In the "Brainstorm" section of The Chronicle of Higher Education website, the journalist Naomi Schaefer Riley wrote a piece entitled "The Most Persuasive Case for Eliminating Black Studies? Just Read the Dissertations." It was an ugly political hit piece which not only trashed an entire academic field, it attacked three doctoral students by name based solely on brief descriptions of their work.
I won't summarize or quote from the article here, but encourage you to read it in its entirety. You can also read the students' rebuttal, Naomi Schaefer Rilely's non-apology and the editor's non-apology for allowing the piece on the website. In the comments sections many scholars have articulated very well why this piece is not only patently offensive but even unethical.
Why is this a big deal? The Chronicle of Higher Education is the leading trade paper for academia. Schaefer Riley's piece violated any number of basic journalistic and professional academic standards. Above all, she didn't bother to do her homework, and she engaged in ad hominem personal attacks against junior scholars.
In response to the editor's claim that this is an "opportunity" to debate, despite what she may believe this is in no way a "debate." Naomi Schaefer Riley is not engaging in ideas. Her piece is an anti-intellectual screed on the level of Fox News or a crackpot state senator railing against higher education. The cheapening of public discourse is a serious problem in the media and it arguably contributes to the decline of the democratic process in the United States. Here the Chronicle has done nothing but bring this cheapened discourse into our main professional forum. For academics, who pride ourselves on the values of critical thinking and civil discourse, this is profoundly disheartening.
Naomi Schaefer Riley has shown herself to be patently unqualified to comment on academic issues, nor does she demonstrate any interest in learning what it takes to make herself qualified. She does not belong in a professional trade publication. Why did the Chronicle even think that it was a good idea to hire give her a platform in the paper, when there are plenty of intelligent and informed conservatives they could have chosen in her place?
I want to draw attention to the fact that the values of academia are under threat if this is the kind of thing we can look forward to in our professional sphere. Yesterday was a huge lesson for me in how institutionalized racism is still very much a problem within academia. I will never take this issue for granted again.
Fri May 11, 2012 at 12:12 PM PT: Since I posted this diary, the Chronicle seems to have listened to its readers and taken their concerns to heart. Read the editor Liz McMillen's May 7 "A Note to Readers": http://chronicle.com/...
Not only did they remove Naomi Schaefer Riley as a blogger, but they acknowledged the main problems that many scholars (including myself) have identified behind this incident. I think they deserve credit for facing up to this honestly and fully.