The most delicate snowflakes yet: students at Western Washington University issue a ludicrous set of “demands”, and change some spelling

March 11, 2016 • 1:00 pm

Read on about the most ridiculous group of demands I’ve ever seen issued by disaffected college students—and that’s among a huge list of colleges whose students have demanded ludicrous authoritarian-Leftist reforms of their institutions. In this case, though, it’s Western Washington University (WWU), where the student demands (in the document “Student Assembly for Power and Liberation Demands [WWU]”) is so beyond the pale that it’s come full circle to unadultrated fascism—identity politics gone wild.

The Daily Beast and Inside Higher Ed (IHE) report on the students’ shenanigans, summarizing their demands (there are many more, as you’ll see if you look at the link above). The worst is the call for establishing the regressive “College of Power and Liberation,” which sounds like something right out of 1930’s Russia. Here, verbatim from IHE, is a summary of what the Snowflakes want:

  • A new College of Power and Liberation to focus on “the study of histories and communities that continue to be mis- and underrepresented into the mainstream curriculum at Western.” In addition to the college itself, the list calls for “a cluster hire of 10 tenure-track faculty,” a new building to house the college and that the Student Assembly for Power and Liberation have “direct input and decision-making power over the hiring of faculty for the college.”
  • That $45,000 be allocated to compensate students and faculty “doing de-colonial work on campus,” which is defined as “providing space and resources to learn alternate histories, supporting students’ nonacademic work, emotional and intellectual labor that is not about publishing or service to the institution, providing often unrecognized trainings, workshops and/or interventions on behalf of students.”
  • The creation of a 15-person student committee called the Office for Social Transformation “to monitor, document and archive all racist, antiblack, transphobic, cissexist, misogynistic, ableist, homophobic, Islamophobic and otherwise oppressive behavior on campus.” Using a three-strike system, the committee would have the power to take disciplinary action up to and including dismissal against faculty members who receive citations for creating “an unsafe classroom environment.”
  • A mandatory online survey conducted by the faculty and administration that would “allow Western Washington University community members to confidentially express concerns of discrimination and safety.”
  • A new “multicultural residence building,” applications to which would be overseen by the new Office for Social Transformation.
  • And finally that the university provide tuition reimbursement to “any Western Washington University student who has been targeted by, harassed by or has experienced excruciating acts of violence that [were] racialized, sexualized, gendered, based on ability, employment status, citizenship and/or mental health from the university.”

Note that the multicultural residence building, for which you must write an essay to qualify, will segregate students by ethnic group—exactly the opposite of what colleges should be doing. The fascistic “Office of Social Transformation” (shades of 1984!) omits anti-Semitism as an offense, of course, and also threatens faculty members with being dismissed for creating an “unsafe” atmosphere. Since when did “safety” change from physical threats into mental challenges? And the WWU students are demanding to be paid for giving emotional attention to other students.

To appreciate the full inanity of these demands, read the full 7 pages . There you will see one of the most bizarre aspects of that document: their new spelling for two words, to wit:

As has become increasingly obvious to us since we arrive at Western, we cannot count on the University to follow through for hxtorically oppressed students. These demands come out of a long hxstory of oppression played out at all levels of schooling, and just like the events of last quarter, these demands do not come out of nowhere.

We demand the creation and implementation of a 15 persxn paid student committee. . .

These aren’t typos: they’re used repeatedly, and are apparently a misguided attempt to “de-gender” words that have “his” and “son” in them. What’s next—an amino acid called “hxstidine” and toxic compounds called “poisxns”?

Finally, the student demands at WWU end with this lovely sentence:

We expect to receive a response from the university on March 1st, 2016 at 5pm agreeing with these demands and a proposed date to meet collectively.

According to both articles, the WWU administration hasn’t agreed to these demands, and has also pointed out the numerous legal and financial strictures they’d impose on the university. But the administration hasn’t done what I’d be tempted to do: give a verbal middle finger to these students. Perhaps some of their plaints are justified, but the students are so arrogant, so entitled, that they’re ruining any chance they have to effect change.

