It’s good that I’ve recused myself from all hiring committees here at the University of Lethbridge, because if I hadn’t I’d worry I might succumb to overkill and vote against any candidate who wasn’t able-bodied, heterosexual, white, and male. “Huh?!”… Read More ›
sjw
REQUIEM FOR THE UNIVERSITY
Universities are like any other institution. They evolve, they devolve. Sometimes they rise out of the ashes, and sometimes they go the way of the dodo bird. But they always morph. So though I’ve recently come to co-awfulise with my… Read More ›
WATCH YOUR METAPHORS!
People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. So policy statements targeting the unwoke for their micro-aggressions should be especially careful about their own metaphors. Hereafter there shall be no wilful ‘blindness’. No longer should we ‘stand up’ for… Read More ›
THE BANALITY OF THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF GENDER
Every now and then we all have one of those wait-a-minute moments. It’s when someone’s been trying to slide one over on us, but all of a sudden we notice. The latest, at least for me, is this mantra that… Read More ›
GENDER DYSPHORIA
A few years back the feminist philosophy journal Hypatia published a paper by Rebecca Tuvel in which she wondered, if one can be trans-gendered, why not trans-racial? So one has to either deny one can be trans-gendered, or else deny that… Read More ›
DEFUNDING THE POLICE
There’s a movement afoot in America, one that predates the current fuss over the George Floyd killing, to defund the police, if not entirely then certainly by some amount in excess of just a little. If we want to reduce… Read More ›
A DEFENCE OF BIGOTRY
If I were born blind, I’d have no idea what colour I am. Or even that people come in different colours. I’d only know about it if someone told me about it. As it happens I wasn’t born blind. But even then… Read More ›
SAFE SPACES
I’m not sure that academia attracts heresy. Rather I suspect it’s tenure that generates it. In fact since we’re all, by definition, catholic, without the threat of hell – or in our case unemployment – we’d probably all think unclean… Read More ›
THE UCP GOVERNMENT’S FREE EXPRESSION PROPOSAL
It’s rare that I find myself expressing unqualified support for a piece of legislation that the government, or so I hope, is about to enact.. But the UCP’s proposal for An Act to Protect Free Expression at Alberta’s Public Colleges… Read More ›
PERSONALIZED PRONOUNS
I’m old enough to remember when ‘Ms’ was introduced so that women didn’t have to gratuitously announce their marital status to all and sundry. So I have no objection to our language being altered to serve a laudable political objective…. Read More ›
