Heterodox at USC Newsletter #1
Commentary on the John Strauss incident, collecting scientific censorship, and the case of the missing statue.
Happy New Year! Welcome to the first newsletter for the Heterodox at USC group. We will be using this platform to share ongoing updates about our campaign for free expression, viewpoint diversity, constructive disagreement, critical thinking, and the quest for truth at USC (and beyond.)
If you’d like to get more directly involved in our group, or if you have an issue you’d like our group to be aware of, please reach out to us at heterodox.usc@gmail.com.
USC Updates:
A Closer Look at USC Professor John Strauss
Jim Moore, Professor Emeritus of Industrial and Systems Engineering at USC, wrote an op-ed on the situation concerning John Strauss.
“Strauss is the kind of academic voice that progressive university administrators and student mobs fear most—a traditional, tenured, knowledgeable, principled faculty member with a spine. Temporarily restricting Strauss from campus was, more than anything else, an opportunity for President Folt to operationalize a fresh mechanism for bringing USC’s dwindling complement of tenured faculty further to heel. USC punished Strauss as a lesson to others like him.”
Read the entire article on Minding the Campus.
Spotlight on scientific censorship: A virtual collection
Anna Krylov, USC Associates Chair in Natural Sciences and Professor of Chemistry, helped compile a collection of instances of scientific censorship in recent years, along with op-eds and viewpoints which document the rise. This corresponds with the recent perspective piece published in PNAS, Prosocial motives underlie scientific censorship by scientists: A perspective and research agenda, to which she was a contributor. Readers are encouraged to provide additional examples.
View the collection and submit your comments over at Heterodox STEM.
Where is the statue of USC Founder Robert Widney?
A statue of USC founder Robert Widney was removed from campus in late November, ostensibly for “cleaning”. As of early January it has not reappeared. The university has not made any official statement about the plans for the statue and its plaque (which is also missing), other than a comment to the press about maintenance.
This is a potentially troubling development. Widney has been the focus of criticism over the years and the statue was possibly, at one time, under scrutiny by the rather ominous sounding “Task Force on University Nomenclature.”
In 2018, William Tierney*, Wilbur-Kieffer Professor of Higher Education and co-director of the Pullias Center for Higher Education at USC, wrote in University World News: “There is evidence that Judge Widney was the progenitor of the Home Guard Vigilance Committee in Los Angeles – which participated in the vigilante lynching of individuals whom they thought had evaded the law.”
In 2020 David Torres-Rouff, a professor and historian at UC Merced, told the Los Angeles Times in a larger article exploring problematic USC figures that Widney was “most certainly” supportive of extralegal lynchings.
At that time USC told the L.A. Times: “The Task Force on University Nomenclature is looking at buildings, monuments, and symbols across campus.” A student on the task force stated that Widney would “definitely warrant a look”.
This task force was formed in 2019. It does not appear to have a website, public information about its processes, or to produce updates on its activities and decisions. It’s unclear if it had anything to do with the removal of the statue or if the task force is even still in existence.
The concerns here are numerous. The overall lack of transparency or updates from this task force on its decision-making is particularly alarming. What buildings and statues are currently under consideration? What are the criteria used to decide if something will be removed? If statues can be removed without explanation, what else can simply be disappeared from campus without comment?
Widney was instrumental to the creation of USC. According to a speech given at the unveiling of his statue in 2014, Widney envisioned the university’s formation, persuaded real estate agents to donate the land, served as the first chair of the Board of Trustees and donated $100,000 (many millions in today’s dollars) to the university’s endowment fund. He was also, according to the speech, a “pistol-packing judge” who famously shot into the sky to break up anti-Chinese riots.
Rather than simply removing his statue, the university may want to consider Tierney’s sentiment, from his 2018 critique of Widney:
“Some might wish that we scrub the university of flawed individuals so that no reference is made of them. Others might try to whitewash the history and mythologise the institution to spur it on to greater achievement. In an era of ‘fake news’, however, if a university has any role, it is to search for the truth and to accept whatever we may find out about ourselves, however uncomfortable that may make us.”
It’s entirely possible that the statue and plaque are, in fact, merely undergoing cleaning. Perhaps he will reappear one day, as magically as he disappeared. However, past experience shows that when controversial statues disappear, they frequently disappear forever.
We’d like to know more about this situation. If you have information about the plans for this statue or the status of this task force, please get in touch at heterodox.usc@gmail.com. Anonymous tips welcomed.
*Tierney is not presently affiliated with Heterodox at USC.
Farther afield:
The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth
Following her contentious congressional testimony on antisemitism on college campuses, now deposed Harvard president Claudine Gay apologized and declared: “Substantively, I failed to convey what is my truth.”
William Galston writes in the Wall St. Journal why this entire notion of “my truth” has led academia fatally astray:
No one in the sciences or engineering can take this argument seriously. If “my truth” is that water isn’t composed of hydrogen and oxygen or that a roof doesn’t require structural support, I would be laughed out of the laboratory and classroom. I certainly wouldn’t be allowed to teach students.
The situation is different in the humanities and social sciences, although not fundamentally. John Stuart Mill famously said, “He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that.” In testing the strength of an argument, the presence—and clash—of multiple views is essential. This kind of diversity is central to the purpose of the university, which is why the dominance of a single point of view in the faculty and student body is so damaging to the academic mission. If people with unpopular views are cowed into silence, everyone loses and the search for truth is impeded.
Perhaps USC should consider updating our motto to include something about truth, rather than palms. Although, that hasn’t seemed to help Harvard…
Penn Faculty Issue a Vision for the Future
A group of Penn faculty have published a proposed, renewed framework for the university. This would recommit the university to the Enlightenment values which initially shaped it.
Experiences from the twentieth century teach us a clear historical lesson. European and U.S. universities that compromised their academic standards to cater to political trends or the pressures of particular interest groups required decades to reverse the damage done by those practices. Some of those universities have never recovered their previous position in the academic world. Universities that focused on academic excellence and resisted political temptations reaped long-lasting rewards that are still evident today.
This statement is open to signatures.
Would you like to contribute to a similar statement from USC faculty? Please get in touch at heterodox.usc@gmail.com!
We Know Diversity Statements are Political Litmus Tests
In the Chronicle of Higher Education, Komi Frey, director of outreach at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Free Expression critiques the UC system’s use of diversity statements during hiring and makes a case for ending the practice.
The causes of social inequality, the remedies to inequality, and the extent to which inequality is itself a problem are all matters of empirical and philosophical debate. Therefore, the university should not take a position. Instead, it ought to welcome faculty members who offer a diversity of perspectives on the nature and value of diversity.
Eye Roll of the Week
Scientific American op-ed admonishes scientists for using words like “strangulation” and “explosion” in discussion of astronomical events. Now this is the sort of hard-hitting analysis that will surely advance our understanding of the cosmos.
If you enjoyed our newsletter, please help us spread the word and forward this email to a colleague. If you’d like to get more involved in the Heterodox at USC community, including attending an in-person event, please reach out to us at heterodox.usc@gmail.com.