Even Chemistry Profs Get Cancelled

The Woke Troubles Of Brock University

Brock University

From Mark Mercer, Ph.D. - Professor at St. Mary's University and President of the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship:

On 5 June 2020, an editorial by Brock University chemistry professor Tomáš Hudlický appeared in the academic journal Angewandte Chemie. Dr Hudlický wrote that progress in his field, organic-synthesis chemistry, has been disappointing in the past thirty years. Two of the eight factors that Dr Hudlický said have likely contributed are diversity, inclusion and equity policies and goals, and difficulties professors these days face in properly mentoring students.

Dr Hudlický might very well have been wrong. Those who disagreed with him were welcome to publish their criticisms of his arguments and to make arguments of their own. Instead, they formed a cancel mob.

Following an outcry, Angewandte Chemie removed the article from the journal. (It's available on the website of the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship.) Brock University issued statements saying Dr Hudlický had performed a disservice to Brock and assured members of the Brock community that the university feels their pain. A special issue of a chemistry journal to celebrate Dr Hudlický’s work in organic-synthesis chemistry was cancelled.

Dr Hudlický used to receive between ten and fifteen requests a year from chemistry journals to review submissions. He has received no requests since June 2020, despite the fact that chemists have recommended him as a reviewer.

An editor for a journal associated with the American Chemical Society recently expressed to the organizers of an upcoming conference her disappointment that Dr Hudlický is on the program.

Institutions of chemistry that blackball a chemist for his critical views of current practices are saying to the world that they don’t really care that much about chemistry itself. Sadly, it is not uncommon in universities to find that the institutions one would hope would house and protect a practice in fact despise that practice.

— Mark Mercer

Here is a link to the SAFS page containing a comprehensive listing of published articles, letters and statements related to Tomáš’ case.

In SAFS letter to the Brock University Provost, responding to an open letter the Provost’s office had published previously regarding Tomáš, Mark Mercer made a compelling point:

“As well, because the letter supposes students could be alarmed by hearing views about teaching and the teacher-student relation and that students might need support and assistance, it belittles students by failing to treat them as apprentice scholars able to engage in critical discussion for themselves.”

We have covered Diversity, Equity and Inclusion here on Woke Watch Canada in the essay Profits of Division: The Unfair Equity Of The Diversity & Inclusion Industry, we have also covered the Fragility of Anti-Racisim. James Pew, author of these two essays, has also written on his substack The Turn about Pat Kambhampati (another professor in the sciences critical of diversity, equity and inclusion policies) who made headlines last November after being denied research funding because of his unwillingness to depart from his belief that merit, not diversity, equity and inclusion, is an essential value and priority in STEM fields.

We asked James to reach out to professor Kambhampati for comment on the utility of diversity, equity and inclusion in STEM. Here is the professors response:

“I never read the full Hudlicky paper but it seemed fairly innocuous and reasonable as per what most people in the world think. It was inconsistent with the beliefs of PC SJW activist scholars who do not represent most people at all. I outright reject their claim to moral high ground as well as speaking for anyone other than their minority views.

I indeed think that DIE is killing of STEM and industry and Art and Music and much of western civilization. I think it is merely Cultural Marxism to parallel Economic Marxism of USSR etc.

STEM does not need DIE. STEM works by merit and merit alone. Diversity does not help STEM any more than diversity helped the Beatles and the Stones do what they did. It was  a gathering of like minded people and that is where greatness comes from. Not from making groups look like the census.”

As Mark Mercer stated, Tomáš could be wrong in his views. Pat could also be wrong. But both men have been harmed (for real) for disagreeing with an ideology that considers any dissent from its tenets as “harmful.” Many people, perhaps the majority of people, also hold what the woke consider “harmful views.”

Tomáš and Pat’s careers and research has suffered because of their disagreements with the woke. Everyone suffers for it. We need to put these scientists back to work, give them their funding, lose the diversity, equity and inclusion, and leave them alone…we need these guys focused on inventing the things that allow our civilization to carry on and to be optimized under the increasing complexity of the global challenges we face. We need these guys solving the big problems!

I’m sure we can all agree that STEM fields produce many important technological solutions that meet the imperatives of modern survival, and that this work is far more important than the imperatives of diversity, equity and inclusion.