Cornel West Releases Resignation Letter from Harvard
npr.org
npr.org
They are however, ignoring the part where he was declined tenure for no good reason, and despite being a professor at other prestigious universities. He was also paid badly and was treated poorly when it came to sabbaticals.
In other words he was sidelined for no good reason. This is sad.
There are some questions though, why did he leave Princeton? I mean what difference does it make if you're at Princeton or Harvard, they are both great schools.
Why do we tell academics they have to stay in one place forever once they get tenure? Don't they want to move around as much as anyone else? Maybe his reason was just that he wanted a change.
We don't tell them that. Tenured academics do move between universities, and rarely if ever have to regain tenure -- because they negotiate with the new university to immediately be at the same status they had at the old university.
If West couldn't swing that, that's on him. West definitely seems to be more interested in playing the outspoken celebrity intellectual / activist than being a serious academic, and Harvard probably didn't want to risk a replay of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornel_West#Dispute_with_Lawre....
If I devoted half that amount of time to an institution and received this treatment in return, I would struggle to contain my composure. I think the letter insinuates that his service to Harvard stems from a love/appreciation for what the institution stood for 20, 30, perhaps even 40-50 years ago. Who here doesn't feel similarly about their undergrad? Of those who feel that way, who else would feel irate if they were treated this way in return?
Usually you get tenure for a good reason. Plenty of very talented people are denied it for no good reason. I'm not saying that his accusations are untrue, but denial of tenure happens all of the time, so the onus is really on him to say why he should have gotten it.
I feel like i'm missing some pieces of this story though. Why did a previously tenured academic well into his career agree to take a poorly paid job without tenure in the first place?
Whether that is Spiritual Bankruptcy, or merely Indifference, I know not, but it definitely reflects a culture problem of sorts.
The best workplaces do not involve parking your humanity or caring at the door.
I really don't see that as "spiritually bankrupt".
Spiritually bankrupt? Not sure. It’s not great though.
Complaining about a lack of a sympathy card is basically complaining that the admin support staff dropped the ball on meeting his personal emotional needs. So how old is Cornel?
Be nice if the complaint mentioned the unmet emotional needs of his support staff (garbage collectors, groundskeepers, janitors, food service, admin assistants, etc.) instead of simply the top of the ladder folks. Did he send sympathy cards to them during their moments of need? I’m guessing not, but I don’t know.
In my worlds, anything more public than a sympathy card would have been thought inappropriately intrusive, borderline cruel and just weird. It’s a place of work and the presumption would be the worker values a wall between work and family. An emotional HIPAA policy as it were.
My theory:
Many of them are passionate, and it makes them good at their job, but their personalities and their job and the relationships with their peers seem almost inseparable... resulting in the sort of mish mash of professional and personal life that seem inseparable. For some almost everything can be personal to some extent... and in some cases I would find it inappropriate to mix all that up in the way some (not all) of them do at times.
It doesn't make them wrong, but it makes it really hard to understand. Such things happen outside of academia too, but it seems particularly prevalent there in my experience.
At least that's how I explain it to myself when I bump into such things.
It's probably intended to land best with people who are familiar with how communication works in that school/department, and the general atmosphere there, I'd expect.
likely he suspects that colleagues are afraid to publicly associate with him because he is too left wing / unapologetically Black / hot topic for Harvard.
This is definitely one of those "could be full of shit, or might barely even be scratching the surface and is actually quite restrained" kind of letters. It's hard to tell without more info.
Is it strange for folks to talk about a newborn child, or marriage at work? Conversely, what about infant death or divorce? Can you bring your "whole self" or just the good news?
Weren't there truly any better reasons to resign? If no, then I think Harvard is really a good place to work.
But, if that doesn't make sense to you, how about being systematically passed over for a promotion because of your political views?
It's hard not to see this as being a crappy place to work if you put yourself in his shoes.
