A ‘Spiritual Catastrophe’ Is Exactly What the Left Wants

“…Cornel West is certainly no conservative. But Howard University’s decision to do away with the study of classical literature has him sounding like Victor Davis Hanson.

Neglecting classical literature is a “terrible act [that] treat[s] Western civilization as either irrelevant and not worthy of prioritization or as harmful and worthy only of condemnation,” West and Classic Learning Test CEO Jeremy Tate wrote in an April 19 Washington Post op-ed.

Howard University announced on April 16 that its classics department would be dissolved and its faculty moved to other departments as part of “prioritization efforts.”

West argues that eliminating classical literature is uniquely harmful to black students, who become unable to find their own voices when they are not “grounded in tradition … in legacies … [and] in heritages.”

West is correct, but the university — not just this particular one, Howard, but the broadly defined university — is not listening to him. Since writing that op-ed, Harvard has forced him out and he has not gone quietly. Nor should he. I don’t know the particulars of his situation, but he’s undoubtedly a formidable scholar and a serious mind. He’s accusing Harvard of “spiritual rot” just as he accused Howard of “spiritual catastrophe” back in April.

“How sad it is to see our beloved Harvard Divinity School in such decline and decay,” he wrote in a letter dated June 30 and posted to his social media accounts Monday. “The disarray of a scattered curriculum, the disenchantment of talented yet deferential faculty, and the disorientation of precious students loom large.”

West said he sent the “candid letter of resignation” to his Harvard dean.

“I try to tell the unvarnished truth about the decadence in our market-driven universities!” he wrote on his Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts. “Let us bear witness against this spiritual rot!”

Is any part of that wrong?

Since West’s call for Howard to turn back, that university has hired the founder of the 1619 Project and given her tenure to teach journalism. Scholar out, charlatan in.

Nikole Hannah-Jones rode a momentary epiphany all the way to fame and fortune and now lifetime employment, where she will teach young people to do…what, exactly? She will be a professor of journalism. It didn’t matter that her key journalism project was fundamentally wrong and it doesn’t matter now…”