Oy gewalt! The only American universities that seem immune from the cancer of Authoritarian Leftism are conservative religious schools like Bob Jones University and Liberty University. The latest victim is The University of Arizona, where, as The Daily Beast reports, a “Committee of Marginalized Students” has been formed. According to the Arizona Republic, the list of demands is 19 pages long, and even if I could find it, I wouldn’t want to read it. (Note: I found it here and couldn’t resist a look.) Here are some of the demands, gleaned from the two sources above (quotes are verbatim demands from either the Beast or the Republic):
- A $500,000 diversity budget
- Mandatory sensitivity training for all employees of the college and a subset of students. As the Beast reports, “This would be a requirement for everyone who either lives or works on campus, though the demands specifically single out fraternity members and the staff of the campus newspaper, the Arizona Daily Wildcat.”
- Trigger warnings: “the demands specifically instruct professors to institute mandatory trigger warnings and formulate alternative curriculum plans for any and all students who are offended by the regularly scheduled material.”
- Punishment for faculty who fail students (I’ll have to see this one with my own eyes to believe it)
- “Demands to hire more left-leaning faculty, create residence communities geared toward specific group identity, and employ more counselors. . . “
- “Students of color, in particular, want administrators to publicize the ‘consequences’ that will befall people who perpetrate microaggressions anywhere on campus.”
- “[F]ree condoms, free tampons, free menstrual pads, free testing for sexually transmitted diseases. . ” Why? “To combat “the tremendous amount of discrimination our students face and the consequences those interactions have on our college experience”?
- “They want free tutors, more lactation rooms and individual trash cans in every restroom stall. They want more mental health counseling and a “safe space” in every classroom. . . And they want $35,000 for each of their student groups.”
- “Latino students want scholarships for undocumented students who are part of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and they want the Border Patrol banned from campus, including career fairs, because it “promotes a hostile environment.”
- “Asian students want dorm space reserved specifically for Asian American Pacific Islander students and creation of an Asian American Studies Department by 2020.”
- “Native American students want a Native American House, including space devoted to serving their social and spiritual needs.”
- “African American students want deferred housing fees and a place where students can anonymously report professors, staff members or students “who engage in microaggressions, macroaggressions and hate speech.” They also want the Martin Luther King Jr., building renovated and set aside to house only African American Student Affairs by the fall of 2017.”
- “LGBTQ students want professors to ask students what pronouns and names they use at the beginning of each course and to use only those pronouns in names. They also want to ‘diversify curriculums to include LGBTQIA+ topics and history'”.
- “The Women’s Resource Center, meanwhile, wants a victim’s advocacy center, a 24-hour crisis hotline and a requirement that a conviction of any sexual offense be included on a student’s college transcript.”
A few of the demands, like a the women’s center crisis hotline and victim’s advocacy center, seem reasonable, but the rest are nonsense demanded by privileged students who haven’t checked their privilege. But the demands are clearly not just requests, for they’re accompanied by threats:
The students of course have every right to publicize their grievances and to diss the university. But “mobilization”? I’m not quite sure what that means, but perhaps, like Melissa Click, they want to bring some “muscle” to the issue.
I have nothing more to say about these Snowflakes that I haven’t said before. Their grievances cannot be totally dismissed, but the vast majority of their plaints just reflect a need to feel cosseted and unchallenged, and to affirm their own identity. Not so long ago it was “all must have prizes”; now it’s “all must have student centers.”
And of course who is going to pay the huge tuition rise that would result from meeting these demands? One thing’s for sure: not the students.
Are we sure it’s not from the Union?
Onion?
The problem, I think, with a satirical magazine like the Onion, which presents satirical stories as actual news (as opposed to employing some other satirical) vehicle) is that reality is so wild and crazy that it’s superfluous and for me, diminishes the inherent craziness of actual phenomena. Of course, when I say ‘inherent’ craziness I mean in our interpretation of phenomena and the narratives we make out of it. I revel in satire, have written some myself, and the Onion doesn’t satisfy or inspire my satirical hunger. That sort of satire, which is literary hoaxing, I can take only in small doses because the kind of epistemic addling that the Onion trades in, where one is supposed to be sucked into the veracity of the assertion and then must question it, I find in spades in daily life (and it drives me nuts), I find truth invariably stranger and much more interesting and important than what the Onion is doing, and this ‘list of demands’ just proves my point. I think that satire as hoax works best as a one-off enterprise, such as Diderot’s superb La Religeuse.
