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All right, folks, let’s gather round and take a good look at @johnddavidson’s recent op-ed for The Federalist, which takes aim at one of his fellow Hillsdale College alums for what he views as unfair criticism of the college’s racial history. https://thefederalist.com/2020/07/28/no-hillsdale-college-doesnt-need-to-join-the-national-reckoning-on-race/
(I tried to do this last night, after far too much alcohol, and deleted it the next morning, after discovering it was just as caustic, illogical, and self-important as drunk me tends to be, so please accept my apologies, the 10 or so of you who happened to read it, and John.)
Here’s the background gist: a number of alumni, including myself, I have petitioned the college to address the ongoing BLM protests. The college’s response was swift, & reprinted heavily in conservative publication, including the WSJ, without links to the original petitions...
(Davidson, to his credit, did post a link, but I believe he might be the first.) The best take I’ve seen so far has been this article from journalist Liz Whyte. It’s fair, balanced, and kind. Davidson vehemently disagrees. He’s wrong. Let’s take a look https://thebulwark.com/hillsdale-must-join-the-national-reckoning-on-race/
Let’s start with the big stuff. Whyte interviewed 10 black alums, and seven had had racist interactions with white Hillsdale students during their time, at least one of which appeared in the school newspaper. This is Davidson’s critique. Read closely
Of 7 separate testimonies about racism at Hillsdale, Davidson focuses not on the one that’s documented _in_the_school_paper_itself, but on one we can’t verify, pretending it’s representative of the rest. There’s 2 problems here, and the biggest is this: it’s systemically racist.
Before any conservative goes nuts and accuses me of just calling Davidson racist, I’m not. I’m sure he’s very kind in person. But Davidson also doesn’t believe that systemic racism exists. So, @johnddavidson, here is an excellent example of how systemic racism works...
@johnddavidson, you’re not personally racist, but you’re also saying you won’t believe the testimony of a black Hillsdale student unless his testimony can be corroborated, based solely on the idea that Hillsdale has never had racism. That’s just stupid.
You are more than willing to believe the accounts of black students who have had positive experiences. Why would you insist on a much higher standard for accounts of a negative experience? That separate standard is systemic racism, the thing you insist doesn’t exist.
It’s prejudice without personal hatred. You instinctively asked for a higher standard of proof for the testimony you didn’t like, based solely on the idea that Hillsdale has never had problems with racism. The outcome is still racist, even if you’re not. That’s systemic racism
(The other is smaller, but as a journalist, you should know better than to automatically disbelieve sources that tell you something you don’t like. That’s just not good journalism. Ask Whyte.)
Let’s mone on. This one is just funny – John, VP Pence spoke at graduation. Hannity and Limbaugh advertise regularly for the college. Dr. Arnn praises Trump in regular intervals on Hugh Hewitt. If you can’t figure out why people think Hillsdale is a Trump-connected college...dude
This one takes some unpacking, but it’s worth it. Gildersleeve was a Confederate soldier who later became a respected classicist. He was unapologetically pro-Confederate decades later, as well as anti-Semitic.
The problem here isn’t his racism - studying primary sources will bring you to a lot of that - but that his essay is endorsed as having “universal validity.“ John says that’s not an endorsement. He then insists that it _does_have universal validity, which is another endorsement.
In short, if you’re doing proper history, saying that a primary source has “universal validity“ is basically a way to endorse the source with what is essentially a meaningless turn of phrase. Gildersleeve’s Lost Cause rhetoric appears more valid as a result.
The reason I bring this up at all is because Davidson digs in even deeper. Gildersleeve‘s inclusion, he argues, is negated because a separate course on the constitution explains why the Lost Cause rhetoric was technically wrong. Think about this for a moment:
John is saying that this reading for history class doesn’t matter, because a separate class explains that the reading is technically incorrect. But that misses the point entirely. Including Gildersleeve as a universally valid representative leaves students with the impression...
... that the Lost Cause rhetoric effectively describes why the south went to war. It also places three other primary reasons in the background, where they do not belong - white supremacy, greed, and hatred. No amount of technical quibbling in a constitution class fixes that
Last one, and then I’ll stop, although there are plenty more problems with Davidson’s op-ed. Here’s his take on Whyte’s documentation of Hillsdale’s guest speakers. Davidson doesn’t think Whyte is being fair to Kimball. Believe me, she’s being more than fair
I read Kimball carefully, and after coming to Trump’s defense for Charlottesville, there’s one glaring problem - Kimball doesn’t appear to know that most Confederate monuments were built in response to civil rights gains, not to promote history. That’s a big, lazy miss
Besides, if Davidson wanted a better example of an alt-right speaker at Hillsdale, he should have just discussed racist Jared Taylor. I can’t take you seriously if you ignore the editor of a racist magazine when discussing how Hillsdale’s guest speakers are not alt-right friendly
Students were furious, and pushed back in the best way. Here’s an op-ed in the Collegian berating the college for inviting such a racist to speak. (I only have this because of Whyte’s excellent journalism and careful documentation of sources.)
@johnddavidson, was it inappropriate for this student to call out the college in this way? And how is that different from what many of our fellow alumni are doing?
If Hillsdale students can speak out against the college’s decisions back then, why not now?
If Hillsdale students can speak out against the college’s decisions back then, why not now?
