DOUBLE STANDARDS ARE ALIVE AND WELL AT UVA

This past week UVA announced its list of faculty Shannon Fellows.

Shannon Fellowships are awarded to “outstanding mid-career faculty.” The three-year fellowship is designed, in the University's words, to assist faculty members as they build their careers at UVA, and carries a $20,000 bonus and a $50,000 research fund. 

 One particular faculty member named as a Shannon Fellow is utterly astounding and disgraceful. Choosing to honor Associate Professor Oludamini Ogunnaike is a stunning example of the hypocritical group double standards that have existed at UVA for well over a decade. As documented below, Mr. Ogunnaike succeeded in maligning and insulting both the Jewish and Christian communities at the University with outrageous and heinous declarations.

Shortly after the massacres of October 7, 2023, Mr. Ogunnaike was one of a group of faculty members that signed an “open letter” letter to the UVA community in which they stunningly asserted that “we are so alarmed by approaches to this conflict that do not mention the context in which Oct. 7 occurred”. This shameful statement went well beyond the statements that resulted in the firing of the presidents of Penn and Harvard. They had said that statements made during student demonstrations had to be taken in context; here Ogunnaike was declaring that the events of October 7 itself had to be viewed in context. To think that this UVA professor could have propounded that raping, dismembering, mutilating, and burning alive innocent people should be viewed in a historical context is virtually incomprehensible. Yet Professor Ogunnaike openly claimed this and is now being rewarded for it.

But it was insufficient for Ogunnaike to malign only the Jewish community after the greatest slaughter of Jews since the end of World War Two, he also despicably insulted the Christian community in a panel discussion at Zaytuna College. During that event, Ogunnaike argued that white supremacy and imperialism were outgrowths of Christianity. For a University and faculty that consistently talks ad nauseum about the importance of inclusivity, Mr. Ogunnaike pretty clearly believes that concept to be just so much rubbish.

And this is where the ever present academic double standards are demonstrated. Seriously, would UVA have given a fellowship to someone who said that the evils of the world flow from Islam?

Or would UVA give a fellowship to someone who said slavery or segregation should be viewed in context?

Shannon Fellowships are supposedly awarded to “outstanding mid-career faculty.”  By any reasonable standard has Mr. Ogunnaike deserved this recognition–or is this just a reward for representing the most “woke” outlandish pablum from a faculty where liberals outnumber conservatives by a ratio in the neighborhood of 99:1.