A tranquil, peaceful neighborhood. (Sarcasm)
Via The College Fix:
Steve Bannon’s ideology is economic nationalism, but don’t tell University of Chicago faculty who denounced the business school’s invitation to the former Breitbart News executive chairman.
More than 40 professors (including a few postdoctoral scholars) signed an open letter accusing the administration of endangering the black communities around the South Side private university by letting Bannon come to campus for a planned debate.
They told President Robert Zimmer and Provost Daniel Diermeier that they are “committed to critical and rigorous intellectual exchange” – just not when President Trump’s former chief strategist has been invited to debate globalization and immigration. […]
Showing contempt for the university’s hard-won reputation for freedom of thought, they said Bannon “question[s] the intellect and full humanity of people of color” and his very presence undermines “their worthiness as citizens an people.”
They say “hate speech” (undefined) interferes with their intellectual pursuits, accusing Bannon of espousing views that “represent neither reasonable speech [undefined] nor evidence-based and rigorous intellectual inquiry.”[…]
Zingales told the community this morning he invited Bannon because elite enclaves need to hear Bannon’s views firsthand to understand “the backlash against globalization and immigration” across the globe:
At the University of Chicago, we have some of the best economic minds of the planet. It is our civic duty to engage them in finding the causes of this backlash and in trying to address them. Whether you agree with him or not (and I personally do not), Mr. Bannon has come to interpret and represent this backlash in America. For this reason, I invited Mr. Bannon to a debate on these issues with our faculty. I firmly believe that the current problems in America cannot be solved by demonizing who think differently, but by addressing the causes of their dissatisfaction. Hate cannot be defeated by hate, but only by reason.
Zingales is on the record calling then-candidate Donald Trump a “crony capitalist” in the vein of former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
According to The Chicago Maroon, an event hasn’t been scheduled yet but Bannon has accepted the invitation from Zingales. The professor further told the paper that Bannon “seems to have understood something about America that I’m curious to learn more about.”
UChicago says it has no grounds to disinvite Bannon or anyone else a member of the community invites to speak on campus.