Cornel West denied tenure at Harvard. Quits with scathing resignation letter

[Demovictory9]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9784771/Star-Harvard-professor-Cornel-West-dramatically-resigns-tenure-dispute.html

Cornel West publicly shared his scathing resignation letter on Monday night
Claimed he was denied tenure due to 'anti-Palestinian prejudice' at Harvard

Accused the university of 'spiritual rot' and said it pursued 'superficial diversity'

West is a well-known public intellectual focused on civil rights and racial issues

He also quit Harvard in 2002 over dispute with former university president

The famous public intellectual Cornel West has dramatically quit his job at Harvard University following a tenure dispute, accusing the esteemed school of 'spiritual rot' and 'superficial diversity.'

In a resignation letter he shared publicly on Monday night, 68-year-old West slammed Harvard's administration and revealed a litany of personal and professional complaints.


'How sad it is to see our beloved Harvard Divinity School in such decline and decay,' he wrote in the letter. 'The disarray of a scattered curriculum, the disenchantment of talented yet deferential faculty, and the disorientation of precious students loom large.'

[Loki Liesmith]

1. His scholarship is meh

[Bad Thoughts]

4. Not the first, not the last celebrity scholar to be let go

[Hortensis]

19. Yes. Understatement. Very dishonest "scholarship."

He apparently exercised some self control while he was establishing himself, I assume, but has been indulgently self destructing ever since. For a long time his positions have been about as intellectual as the lies ignorant zealots were pushing, such as against Hillary and the Democratic Party, just dressed up in denser, faux "intellectual" language.

I think much better of Harvard for denying him tenure, and the resignation. I'd wave to him on his accelerated way down, but he's not falling past me here.

[marybourg]

2. Time to retire.

[Yavin4]

3. Harvard is all about being a brand, not education.

Scholars like West don't contribute to their brand value, so he has to go.

[Loki Liesmith]

10. Lol West is a brand himself, not a scholar

I’ve got a higher h-index than he does.

[Paladin]

5. Congratulations, Harvard.

I'm sure that a worthy successor is available.

[Kid Berwyn]

14. Nice, what you did there.

[Budi]

6. Stop the blame game. Maybe it was some of the many things he's said.

Maybe the reason is completely on him.

Not a fan of his unpredictable self aggrandizing & divisive rhetoric.
------

Good for Harvard.

From 2012 - NY Magazine Interview
https://nymag.com/news/features/cornel-west-2012-5/

MAY 4, 2012
“I Want to Be Like Jesus.”

West regards himself as a prophet more than a professor. He believes that he is called to teach God’s justice to a heedless nation. “There is a price to pay for speaking the truth,” reads the signature on e-mails coming from West’s office. “There is a bigger price for living a lie.”

So when his view of the commander-in-chief changed from adoration to disappointment, West was moved to proclaim it out loud.
He had already been lobbing rhetorical grenades in the direction of the Oval Office, calling the president [Obama] “spineless” for his failure to make poor and working people a policy priority and “milquetoast” for kowtowing to corporate interests during the economic crisis. But in an interview with Truthdig, ­published last May, West went nuclear.

He called Obama “the black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs.” And then he said he wanted to “slap him,” as the article put it, “on the side of his head.”

#Bye

[msongs]

15. yes but is voting for joe like eating a bowl of sh**. ah nobody would say that nt

[Budi]

16. Really, bet he caught hell for THAT vote.

"Bowl of shit"
Corporatist
Neoliberal
Establishment
Wall Shtreet
Dark Money
Millionares & Billionares

He's got all the coded keywords on a loop, yet he STILL claims to have voted for " neoliberal disaster Biden"?

What was he thinking!!

[Beakybird]

7. Let's see, did he support Trump, Kanye West, or the Green Party in 2020?

[Budi]

9. Claims to have voted for "neoliberal disaster' Biden "..🙄

Cornel West explains his vote for 'neoliberal disaster' Biden at Penn Justice Dems panel

IOW, Who tf cares what Cornel West thinks or says anymore.
He's jumped the shark too many times to be taken for his word.
He's really never gonna be 'Jesus'.
Glad Harvard finally just told him.



Good for Cornel that he's finally found a base that hangs on his word as tho he is 'The Jesus' he claims to be.
Harvard is far too diverse for his shit.
Gtfoutta here 👎
https://www.thedp.com/article/2020/11/biden-democracy-penn-justice-democrats-socialists

[Klaralven]

8. Sayre's law

Sayre's law states, in a formulation quoted by Charles Philip Issawi: "In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the issues at stake." By way of corollary, it adds: "That is why academic politics are so bitter."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayre%27s_law

Age 68. So he won't be retiring at Harvard.