The fact is that this manifesto is unbelievably sad and appalling, and as someone who spent time in jail during the civil rights movement in the ’60s and came close to losing my life, it’s terribly demoralizing: to think that now these students are clamoring to have the university create ghettos, plantations, reservations, detainment camps, and the like, in which they can cocoon themselves. With people like this, racists, xenophobes, and nativists, won’t have any work to do. This is the antihesis of the societal transformation I’d hoped to help bring about. I also find it hilarious and spectacularly ludicrous; but I’m a cynic as well as an atheist, so find it great fodder for deep satire built on those facts, satire which explores the dynamics as well as exploits them, not simply trades on them as does the Onion.
You can say that again!
I just tried to post a comment but it didn’t show up, so I send it again. If the first should appear, please delete this.
The problem, I think, with a satirical magazine like the Onion, which presents satirical stories as actual news (as opposed to employing some other satirical) vehicle) is that reality is so wild and crazy that it’s superfluous and for me, diminishes the inherent craziness of actual phenomena. Of course, when I say ‘inherent’ craziness I mean in our interpretation of phenomena and the narratives we make out of it. I revel in satire, have written some myself, and the Onion doesn’t satisfy or inspire my satirical hunger. That sort of satire, which is literary hoaxing, I can take only in small doses because the kind of epistemic addling that the Onion trades in, where one is supposed to be sucked into the veracity of the assertion and then must question it, I find in spades in daily life (and it drives me nuts), I find truth invariably stranger and much more interesting and important than what the Onion is doing, and this ‘list of demands’ just proves my point. I think that satire as hoax works best as a one-off enterprise, such as Diderot’s La Religeuse.
The fact is that this manifesto is unbelievably sad and appalling, and as someone who spent time in jail during the civil rights movement in the ’60s and came close to losing my life, it’s terribly demoralizing: to think that now these students are clamoring to have the university create ghettos, plantations, reservations, detainment camps, and the like, in which they can cocoon themselves. With people like this, racists, xenophobes, and nativists, won’t have any work to do. This is the antihesis of the societal transformation I’d hoped to help bring about. I also find it hilarious and spectacularly ludicrous; but I’m a cynic as well as an atheist, so find it great fodder for deep satire built on those facts, satire which explores the dynamics as well as exploits them, and not simply trades on them as does the Onion.
Seriously…I agree with your criticism of the Onion. I visit occasionally and find myself bored after reading a few headlines. It is a very derivative kind of humor, by definition. Keep in mind that they have taken on the task of producing quite a lot of material. Maybe they should work on quality and forget the quantity. Once in a while, though, they do come out with a really nice piece.
Yes, sometimes they do hit the mark, and it’s wickedly delightful when one learns that a story has indeed been picked up by the media and reported as true. That’s when they’re doing their job and hoaxing the pundits; but picking it up just as a reader, well aware of the game, it’s generally unsatisfying.
Someone needs to sue schools like this for infringing on First Amendment free-speech.
They have no clue about free speech or the Constitution. A recent survey found that less than 20% of American universities even have an American history requirement. And while these snowflakes talke the language of non discrimination, only about 20% of graduates even knew what the Emancipation Proclamation was. Apparently they get their knowledge mostly from what activists tell them.
According to a couple of articles I read, the State Department has started considering ‘microaggressions’ as harassment.
Meanwhile in Canada, the Department of Religious Freedom should be being wound down, but now religious groups that cause the problems want their interests protected.
religion is a personal matter and hte world would be better if people kept it to themselves
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/religious-freedom-think-tank-1.3495539
Wow, Bennett states “two thousand years of Christian social thought”
Now that can only be thought as there is certainly no evidence for anything else that is useful.
