Anthro Knickers in a Twist

I’d never heard of Montogmery McFate. Well I do now. She’s the social scientist that inspired the Pentagon’s Human Terrain System in Iraq. Says Wired:

Today she is the senior social science adviser for the Human Terrain System, a $130 million Army program that embeds political science, anthropology and economics specialists with combat units in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Oh no! Social scientists assisting Pentagon combat units! Isn’t that unethical?

Because you are a sensitive conservative you know that proper social scientists don’t ever touch the Pentagon. Not if they want a career in the university. How could Mitzi McFate do this? And bring American anthropologists into disrepute all over the world.

Actually, no problem for McFate. When she started injecting herself into the Iraq War she was an army wife and didn’t have a job.

But here’s the problem, according to Inside Education:

The president of the Southwestern Anthropological Association invited Montgomery McFate to give the keynote address at the association̢۪s spring conference in Las Vegas.

But McFate’s work is “hitched to an initiative that has been formally opposed by the AAA’s executive board.”

Well, I hope so. I couldn’t imagine that the American Anthropological Association would do anything other than try the stop the Pentagon from doing anything.

Few anthropologists would question the value of inviting McFate to speak — or the importance of having free speech and scholarly engagement on such controversial topics.

Oh, no. Of course not. But the problem is that some people think that inviting McFate to make a keynote address “implies an honor.” And we wouldn’t want that.

And anyway, McFate failed “to appear at a scheduled speaking engagement Saturday at the AAA conference.” She was supposed to appear at an event where her critics would have an opportunity to respond.

So now the scholars are all arguing about whether a keynote speech amounts to an honor. (And also whether McFate should ever be allowed to speak without an opportunity for her critics to respond.)

Yep. Our unserious Academy. You couldn’t make it up.