Murphy's Seventh Law:
Left to themselves,
things tend to go from bad to worse.
Ron Paul On Ill-Advised Venezuelan Intervention
No one who has read my blog over the past year will dispute I've been a consistent vocal opponent of the Venezuelan socialist regime. That is not to say that I'm in favor of American intervention, which, if anything, I would consider counter-productive.
Embarrassed Progressive Academia Seeks Revenge Against PC-Busting Prof
Oh, God, do I remember having to get my dissertation research methods (a questionnaire!) through the Committee for Protection of Human Subjects. Among other things, I had to make it clear there would be no repercussions to refusing to cooperate in the study. I wasn't crazy about people reading the disclosure and wondering, "What the hell is this thing? Why am I being warned?" I can still recall negotiating with this one small company; they demanded I supply postage-paid envelopes (all paid out of my pocket, at a time I could barely afford to go to a dollar cinema for entertainment). And I got--one questionnaire back (out of 20 or more distributed). Among other things, the manager in question made it clear they didn't give a damn whether anyone filled one out. It was the kiss of death. I almost lost one of my dissertation committee members over this, unhappy with my reaction to this nonsense.
The Lack of Viewpoint Diversity in Academia
You would think that Business Schools might be a refuge for conservatives and libertarians, but that wasn't my experience. I've mentioned in past posts how the UWM business school dean was determined to jam a black lady through our MBA Admissions Committee; we used to decide applicants who had mixed results on upper division GPA and GMAT criteria scores. We had routinely rejected people with better results. The committee chair, a male professor who was the dean's stooge, said the dean would be embarrassed if we rejected someone he had already awarded financial support. Two junior female professors hypocritically voted yes without saying a word. We were deadlocked 3-3 when the chair noted this would be my last committee meeting, and the dean would appoint a stooge to replace me, i.e., resistance was futile. At that point, I change my vote to present which meant the prospective student wouldn't have the moral authority of a majority vote. All 5 of the other committee members knew what I was doing and were pissed off st me personally. My fellow disapproving colleagues considered me s traitor to the cause, but my unusual dissent was intended to flag the outcome as morally corrupt.
There are other reasons I never discussed political issues or my views on campus, from UH onward. In a past post, I mentioned a feminist female professor in an adjacent UWM office. She was literally obsessed with the paranoid idea that the business school was paying me more and demanded that I disclose my salary. I NEVER discuss compensation with others; this has been true my entire work history. She was no doubt one of those 77-centers, on the edge of hysteria, accusing me of a cover-up. Nope; she brought up the subject, not me. I couldn't care less what she made. I don't even recall who offered me more money; the reason I chose UWM over BGSU was UWM had a PhD program and let me teach graduate courses. I was willing to sacrifice dollars to get that. So anyway some time later, the feminist professor told me what I was making, noting that salaries for public universities were a matter of public record. But apparently she must have been making more because she didn't seem that obsessed over what I was making. Lady, I was making about $550-600/month as a half-time (2 courses/semester) graduate fellow. No matter what I was making, I no longer lived on the same tight budget. But it wasn't just that; she was agitating to raise salaries for female administrative assistants in the Dean's office, etc.
