"“It feels like Jonathan Haidt is meant to scold the student body and belittle them,” says Mehr Kotval, a graduating senior with a degree in comparative global politics. In an op-ed for the student paper, she wrote that the choice of a professor who wrote about coddled young people was a “last parting gift of disrespect” for students."
"The backlash began last week, when the student government assembly delivered a letter to the university expressing its “profound disappointment” in the choice of Haidt. The letter cited his argument in 2024 that the university system needs to remove diversity, equity, and inclusion programs; it also cited his decision in 2022 to resign from a top professional society for psychology rather than submit a statement on combating anti-racism."
"For years, Haidt has described himself as a “professor who favors free speech,” pushing back against the concepts of microaggressions and safe spaces that he saw as limiting the potential for growth and debate on campus. An avowed centrist, he also has argued the case for embracing conservative views in education, going so far as to claim that conservatives on campus were made to feel like gay people trapped in the closet."
Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist and public intellectual at NYU, is scheduled to deliver an in-house commencement address. Some students oppose the choice, saying his work and public positions feel scolding or belittling. A graduating senior criticized the selection as a “last parting gift of disrespect.” Student government expressed “profound disappointment,” citing Haidt’s 2024 argument that universities should remove diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and his 2022 resignation from a psychology society rather than sign an anti-racism statement. Haidt has long promoted free speech and opposed microaggressions and safe spaces, while also arguing that conservative views are unfairly stigmatized on campus.
Read at Intelligencer
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]