Last Fall This Scholar Defended Colonialism. Now He's Defending Himself.

Last Fall This Scholar Defended Colonialism. Now He's Defending Himself.

The Chronicle of Higher Education, 3.21.18

On the Third World Quarterly board and among the broader public, the controversy raised two competing narratives. To some, the reaction to the article demonstrated scholars' diminished tolerance for dissenting political views, especially conservative ones. The dominant view, before anyone knew anything, was, We can't have this article," says Thomas G. Weiss, a political-science professor at the City University of New York's Graduate Center. Weiss, a Third World Quarterly board member, didn't resign. Instead, the professor, who says he "totally disagrees" with Gilley's argument, made a counterthreat of resignation, saying he would leave if the paper were retracted. "It was all a little like the contemporary discourse these days in the United States," he says.