The taxpayer has to fund this nonesense.
He actually was a decent guy, despite his personal god-bothering (as they say). He actually paid attention to CFI, for example, which is quite remarkable, all things considered. I do agree the topics they address should be rolled into ordinary “foreign affairs” programs, though.
This was what our Evangelical Stephen Harper did in his last term as PM. after he ended the Charter Challenge program before athiests leapfrogged the transgender community to the Charter to reopen it or use section 7 to inter alia a Freedom From Religion clause….the second thing Harper did in his first term upon being PM was removing equality under the mandate of the Status of Women agency, effectively undercutting the our charter’s putting gender equality above all other rights – making women not chattel or subject to husband’s religion.
well, there’s the public people who pay taxes and those who just own the politicians outright…. cheaper than paying taxes apparently…
Snowflakes and saguaros do not mix. This will end not well. I stand by the saguaros.
So the pattern continues. Here, as before, we see demands — no, Demands to segregate students by race and culture. Wtf. The legal challenges alone make this a non-starter.
Integration of humanity has always been a challenge, but one thing you can say for the West is that we have been trying and we have made progress. But no, they want to totally surrender & roll back 60 years of work for which people have f-ing died. Next they will Demand separate drinking fountains for people of color.
“Next they will Demand separate drinking fountains for people of color.”
But this time, the demand emanates from the POC and is viewed as a privilege!
I’m actually surprised UA doesn’t already do the “free condoms…” thing. And shouldn’t STD testing already be covered by the student health plan? In any event, that bullet seems fairly reasonable to me. Their reasoning makes no sense, but passing out prophylaxis and offering free STD testing and treatment on a college campus seems like a perfectly reasonable public health measure to me.
Wow three separate groups advocating for racially discrimination in campus housing. I think that number is a new low.
But the one that really gets me is the ‘gender query every class session’ thing. Every day you have to ask the question? Really? If my professors had done that, I would’ve likely responded by coming 10 minutes late to class each time. Or maybe its a sign that the English singular ‘they’ should make a comeback.
‘gender query every class session’
No, it was just at the start of each course. But how the heck is a lecturer supposed to remember all those?
I’d suggest reverting to ancient practice and using just surnames (‘Smith, please tell us the answer ….’ )
or maybe just ‘Citizen Smith’ etc for everyone, or maybe just ‘Thing’
or better still, just give each one a big number to wear.
cr
Let each student with an atypical pronoun preference come to class with a hat or placard or some such with the pronouns clearly printed on it in letters big enough for the professor to read easily.
I’m thinking some variant of Mickey Mouse ears that must be worn at all times. Perhaps stapled in place.
‘stapled in place’
… with Ramset bolts. Wouldn’t cause any detectable damage.
😉
cr
Well, having started this, it now occurs to me that it might be very hurtful for transgendered students…
Maybe Ant can tell us something about the pronoun thing…
??
Trying to figure out why transgendered students might be the only ones with any sensations occurring between their ears…
cr
“Trying to figure out why transgendered students might be the only ones with any sensations occurring between their ears…”
Well, I just thought they might be the ones with the most sensitive pronoun problems…
Maybe if all the students wanting to avoid typical pronouns could agree upon one set of neutral ones, then wear or somehow display a certain color patch or symbol, then the profs could use the neutral ones for them and the usual man/woman ones for the rest…
Hmm.. in order to pre-empt collateral damage, I should clarify that my sarcastic comments related to the special snowflakes who compiled that list of ludicrous demands. I think your caveat refers to actual students, transgendered or similar.
Not necessarily the same group of students.
cr
“…my sarcastic comments related to the special snowflakes…”
Yeah, mine too. I wonder if it ever occurs to the snowflakes that their ridiculous manifestos actually embarrass–make life tougher for–some of the people they proclaim they’re fighting for?
WRT item six on your list. What exactly are students of colour?
Aren’t all students of colour? Or are some further beyond the pale than others?
Seems contradictory and discriminatory as well as ridiculous.
“of color” is shorthand for anyone other than a non-Hispanic white (i.e. European origins) person.
