In five hastily conceived paragraphs, a White conservative blogger threw cold water on the warmly received dissertations presented by three African-American Ph.D. candidates at an academic conference last month.
Naomi Schaefer Riley, an affiliate scholar of the Institute for American Values, a New York-based conservative think tank, ripped into the scholarly research of the Northwestern University doctoral students after reading summaries of their work in story by a Chronicle of Higher Education reporter. Calling the dissertations “a collection of left-wing victimization claptrap,” Riley, then a contributor to the Chronicle’s “Brainstorm” blog, cited them as evidence that the entire Black studies discipline should be eliminated.
The three students’ research was presented at “A Beautiful Struggle: Transformative Black Studies in Shifting Political Landscapes — A Summit of Doctoral Programs,” put on by Northwestern University’s Department of African American Studies in mid-April.
Almost immediately, other scholars, supporters and, indeed, the entire Department of African American Studies faculty at Northwestern responded to the post, coming to the defense of the students.
In a letter to the Chronicle, the Northwestern faculty said they rejected “the amateurish attack by Ms. Riley” on its students. “To write such disparaging comments about young scholars and their expressions of intellectual curiosity is cowardly, uninformed, irresponsible, repugnant, and contrary to the mission of higher education,” the letter said.
Meanwhile, the outpouring of support grew, with an online petition demanding that the Chronicle fire Riley. Within several days, the petition collected more than 6,600 signatures.
Keeanaga-Yamahtta Taylor, a fifth-year doctoral student at Northwestern, whose dissertation, “Race for Profit: Black Housing and the Urban Crisis of the 1970s,” was cited in the post, said that “right-wingers are always going after Black studies.” Yet what disturbed Taylor most was “the level of vitriol that was written by someone who had not even bothered to read” the dissertations, which are still works in progress.
