I’m reading yet another article of the madness on campus, and once again the dog not barking gets my attention.
First a quick look at the article:
Our campuses are in constant turmoil from ever more shrill cries of RACISM. It doesn’t matter if you’re drinking milk, showing up on time, or living within your means, you’re guilty of it. If you’ve ever said or written anything that could be misinterpreted to be racist, you’re guilty of racism now. And, nowadays, merely being white makes you a racist, and subject to punishment.
So, yes, maybe it’s time we try to nail down what, exactly, is the definition of racism. Sadly, the article doesn’t go that route despite the title, but does at least provide another example of the madness at Evergreen State College:
There, a professor whom some students want fired was told by the campus police chief that, out of concern for his safety, he should stay off campus for a few days.
Imagine, the students are so violent that the professor is risking physical harm (death?) simply by doing his job. In today’s up-is-down world, the professor is being targeted as a racist because he spoke out against racism:
He has spoken out on two campus issues, in both cases taking positions he maintains were opposing racism.
This highlights exactly why we need a definition for racism. Right now, we have legions of administrators whose job it is to find racism, and target it with extreme prejudice. Since their jobs depend on it, and racism can mean whatever you want it to mean, they find it everywhere…students pick up on this, I promise you.
Because there’s no actual definition, you can speak out against racism (whatever you think it means) and nevertheless be targeted and punished for practicing racism (whatever admin thinks it means).
In this case, the campus was having a Day of Absence, where white people were being ordered not to come to campus. The professor dared to speak out against “what he saw as” racism:
“There is a huge difference between a group or coalition deciding to voluntarily absent themselves from a shared space in order to highlight their vital and underappreciated roles (the theme of the Douglas Turner Ward play Day of Absence, as well as the recent Women’s Day walkout), and a group encouraging another group to go away,” Weinstein wrote. “The first is a forceful call to consciousness, which is, of course, crippling to the logic of oppression. The second is a show of force, and an act of oppression in and of itself.”
Weinstein went on to say he would be on campus on the Day of Absence and would encourage a similar stance by white people being asked to stay away.
Daring to speak out against the madness makes you a target now. The other racism he dared to speak against? Here goes:
The other reason cited against Weinstein is that he has come out against a recommendation on faculty hiring by the college’s Equity and Inclusion Council. That recommendation, currently under consideration by college leaders, would require an “equity justification/explanation” for all faculty hires.
I couldn’t find information on how much taxpayer money is pissed away on the fiefdom for the Equity and Inclusion Council, but, trust me, the Vice Presidents of Equity and Inclusion on that council know full well that their jobs require them to reduce equity and inclusion, hence their recommendation. It’s only common sense, you see…the less equity and inclusion there is, the more critical the Equity and Inclusion Council’s role is. Clearly the best way to increase equity and inclusion would be to not have all these people whose job is to make it worse…but obviously we won’t indulge in that level of common sense.
I really feel the need to emphasize this school isn’t unusual in these types of racist hiring practices…it’s why physicists in Kentucky can’t be white males, after all. And, again, daring to speak out against this madness just makes you a target, a target students feel they can physically attack.
Administration naturally will make concessions to the violence:
In a meeting with students late Friday,[Poo Bah] Bridges rejected demands that Weinstein and some police officers be fired, saying that the college does not respond to demands that employees be fired. But he announced a number of steps that the college was taking, and he repeatedly praised the protest movement. Among the changes he announced:
- The start of mandatory diversity and cultural sensitivity training for all faculty members. (This measure was adopted with the agreement of the faculty union.)
- The creation of an equity/multicultural center.
- The hiring of a vice president or vice provost who will focus on equity and diversity issues. (The search for this position had already been started.)
- Adoption of a new policy where every official event at the college will start with an acknowledgment that Evergreen State is on land stolen from Native Americans.
–note how admin wins with these concessions, with new fiefdoms and new positions that have nothing to do with education and research, and the sweet kickbacks that will come from building the equity/multicultural center.
These concessions will work for a little while, I suppose, but the violent students are still there on campus, and now they know that violence will get them what they want. Thus, the violence will erupt again, soon.
But…wait.
Admin can fix this problem in a better way than making concessions.
I’ve mentioned before that cheating is a huge problem on campus, and “spot checks” on cheating can reveal half the class cheating on coursework in some fashion.
The reason why cheating is so prevalent is because admin won’t remove cheaters from campus…it’s a tacit permission from admin for the students to cheat all they want. Admin could fix the problem of cheating simply by letting educators have some control over this.
It’s the same issue with the violent students on campus. Faculty should be viewed much like referees and umpires in sportsball: untouchable. A football player can certainly complain about a ref’s call, but if physically threatens or even lays a hand on the referee, he’s ejected from the game, and it’s the same if a fan does it…pretty sure this rule applies to all sporting events.
Let’s just use the same idea here. Students who threaten violence against faculty (or engage in it) are banned from campus. No Council For Diversity rulings, no arguments…just toss these violence-prone people. It won’t rule out violence on campus, but the endless repetitions of violence and threats of violence will end at some point as campuses run out of offenders to toss.
Why has this obvious idea never come up? The same reason admin won’t get rid of cheaters. All administration cares about is growth of the student base…that the students are more interested in violence than education is irrelevant.
The gentle reader needs to keep this in mind: the violence on our campuses could be much reduced, but for the spinelessness of our many, many, highly, highly paid rulers on campus.
Oh, there is one more detail. Who gets to define what “threat of violence” and “violence” mean? Faculty. Imagine how quickly campuses would clean up if faculty could just toss cheaters merely by warping the definitions beyond all sanity! “I felt threatened by his cheating!” could be enough to get a student off campus…hey, it works for the police.
Ok, that last bit might be a pipe dream, but simply removing the violent from campus is very simple, very easy to implement, very reasonable, very cheap, and would do much to restoring our campuses as centers of education and research, instead of hotbeds of a violent ideology.
But let’s spend $20 million to build a multicultural center along with hiring another dozen $150,000 a year vice-presidents, and see if that works, first.