Maybe, maybe. I agree with a cousin comment, that this is more of a canary than anything. I posted the whole of his letter at the top level, in large part to examine how much of his letter you're fixating on. Turns out, it's a very small part -- and he spends equal time on other public notices, and you've left that point unaddressed, so I'll expand on it.
In grief, one's loneliness is deafening, even when surrounded by loved ones. When this internal loneliness is accompanied by external loneliness, the pain is amplified to a degree that I cannot express in words. To see extensive public adulation of minor accomplishments, the lack of compassion is drawn out in painful contrast. All this serves an example of "toxic positivity" -- of which he exemplifies through a clear anecdote -- which is one of several complaints he has about the organization.
Now that I have kids, I think back every now and again to when I was in high school and my math teacher's wife miscarried fairly far along into the pregnancy. Looking back, I'm sure that was absolutely devastating for him, but as a class I don't think we gave it a second thought.
I feel bad about that. Kids just have no concept of how big a loss that is. Hopefully the staff was more sympathetic about it.
One wonders if he had gotten tenure and received much beloved public replies he would resign thereafter.
It all seems a bit self-centered. Why publicize the letter, other than to signal and cue the outrage mob?
The letter helps make the point of how absurd these heavily-endowed universities have become.
I read this differently. Figured that his point is that Harvard is willing to block his career based on an academic disagreement surrounding Palestine. Instead of engaging with his perspective and providing, well, a collegial environment for this discourse, they've undermined his academic career (while still benefiting from his speeches, tutelage, and instruction).
He's a PR intellectual. He gets way too much air time for his contributions to humanity. A boring figure.
Summer salaries are usually paid for by research funding raised by the professor from outside sources. Typically you make sure your students are supported, then travel and operating costs for your group, then if any funding is left over, you can pay yourself summer salary.
Is the university preventing him from raising funds? If he is not raising funds, then the expenses above could be unmet. It's hard to get tenure without covering your costs.
It's not obvious to outsiders that being a successful researcher is expensive, and the university does not pay for it after a short startup period. Harvard is unusual in that they have much more internal student scholarship money than most, which helps a lot. That subsidy, and the Harvard brand, means that Harvard faculty have a good advantage over the field when raising money.
On the other hand, a lot is expected of them. The university is considering the opportunity cost, and the opportunity is very valuable.
I hope and pray you and your family are well! This summer is a scorcher! Here is my brief and candid letter of resignation: "How sad it is to see our beloved Harvard Divinity School in such decline and decay. The disarray of a scattered curriculum, the disenchantment of talented yet deferential faculty, and the disorientation of precious students loom large. When I arrived four years ago - with a salary less than what I received 15 years earlier and with no tenure status after being a University Professor at Harvard and Princeton - I oped and prayed I could still end my career with some semblance of intellectual intensity and personal respect. How wrong I was! With a few glorious and glaring exceptions, the shadow of Jim Crow was cast in its new glittering form expressed in the language of superficial diversity: all my courses were subsumed under Afro-American Religious Studies, including those on Existentialism, American Democracy, and the Conduct of Life, no possible summer salary alongside the lowest increase possible every year. Yet I delivered two convocation addresses and one commencement speech in four years. I was promised a year sabbatical but could only take one semester in practice. And to witness a faculty enthusiastically support a candidate for tenure then timidly defer to a rejection based on the Harvard administration's hostility to the Palestinian cause was disgusting. We all new the mendacious reasons given had nothing to do with academic standards. When my committee recommended a tenure review - also rejected by the Harvard administration - I knew my academic achievements and student teaching meant far less than their political prejudices. Even my good friends in the Afro-American and African Studies Department were paralyzed, given their close relations to the administration. And after teaching extra courses, including five courses in one year, this silence continued. When the announcement of the death of my beloved Mother appeared in the regular newsletter, I received two public replies (just as that of my colleague Dr. Jacqueline Olga Cooke-Rivers who received none when her blessed Mother died). Any ordinary announcement about a lecture, award or professional advancement received about twenty replies! This kind of narcissistic academic professionalism, cowardly deference to the anti-Palestinian prejudices of the Harvard administration, and indifference to my Mother's death constitute an intellectual and spiritual bankruptcy of deep depths. In my case, a serious commitment to Veritas requires resignation - with precious memories but absolutely no regrets!"
