Friday, June 29, 2007
Timothy R. Furnish got a close up and personal experience with how ideological the university hiring process can be when he was told by one member of the search committee that he "appeared to be more conservative than others in [his] field," and that he "sounded like Daniel Pipes!": Colleges Score Perfect Grade In Liberal Bias
Everything had gone well: my 75-minute PowerPoint lecture to a class studying early Islamic history, subsequent interviews with the department chair and dean — I was on a roll.
Then I was outed. During a meeting with the search committee, a professor produced irrefutable evidence that I "appeared to be more conservative than others in my field."
Worse, the evidence gave him the weapon he needed to deliver the coup de grace: "You sounded like Daniel Pipes!"...
...The professor had in hand a two-year-old article, titled "7 Myths about Islam," that I wrote for the History News Network, a Web site run by George Mason University at which professional historians and history buffs read, write and debate myriad topics.
In the article, I argued against seven pious falsehoods about Islam that the mainstream media treat as historical facts: Islam is the world's fastest-growing religion; Islam was spread only through peaceful means; poverty produces Muslim terrorists; jihad does not mean holy war...
Much more (except the names darnit!).
1 Comment
Leave a comment to: 'You sounded like Daniel Pipes!' No Job for You!
Comment Info and Policy:
1) You must have Javascript enabled in your browser in order to comment (blame the spammers). If you don't know what that is, you're probably fine.
2) HTML is on, so basic html should work. Raw links will be made auto-clickable, too, so even if you don't know html you can just paste in the link and it should work fine. Keep the "http://" in it.
3) Comments are generally unmoderated, which means I don't necessarily agree with the tone and tenor of everything posted. In fact, sometimes people post things they don't really mean just to make other people look bad. The internet is an anonymous place for the most part. That said...
4) I welcome you to post here. I'd love to have your input, agree, disagree or just offer a different data point, really. If I didn't want any participation, I'd turn off comments. Be aware, however, that this blog and the comments section exist for my entertainment. Therefore, I reserve ALL RIGHTS here, including the right to remove any or all comments on nothing more than a whim. Please don't even bother complaining. I'm the one providing the space and the free news and thought buffet. I don't owe anyone anything.
Anyone who posts here will be treated as my guest. That means I'm happy to be polite as a default, but if anyone is rude to the host they'll be unceremoniously shown the door.
It may pay to recall a famous line from the Tom Selleck magnum opus, Mr. Baseball: "Jack-san, you want Yoji's advice about the babes, you come to Yoji with respect."
5) Enjoy your stay!
Mmmm... The guy comes across less as Martin Kramer than as a relatively literate and sane LGF commenter. I'm not astonished he's not getting offered faculty positions, although his book appears (at least from a glance at the Amazon page) to be real scholarship.