No problem

| Gabriel |

UCLA has created a “report bias” website where you can file a report about “Any demeaning, derogatory or otherwise offensive behavior directed toward any individual on the basis of race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion or other group characteristics.” Now given that sociologists study issues like race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and other group characteristics, and it’s at least conceivable that we might have research findings on these issues that people might consider to be “demeaning, derogatory or offensive” this might seem like a threat to our academic freedom. Fortunately this isn’t a problem in practice because (as section “D” of the ASA code of ethics will tell you) sociologists are scrupulous respecters of dignity and worth who don’t tolerate any form of bias.

I’m just glad I don’t teach classical theory because I really don’t see how I’d be able to lecture about Weber’s ideas of contrasting thrifty Calvinists and decadent Catholics or Durkheim’s ideas about suicidal Lutherans (let alone his very serious attempts to grapple with 19th century racial phrenology) or Marx’s thoughts on “the Jewish Question”.

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