© Princeton University
Over 350 Princeton faculty members have signed on to an open letter demanding the university prioritize the fight against "anti-Black racism," which the writers insist "has a visible bearing upon Princeton's campus makeup and its hiring practices." Members of every department of the Ivy League school except Chemical and Biological Engineering and Operations Research and Financial Engineering have added their names to the July 4 manifesto, giving its 48 demands significant heft.
For an "anti-racist" missive, however, some of the demands seem curiously...racist. Nonwhite faculty are to receive extra sabbaticals, extra pay and extra awards to compensate for the "invisible work" they do, the letter states, explaining how minority professors are called upon to "chiefly and constantly 'serve' and 'represent' [racial diversity] in the interest of administrative goals" even as its authors enumerate ever more diversity-focused administrative goals.
Lamenting that just 7 percent of tenure-track faculty are non-white, the writers suggest giving those oppressed few "a full year of course relief" to seek out and recruit more faculty of color.
More ominously, an "outside committee of academics, law professors, artists, and cultural advisors from communities of color" are to be brought in to make decisions about "race, racism, anti-racism, and racial equity" that will impact the entire campus, while an "internal committee of faculty and students of color" must be appointed to hold the university accountable for carrying out these outsiders' demands.
Comment: If only Western leaders had the guts to order the arrest of corrupted and criminal politicians. Maybe there would be an increase in trust in the political system.