Imagine if a university faculty member claimed to have developed a vaccine for the common cold but refused to present her methods or evidence publicly. How would the university react? With intense suspicion.
Why? Because if an idea isn’t publicly explained, then it can’t be falsified. Falsifiability is the possibility of finding evidence that contradicts a theory’s predictions. Falsifiability is the backbone of the scientific method. If advocates don’t present their theory with enough detail to allow others to test the theory’s predictions, then the theory can’t be falsified. If a theory can’t be falsified, then it falls in the category of non-science, which includes religion, the paranormal, and hoaxes like Prof. Ranga Dias’s superconductivity discoveries at the University of Rochester.
This background is relevant to a recent panel event at Wilfrid Laurier University (Laurier), where one side declined to show up. Our Heterodox Academy Campus Community invited Dr. Frances Widdowson to speak on the topic: “What Is Indigenous Ways of Knowing (IWK) and What Is its Place in the University.”
Widdowson is a political scientist with expertise in Canadian indigenous politics. She has written multiple books and edited a collection of essays titled “Indigenizing the University.” Widdowson criticizes IWK in part because it is usually presented as a “proscribed doctrine,” which limits the academic freedom of its critics.
[RELATED: The Perils of University Indigenization]
In the spirit of viewpoint diversity and academic rigor, we wanted another panelist to explain IWK sympathetically.
Our preferred panelist was Laurier’s Associate Vice-President of Indigenous Initiatives. We invited him twice, but he ignored our emails. Then, we asked the President and Vice-President of Academic to help us find a panelist. They didn’t reply either. We also invited four Indigenous Studies faculty members who either declined or failed to respond. We couldn’t find a proponent of IWK who would appear in public.
Lacking a human, we turned to generative AI.
Specifically, we asked ChatGPT to create questions for Dr. Widdowson from the perspective of an advocate for indigenization and decolonization. As inputs, we provided ChatGPT with two YouTube video transcripts: one featuring the AVP of Indigenous Initiatives on the subject of Decolonizing Laurier and the second by Dr. Widdowson, arguing that Indigenization Destroys Academic Freedom.
The VP Academic got wind of our plans and sent me the only formal communication we ever received, a scolding email accusing us of using GenAI to impersonate an Indigenous person. In the email, the VP forbids our use of GenAI and asserts that our plan precluded any “potential for real academic engagement with ideas.” That claim rather misses the point. Having no one at the university defend the idea is what made it difficult for anyone to engage with it.
On the night of the panel, no administrator or Indigenous Studies faculty member attended (video here). Many attended another private event, which was purposely scheduled at the same time. The Laurier Indigenous Students Association organized a protest titled “We do not welcome Frances Widdowson.” They claimed that “Widdowson’s presence is harmful to BIPOC communities. She invalidates the experiences of Indigenous peoples.” At the protest, they engaged in a megaphone call-and-response, shouting “Widdowson” and answering “out.” Evidently, no one had explained the university’s commitment to free inquiry.
In summary, when invited, none of the experts on IWK agreed to present the idea to the public. They avoided our event, and their students protested it. This is not how universities are supposed to work. By not engaging in conversation, advocates of indigeneity block our ability to assess their claims. Do they expect us to accede based on their identity? That is a bad system for assessing truth claims, and it’s not science—it violates Rauch’s empirical rule that no one person or affinity group has personal authority.
The senior administration didn’t ignore our emails because they lacked expertise. On the contrary, IWK is included in the university’s collective agreement, and the new Indigenous Strategic plan calls for “[i]ncreasing the Indigenous content across all disciplines.”
The plan also calls for “decolonization,” defined as the “Overhaul of knowledge production to balance power between Indigenous and Western ways of knowing.” In other words, the plan aims to supplant the scientific method with something they won’t explain in public.
[RELATED: “Indigenization Has Poisoned Mount Royal University’s Academic Environment”]
Decolonization advocates will claim that my criticism is privilege-preserving pushback. Another example of Western ways of knowing hegemonically oppressing Indigenous ways of knowing. But that’s a self-serving Kafka trap, which is a rhetorical trick to avoid criticism. It works like this: I question the nature of your oppressed identity (e.g., your way of knowing), and you complain that my question is an example of your oppression.
This begs the question: how are truth claims adjudicated under the decolonial framework? If advocates won’t tell us, then how can we decide if ‘overhauling’ the university is a good idea?
Apparently, faculty aren’t invited to participate in this decision. As their response to our invitation reveals, indigenization and decolonization advocates don’t want to persuade. They are bringing revolutionary change to the university. They say so in the strategic plan and in their published writing. They aren’t going to make their case in public, and you had better not ask questions, or you might end up like Frances Widdowson, fired from your tenured position.
This isn’t how universities ought to work. The purpose of universities is learning. The method of learning is founded on rationality, free inquiry, and falsifiability. Areas of inquiry that eschew those foundations fall in the category of non-science and don’t belong at the university. They belong in seminaries, which are institutions that teach topics where foundational questions can’t be asked.
When a university creates non-science departments, places adherents in administrative positions, and strategizes about converting to non-science, then it abandons its telos. A university that abandons its telos is a bad university. If it is publicly funded, and the public discovers the bait and switch, then the public will vote to withhold funding. This is what awaits Canadian universities that follow the path of Wilfrid Laurier University. It is time for Provincial governments to wake up and insist that their universities focus on the search for truth, not on social justice and decolonization.
Image of Laurier’s landmark sign, at the corner of King Street North and Bricker Avenue by GatorEG on Wikipedia
This article was originally published at www.mindingthecampus.org