‘non-Hispanic white’ ?
Hispanics aren’t white anyway, they’re brown. Or is that racist?
Whites aren’t white either, just a sort of blotchy pinky-yellowy-brown, mostly. Other than the ones who are brown through dedicated tanning, of course.
cr
Or orange and running for president 😉
Yes whites are “persons of pinkness”
I think ‘persons of beigeness’ might be more chromatically accurate 😉
cr
Yes and “persons of pinkness” could be mixed up with the sexist gender stuff. Though beigeness is so boring there’s just no incentive to add it to the persons of colour list. 😕
I happen to *like* beige, you – you chromatofascist, you!
I feel – what was the word? – oh yes, microviolated by your chromatic insensitivity. I suppose you subscribe to the hegemony of privileged primary colours.
(Microsniff)
Well, one day beige will have its day. Along with eau-de-nil and duck egg green (or is that duck egg blue? One or the other, anyway).
cr
(Microstomps off in a microhuff)
Thanks for giving me class material for my writing students next week.
We’re covering Orwell’s essay “Politics and the English Language,” and one point I want to make is how terms become meaningless in a politicized atmosphere.
For example, Trump keeps citing “political correctness” whenever he is questioned about any utterance whatsoever, which means the term PC no longer means anything but “anyone who thinks I should be considerate with any language whatsoever.”
The key is to have examples of actual political correctness to show how ludicrous Trump’s claims are.
This here article will sure provide me with that material.
If I were the Administration I would just point out that the University already has an anti-bullying policy so, no.
They forgot to include a Center for White Racists and sensitivity training for everyone on campus so as not to offend Trump supporters.
They might just combine the Center for White Racists with the Taliban Tolerance Society and the Friends of Nice ISIS.
NICIS?
Peeling the onion (or is it the Onion?):
“Demands to hire more left-leaning faculty”.
Huh!? I though a problem in academia was that there was not only unrepresentative but too much leftists so that the opposite side didn’t get expressed.
So, yikes.
Its just evidence (if you needed it) that the left has a “never ideologically pure enough” brigade just as the right does. These are the sort of folks who (on the right) force Cantor out of the House because they say he’s not conservative enough, or (on the left) oppose Hilary because they think she’s anti-feminist.
They are full of stuff on wanting a more left leaning faculty. What they want is more of a post modern anti enlightenment faculty that rejects liberal and enlightenment values.
What they want is a kindergarden with lots of rooms for meaningless rants on various POMO/Crit theory topics they can organise themselves and which aren’t marked, world music, fluffy toys, and the odd safe space room where they can scream and throw tantrums (yogic relaxation isn’t allowed cos thats cultural appropriation). Every now and then they can have an excursion for a protest and then retire to the safe spaces to decompress. After a spell in this they will get a certificate saying they have been there and participated in the events.
re. Trigger warnings: do the snowflakes never consider that one of the largest groups of PTSD sufferers – the very beneficiaries of trigger warnings – are those who have been on the wrong end of guns, so are very likely to be triggered by the word ‘trigger’?
Snowflakes can be so inconsiderate.
Indeed. I feel very mircoviolated whenever I hear the word “trigger.”
Not to mention its ghastly gangsta rhyme.
I feel nanoviolated every time I hear the prefix “micro.” Its highly insensitive to Mikes, Michaels, and Michelles everywhere. So they should stop using that too.
When I was an EMT, we had an older dispatcher who used to get irritated with the bad radio habits of some of the firefighters on the crew. If they were inaudible, she would go on the air and say, “Take the mike out of your mouth, would you.”
To which I (Mike) would ROFLMAO
😉
Reminds me of how I used to snap to attention every time my high school geometry teacher said “diameter.”
‘microviolated’?
Brilliant! I must remember that.
cr
How could any institution of learning retain the right to call itself “school/college/university” if such a rule was to be implemented?
I read that and thought – surely not. I know there have been (justifiably) movements to punish faculty who *vindictively* fail students, but that’s something else.
This must be a parody written by some right-wingers!
