The trade paper of the academic industry just fired a writer who dared express skepticism about the academic worth of a number of doctoral dissertations in the field of black studies. Liz McMillan, editor of the Chronicle of Higher Education wrote a "Note to readers" explaining why Naomi Schaefer Riley's blog posting on Brainstorm last week ("The Most Persuasive Case for Eliminating Black Studies? Just Read the Dissertations" merited her dismissal and an abject apology from the editorial honcho. Reactions are mostly predictable, from both leftists and conservatives. Riley is, of course, being widely termed a racist. She summarized  her critics in a second post, her last before she was fired from the CoHE blog titled "Brainstorm": The comments regarding my post seem to boil down to the following: I am picking on people because they are black (and I am a racist).I am picking on people even though I don't have a Ph.D.I am picking on people who are too young and inexperienced to...(Read Full Post)