126 thoughts on “The most delicate snowflakes yet: students at Western Washington University issue a ludicrous set of “demands”, and change some spelling”

      1. Nice one, Diane!

        The missing element of the series (implicit in rickflick’s comment) was of course ‘Mitto’.

        And I’m out. Quitto.

  2. The illiberal left seems to have primarily learned their tactics from the fire hoses, dogs, and human brutality that characterized much of the oppression they seek to overturn. You can’t legislate people into changing their beliefs or behaviors no matter how much we disagree. You have to lead by example, patience, and love, primarily, and legislate once you’ve won enough people over to your new point of view. And intellectual leaders at universities everywhere have to have both the courage and the compassion to lead by our own examples too, refusing to succumb to these totalitarian demands, no matter how well meaning they might be.

    1. ” You have to lead by example, patience, and love, primarily,”….rational thinking doesn’t hurt, either!

    3. I think these student demands are ridiculous, and I agree that you can’t change hearts and minds by legislation. However, it was legislation that ended slavery, Jim Crow laws, and segregation. So there is a place for laws in getting to equality.
      However, these types of demands seem to represent a movement towards more segregation, not less – only this segregation is not by skin color, but by personal views and ideas.

  6. I was called on the carpet on a job I had in 2007 for a joke that was allegedly racist, when in fact the target of the joke was racISM. It would be like claiming Mel Brooks’ “The Producers” was anti-Semitic. Protests I made that the joke targeted bigotry against minorities, not minorities were unavailing.

    The monitoring committee makes me shudder.

  8. If one looks up Western Washington University on Wikipedia, I suggest that the
    photo in the article of a sculpture on campus is an appropriate response to these demands. Unfortunately, the “hand” is missing a few fingers, but important one is appropriately prominent.

  11. I can’t believe you close minded people. You just need to expand your herizons.

  13. As has become increasingly obvious to us since we arrive at Western, we cannot count on thx University to follow through for hxtorically oppressed students. Thxse depersxnds come out of a long hxstory of oppression played out at all leve/adamls of schooling, and just like thx eve/adamnts of last quarter, thxse depersxnds do not come out of nowhxre.

  14. While their targets and methods are dubious, at best, is there some way to redirect their activist fervor toward more appropriate issues?

  15. I weep for that generation. So ill prepared for Life. Such a rude awakening about to happen. Ripe for a demagogue.

  16. Back in the 1970’s *free* universities were a thing. As some one who lived through the seventies and can remember bits of it I would say, go start your own university. Call it “The College of Power and Liberation” and make its focus “the study of histories and communities that continue to be mis- and underrepresented into the mainstream curriculum”
    Im not going to stop you and neither I suspect will WWU. I’m not going to facilitate it. I don’t see why WWU should either.

  17. As I see it all of this crap is just a way of gaining power. Nowadays, being offended gives a person a certain amount of power over the offender.
    These students have only recently left their childhood behind and entered the adult world. They’ve found that by behind angry and offended they can order around all of the adults at this impressive institution. If they cant see how ludicrous and hypocritical all their demands are its because they’re just drunk with power

  19. The biggest mistake that the school administration can make is to take these demands seriously. If in this morass of idiocy there are a few requests that reasonable, the administration should consider them. It is probably unknown as to what percent of the students actually sympathize with the manifesto. The administration should politely say to the students, “If you are not happy here, nobody is stopping you from withdrawing.” What could the students do? 1) They could continue to protest through more manifestos and demonstrations. This is fine. They have the right to do so. 2) As in the 1960s, they could engage in sit-ins. If they do this, they should be invited to leave. If they don’t, they should be removed by the police with as minimal amount of force as possible. 3) They could engage in violence. If so, they should be arrested and prosecuted.

