Elites Fight the Truth

Harvard racially discriminates against Asians and whites. A federal judge decided to call this legal because diversity is a “compelling interest” necessary for a quality education. Yet Harvard claimed to value “many kinds of diversity,” including “political views.”

If so, it’s doing a poor job embracing diversity. There are almost no conservatives among students or faculty. Harvard produces whites (often Jews), Asians, blacks, and Hispanics who believe the same things: a multiracial conformist blob.

Many journalists are happy to enforce conformity. “Free speech is killing us,” declares Andrew Marantz in the New York Times. He argues against “unchecked” free speech, approvingly noting that “some of the most egregious actors, such as Alex Jones and Milo Yiannopoulos, have been permanently banned from all major platforms.” If mild figures like Mr. Jones and Mr. Yiannopoulos are too dangerous to be allowed a platform, no one right-of-center is safe.

Mr. Marantz cites Christchurch, Charlottesville, and other sensational cases to justify his call for censorship. Yet the most recent FBI statistics show blacks are about eight times more likely than the rest of the population to commit homicide. When Google produced an AI algorithm to detect “hate speech” online, it found blacks use more “hate speech” than whites. Media outlets argued that the AI was biased.

Many journalists and academics have it backwards. Whites are in danger from “black bodies.” If “hate speech” leads to violence and “stochastic terrorism” is real, we need to censor many verified Twitter accounts. They’re promoting hatred of (and therefore violence) against whites.

Of course, this won’t happen. It won’t happen because cultural power flows from the top down through elite universities and mass media. Media bias is constant. Yet few people understand the desperate situation on college campuses.

A 2018 study reports more than half of college students “think colleges and universities should be able to restrict student expression of political views that are hurtful or offensive to certain students.” Blacks favor censorship more than whites.

Also in 2018, Eric Levitz in New York Magazine wrote that “colleges don’t need more Republican professors.” He said the Republican Party “has grown increasingly tolerant of proto-authoritarian attempts to politicize federal law enforcement, restrict access to the ballot, stigmatize dissent, demonize vulnerable minority populations and vilify higher education.” These are surprising claims when the Trump Justice Department works with antifa to prosecute nationalists, right-wing dissent can cost you your bank account, and many people (including the probable Democratic nominee) faked being part of “vulnerable minority populations” to get preferential treatment. Mr. Levitz condemns the GOP’s “ethno-nationalist demagogy” among other failings. He says it is “fundamentally irreconcilable with the bedrock (small-l) liberal values of toleration, empiricism, universal suffrage, and equality before the law.”

Mr. Levitz should reexamine his values. Tolerance? Studies show that liberals are far more likely to end friendships over politics.

“Universal suffrage” has existed for a relatively short time, and we still limit the franchise based on citizenship, age, and other factors. And no one in the GOP is proposing that it be limited further.

“Equality before the law” is a myth. America has a complex, ever-evolving caste system in which Americans compete for victim status so they can receive government-mandated preferences in jobs and education. Thanks to “critical law theory,” a verdict or sentence in today’s courtrooms often depends on race and political opinions.

Which brings us to empiricism, or the scientific pursuit of objective truth through evidence. What happens if you present evidence of biological racial differences on a university campus? What happens if you discuss cultural differences, or even whether some cultures are better than others? Ask Amy Wax, Charles Murray, or the late Phillippe Rushton. Investigating racial differences is impossible on a university campus because egalitarianism is not an “empirical” truth, but a theological belief.

Race is real and has consequences. Indeed, the Harvard decision allowing racial discrimination implicitly admits this. Without affirmative action, Asians and whites would dominate the school. Yet this is a forbidden truth at Harvard. It’s like denying the Trinity during the Middle Ages.

Outside the STEM fields, modern universities do not investigate truth. They establish orthodoxy and assign opinions. They function like finishing schools. Students learn what they should and should not say if they want to get rich. The quickest path to elitism is preaching equality.

Until recently, we could freely discuss questions of truth online. It’s much harder now. It’s impossible on campus.

If most journalists and academics have their way, it will be impossible on the Internet too. President Donald Trump calls “fake news” reporters “enemies of the people.” I’d put it differently: They are enemies of truth.