A firing at Bakersfield College shows that tenure is no match for leftist orthodoxy.
Every so often, one of our college leaders blurts out the truth about their feelings and beliefs. In their public pronouncements, they always try to appear reasonable, when they’re actually intolerant and belligerent.
That’s exactly what happened at Bakersfield College (BC) in California.
The story begins in 2021, when a group of faculty members at the school, disturbed at the inroads the DEI movement was making, formed the Renegade Institute for Liberty (RIL). Their purpose was “to promote diversity of thought and intellectual literacy through free and open discussion of American ideals including civil, economic, and religious freedom.” That amounted to waving a red flag in front of the DEI bull, since diversity zealots have no use for any of those concepts.
The conflict erupted last October at a meeting of the BC Equal Opportunity & Diversity Advisory Committee. History professor Matthew Garrett, who has tenure, voiced his opposition to a “racial-climate survey” on the grounds that it had been poorly done and was a weak justification for the creation of a new diversity task force that would undercut the authority of the existing committee.
Diversity zealots have no use for free and open discussion of American ideals.
An interesting detail is that members of RIL had succeeded in obtaining some of the seats on that committee by applying for them at midnight on the first day they came open. The DEI community at BC was furious, but the tactic was perfectly legitimate.
Professor Garrett had previously incurred the wrath of the BC administration. In 2019, he criticized it for improperly allocating funds, naming several of the individuals involved. BC hit back at him with an “investigation” and by alleging that he had engaged in “unprofessional conduct.” That led him to file a lawsuit over the school’s retaliation against him, which is currently pending in federal court.