    I don’t think these students (or at least the leaders) are so naïve as to truly believe that the vast majority of their demands have the slightest possibility of being accepted. But they have the effect of making them feel better as if they are actually doing something for social justice. So, my view is to ignore them. They will eventually get bored and go away.

    1. This list has some things on it that will actually hurt the administration too (such as the tuition reimbursement demand).

      The administration will therefore resists.

      Fortunately, the students in this case (and others too) are too stupid to realize what their best strategy should be (i.e. try to ally themselves with the administration at the expense of the faculty)

      But that might change.

      Many of these lists of demands include a lot more things that hurt the faculty (because the faculty are the ones who have to intellectually challenge the students) than the administration (which invariably has to grow to meet the demands, and if there is one thing that the administration loves, that is having more of it around).

  20. The word ‘demand’ appears 31 times, and there are less than 31 paragraphs. I think they really want something!

  21. I love it.

    The word “history” comes from the Ancient Greek word “ιστορία” which neither has no relation to the word for “his” (that would be αυτού”) nor has an “h”.

    Apparently these sophomoric students are getting their etymology lessons from Michael Jackson albums. Which is probably a good reflection of their overall intellectual prowess.

    1. Spot on. In addition, they seem unable to distinguish between “alternate” and “alternative.

    2. Person comes from the Latin “persona” meaning a mask worn by an actor. It has nothing to do with the English word “son”, if it did mean son it would be “filius”.

      These people could do with a bit of training in ancient Greek and Latin.

      1. No. That would be Eurocentric.

        I think the History they would like to be taught should be reflected in a new name.

        The word “history” should be changed to “supposed-history” shortened to “suppository”

    4. Actually, the Greek word does have an “H” sound at the beginning, indicated by a rough breathing diacritic at the beginning.

    5. There is a similar phenomenon in Rastafarian language. For Example: “The replacement of some syllables considered contrary to the meaning of the words (usually based on their sounds) with syllables considered more appropriate; for example, oppress becomes downpress; dedicate becomes livicate; understand becomes overstand…”

      It’s so mind-meltingly stupid. How can they expect anyone to take even their reasonable concerns seriously?

  22. Instead of the Office for Social Transformation I suggest a new Office of Satirical Signal to Noise Convergence. This 15 student panel would review any new social policy initiatives interspersed with articles from The Onion. If at least 8 of the students were unable to distinguish the student policy demands from Onion articles, then said demand would be rejected and the sponsors would be eligible for a period of ridicule for a period not to exceed 90 days from the time of their last offense.

  23. This takes the crown indeed — there have been many of these lists, and they have been full of insanity, but this takes it another level…

  24. “The fascistic “Office of Social Transformation” (shades of 1984!) omits anti-Semitism as an offense, of course…”

    They specified “racism”. Why was that not sufficient? Do you feel the persecution of Jews is so much more important than other forms of racism that it should be called out specifically?

    1. Jews aren’t a race, in case you didn’t know, and did you happen to notice that they did specify “Islamophobia” as an offense, so they did single out one religion already. That’s why I mentioned anti-Semitism.

      You’re a rude person and won’t be posting here any more. Did you happen to read the Roolz? Too late, I’m afraid. Bye!

      1. It is amazing (though somewhat predictable) that they completely ignore thousands of years of oppression and consider Jews to be privileged, white, colonial, oppressors. Attacking Jews is “punching up” and they totally deserve it. Every group that has been wronged in the past deserves retribution and reparations, except Jews (I mean Zionists…no, I mean Jews).

        Some things never change.

          1. Ha, ha, that was so funny! You have a wonderful knack for remembering everything that culturally resonates and we are the richer for it!

            (And you meant Koufax, of course.)

