In defense of Joshua Katz – The Spectator World
To all the thousands of students who have been inspired, encouraged and comforted by Katz, and to the many who literally owe their careers to him: if you did not raise your voice in his defense, you are cowards. And to the complicit faculty who stood by as a mob destroyed a long-time friend and colleague: wait until they come for you. Wait until you think a wrong thought or make the wrong joke or use the wrong pronoun. I hope you ve all led lives of spotless purity. Mother Teresas, every one of you, no doubt. Shame, shame on all of you.
My own father was a professor. He adored teaching. Encouraging, inspiring and debating students was his greatest pleasure. As a child, I remember perching on the staircase watching while he led seminars in our living room. How he loved it and how entranced were the students. I thank God that he is not around to see what has become of the academy. I thank God that he will never know what it is to teach in this environment. The mob would surely have destroyed him, or tried. They would never have been able to tolerate his passionate, uncompromising pursuit of the truth or his impatience with fools.
Joshua will be fine. He has the love of my fierce and formidable daughter, his family and many new and amazing friends. Most importantly, he has the truth on his side. Nothing anyone can do or say will take that away. No, the real harm is to Princeton, and the generations of students who will never know one of the most caring, generous, and brilliant professors ever to grace the halls of East Pyne. What a loss. What a tragedy.
Kari Jensen Gold, Professor Katz’s mother-in-law. It is all very strange, how the woke mob goes after and frequently manages to get the most devoted teachers and scholars (present company excluded). Why is that? It’s as if they are deliberately trying to destroy the institutions they are part of. Machiavelli, if I recall, said something about how Princes should beware of helping anyone, for they would certainly make an enemy of that person and they would eventually turn and try to destroy their benefactor. It seems like something like this may be happening. Or perhaps it’s something even more sinister.