Cancel Culture!

At this point, I just assume that most of the people whining about “cancel culture” in fact have some personal skeletons in the closet that would come out with any basic investigation. For example, Princeton professor Joshua Katz. Here’s an article from John McWhorter, who is the worst, from January 29.

But awkward and painful as it may be, they must. They must resist destructive demands, even by self-proclaimed representatives of people of color, and even in a society where systemic racism is real. To give in to anti-intellectual, under-considered, disproportionate, or hostile demands is condescending to the signatories and the protesters. It implies that they can do no better, and that authorities must suspend their sense of logic, civility, and progress as some kind of penance for slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, and the deaths of people such as Floyd. That “penance” would hurt only the community in the end, through lower educational quality.

Thus the model must be classics professor Joshua Katz at Princeton, who last summer took issue with the Princeton letter in a Quillette article, pointing out that the demands would lead to “civil war on campus,” and calling out a Black student association that serially harassed several Black students who disagreed with its philosophy. (Inadvisedly, he referred to the association as a “terrorist” group.) Predictable calls on social media for his dismissal were not successful because his tenure would have made it difficult, but in September, the American Council of Learned Societies withdrew his recent appointment as one of the federation’s two delegates to the Union Académique Internationale, on the basis of the social-media response to his article.

Katz is suing the ACLS. He is not an exemplar of white fragility, but a model for the future, in arguing for the very survival of the institution to which he has dedicated a career. He does not deserve to have honors stripped away from him for the service.

The writers of manifestos might classify resistance as racist, denialist backlash. But the civil, firm dismissal of irrational demands is, rather, a kind of civic valor. School officials must attend to the fine line between enlightenment and cowardice—for the benefit of not only themselves, but the Black people they see themselves as protecting.

About our model, the brave and noble defender of western civilization Joshua Katz:

Katz has won awards for his teaching, designed academic programs that foster close relationships between faculty and students, and positioned himself as a gatekeeper for prestigious postgraduate fellowships, such as the Rhodes and Marshall scholarships.

But an investigation by The Daily Princetonian has uncovered allegations that Katz crossed professional boundaries with three of his female students.

In the first instance, eight alumni said that Katz engaged in a romantic relationship with their friend, an undergraduate advisee of his in the mid-2000s, and three of the eight said the student told them Katz had sex with her. Such a relationship, if confirmed, would violate both current University policies and those in place at the time.

In the other two, the former students did not say that Katz engaged in any sexual behavior with them, but assert that he behaved inappropriately.

Princeton has long boasted of a culture of close mentorship between faculty and undergraduate students. As early as first-year orientation, students are encouraged to bond with professors during office hours, invite faculty to meals, and develop rapport with advisors. While many view this culture as fundamental to learning, the women interviewed for this story believe Katz exploited it to blur — and ultimately cross — professional lines with students.

The ‘Prince’ gave the mid-2000s advisee, referred to in this story as Jane, a first-name pseudonym due to privacy concerns. Jane declined to be interviewed for this story, but eight alumni whom she confided in at the time shared details of Jane’s account. The two other alumnae, given the pseudonyms Clara and Bella, expressed fears of professional consequences for speaking out and agreed to speak to the ‘Prince’ on the condition that their names and class years not be disclosed.

Clara, who attended Princeton after Jane graduated, told the ‘Prince’ that Katz pursued her while she was a student. For over a year, she alleges, he brought her gifts, commented on her appearance, and paid for expensive off-campus dinners.

“I would say that in my own experience, ‘repeated boundary violations’ characterizes the relationship I had with him,” Clara said.

The third student, Bella, said that Katz asked her on what she understood to be a date while she was a student in his class, and paid for their dinner and wine at an upscale restaurant in Princeton during that semester’s exam period.

Hmmmm…..

In the mid-2000s, Katz engaged in a multi-year relationship with Jane, a female undergraduate student in the classics department, according to eight alumni with direct knowledge of the relationship.

“Joshua Katz was in what I would call a relationship with a friend of mine that was exploitative,” said Maryam Khan ’08, a close friend who Jane confided in about the relationship while they were students.

At the time, University policy on faculty-student relationships stated, “[w]hen a sexual or romantic relationship involves individuals in a teacher-student relationship (e.g. being directly or indirectly taught, supervised or evaluated) or involves any element of coercion, harassment, bargaining for educational favors, or the like, it is a clear and most serious violation of both University and professional standards.”

In early 2016, the University expanded the policy to unconditionally state: “Faculty members shall not initiate or engage in romantic or sexual behavior with undergraduate or graduate students.”

When Jane and Katz first met, she was 19 and he was in his mid-30s. She took her first class with Katz in the spring of her first year, according to two friends in the same class.

“I remember things getting weird by like, midterms,” said Dabby, one of the two friends. She remembered feeling uncomfortable one night in particular: Jane grew upset while the pair studied in a campus library after dinner, and Katz “rushed in” to comfort her.

During Jane’s sophomore year, a third alumnus, who was also in the classics department, recalled growing concerned about the relationship.

“[Jane] said at the time that she felt like she was getting very emotionally attached to him … it seemed it was really weighing on her,” he recalled. “I remember being like, ‘This seems beyond a typical mentor relationship.’”

As an RCA at the time, the alumnus was unsure if he was obligated to report the situation, but ultimately chose to bring the concerns to his residential college dean. The alumnus did not recall if the dean ever followed up with him.

The dean did not respond to a request for comment.

By Jane’s junior year, Katz had taught her in multiple courses and was advising her on a junior paper, according to a fourth and fifth alumni who were Jane’s friends. He later became her thesis advisor and taught her in a custom one-on-one course during her senior year, according to a course catalog that mentions the class and a University document that discloses the student’s enrollment.

Students close to Jane believed that Katz was exerting increasing influence over her life.

“It seemed her academic and personal life were very wrapped up in what Katz suggested,” a sixth alumna said. “[It was] like, ‘Joshua said I should do this, Joshua said I should do that.”

By the summer after Jane’s junior year, Khan and two other alumni recalled, Jane confided in them that the relationship had become sexual. Throughout her senior year, the pair were seen dining together at Jane’s eating club and in residential college dining halls.

A seventh alumnus, who belonged to Jane’s eating club, remembered that she would often “go through the line to get a plate of food” to bring to Katz’s office. “She felt that he wasn’t going to eat if she didn’t bring food to him,” the alumnus said, an account five others confirmed.

Khan described the relationship as “unequal in terms of power” and “emotionally abusive,” a characterization three others also used.

“I would absolutely, 100 percent say that there was a certain amount of manipulation and serious taking-advantage-of that was happening in this relationship,” Khan said.

Color me extra shocked that Katz is a classicist. [More in terms of the reactionary politics and general bad behavior than sexual harassment of students per se, since some commenters are misinterpreting this]

I wonder what skeletons are in Bret Stephens’ closet.