Everyone Hates This Poor Law Professor

Will he go gentle into that good night? Of course not!

Slap on your frowny faces, everybody! This poor law professor is used to people not liking him, but now a critical mass of his own field has turned on him. As of this second, 292 professors have signed on to a statement denouncing him and demanding he relinquish control of the internationally-recognized rankings he founded. As a professional troll, he routinely threatens critics with legal action based on theories that… well, boggle the mind. He once accused me of per se defamation, which was per se frivolous. And now all that baseless aggression has come back to haunt him.

Will he go gentle into that good night?

Of course not! He’s a “fighter,” which is a dressy word for “self-absorbed narcissist.”

We all knew I was talking about Brian Leiter, right? Okay, good.

This story hit our radar the other day when we found a pair of NYU professors posted a statement of concern. And then the story started gaining steam. Leiter’s obsession with silencing any criticism led him to gruffly put down a fellow philosopher over Twitter. And that got the big statement of denunciation going:

The statement specifically protests Mr. Leiter’s treatment of Carrie Ichikawa Jenkins, a professor of philosophy at the University of British Columbia who was the target of his “sanctimonious arse” tweet. It argues that Mr. Leiter’s “derogatory and intimidating remarks” to Ms. Jenkins have damaged her health and her ability to work, partly due to the power he wields as editor of the report.

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Okay, if this were all it was, I’d totally be on Leiter’s side. How can a philosopher ever be offended by the word “sanctimonious”? It’s in their job description! And it didn’t just offend, it “damaged her health and her ability to work”? Jesus, grow up. He’s a troll who makes s**t up as he goes along. Ignore him and move on with your dasein, er, day, er, actually I guess dasein also fits there.

But philosophers around the world decided to supercharge this controversy. In part, these philosophers object to Leiter’s role as the editor of the Philosophical Gourmet Report, a ranking of philosophy departments. A whole bunch of professors feel — strongly — that the guy who helps decide whether or not their department is up to snuff shouldn’t be a petty troll. I mean, he does have an advisory board, so it’s not like any vindictive take on his part would get a rubber stamp — but there is the principle of the thing.

The rankings, however, really aren’t the issue here, no matter how much Leiter wants to spin this as an attack of the rankings haters. Rather, this whole episode is just the straw that fractured the camel’s vertebrae. Academics have long memories, and they have started sharing all the times Leiter has privately threatened to sue them for the sin of “thinking Leiter is wrong about something.” From the emails collected by the original “Statement of Concern”:

[C]alling me “unprofessional” is probably defamatory per se in Canada…

The statement now on your blog that I am not a philosopher is defamation per se…

Your idiotic misrepresentations about the PGR this past week were disgraceful.

Given that Leiter also accused me of per se defamation, I like imagining that he has a super-elaborate back tat of “per se” in some kind of elegant script. Or at least the letters tattooed on each knuckle, Cape Fear-style. In any event, the rankings are really a red herring:

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He systematically resorts to aggressive, offensive and intimidating behavior against those who dare express views different from his own, both in public and in private correspondence, often targeting junior colleagues and others who can’t ‘compete’ with his power and influence. We are talking about a pattern here, not isolated events. Now, it is partly through the PGR that Brian Leiter has become such a powerful figure in the profession, and he has arguably been misusing his position of power and influence to target colleagues who he disagrees with on a number of issues….

So no, this is not primarily about the PGR; it’s about what many of us perceive as Leiter’s inappropriate behavior on a large number of occasions.

So Brian Leiter is mean to people. Fine. And he probably uses his law degree to scare non-lawyers with terms like “per se.” Fine. I mean, I guess that’s a reason to denounce his outsized influence in the field. Except there are so many better reasons. Like the time he took to his blog to explain that “sexual assault” wasn’t as bad as “rape”? At least not as damaging to a reputation. Or the time his careful research resulted in him accidentally defending racists.

Why limit ourselves?

The Man Who Ranks Philosophy Departments Now Rankles Them, Too [Chronicle of Higher Education]
Statement of Concern [Sally Haslanger & David Velleman]
The professor who ranks and rankles [Volokh Conspiracy / Washington Post]
Inappropriate correspondence — to say the least! [New APPS]
Brian Leiter’s slow-motion car crash accelerates [Lawyers, Guns & Money]

Earlier: Bigmouth Law Professor Flubs Research, Defends Racists
We Were Just Having Fun On The Internet And A Law Professor Decided To Attack Us. Us, Of All People!
Teaching Brian Leiter About The Internet