Worth Repeating (Pluralist's Guide)

Although there is a clear sense in which this is old news, I bring it up because I don't want this discussion to die. It seems to me that it is very important to have good information about departments available for prospective graduate students. It also seems to me that the people who put up websites claiming to provide this information have a responsibility to do a good job, to explain how they came up with the information, and to be willing to respond to criticism and to act on suggestions for improvement. And it seems to me that the editors of the "Pluralist's" Guide are not living up to these responsibilities.



In comments in the Gender, Race and Philosophy post in which Linda Alcoff presented some information concerning and momentariliy defended the methodology behind the Climate Guide, anonymous graduate student writes:

Dear Professors Alcoff, Taylor, and Wilkerson [editors of the Pluralist's Guide]:



The sarcastic last comment here [this one] does not, in my view, dispense you, the authors of the "climate for women" section, from addressing in detail the several very serious questions and worries that were brought to the table by the previous commenters. I am sure that I am not the only one to find it very troublesome that there is neither any attempt on your part to defend the "climate for women" section its current form - which, as the many thoughtful comments above have shown, would be a difficult feat - nor the slightest admisssion of the insufficiency and indeed indefensibility of the section as it stands at this time.



The only conclusion I (and, I imagine, many others) am able to draw from the exasperating refusal by you, the authors of the "pluralist's guide", to engage even in the most rudimentary way with serious criticism is that despite the title of your "report" you are not in fact guided by the concern that informs the comments in this thread - the climate for women in philosophy - but rather by an undisclosed private agenda that abuses this concern as a cover.

I guess I'm not willing to draw any specific conclusions about why the authors of the Climate Guide haven't withdrawn it, or edited it in such a way as to acknowledge its many methodological and factual problems, or explained how it was compiled, or even evinced comprehension of these problems. But I will say that it gets sadder and sadder with each passing day.



--Mr. Zero