Cultural Competence in the Academy

Rutgers professor Norman Levitt is not a fan:

Here is an illustrative if fragmentary list of transgressions that would likely strip an academic of any chance of being designated culturally competent:

- Suggesting that affirmative action might conflict with other standards of justice and equity, or that opponents of affirmative action are not ipso facto Klansmen waiting for their white sheets to come back from the laundry;

- Taking issue with the claim that Malcolm X was a paragon of humanitarianism and political genius;

- Disputing the wisdom of feminist theory as regards the social constructedness of gender;

- Asserting that the early demographic history of the Americas is more accurately revealed by scientific anthropology than by the Native American folklore and myth celebrated by tribal militants;

- Expressing doubts that 'queer theory' should be made the epicenter of literary studies.