Today’s blacklisted American: Professor fired from journal he founded
They’re coming for you next: Timothy Jackson, a professor at the University of North Texas, was removed from the music journal he founded because he dared criticize in print the racial and anti-white politics of another academic.
In November 2019, music theorist Philip Ewell delivered a plenary address to the Society of Music Theory positing “a white racial frame in music theory that is structural and institutionalized.” Ewell took particular aim at 19th century music theorist Heinrich Schenker, whose influence on music theory is “hard to overstate,” arguing that Schenker was a “virulent racist” and that Schenker’s “racist views infected his music theoretical arguments.”
Timothy Jackson has devoted his career to the study of Heinrich Schenker. He is the director of the Center for Schenkerian Studies at UNT and a co-founder of the Journal of Schenkerian Studies, an academic journal published at UNT. Ewell’s widely-heard address related so directly to Schenker’s work that Jackson and the editorial staff of the journal decided to publish a symposium issue featuring a number of responses, both pro and con, to Ewell’s address. The journal issued a call for papers to all members of the Society of Music Theory, including Philip Ewell, who did not respond. Timothy Jackson himself published a response in the symposium that was highly critical of Ewell’s analysis.
The symposium issue was published in July 2020, and the calls for Jackson’s punishment began immediately. Rather than defend academic freedom against this obvious attempt to suppress unpopular opinions, UNT launched an investigation, creating an “ad hoc” panel to look into the process that allowed the symposium issue of the journal to be published. On November 30, 2020, this ad hoc panel published a report criticizing the journal’s structure and the editorial and review process used for the symposium.
In response to the ad hoc panel’s report, department chair Benjamin Brand “informed Professor Jackson that he would be removed from the Journal and that the university would eliminate resources previously provided to the Journal and Center for Schenkerian Studies,”
One important detail about the Heinrich Schenker whom Ewell calls a “virulent racist.” He was also a Jew who was a victim of German anti-Semitism and lost many relatives in the Holocaust, facts that Ewell somehow did not think important to mention.
This what academia has been like now for nigh on two decades. Only one political perspective is allowed, which for decades was merely liberal and Democrat. More recently this has transitioned into outright bigotry against whites. If you happen to be one of the continually shrinking tiny minority that disagrees publicly you will find yourself quickly squashed like a bug, as the University of North Texas is now attempting to do to Jackson.
Jackson however is not willing to get squashed without a fight. He has filed a defamation lawsuit (available here [pdf]) in response, noting that he was punished merely because he exercised his First Amendment rights of free speech. Jackson’s lawsuit not only names the University of North Texas, it also names many of the individuals who attacked him and participated in the witchhunt against him.
I hope he wins, and wins big, causing real pain to every single one of the bigots and tyrants who have tried to silence him, merely because he disagrees with them.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
They’re coming for you next: Timothy Jackson, a professor at the University of North Texas, was removed from the music journal he founded because he dared criticize in print the racial and anti-white politics of another academic.
In November 2019, music theorist Philip Ewell delivered a plenary address to the Society of Music Theory positing “a white racial frame in music theory that is structural and institutionalized.” Ewell took particular aim at 19th century music theorist Heinrich Schenker, whose influence on music theory is “hard to overstate,” arguing that Schenker was a “virulent racist” and that Schenker’s “racist views infected his music theoretical arguments.”
Timothy Jackson has devoted his career to the study of Heinrich Schenker. He is the director of the Center for Schenkerian Studies at UNT and a co-founder of the Journal of Schenkerian Studies, an academic journal published at UNT. Ewell’s widely-heard address related so directly to Schenker’s work that Jackson and the editorial staff of the journal decided to publish a symposium issue featuring a number of responses, both pro and con, to Ewell’s address. The journal issued a call for papers to all members of the Society of Music Theory, including Philip Ewell, who did not respond. Timothy Jackson himself published a response in the symposium that was highly critical of Ewell’s analysis.