          2. Good man, that Sandy Koufax. I recall when he refused to pitch in the World Series on Yom Kippur.

          3. Me too! I remember him getting a lot of admiration for his “principled” stance. (Probably largely from the Twins.)

        2. It’s almost downpressor envy.

          “You Jewish Zionist get to be oppressors after 1000’s of years of being at the othrx end of thx gun; we want that too! Wah! No fair!!”

  25. Well, I suppose tx will cause some schxsms in the community. Let’s hope not many people sympathxse with their views. It’s worth noting history is entirely unrelated to the pronoun ‘his’.

  26. They listed “Islamophobia.” Bet they’re bound and determined to never list “Islamofascism.”

    1. Don’t they realize that the use of ideas, or even words, that originated in other countries is a form of “cultural appropriation”?

  27. I am really fed up with this whole business. These kids go to college to learn, but run off half-cocked. They should all be forced to study the French Revolution, and learn that their demands for power and liberation are meaningless without a Guillotine. Amateurs.

    1. Hilarious! Frequently offensive, and that is what helps it to be funny. Humor is so weird…

  29. The link for the full list of demands includes several pages of comments, and they are mostly very negative about the list of demands.

  30. By issuing demands and ultimatums, they are only replacing one system of power with another. Suppose some or all of those demands were to be granted. Don’t you suppose the individual organizers of the “movement” would demand a place at the table? And how tolerant do you suppose they would be of anyone who disagreed with them? The left seems to be just as capable of fascism as the right, and just as stupid.

  31. the committee would have the power to take disciplinary action up to and including dismissal against faculty members

    How is instituting a terror regime not “oppressive behavior”, and how does it demote discrimination and promote safety?

    [Reminiscences of the French Revolution.]

    I also like their “alternate histories” … excuse me: “hxstories”.

  33. The creation of a 15-person student committee called the Office for Social Transformation “to monitor, document and archive all racist, antiblack, transphobic, cissexist, misogynistic, ableist, homophobic, Islamophobic and otherwise oppressive behavior on campus.”

    As I’ve pointed out more than once, the use of “phobic” as a synonym for “bigoted” can itself be construed as ableist language, as it gives a negative connotation to a genuine clinical condition (phobia) by associating it with a character flaw (bigotry). As phobias fall under the umbrella of mental illness, I’m not sure why this continues to go unnoticed by people who consider it unacceptable to use (for example) “mentally ill” as an insult.

  34. Fascism? I think the better model would be China’s Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution, or the Committee of Public Safety during the Terror. And like those, they’d probably end up eating their own.

    2. Yes, that’s it exactly. Of course, their ignorance of hxstory means they are unaware of these parallels. Oh the irony …

  35. For what it’s worth, Western Washington started life as a two-year teachers’ college, “Northwest Normal”. Perhaps it remains so to this day.

  36. One part that stuck out for me was the addition of the word “excruciating” in the phrase, “…student who has been targeted by, harassed by or has experienced excruciating acts of violence that [were] racialized, sexualized, gendered, based on ability, employment status, citizenship and/or mental health from the university.”

    I wonder how one determines if an act of violence is “excruciating.” I’m guessing examples of an act of “excruciating violence” include failing to use someone’s preferred pronoun or cooking/ordering/eating eating a type of cuisine other than the traditional food of one’s grandparents.

  37. Where have you gone Mario Savio?
    A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

    What’s that you say, Mrs. Robinson, mighty Mario has left and gone away? Shame, that. As Edith and Archie almost sang on Sunday nights, Mister, we could use a man like Mario Savio again. Guy like that could teach these poor, benighted souls at Western Washington U a thing or two. Knew where it all hung out, Mario did. Had ridden with the Freedom Riders; taught school to little black kids in Mississippi, too. And when the moment of truth came, he stood tall, jumped up on that cop car at Berkeley, told his fellow students that the path to social justice in America was to throw their bodies on the gears. Nothing in that speech about safe spaces.

    Something is happening here and you don’t know what it is, do you Mister Coyne? Me, neither. But I know who would, the guy that wrote the song just alluded to, Ballad of a Thin Man — Mr. Robert Allen Dylan.

