higher numbers than people from other backgrounds.” She said, “we started looking into research that had been done in other fields about similar topics, and wanted to write something specifically for geographers to think about the relationship between knowledge production and identity.”
Mott claimed that women and minorities “have contributed a lot to geographic research,” but they have mostly been ignored by other researchers. That not only holds individual scholars back but it also leaves their potentially unique perspectives out of the larger body of research.
“When it is predominantly white, heteronormative males who are cited, this means that the views and knowledge that are represented do not reflect the experience of people from other backgrounds,” she said. “When scholars continue to cite only white men on a given topic, they ignore the broader diversity of voices and researchers that are also doing important work on that topic.” (Related: Brown University Students Claim The First Amendment Doesn’t Include ALL Speech, Only Views They Agree With.)
As someone who has done graduate-level research, I can say with honesty that I didn’t pay any attention to the ethnicity or gender or sexual preference of the researchers I cited; rather, I looked for the quality and appropriateness of research as it pertained to my thesis topic.
But beyond that, I am also well aware that for some fields of study, maybe most of the research has been done by white heterosexual males, and that if that’s the case, so what, so long as it’s accurate?
To suggest that certain research should not be cited just because it was performed by someone with a specific political view, ethnicity, gender and sexual preference is absurd beyond belief. Worse is to assume that citation of “white heterosexual males” is racist or bigoted.
J.D. Heyes is a senior writer for NaturalNews.com and NewsTarget.com, as well as editor of The National Sentinel.
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Wednesday, May 3, 2017

More campus crazy: Student was penalized by instructor for daring to use the word “man” in an essay


The politically correct nonsense on American college campuses is continuing apace, with students now paying a price academically if they dare to waiver from the Alt-Left maniacal orthodoxy.
As reported by The College Fix, it wasn’t just any college campus; the “infraction” occurred at the University of Florida, providing more evidence that far Left academics have completely corrupted the American system of higher education. (Related: Tyrannical Leftists At UC-Berkeley Once Again Cancel Ann Coulter’s Speech – Where’s That Coward, Gov. Jerry Brown?)
The student’s “crime?” Using the word “man” instead of “humankind.”
The site reported:
History major Martin Poirier wrote “Water is a thing prior to man” on a paper for a history class called “History of Water.”
The professor’s response was typical PC.
“Thoughtful paper, although the writing-mechanics errors are killing you,” Prof. Jack Davis wrote at the bottom of the paper, in which he gave Poirier a B-minus, per a copy of the assignment which was published by student news organization Daily Nerv, according to The College Fix.
When grading the essay, Davis circled the word “man” and then made reference to an online document, “Grammar and Writing Mechanics Exercise,” in which he cited question #20, which asked students to identify the sentence which correctly uses language:
“a. The architecture of Florence pays tribute to both the engineering and artistic genius of mankind.
b. The architecture of Florence pays tribute to both the engineering and artistic genius of humankind.”
Then Davis claimed something really bizarre. In an email to The College Fix, he defended the grade and the penalization, saying that the “exercise and inclusion of ‘humankind’ are consistent with the Chicago Manual of Style, the style and usage guide followed in the discipline of history.”
He added that the points taken were not done “to enforce political correctness” but rather serve as “both a grammar refresher and a style and user guide.”
Oh.
In addition, Davis said the points taken were not solely over the use of “man” but also because students lose points when they fail to follow two or more writing standards. (Related: Find more news about the intolerance of the Left at Intolerance.news.)
“I do not lower a student’s grade for only one inconsistence, and I single out no student as an example,” Davis responded. He added that the student’s paper was not singled out but rather selected to be discussed with the class after having been emailed to classmates “with anonymity strictly maintained.”
It’s not necessarily the anonymity as it is the explanation for why the paper was docked in the first place.
Poirier defended his use of the word “man” when discussing his paper in class, stating that he believed the points taken were done in the name of politics, the Daily Nerv reported.
“My paper was selected for the hot seat and I felt I had to argue with [Davis] for that specific use of ‘man.’ I said his reasoning was politically motivated and he responded by saying all official grammar is politically motivated,” he told the news outlet.
He added further that Davis “requires us to use only gender neutral expressions,” and that this was not the first time he has encountered similar biases on the University of Florida campus.
Interestingly, the Daily Nerv noted that the terms “mankind” and “humankind” are defined exactly the same in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, lending at least some credence to Poirier’s argument that some PC bias is involved in at least that portion of his grade. (Related: Brown University Students Claim The First Amendment Doesn’t Include ALL Speech, Only Views They Agree With.)
“Political correctness on college campuses goes far deeper than this one excess by this one teacher. By and large, the radical liberationist ideas go unchallenged because no truly oppositional content is presented,” Poirier added.
The very notion of gender-neutralizing speech and language is a Marxist-liberal academic construct. For centuries, the term “Mankind” was understood to be gender neutral in and of itself, encompassing all human beings, not just men. But because of the rise of rampant feminism and its belief that the old cultural mores and traditions in America are illegitimate and based on hate, fear, racism, sexism, etc., they’ve got to be cleansed and replaced by nonsensical verbiage that destroys the original meaning and context of words as they have been historically understood.
It’s good to see a student stand up for traditional American cultural norms.
Read the articles on CampusInsanity.com to learn more about how our future “normal” is being shaped.
J.D. Heyes is a senior writer for NaturalNews.com and NewsTarget.com, as well as editor of The National Sentinel.
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