Execution sought for massacre at church
A year ago I visited a mansion in Bloomsbury, central London, to talk about ‘‘rock stars’’. The mansion housed Britain’s newest highend educational institution, and ‘‘rock stars’’ was how the students there described the handful of famous people who had swooped down from their lofty perches to half-join the history and English faculties as visiting lecturers.
Niall Ferguson, Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker, Trevor Nunn – all idols of the students there, all friends of A C Grayling, the founder of the New College of Humanities, a fee-paying liberal arts college. But outside, everybody seemed to hate the idea.
Grayling was accused many times of publicity-mongering and of crossing academia with showbiz to produce an educational system to which only the wealthy could afford access.
Besides, the antis’ narrative ran, these ‘‘media stars’’ weren’t ‘‘proper’’ academics. And if they were, they weren’t academic enough. The critics claimed that they were egomaniacs with pound signs in their eyes. They probably couldn’t even teach.
Yet the stunt, if that is what it was, seems to have panned out well enough. Grayling’s still there, and the student head counts are rising, he told me this week.
Despite all the indignation, he didn’t actually set a precedent. Philip Roth, James Franco, Oprah Winfrey and Spike Lee have been visiting lecturers or professors at American universities at one time or another. In 2013, Martin Amis was teaching English at Manchester University for a reported fee of £3000 (NZ$6500) an hour.
Now the London School of Economics seems to be building on the tradition of sprinkling showbiz among its academics – although the two big names joining its Centre for Women, Peace and Security at the Gender Institute break new ground, coming as they do from completely outside the academic realm.
American actress and United Nations ambassador Angelina Jolie Pitt and former British foreign secretary William Hague will become professors on a oneyear MSc programme on women, peace and security. Should you not want to miss the opportunity of meeting either of them, you will need at least a degree in social science or humanities. It’s rumoured that there will be only 15 places when the course starts in September 2017.
LSE students seem to be lukewarm about the announcement – certainly not as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as the university press office suggested.
Student union president Nona Buckley-Irvine tells me that most students doubt that Jolie Pitt and, particularly, Hague, can ‘‘deliver’’, given their weak academic backgrounds and their promise only to attend ‘‘as often as their schedules and commitment will allow’’.
Worse than that, she claims that the announcement this week was timed to bury a negative story about the university that had broken the previous day. The LSE, normally ranked third in the league tables, came in at No 12.
Jolie Pitt coming to LSE, says Buckley-Irvine, ‘‘makes a good headline but it was a cynical move’’.
Students and academics, she says, are unhappy they were told nothing about the appointments. The LSE spokesperson said: ‘‘The appointments would have been cleared through the appropriate administrative channels.’’
Buckley-Irvine also puts into words a wider cynicism about the appointment of non-academics to posts that usually belong – and, some argue, should belong – to the hard-working professors whose very poorly paid life’s work it has been to become experts in the subjects that the big, non-expert names are being flown in to teach.
‘‘At least Angelina Jolie Pitt has a grasp of the issues,’’ she says. ‘‘William Hague doesn’t have the best record on human rights. I think some students feel that because of his record on detention centres, he is not qualified on these issues.’’
In the US, what a cynical Brit might sneer at as a ‘‘celebrity appointment’’ is greeted with more fanfare and less scepticism. It’s particularly helpful if you’re unemployable at any British university, such as Tony Blair postIraq; he lectured at Yale.
However, it’s also possible that the Americans are right to cheer the big names. In the US, where learning by doing and not by reading academic papers is the way fortunes and reputations are generally made, who wouldn’t want to be taught by a pro who happens to also be a pro in the subject they teach? Who wants to learn from the coulda-woulda-shoulda professor of literature who has always wanted to write a bestseller but seems not to have the grit or the talent to do so?
Placido Domingo was persuaded to teach music at UCLA, conducting faculty performances. Surely only a very foolish arts student would dismiss that opportunity as showboating?
A new university head has to give their commencement address – so why not earn extra points by announcing that John Cleese is going to be a visiting professor, as Cornell did in 2006?
Big names also bring in big money, as well as more student applications; the LSE is 70 per cent funded by its students.
The benefits for the superstars can be multiple: cash (though Jolie Pitt will be doing her stint at the LSE for nothing), reputation (Lee says that teaching film at NYU helped him to stay relevant) and diversification (Franco, belatedly also a published poet, clearly wants to do more than just acting).
The disadvantages? Surely the classrooms of half-evolved teenage brains. Novelist and essayist David Foster Wallace described his students as ‘‘infants": ‘‘You almost have to cradle their heads to help their necks support the skull’s weight.’’
On the ratemyprofessor.com website, Franco gets a composite A-minus from students at his acting courses at USC and UCLA, for his teaching, among other things: ‘‘He’s hot and an amazing proffesor [sic] class is easy,’’ reads the comment of a student who would do better taking an English language class.
A female former student of Roth’s at the University of Pennsylvania says women would arrive at his literature course freshly showered and in denim skirts. ‘‘We crossed and uncrossed our legs.’’
Donald Jacobs, the dean at Kellogg University, where Winfrey taught a 110-person class that was monitored throughout by security officials, said her ‘‘special set of skills’’ was unique and therefore ‘‘I don’t think anyone can duplicate it’’.
In the end, Winfrey left – ‘‘the pressures of the class, her show and her magazine were becoming too great’’.
Not every big appointment ends rosily. Cleese embarrassed Cornell when he made a video blasting society’s growing hypersensitivity and political correctness, particularly on college campuses.
There is one lone criticism of Franco on ratemyprofessor.com. ‘‘I enjoyed his class immensely. Except every time we met to discuss my assignments, he would just cry for the duration of our meeting, and then tell me I could let myself out? Like, every time. Maybe it was a performance art piece.’’ Federal prosecutors will seek the death penalty for a white man accused of killing nine black parishioners in a racially motivated attack at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, last June, the United States Justice Department said yesterday.
‘‘The nature of the alleged crime and the resulting harm compelled this decision,’’ Attorney General Loretta Lynch said.
Dylann Roof, 22, is accused of opening fire on June 17, 2015, during Bible study at Charleston’s historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in a massacre that shook the country and intensified debate over race relations in America.
He faces 33 federal charges, including hate crimes, obstruction of religion offences.
In a court filing, federal prosecutors cited a number of factors for seeking the death penalty, saying Roof singled out victims who were black and elderly, and showed no remorse.
They also cited ‘‘substantial planning and premeditation.’’
A friend of Roof, 21-year-old Joseph Meek, pleaded guilty last month to concealing his knowledge of Roof’s intention to carry out the attack, saying then that Roof planned the shooting for six months and wanted to start a race war.
Roof’s lawyers have said he would agree to plead guilty, rather than face trial if prosecutors ruled out capital punishment.
But defence attorney Michael O’Connell declined to comment on yesterday’s decision.
Roof also faces the death penalty if convicted on separate, state murder charges in a trial set to begin in January.
The state prosecutor trying the case said last September that some of the victims’ families were opposed to a death sentence because of their religious beliefs, while others felt it was appropriate.
Steve Schmutz, an attorney representing families of three victims, said his clients ‘‘support whatever decision the US government is making in this case, and I’m sure they support this decision’’.
Some relatives of the slain worshippers tearfully offered words of forgiveness during Roof’s initial court appearance.
Nearly a year later, views diverged on the federal death penalty decision.
‘‘It’s a great message being sent by the government that this won’t be tolerated,’’ Kevin Singleton, whose mother was among those killed, said.
The relative of another victim cited the Bible in calling for Roof to spend his life in prison rather than die.
Federal prosecutors rarely seek the death penalty against defendants. and firearms