Time and again I’ve heard admin spew the most insane gibberish, things no normal person could believe, or could even imagine. I’ve looked at administrative degree programs, and while they are complete frauds, the issue there is a lack of content or requirements, not that they’re filled with insanity.

It’s no secret that our institutions of higher education are vastly over-supplied with administrators. Mostly, they work to make the system less efficient or try to start a race riot but the simple fact is clear: we have so many of them there isn’t enough work for them to do.

One of the things admin do to entertain themselves is go to “training seminars,” where they learn ridiculous things…which they then take back to campus. Next comes a mandatory meeting for faculty who must attend and listen to the concentrated idiocy the administrator acquired on her taxpayer-funded adventure.

Let’s take a look at one of these:

White Privilege Conference 19

This big conference, supposedly an academic conference, will be held April 4^th through 7^th of next year. Could they be any more blatant about whom this is for? I mean, if you’re an actual academic, you’re likely teaching classes April 4^th through 7^th. If there was going to be legitimate academics here, then why would it be held at a time excluding most academics? They’ll just be spewing garbage here, and they know it.

While faculty certainly can’t go, our campuses are loaded down with administrators who serve no purpose, who can easily take a week off during the semester to go to this thing.

What is “white privilege” anyway? Their website helpfully attempts to answer the question with a choice quote:

“White Privilege is the other side of racism. Unless we name it, we are in danger of wallowing in guilt or moral outrage with no idea of how to move beyond them. It is often easier to deplore racism and its effects than to take responsibility for the privileges some of us receive as a result of it… once we understand how white privilege operates, we can begin addressing it on an individual and institutional basis.” ~Paula Rothenberg

I trust the gentle reader is no more illuminated by the above than I am. The “other side of racism”? The opposite of racism, then? Isn’t that a good thing? Unfortunately, this type of training obviously isn’t working, since time and again I’ve seen admin use racist (and sexist) hiring policies.

With such a bizarre definition, I concede I might be confused here. The site gives some examples:

Being able to…

• assume that most of the people you or your children study in history classes and textbooks will be of the same race, gender, or sexual orientation as you are

You know, in China, I rather expect the students there study primarily Chinese history, filled with Chinese people. I don’t consider them privileged, and I certainly don’t think they owe me anything for it…and it’s the same for pretty much every country.

My family came to this country in the late 19^th century (to the best of my understanding), and not from England/Germany/France. I’m not offended that when I studied history in school, I almost entirely studied people from a different nation than that of my forefathers…nobody owes me anything for that, either. My great-grandparents made that choice for me, and I’m fine with it (assuming I even put much thought into it).

As far as gender goes, well, again, reality is a factor here. Genetically, males are a bit of a mess. Most murderers are male. Most drug addicts are male. Most schizophrenics are male. Pretty much every “bad” thing happens more often to males than females.

Most morons are male, too. Due to quirks in our genetics, males tend to be more vulnerable to everything…they also tend to be more variable in everything. Part of that variation is intelligence. So, “most morons are male” is statistically equivalent to “most geniuses are male.”

As far as history goes, you have to be a standout to make it into the history books—we generally don’t study Mr. and Mrs. Smith in Standard House, Plainsville, Everystate, who worked common jobs, ate common foods, and raised 2.4 kids.

History is filled with the special people…and geniuses tend to be special. So, yeah, there are lot more males than females in the history books. That’s reality, it has nothing to with privilege, unless dying 8 years younger than females is also considered a male “privilege.”

Sexual orientation is similarly a function of reality. It’s a fact that around 96% or so of the population is heterosexual. So, yeah, if you’re studying history, it’s reasonable to conjecture that you’re mostly going to be studying the actions of heterosexual people (that said, because non-heterosexuals tend to be special, they’re over-represented in the history books…just not a majority). Truth be told, I don’t understand sexual orientation as a “white privilege” thing…I’m pretty sure not all whites are heterosexual, and it’s sad that the the people at this conference are so bigoted as to advocate such a thing.

The conference dances around things here, but the key, unspoken, concept is whites have privileges that blacks don’t.

It’s not my fault that there no two story buildings in sub-Saharan Africa dating from before Europeans arrived. There were no enduring written languages from that part of the world, either. With no documents or architecture extant, I can understand why I didn’t learn much of southern Africa in school.

You know, when I watch a sporting event, I don’t see many people of my color. Once again, I don’t feel penalized by this, or think anyone owes me anything for it. I’m no genius, but if I accept these claims of white privilege, I should also see that there’s a “black privilege” to watching sporting events…how is it that nobody in 19 iterations of this conference could see it? That, again, is the hint that this is a bogus event filled with pseudo-knowledge.

In any event, this 4 day conference is packed with meeting after meeting filled with one-sided, incredibly biased, points of view. To even call this stuff pseudoscience is quite generous.

To truly get an idea of shallow the people involved in this crap are, please look at the company store for this event, filled with many very ugly “Got Privilege” t-shirts…and only two books, at $100 apiece, no less. I assure the gentle reader, academics are more into books than t-shirts.

The price of the books is also telling. Whoa, $100 for a book filled with ideology? Do the attendees really spend their own money on this? Of course not, and this leads to my real issue with this bogus conference.

Our tax dollars go to pay to send hundreds of our redundant administrators to fake conferences like this.  They’re given expense accounts to pay for the hotel, meals, and, yes, overpriced books.

But wait, there’s more.

Then they come back, and force actual academics to listen to whatever garbage they heard at the conference, wasting the time of actual scholars who are in no position to challenge the rubbish they hear.

But wait, there’s more.

This garbage counts as actual training. So that that means that these $150,000 a year administrators are now entitled to a pay raise, which could be 10%, 20%, and even 50% isn’t out of the question here…for listening to drivel and forcing it down the throats of faculty.

But wait, there’s more.

Enough of this nonsensical training and these guys will get a big promotion…where they’ll even have even more time to go to even more of these conferences, and rake in even more money in the process.

And it’s all paid for by the student loan scam. If we could just kill off this source of money pouring into higher education, many of these corrupt cycles could finally end.

I suspect such an idea will never be advanced at any conference, ever…

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