African-American literature professor Houston Baker says he’s leaving Duke for Vanderbilt. I say good riddance. Anyone who could write a letter as ill-informed and as unreasoned as he did earlier this spring needs to be somewhere else.
This bit of news was in a News & Observer story about black faculty leaving Duke because of the Duke lacrosse scandal. The article moans about this loss of diversity for 12 paragraphs before it gets to one quoting Duke Provost Peter Lange saying that with incoming black faculty Duke will see a net increase this year, completely undermining the story itself.
Lower in the story is a revealing bit about affirmative action:
[Duke President Richard] Brodhead said affirmative action was important but added that he would hire only the best person for any given position.
[Black political science professor Kerry] Haynie fired off an e-mail message to Brodhead. “I thought that was an unfortunate comment,” Haynie said.
