Monday, December 18, 2006

Pointless Rhetoric Is Welcome

Anyone who thinks left-wingers dominate all of academia need only look at the idiots at the American Economic Association, who ban job postings that include the standard boilerplate language saying "applications from female or minority scholars are welcomed." But the only thing dumber than banning these statements as discriminatory is imagining that such statements actually change anything. Any female or minority scholar who sees such language knows immediately that it means nothing, that colleges are perfectly capable of requiring such language even while they do nothing to prevent discrimination. Colleges should stop wasting everyone's space by this fake pretense; but the idea that an association or the federal government should step in to prevent it is even more insane.

1 comment:

John K. Wilson said...

The AEA has voted to overturn its silly policy against silly welcoming language. See: http://insidehighered.com/news/2007/01/08/econ