It seems sad that people couldn't just refute Ms. Riley's arguments and leave it at that.

Would have been much stronger statement in an academic environment.

Guess next time we bring out the pepper-spray cop.

Cornel West got famously booted from Harvard because he wasn't producing the type of scholarship that Larry Summers wanted. Black studies didn't prevent his ouster.

Two professors at CUNY sued the school for dismissing them. Leonard Jeffries, a black bigot, teaches that whites are inferior and that Jews funded the slave trade.. Michael Levin a Jewish bigot, teaches that blacks are inferior. Both remain on the faculty after winning lawsuits challenging their dismissal. I would wonder how much scholarship is being produced in either case. Jeffries says that he doesn't write because he is to busy making history to write about history.

You might get the same as you do from having Jeffries and Levin on the faculty as you would by just inviting the head of the KKK and the head of the New Black Panthers to a debate.

Riley wrote for a journal that caters to the desires of it's audience. If a parade of Kim Kardashian and Lady Gaga stories became the norm, protest would lead to the removal of those writers (and probably editors as well). Just because Riley has a different opinion does not mean that people cannot consider Riley's point of view full of crap. The idea that the people who are glad to see Riley gone have defend their stance by posting reasons they support black studies is also crap. Riley should have taken the time to put some thought into her posts. It would have saved her supporters from having to make her arguments for her.

A discussion about merging Black Studies departments in with English or Sociology departments is an interesting point. Somehow I don't see Professor Gates going along with the proposition.

Riley was lazy and made herself open to ridicule. Her important points had to be made for her by others. Time to move on. Others will do a better job.

Naomi Schafer Riley 'firing' from a blog (a blog for heaven sakes) has been a spectacularly successful gambit on her part, and has almost certainly enhanced her qualifications as an author, or a future highly remunerated employee in the right wing echo chamber, Fox News, WSJ or other realms of the Murdoch empire. 

She got exactly the response she desired, nothing ranks up there with being too ignorant, intolerant and dismissive of academics, science, higher education, history or liberals to gain notable qualifications as a rising right wing star.

I think people should just write about whatever they want.  If they are ignorant about what they are saying and their writing is widely circulated, it is the job of better informed  people to enter the fray and refute it.   When prominent people say uninformed things in public it provides an opportunity for those with specialized knowledge of the subject in question to inject something into the national conversation during the brief moment when people are paying attention.

The problem with what Riley did Des was not that she is a generalist columnist, but she conducted a great troll didn't she, to bring notoriety on herself in an newszine for academics.

Her flame of course was making the claim that those particular subjects are nothing more than "left-wing victimization claptrap". Let's ponder those words, those are the classic troll of academics. Your stuff sucks, is basically what she wrote, without ever having read ONE dissertation on the subject she called left-wing Victimization clap trap. She read the titles though! Wow!

That truly is just a troll, it's inflammatory, it is designed to provoke and inflame the masses, and that is exactly what happened, she inflamed academics, they are the masses who read the Chronicle. She also is patently wrong in what she wrote. Left wing victimization clap trap not worthy of study, hmm really?

Could that possibly be true though? Aren't all subjects worthy of study? Otherwise why bother writing about them. Riley, was just "commenting" on the titles of dissertations coming out of the new PhD program in African-American studies at Northwestern.

1. "Catalysts for Change: A Comparative Study of Shirley Chisholm and Barbara Jordan"

Why wouldn't this be worthy of academic analysis and study? Seriously? Because Riley makes the claim it is just victimization clap trap? How can she claim that without reading the dissertation?  Huh? Chisholm  and Jordan the first African America woman to be elected to congress and the first African American woman to run for President. Where is the evidence that this dissertation is merely victimization claptrap?

2. "Strange Bedfellows: The Rise of the New (Black) Right in Post Civil Rights America"

For the life of me I can't figure how this fits in with Riley's thesis of victimization claptrap? It sounds like an interesting subject. But how on earth can we draw the conclusion that African American studies is filled with victimization claptrap from those titles of dissertations? We cannot.

I can only conclude that Riley was conducting a troll of the Chronicle's readers using typical right wing tactics to draw out critics and then claim she is the victim.  Don't defend that Des! It isn't honest writing, and it isn't an honest conclusion, it was just a flame and although that may be good at Fox, MSNBC and the Washington Times, is isn't okay at The Chronicle because the readers will not accept such criticism unless you can back that shit up. And she can't.

My two cents on this specialist versus generalist - since you brought up Milton.

Long story short, towards the end of my college days, I had to get one more lit class and the only one available that was remotely interesting was on Milton and Paradise Lost.  I hadn't read anything of his (or much from that time period), and wasn't too enthusiastic about delving into it.  But the professor, who chosen specialty was Milton, really made it interesting.  (He also has the distinction for me as the first professor who was younger than me, which was something that was hard to adjust to).

The point being, he had spent a considerable amount of time immersed into the works and the life of the author, and as a result had some considerable insights into both.  But - and this is a big but - that doesn't mean any particular insight was inherently correct or illuminating.  But - another but, yes - because of his time delving into Milton and his works, I would be more attentive (with a critical eye) to what he had to say about them, as opposed to someone else who had just read PL for the first time.

At the same time, the students in my class, as well as myself, also had some insights into how to understand the work that were just as valuable as the professors.  Out of the mouth of babes.  My own final paper was on Milton's Satan as the first scientist, and the notion that skepticism was a virtue that can come with a price and lead one down the wrong path.  It wasn't an original idea, but not one that I had seen in the commentary before it came to me.

There is a Buddhist saying that goes something like - the farmer tilling in his field is more likely to achieve enlightenment before the monk meditating in the monastery.  The immersion and focus on something does not necessarily lead to wisdom.  Sometimes we get so mired we can't see the trees from the forest.  And so on.

There will always be a tension between the expert and layman.  The truth for many subjects and issues is that one must spend some considerable time focusing on it in order to get to a point of understanding that one can consider that understanding as being informed.  Moreover, there is for many topics a prerequisite level of knowledge that is necessary to even begin to deal with it. 

To truly discuss string theory, for instance, one needs a background in mathematics that frankly only a tiny portion of the country has.  Does this mean I or others cannot weigh in on it?  No.  But whatever we say is suspect because we lack this background knowledge.  Doesn't mean what we are saying is necessarily false or off-base.  Just as the experts in the field are not necessarily speaking truths.  A point being, I can discuss string theory, but I can't call myself an expert in the field.  And in order for someone to better assess what I have to say on the matter, I shouldn't go around saying I am because I've read some articles about the topic and watched a few videos.