West is an outspoken voice in left-wing politics in the United States. He has held professorships and fellowships at Harvard University, Dartmouth College, Princeton University, Yale University, Pepperdine University, the Columbia University-affiliated Union Theological Seminary, and the University of Paris during his career.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornel_West

Cornel West Is Leaving Harvard After Tenure Dispute

The public intellectual and professor of African-American studies will head to Union Theological Seminary in New York.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/08/us/cornel-west-leaving-harvard-union.html

Published March 8

[sheshe2]

11. I really don't care about him and his hurt feelings.

He and Tavis Smiley:

West has called Obama a "Rockefeller Republican in blackface" and both recently criticized Al Sharpton's support of the president as an example of him being "on the Obama's plantation". These inflammatory remarks only discredit whatever valid criticisms Smiley and West may have about how President Obama has conducted himself over the past five years. And that's a shame because the two men would otherwise have so much to offer the country as true intellectuals.

Smiley and West were supposed to be two of the thinkers helping to place Obama's eight years in office in a wider context. They ought to have been our moral barometers, men who would advocate for the change Obama promised in 2008. With the spotlight on an African-American president and the state of race relations in this country, it was only natural that Smiley and West would shine, becoming iconic leaders their previous work seemed to prepare them for. So, for people like myself who grew up on the example they set, the spectacle of Smiley and West engaging in crude Obama-bashing is more embarrassing than inspiring.

snip

These comments are made only more disappointing because they seem to come from a place of personal disdain, more than any desire to push an intelligent discussion. West has gone on record saying his initial rift with President Obama came from the fact that he couldn't get tickets for his family to go to the inauguration. Smiley threw a tantrum in 2008 when President Obama couldn't make his State of the Black Union event (also saying "no thanks" to a proposal to have Michelle Obama come in his place).

These two shots at the Smiley and West egos inform their rhetoric about the president, thrusting their "criticism" into the territory of "bashing". Seriously, one of the foremost philosophers of our time has been insulting the leader of the free world because he didn't get a "hook-up"? Is that what's really important here?

The shame is that Smiley and West would have been in prime position to make legitimate criticisms of the president, calling for more action and amplifying the public's cries for the change we've been promised. Instead, to coin a phrase from my age group's vernacular, Smiley and West are just "haters".

More https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/26/cornel-west-tavis-smiley-disservice-african-americans

All about free tickets. *sigh*

[Hekate]

18. Ta, She, you said it much better than I....

West is an incredibly ego-driven man, in search of worshippers and acolytes on the public stage.

If I understand correctly, he already had another job lined up in March — it’s now July. Good luck, Dr West. I was never a real fan, but you completely lost me by joining the chorus of Obama-bashers. Nonetheless, a guy’s got to make a living, so good luck in your new post.

[DenaliDemocrat]

12. He's a loon. Sorry

I never got the Cornell love. I’m not even sure he’s a Democrat. He says he’s a Socialist and bashes Obama and Biden. What IS West?

[Hortensis]

21. Yup! NPR called him "one of the foremost black scholars." NO!

That's a tremendous insult, including to scholars of all colors.

To my mind, West is a typical dissident in that he can't support his positions with truth, so he zealously promotes lies. And I'm afraid he probably believes them more often than not. Extreme dependence on dishonesty, because truth typically contradicts them, is a key trait of extremist behavior.

Good riddance.

[Tomconroy]

13. He had announced in March

That he was leaving Harvard for a tenured position at Union Theological Seminary. His letter of resignation is sort of showboating.

[Demovictory9]

17. ahh... thanks for the background info

[Loki Liesmith]

20. Typical

[Mosby]

22. An increasing number of Americans can't afford college.

So maybe its time to get rid of tenure all together.

It's not 1800, professors have the same job protections as everyone else. They don't need special protection anymore. Professors are employees, like most of us.

[BannonsLiver]

23. Best news I've heard all day.

L

[betsuni]

24. He'll have lots of fun playing the poor victim of the big bad establishment elites.

What a nut.

[ChrisF1961]

25. He's been a joke and a grifter for years

ever since he started attacking Obama.

[Blue Owl]

26. I'm torn on Cornel West

Sometime's he's too righteous for his own good -- or the good of the country...

But he's someone who lives and dies by his own beliefs.

[Tomconroy]

27. Apparently he wasn't denied tenure.

He was in a non-tenure track position. His complaint was that the position wasn't made a tenured one just for him.