Haidt resigns in protest over ideological capture
Renowned American social psychologist, Jonathan Haidt, intends resigning from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. This is because the Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) and anti-racism commitments it requires of its members conflict with his sacred duty to tell the truth, he says.
Haidt is the Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University, author of The Coddling of the American Mind, and a founder of the Heterodox Academy,
‘Universities can have many goals…and many values (such as social justice, national service, or Christian humility), but they can have only one telos [truth], because a telos is like a North Star. It is the end, purpose, or goal around which the institution is structured,’ Haidt wrote in Heterodox: The Blog
‘As teachers I believe we have a fiduciary duty to our students’ education. As scholars I believe we have a fiduciary duty to the truth.’
Haidt says that most academic work has nothing to do with diversity. These mandatory statements force many academics to betray their quasi-fiduciary duty to the truth by ‘spinning, twisting, or otherwise inventing some tenuous connection to diversity’.
He said that conference requirements stated that ‘every psychologist who wants to present at the most important convention in our field must now say how their work advances anti-racism.’
Haidt disagrees with Ibram Kendi, a leading proponent of Critical Race Theory, that ‘The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.’
Haidt said these claims are incorrect morally because they require that people be treated as members of groups, not individuals.
Haidt will object to the new policy, but he didn’t imagine it changing.
‘I am especially dubious of the wisdom of making an academic organization more overly political in its mission, especially in the midst of a raging culture war, when trust in universities is plummeting.’
