When news surfaced that a research institute was to be established at the University of Chicago in honor of the late Nobel-prize winning economist Milton Friedman, nearly 100 faculty members signed a petition, “objecting to any such enterprise that might place a stamp of approval on Professor Friedman’s economic theories,” according to James Piereson, reporting on the newcriterion.com.
One of the major gripes was that this choice “would signal to the outside world that Chicago’s faculty ‘lacks intellectual and ideological diversity’” when in fact it implies “that the left leaning faculty . . . are made uncomfortable and fearful by the presence in their midst of competing points of view.”
Leading this protest is Divinity School professor Bruce Lincoln, whose interests run to “left-wing politics and popular culture.” Roger Kimball noted that according to Prof. Lincoln’s faculty website, he writes on a variety of topics such as “Guatemalan curanderismo, Lakota sun dances, Melanesian funerary rituals, Swazi kingship, Marco Polo, professional wrestling, and the theology of George W. Bush.”
According to James Piereson, “the question here is not really whether or not the University of Chicago should have a center named for Milton Friedman, but whether or not it deserves to have one,” what with the likes of Professor Lincoln leading a group of rabble rousers against it.
Deborah Lambert writes the Squeaky Chalk column for Accuracy in Academia.