The faculty might find this useful
http://cehdvision2020.umn.edu/cehd-blog/temper-tantrums-survival-guide-for-parents/
LOL. Pinheads have always been pinheads; when I was that age I was *sure* that I was right about everything.
I blame university administration for taking them so seriously.
I’m not sure they are. I’m not sure they aren’t, either – the linked article doesn’t really discuss the administration’s response at all.
My guess is the administration is taking some time because they want to carefully formulate a politically appropriate and mollifying version of “hell no.”
No is the appropriate response for infants and adults who behave like infants. It’s short, to the point and will make them cry the same as a lengthy response.
Next up:
– We won’t eat our vegetables if we don’t feel like it and we demand two desserts.
– We want a full-time person to kiss our boo-boos and make them better.
Have these students ever stepped back to see how they look?
Sad truth. Big reason why administrators treat students’ nonsensical demands with utter seriousness? Simple. Those administrators are angling for their next, bigger and better job –and don’t want their job prospects by charges of insensitivity or racism, no matter how unfounded the charges may be.
I am of Norwegian heritage and I am extremely offended by the “Norwegian Chef” routine on the Muppets Show. I plan to sue.
How difficult is it to prepare lutefisk?
That chef is Swedish!
😉
All the more reason to sue – the micro aggression that Norwegian chefs are not suitable for mockery
If you get any money out of Jim Henson, let us know. That would answer some deep philosophical questions.
I have suggested in the past that when the right no longer exists and there are no more Republicans, the slightly-less-left of the left wing will become the new RWA, Right Wing Authoritarians. At no time will everyone be left or right; it is a spectrum. Now the entire spectrum might shift; as for instance the United States is a bit more libertarian than Europe for the simple reason of selection — Europeans seeking more liberty emigrated to the United States.
Diversity no longer means merely recognizing and allowing for different cultures; now it means segregation. What is odd is that the former victims of segregation now seem to want segregation. How is that possible? It is possible because of privilege. Previously, segregants had less privilege, now they have more and wish for that privilege to be not diluted.
They are exactly the same as the religious right except they hate different people and are not as against the state. Other wise they want to control what happens in the bed room by pushing for secret tribunals with limited to no due process instead of a public investigation of alleged crimes. They want to create an other. They have their secular sacraments and beliefs. To name just some similarities.
Whatever happened to our melting pot? 🙁
(I know, I know, it’s now supposed to be a salad. But at least salads are integrated [tossed].)
“Mandatory sensitivity training for all employees of the college and a subset of students.”
a. Demanding that for ALL college employees strikes me as an extremely insensitive measure.
b. A ‘subset’ of the students? Which subset, and who determines this? The “Committee of Marginalized Students”?
Some sensitivity training for the “Committee of Marginalized Students” itself seems in order.
19 pages of demands? That must have taken quite some time out of their study time! No wonder they demand punishment for faculty who fail them!
The only trigger warnings I am remotely sympathetic with are for works like “Huckleberry Finn” (or novels by Flannery O’Connor, etc.) that prolifically use the anagram for “ginger” or works graphically dealing with the horror of war.
That said, never ban or allow alternatives to these if they are important for the curriculum.
But a law survey not teaching rape law?? Come on.
I doubt any good teacher needs to be told or administratively ordered on how to approach Huck Finn. Teachers were warning kids about what’s in that book decades before the phrase ‘trigger warning’ even existed, and I expect they will continue to do so long after the phrase ‘trigger warning’ fades from use.
Indeed so. But now good teachers can call what they have always done a “trigger warning” and appear to be with the program. 🙂
I think the university should also provide free bras to the women. After all, it’s a finacial burden to women specifically.
Unspoken with all of these demands that I have seen this season, is what the “or else” is. What are they threatening? “Direct action”? Or are they going to take their ball, and go home. Please someone just call their bluff.
Didn’t you notice? “Mobilization!”
Seems to me these kids want the university to be their mommy and daddy – providing all of their needs. Aren’t these adults?
When I went to university, I had a life outside of school where I could choose what to involve myself in. It never occurred to me that the school was obligated to meet all of social and psychological needs.
