[coldtea]

What hypocrisy.

All they care is that she is "Politically Incorrect" -- they could not care less about the facts.

Not to mention that when someone is wrong about facts you correct them, you don't fire them or ask for their condemnation. Professors are not supposed to be correct, just to probe for what's correct. In fact they should be encouraged to be boldly inquisitive and incorrect in that pursuit, and use dialog to sort out the ultimate answer.

And of course even "incorrect" ideas can be considered correct in an era -- in the 19th and up to the mid-20th century there were all kinds of facts and studies showing how some races were genetically inferior available to racists (that is: almost everybody).

Now we laugh at them, but how many similar (or even in the reverse direction) BS we take as fact because social "scientists" just put things under the rug and only give facts and statistics that are compatible with current cultural norms?

[mannykannot]

Indeed - if Prof. Klick really "[doesn't] care if Amy Wax is politically correct", why did he sign a letter that says "We categorically reject Wax’s claims", instead of refuting them? Refutation is so much more effective than condemnation.

It is strange and disturbing to see academia joining the alt-right in its attempt to resurrect a pre-enlightenment age of dogma and allegations of heresy. For academia, it is a losing proposition.

[mistermann]

> All they care is that she is "Politically Incorrect" -- they could not care less about the facts.

Remember the saying "perception is reality"? Keep that in the back of your mind, I predict it is going to become increasingly indispensable to understand events going forward in Western nations.

[gertef]

Professors are expected to have some self-awareness and avoid stating their opinions as facts.

[coldtea]

Professors are supposed to present the conclusions they've come to from their studies and work with no "self-awareness" filtering to avoid hurting anybody's feelings. Doubly so in an article, which is not a scholarly paper, and is meant to represent a broader picture with broader strokes.

And being a professor is not about only presenting raw factoids. It's also about drawing conclusions from the data and pointing to the bigger picture the way you interpret them -- a bigger picture that no data are going to give you by themselves alone. Informing the public opinion is not about being a glorified statistician.

Of course nobody would have batted an eye if a processor had done exactly the same kind of "stating of facts" for opinions they like (and that goes for "righteous indignation" both sides, left and right).

[stinkytaco]

I think in the world of economics, those are very fuzzy lines. Economics and law are full of conjecture, the belief that if one thing is true, others will probably be as well (see supply-side economics, Marxism, and so on), and the amount those views are clung to despite existing data is startling. I don't agree with the conclusions she comes to, but it's not a huge jump from what economists the Krugman do all the time.

[WillPostForFood]

I totally disagree, but it was literally an "opinion" piece in the "Opinion" section of the newspaper, so not sure what your complaint is.