    What’s that you say, Mrs. Robinson, battlin’ Bob has left and gone away? Well, coo-coo-ca-choo, screw you, Mrs. Robinson, and the Benjamin Braddock you rode in on.

    How ’bout it, Bob? Sure, you’re ancient, and you look like sixteen miles of bad Highway 61. Your voice, never confused for Caruso’s to begin with, isn’t much more than a croak now. But it’s the best damn croak any of us ever heard. So, mister, if you’re up to it, we could use a man like you again — somebody to explain Social Justice Warriors to us, us to them. Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you, woo-woo-woo.

      1. Always suspected Peake of dosing. Didn’t make it for MDMA, though; thought he was maybe huffing some of Ziggy’s stardust.

    2. You think these kids’ll listen to a Jew?! Or let’s say, Jews, since you allude pretty strongly to Simon & Garfunkel, too. Remember, when it comes to anti-Semitism it doesn’t matter how secular a particular Jew is.

      1. Yep, three Jews total: Simon, Garfunkel & Zimmerman.

        But the Jews have showbiz wired up, so there’s no escape, not for these kids, not for anyone else. Everybody knows that. It’s like a protocol or somethin’. Same way international banking and Château Lafite are wired tight with the Rothschilds.

        1. Yeah, for which reason the conservatives can’t forgive them either. Jews can’t get a break!

          1. Sure, they get it from left to right, coming and going, from inside and out, even. So what’s not to like?

          4. Hmmm, I knew Bernie had a big share of the college market but never stopped to wonder if that included the SJW/authoritarian left part…

  38. If they want an ethnically segregated space, why don’t they just start a private golf club?

  39. I demand that these special snowflake knuckleheads also offer frolicking kitten videos in addition to the frolicking puppy videos in their safe spaces.

  40. I see they’re known as the Vikings. Isn’t that sexist, racist, misogynistic, and cultural appropriation?

          1. Yep. As an erstwhile Nielsen, closely related to some Norbergs, I think we oughta get together and work on some manifesto!

          2. I’m reminded that the last name of the character played by O.J. Simpson in one of Leslie Neilson’s comedy movies was “Nordberg.”

          3. Googling tells me it was The Naked Gun. Darn, I’ve not seen that one–sounds promising!

          4. The Scandahoovian Peoples’ Front or some-such…whoops, just realized my Olson should be Olsxn, or Oldaughter

          5. Or Gamalldottir from the Icelandic section of the Scandinavian Peoples’ Front. We demand a safe space from Norwegian imperialist chauvinism. Hence our settlement on the coldest, most explosive, least fertile pile of rock on the planet.

  41. The Regressive Left, (who in my opinion are governed by a very fascist ideology),the Right-Wing,{more appropriately called the Reich-Wing}–(who, [again, in my opinion] express themselves in terms of Fascist and Neo-Nazi sounding politics can best described in the prophetic song by CCR “Bad Moon Rising”.

  42. They have silently amended the document to include anti-semitism.

    Only a cynic would think that what they thought up themselves is more reflective of their actual beliefs than an emendation made when caught out. Like with Trent Lott.

    1. Will it become “hxrbivore”? Will guys have to change their name to “Hxrb” or “Hxrbert”?

  44. The real scary part with this stuff is that it is already commonplace in the “US secular movement”: everything that supports or futhers this ideology gets likewise support from other social justice warriors. The students here just want more than virtual hugs and improved social standing. Likewise, criticism of the ideology, or of particular instances are penalized (the punishment starts with block-bot pillory to ostracism, smearing and ultimately doxing and workplace harassment). SkeptiCon had a court-like situation already, moderated by Danielle Muscato of American Atheists.