The symposium issue was published in July 2020, and the calls for Jackson’s punishment began immediately. Rather than defend academic freedom against this obvious attempt to suppress unpopular opinions, UNT launched an investigation, creating an “ad hoc” panel to look into the process that allowed the symposium issue of the journal to be published. On November 30, 2020, this ad hoc panel published a report criticizing the journal’s structure and the editorial and review process used for the symposium.
In response to the ad hoc panel’s report, department chair Benjamin Brand “informed Professor Jackson that he would be removed from the Journal and that the university would eliminate resources previously provided to the Journal and Center for Schenkerian Studies,”
One important detail about the Heinrich Schenker whom Ewell calls a “virulent racist.” He was also a Jew who was a victim of German anti-Semitism and lost many relatives in the Holocaust, facts that Ewell somehow did not think important to mention.
This what academia has been like now for nigh on two decades. Only one political perspective is allowed, which for decades was merely liberal and Democrat. More recently this has transitioned into outright bigotry against whites. If you happen to be one of the continually shrinking tiny minority that disagrees publicly you will find yourself quickly squashed like a bug, as the University of North Texas is now attempting to do to Jackson.
Jackson however is not willing to get squashed without a fight. He has filed a defamation lawsuit (available here [pdf]) in response, noting that he was punished merely because he exercised his First Amendment rights of free speech. Jackson’s lawsuit not only names the University of North Texas, it also names many of the individuals who attacked him and participated in the witchhunt against him.
I hope he wins, and wins big, causing real pain to every single one of the bigots and tyrants who have tried to silence him, merely because he disagrees with them.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
“Music theoretical arguments” …?
Music theory is plain, pure math, in application. Zero guesswork.
In our Western scale, for example, music theory explains the relationship of halfstep-wholestep sequence of each seven-note-scale’s seven modes, including the sixth mode, which is a natural minor key in its own right; music “theory” explains through math that, for example, in the key of C major the natural minor will be A. A minor is necessarily the sixth mode of the key of C major. “Theory” in music is fixed math and has a different meaning than the word “theory” used to describe a possible explanation for something.
I guess in their rush to get all those letters after their names, those scholars forgot that.
I think the Almighty must be shaking his head sadly at our antics.
“Theory” in music is fixed math
Math is racist.
Or so I am told.
A bit off topic .. John Matze, former CEO of Parler, was given the boot by the board. I would expect the return of a woke Parler.
“Math is racist.”
Math is the language of the Universe …
The Universe is racist.
(Got there a little sooner than anticipated, but the end result is inevitable.)
If a piano is dropped down a shaft, what not is hit?
A flat minor!
We should quit calling this ‘blacklisting’. Not only will it be called racist-but the term PURGE is a better description at this point.
Icepilot: Every time I see this trope, I’m reminded of the ‘Doonesbury’ cartoon:
“My culture holds that the square root of 144 is 15”
“Would this be an advanced culture?”
BTW, do you sail ice boats?
“These horrible people do everything” –
Jordan Peterson on Price’s Law
https://youtu.be/UmUdcWk6Vfw
8:58
“The square root of the number of people in a domain do 50% the work.”
It is clear, time after time, academics have no integrity. They are punished for beliefs they can justify and support by those who have only unsupportable woke beliefs. Therefore, outside off the hard sciences, academics are useless.
“Math is racist.”
No, it isn’t. It’s sexist
“We should quit calling this ‘blacklisting’. Not only will it be called racist-but the term PURGE is a better description at this point.”
Perhaps, an update to the definition of the word ‘pogrom’.
The endgame is that, if the wokies control this music theory journal, suddenly their fellow wokies get published with articles about race and gender, and yet can pretend that they have music theory publications. It’s a tenure/resume raid.
Good for him. Fighting (oooo, look, inciting violence :-) ) back is required.
For those not aware – although they don’t have the cachet of Julliard or the Eastman, North Texas is one of the top music schools in the country.