Cornel West
It seems worth mentioning that West's critique of the apartheid in South Africa got him in hot water with ~Harvard~[1] many years ago...
[Edit 1] whoops, Yale. Guy's been at so many institutions I can't keep track... quoth Wikipedia,
> As punishment, the university administration canceled his leave for the spring term in 1987, leading him to commute from Yale in New Haven, Connecticut, where he was teaching two classes, across the Atlantic Ocean to the University of Paris.
Edit 2: I'm not here to debate this extremely flame-prone topic, just trying to satisfy a curious-sounding question
That seems surprising. All I could find was when he got arrested at Yale during an anti-apartheid protest. Have a link?
Israel’s illegal settlements in occupied territory should be condemned. But there is no apartheid in Israel, and the recent chanting of this term in anti-Israel contexts shows ignorance. Palestinian citizens in Israel have the same rights of citizenship as anyone else, and sit in parliament.
But I think it was as a student at Yale that he got arrested, and it was for protest activity. EDIT: Nope, not a student.
Thanks for the information; I’m also glad to stay clear of the flames, which are off-topic in any case.
Reading the letter I see a few extremely salient complaints:
1. His first complaint is that he was a token diversity hire. Instead of his courses being placed in the general coursework section, his courses were put under 'African American' religious studies. As many minorities know, this is a way of discounting minority viewpoints. No one would dare dream put a history class taught by a white professor under the 'European American studies' portion. If he's teaching a course supposedly on American democracy, then surely it should go under history or social sciences, not 'black people social sciences'.
2. Failure to compensate an appropriate amount given West's celebrity status. Again, I don't particularly like West's politics, but he is clearly quite the celebrity. It seems he was not compensated appropriately, despite Harvard being happy to use his celebrity status to further their own reputation. Pretty standard employee complaint.
3. His tenure application was denied despite Harvard asking him to leave an existing tenured professorship. He believes his application was denied not due to his teaching but because Harvard disagreed with one of his political views. Again, as much as I disagree with West's politics, it seems incredibly disingenuous to profit off of a new employee's celebrit, tempt him to join you from a stable job with promises of future stability, and then to deny him tenureship because he has differing opinions on some random issue.
4. Despite supposedly wanting a close faculty, no one in the faculty would stand up for him when his tenure was denied. The fact of his mother's death not soliciting any response was not brought up in isolation as other comments claim (current top comment does). It was brought up in reference to the fact that no one on faculty would dare speak up to the administration on his behalf and it seemed like, after tenure was denied for his beliefs on Palestine, he was ostracized from his department. Many academics know that being ostracized in your department is not good.
5. Furthermore, it seemed that Harvard has a problem in not focusing on the whole person. Instead, it's developed into a technocratic institution (which I know from personal knowledge, West decries).
So yeah, all the people saying this is only about his mother or because of palestine are either being incredibly dense or purposely deceitful.
Again, I disagree with basically everything West stands for, but I agree with him that he shouldn't essentially be exploited and then canceled. That goes against every shred of common decency.
... that's because no one would dare dream to have a 'European American studies' program in the first place.
I have never seen Cornel West talk live - I need to fix that.
“Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that."”
I feel like this is the second news cycle for this departure, even.
(To be fair, his list of courses taught seem broader than "divinity". )
There are obviously topics that are fairly inseparable from religion, for example hermeneutics, but religion is just another frame of reference onto all the issues that are still important to humans today. Whether you believe that God exists or not is usually not particularly relevant, you just believe the eventual cause is different.