    You can tell how crooked this setup is: let’s say someone reports they have been “harassed” — who will dare to disagree? This is one of the reasons this ideology gets extreme and extremer, and frankly this is the design for years: You can only dial in one direction, and crank it up. Hence you have the monstrous situation not just on campus, but online, too.

    US atheism-skepticism is exactly this. The design was already implemented from Freethought Blogs and SkepChicks across the social media atheist-skeptics mainstream — with next to no opposition, and tacitly supported by most notable people. Organisations supported this, too, like American Atheists and the CFI before their merger. NECSS, recently, too. Dawkins gets several “chances” because he’s important to force into line, each time he’s punished anew when he “fails”.

    The situation is already for a while that some critical race theory ideology (intersectionality, lived experience etc) must be supported or at least not be opposed. If you don’t do that, you’d get labeled all sorts of ways, and the smearing will begin. Further, every such unperson becomes indefensible, too (it typically begins that way: people want to defend an unperson against false allegations and unjust smearing and thereby become unpersons themselves). See Michael Nugent as one notable example.

    Ironically, my first dogpile was at pharyngula (also) over “herstory”. I mocked this postmodernist etc nonsense and maintained there were different waves and factions in feminism (where this stuff is nonsense)— they claimed I was wrong, in their charming rotten-something kind of way. So if you ask me: this is pretty much standard US atheism-skepticism as I know it. In my “lived experience” it’s exactly how I see most US atheists except the bunch that made a point against this nonsense (few including the host).

    When we call this “Regressive Left” or some other name, we hide the fact that this could just as well be framed as Social Justice Atheists vs New Atheists — or to be exact, the online US secular movement thing is a subset of this overall situation.

    1. That is depressing as hell. But certainly not universal. Once you get away from FtB & SkepChicks you can find plenty of sane atheists.

      Start with Jerry, of course, then there’s Dawkins, Harris, Hemant, to name just a few. My local CFI chapter–CFI-MI–is very adult & rational. Last I looked the American Humanist Association was quite practical and grown up. Oh, and of course the FFRF!

  45. What a bunch of cretins.

    (Oh sorry, that’s impermissible language as it reflects back on the mentally disadvantaged).

    Morons?

    (Same problem).

    How about ‘fuckwits’?

    There is just something about the sheer over-the-top idiocy of such demands that makes me want to offend them to death. Accompanied by a shower of rotten cabbages and anything else that can be dug out of a garbage heap.

    Are we sure this isn’t a Sokal-type hoax? I just find it hard to believe that anyone capable of typing it out should fail to realise how mind-bogglingly, farcically idiotic it is.

    cr

  46. O noes! What is to become of my name?! Oh the oppression! Oh the sexism!

    – Diana MacPhersxn

      2. I seem to recall some car mag (in the early days of ‘non-sexist language’) renaming the owner of Lotus Cars ‘Colin Personperson’.

        These days it would have to be Persxnpersxn, I suppose.

        (Colin Chapman, of course)

        cr

  47. I’m sure most of their demands will be met. This new fascism is not going away anytime soon and will gain the power to change the country for the worse.

  48. Hxsterical!

    As a NW resident, someone who applied to WWU as a high school student (I went to UW), and who had many friends at WWU, it’s sad to see regressive dorks at WWU.

    These folk are Maoists and McCarthyites. If the WWU administration caters to them, my three daughters will not attend WWU, and hopefully many parents will feel the same.

  50. I wonder if any numbers of “Millie Tant” are online? Well, the polite cap is at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millie_Tant , but since Viz are in the business of selling dead – tree highly offensive cartoons (thing Hogarth, but coarser if not ruder), their online archives aren’t very good. But they’re at http://viz.co.uk/category/cartoons/strip-cartoons/millie-tant/
    It is designed to make the target’s head explode. Not too effective, though some startling shades of facial purple can be achieved.
    In the immortal words of Sid The Sexist, “Howay the lads!”

    2. That’s hxsterical. Haha. I made a funny double entendre given what hysterical means.

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