Only African Americans may use the King house? Because that’s what King was working for, SEGREGATION!
Indeed. Those with no sense of history, as they say…
What about free sunscreen for the melanin challenged? Don’t these students care that there is an aggressive day star burning people and giving them cancer with UV rays?
Why authoritarian “leftism”? These guys are not leftists, they are idiots! (Not that one cannot be both…)
Free condoms and banning the Border Patrol sound like a damn good idea. And individual trash cans in every restroom stall (what? you mean there aren’t already?). Kinda trivial though.
And I guess they’ve provided ample evidence of why more mental health counselling would be a good idea because they’re obviously completely mental. [/snark] (Retrospective microagression warning!)
As for the rest of the list, it’s beyond ridiculous. I’d suggest they all be requested to leave as they obviously don’t have enough basic intelligence to know which way is up.
cr
The way it reads, it is either some extended, sophisticated joke gone rogue, or this is the result of everyone’s being able to get their specific demands printed in the same paper, which can only result in chaos in inconsistency. I am not even sure that, granted the paper is serious, its authors are aware that they are asking for more discrimination (in the literal sense of the original Latin word) and separation, which, in its turn, would be counterproductive.
I would love to see the students “mobilize”. This allows for the entertaining prospect of the police mobilizing as well(hopefully with pepper spray). What a bunch of spoiled rotten brats.
To me, especially with the atmosphere Trump’s created, that “threat” awakens awful memories of Kent State…
I just wish the administration would just tell them to go screw themselves. That would be some macro-aggression that would be good to see.
I think the issue here is balance. As we can tell from the Heterodox Academy website, conservative professors are something like 6% of professors in Humanities and Social Sciences. [I know that is because conservatives are stupid, but I don’t understand why stupid conservatives would be more greatly represented in the hard sciences.]
Humanities is the gate-keeper of culture, and social science is the gate-keeper of what kinds of empirical questions we are permitted to ask (for example, are ethnic/religious/racial stereotypes generally true, as conservative social scientist MaCauley asked, and found a non-politically correct answer subsequently replicated.)
The result is a badly politicized education, and because there is no right/left to fight with each other (the Left having purged the Right), now the Left must fight with itself. And what must the battle consist in?
Obviously, those who are ideologically most pure against those who side with empirical reality over ideology. Since the Left has hegemonic power, who do you think wins in the purge? Truth or purity?
A purge consists not in eliminating stupid people, but in casting out certain points-of-view and the ability to ask certain kinds of questions. Because a purge is about consolidating power, and power is an end in itself, the purge becomes an end in itself. [For this reason, the right, when they obtain ideological hegemony, is just as dangerous to the search for truth as the left, because the goal of both is power.]
In a healthy university, you would have conservatives and liberals trying to validate their ideology based on empirical evidence, and making common appeals to facts. Or theistic philosophers debating non-theists on the basis of cogent, logical arguments, not tribal appeals. You would have humanities professors exposing students to different cultural expressions, and leaving it to the students to determine their relative value, rather than compelling them to read depressing books by Toni Morrison.
The kind of healthy university culture has been in decline since the 1960’s, when the inmates began running the asylum, and universities started chasing federal money and adopting corporate management (and making their students rack up obscene amounts of debt) and building fancy stadiums, gyms and cafeterias instead of producing an education that had both quality and affordability.
I don’t see the surprise about segregation.
It is one thing for an ethnic group to form say a private golf course and exclude other ethnic groups, that is self-segregation.
It is another thing for another ethnic group to force you out of their territory, and consign you to some kind of ghetto. This is a condition of segregation defined by the Other.
The first is an expression of ethnic power, the second an expression of ethnic subjugation.
Now many people are not interested in pursuing politicized ethnic identity, but if you are, then you support self-segregation for your group, and you oppose efforts to exclude your group by other ethnic groups, especially if they have higher status. This is just basic ethnocentrism, and because only one group can really get away with having it both ways (the one on top), why human history has so much warfare, bloodshed, and tragedy.
ASU’s statement to this should be simple, “Go fuck yourselves”