Peak Woke at GMU: A Belated Critique

A relic from the Moral Panic of 2020, now that the fear has somewhat subsided

In late 2020, George Mason University publicly released this statement on behalf of the Presidential Task Force on Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence. (Archived here in case GMU tries to flush it down the memory hole). When I first received the statement via email, I was stunned.

I’d long known that the GMU administration leaned left. Two weird departments aside, GMU has been an ideologically typical university for many decades. But to the best of my knowledge, GMU’s leadership had never before openly pledged our collective allegiance to wokeness. The available pdf says “DRAFT,” but make no mistake: During the Moral Panic of 2020, the statement was promulgated as official doctrine.

At the time, I was a little too scared to publicly oppose the outrageous behavior of Virginia’s largest public university. George Mason was already persecuting a close friend, and I didn’t want to be next. Since the authoritarian tide has temporarily receded, I’m now going to do what I should have done back in 2020: critique the statement line-by-line.

The original words of the Task Force are in blockquotes; I’m not.

The Presidential Initiative on Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence (ARIE) is established to ensure that George Mason University, (Mason), creates an inclusive and equitable campus environment in which every member of our community, without exception, is valued, supported, and experiences a sense of belonging. 

This is blatant Social Desirability Bias. There never was — and never shall be — any way to “ensure” such a utopian outcome. Indeed, these words are self-defeating, because they instantly make many members of our community, myself included, feel excluded and mistreated. Why? Because you’re making a thinly-veiled accusation that anyone who rejects your ideology is guilty of treating other people unfairly.

The primary purpose of this initiative is to position the university to become a national exemplar of anti-racism and inclusive excellence through its own reconciliation work.  The initiative will place Mason on a long-term trajectory that is transformative and sustainable.

The ARIE initiative will be led and conducted by a task force appointed by the president.  The work of the task force will be broken into six committees, where much of the work will be done.  The task force will be governed by an executive steering committee, also appointed by the president.  

Vision:   George Mason University will become a national exemplar of anti-racism and inclusive excellence.

Why “anti-racism” but not “anti-totalitarianism,” “anti-communism,” “anti-misanthropy,” “anti-irrationality” “anti-poverty,” or “anti-broken-families”? This prioritization only makes sense if racism is in fact our society’s top problem. Which is, at minimum, totally debatable.

Honestly, the only reason GMU’s leadership even considered making this statement was the occurrence of a few ultra-high-profile cases of police brutality, especially the George Floyd incident. Which, in a country with hundreds of millions of people, is a totally innumerate way to rank problems. The truth is that police killings of unarmed black suspects is ultra-rare.

Mission

• Develop and implement effective systems, practices and traditions that eradicate racism and bigotry at Mason.

Call me paranoid, but how can you “eradicate” such a thing without severe violations of free speech and academic freedom? And regardless of your definition of “racism and bigotry,” their “eradication” will require mountains of false positives. After all, to fully eradicate X, you must eradicate anything with a 10%, 1%, or .0001% chance of being X.

Even if you softened the language from “eradicate” to “discourage,” you would be committing yourself to severe violations of free speech and academic freedom, especially if you have expansive notions of “racism” and “bigotry.” And what about the view that race-based admissions and hiring is racism and bigotry? Has this widespread view been officially declared to be false, or what?

• Prevent racist practices from regenerating through the establishment.

You can’t “prevent regeneration” of something that doesn’t exist. So what exactly was the evidence that “racist practices” were alive at GMU in 2020? A few statistically irrelevant news stories?

• Establish Mason as a community, commonwealth, regional, and national resource for the advancement of anti-racism, reconciliation, and healing. 

This is another thinly-veiled accusation of severe prior wrong-doing by GMU, the United States, and everywhere in between. Without a shred of statistically meaningful evidence.

Tenets:  

• Mason will be deliberate in establishing an inclusive environment in which all members of the campus community are welcomed and supported; experience a sense of belonging; and differing perspectives are valued and encouraged.

Including my “differing perspective” that these “tenets” are Orwellian dogma?

• Mason is committed to equal opportunity across the board, and will aggressively challenge and respond to bias, discrimination, and harassment.

This again requires severe violations of free speech and academic freedom, especially given expansive notions of “bias,” “discrimination,” and “harassment.” And what about the view that “aggressively challenging” whatever the administration calls “bias, discrimination, and harassment” is bias, discrimination, and harassment? Has this view been officially endorsed, or what?

• Anti-racism and inclusive excellence will be foundational in every program, process, policy, and procedure at Mason.

How can you make one controversial philosophy “foundational” without severe violations of free speech and academic freedom? Does this mean, for example, that I cannot teach my students about the economics of discrimination? The effect of IQ on earnings? Must I renounce my book Don’t Be a Feminist? Shall I be fired for my heresies? Cut off from my students? Or what?

Finally, the task force will develop and promote anti-racism and inclusive excellence strategies and best practices, as well as develop metrics to measure progress.   

The work of the task force will be anchored in the existing work across campus to ensure its greatest collective impact.  The work will actively lean on the scholarly, teaching and learning, and administrative expertise that exists within Mason’s colleges and schools around issues of diversity, inclusion, equity and social justice, conflict resolution and analysis, and the histories and social identities of individuals from marginalized groups. 

Translation: The administration anoints its most fanatically leftist faculty as “experts.”

The task force will be inclusive of Mason’s full diversity of students, faculty, staff, and alumni. It will consist of subject matter experts from across the university, and may draw on the expertise of community and national leaders in the areas of anti-racism and inclusive excellence.

Can a staunch critic of these views still count as an “expert”? It sure doesn’t sound like it.

II. Committees: Initially, the work of the task force will be divided into the following six committees: training and development, campus and community engagement, university policies and practices, student voices, curriculum, and research. Additional committees/subcommittees may be added as the work of the task force progresses… Members will review all aspects of the University and propose recommendations that contribute to institutional transformation.  

[…] 

D. Curriculum & Pedagogy:  The curriculum and pedagogy committee is charged with recommending, helping to develop, and/or expanding current curriculum that prepare students to not only understand and address systemic racism and values a multi-cultural world,  But also a curriculum that is in intentionally inclusive of the diverse scholars and voices that contribute to the academy. 

If you still doubt that GMU’s proposed “Just Societies” requirement is thinly-veiled woke brainwashing, doubt no more.

F. Research:  The research committee will promote an inclusive community that advances the meaningful contributions of diverse perspectives and views to the research, scholarship and creative activities of the campus community. This committee will establish guidelines and work with colleges and schools to promote diversity and inclusion in all areas of research, scholarship and creative activities across campus.

An optimist will read this woke catechism and say, “We dodged a bullet. Saner heads prevailed.” Maybe, but why not instead conclude: “This was GMU’s leadership with the mask off”? When they can’t get away with open fanaticism, they talk about open-minded discussion… with themselves as discussion leaders. When they can get away with fanaticism, however, they preach their One True Way with demented zeal.