Category: universities behaving badly

U. Mass. Amherst creates “scream meter” to measure levels of offensiveness of Halloween costumes

October 25, 2016 • 10:00 am

This is how far it’s gone. As Business Insider and Campus Reform report, the Halloween Costume Police have gotten out of hand, and of course it’s at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where they simply cannot let people be adults and make their own decisions. Both articles appear to be the same, so I’ll just reproduce some of the text and the S.C.R.E.A.M. meter:

The University of Massachusetts, Amherst is posting “cultural appropriation” posters in each of the residence halls on campus featuring a detailed “racism evaluation and assessment meter.”

The initiative is being spearheaded by the Center for Women and Community, the Center for Multicultural Advancement and Student Success, and the campus’ diversity office, the Stonewall Center.

“Don’t be an asshole,” one display urges students, providing several leaflets to help them understand the effects of cultural appropriation.

The board also includes a poster to help measure the “threat level” of a potential costume using what it calls the “Simple Costume Racism Evaluation and Assessment Meter” (S.C.R.E.A.M.) which poses several costume-related questions, the answers to which take one to various points on a “threat meter” that ranges from green (low) to red (severe).

If one intends to represent a person on Halloween, the only way to get a “green” threat rating is for the person to be of one’s own race. If one represents a person of another race, the “threat level” increases roughly in conjunction with the amount of makeup that one intends to use.

Even representing a “thing/idea” is dangerous, though, the flyer says, warning against costumes that can only be understood in the context of “controversial current events or historically accepted cliches,” particularly if “these events or cliches relate to a person or people not of your race.”

But if “race” is a social construct, what, exactly, do they mean by “people not of your race”? Are Hispanics of a different race from Native Americans, or Caucasians?  If “race” means “ethnic group”, is it now not okay (as it used to be) to “punch up”, so that a black can’t dress as Batman, or an Asian as the Wizard of Oz’s Scarecrow? But the “offense meter” below indicates that you can’t wear costumes representing anyone “less powerful” or “more socially marginalized” than yourself, so one would have to have some hierarchy of oppression laid out to decide if your costume was inappropriate. As we know, the hierarchy of oppression is constantly under revision.

Here’s the S.C.R.E.A.M. meter, which you can enlarge and read for yourself.

umassscream

More from Business Insider:

Another display on a different bulletin board asserts that “cultural appropriation is an act of privilege, and leads to offensive, inaccurate, and stereotypical portrayals of other people’s culture.”

It then goes on to outline steps that students can take to inform their peers if a costume may be considered inappropriate or offensive, using Native American costumes as the prime example.

“No, it’s cool, it’s not like your ancestors killed them all or anything,” reads one flyer alongside a cartoon of two white women in headdresses. “Hypersexualized racism…is still racism,” states another flyer featuring pictures of women dressed in “sexy Indian” costumes.

Here are those:

umasscostume7

umasscostume4

To be fair, there is one poster—just one—that says this:

“It’s not fair to ask any culture to freeze itself in time and live as though they were a museum diorama,” one poster quotes author Susan Scafidi. “Cultural appropriation can sometimes be the savior of a cultural product that has faded away.”

Indeed, and that undercuts much of the other messages, for many of the cultural products that have largely faded away, like Native American costumes or kimonos, are being admired, not mocked, by many kids who wear them. Further, cultural appropriation can not only preserve disappearing cultural elements, but can express admiration for the admirable parts of other cultures. What is good about America is how the various people who immigrated here have cross-pollinated each other’s cultures, something that is of course not unique to our country but especially noticeable here. So when someone claims “offense” if you’ve culturally appropriated something you like—perhaps because you don’t have a detailed awareness of what that culture has suffered—my response would be “go away.”

Now I’m not saying that no costumes are offensive, for some surely are. Blackface, for example, has bad historical connections with racism. What I dislike about these campus-wide efforts is the policing involved: one group takes it upon itself to arbitrate or censor the costumes of everyone else. It’s simply leisure fascism, and students, who after all are adults living in this world, can learn these lessons on their own—the process is called “growing up”—rather than being subject to arrogant and hectoring propagandizing by student Pecksniffs who flaunt their moral purity.

So although some Asians claim that they are a marginalized and oppressed group in the U.S., I’d have no patience for someone calling out a little girl, or a student, wearing a Princess Mononoke costume. We don’t have to accept (as U. Mass. apparently has) the dicta of groups like the Amherst Leisure Police, who succeed only out of liberal’s desperate fear of being called racists.

h/t: G. B. James

The University of Florida warns its students about their Halloween costumes.

October 19, 2016 • 12:00 pm

It’s almost Halloween, and you know what that means: the University Costume Police are getting ready to tell us all how we can and cannot dress. Here, from the Gator Times, is a notice from the University of Florida telling students they’d bloody well think hard about what they’re going to wear on Halloween, and should be careful about social media, too.  Note as well the generous availability of the Bias Education and Response team “to respond to any reported incidents of bias” and “to educated [read “‘indoctrinate’] those that were involved.”

h/t: Gregory
screen-shot-2016-10-18-at-1-41-16-pm

 

Regressive Iowa professor decries school mascot as too solemn!

September 4, 2016 • 1:15 pm

This is Herky the Hawk, the “athletic mascot” of the University of Iowa (UI).

Herky performs during the Beat State Pep Rally Friday, Sept. 12, 2014 on the Pentacrest. (Brian Ray/hawkeyesports.com)

A journalism professor conceived of Herky in 1948, and, 11 years later, he took to the field as a mascot! He’s been the symbol of Iowa ever since. However, two years ago they replaced the old Herky (below) with the current version, above. Old Herky: football helmet, no teeth (i.e. anatomically accurate), and not much of a frown. New Herky: no helmet, teeth, and fierce looking. This upset some Iowa fans.

Herky_the_Hawk

Now there’s been a lot of criticism of school mascots lately: they can conjure up images of racism, slavery, and xenophobia, and some of these criticisms are correct. I don’t, for instance, approve of stereotyped Native American “mascots”. Nor do I approve of live animals being paraded on the football field, like lions, bears, tigers and eagles. Those things belong in the wild.

But Herky? He’s not a real hawk, and he doesn’t evoke any emotions or images involving bigotry, oppression, or othering, right? So you can’t really object to Herky as a mascot, amirite?

Nope. You haven’t realized the depth to which Regressive Leftism has insinuated its tentacles into college life.

According to the August 24 Iowa City Press-Citizen, a UI Professor has strenuously objected to Herky for—wait for it—its lack of emotional variety as well as its perpetually angry expression. (Has she ever looked at a hawk?). I can’t do better than quote from the paper:

A University of Iowa professor is asking for the Department of Athletics to allow the university’s mascot, Herky the Hawk, to display a wider array of facial expressions in university publications.

“I believe incoming students should be met with welcoming, nurturing, calm, accepting and happy messages,” Resmiye Oral, a clinical professor of pediatrics at UI, wrote recently in an email to UI athletic department officials. “And our campus community is doing a great job in that regard when it comes to words. However, Herky’s angry, to say the least, faces conveying an invitation to aggressivity and even violence are not compatible with the verbal messages that we try to convey to and instill in our students and campus community.”

The email was included in a message Oral sent Tuesday morning to other members of the UI Faculty Senate, where she is one of the representatives from the UI Carver College of Medicine.

In a phone interview Tuesday, Oral said she has been concerned for some time with the lack of emotional variety displayed in the images of the university’s long-standing mascot — specifically the Fighting Herky, the “Old School” Flying Herky and the Tigerhawk logo developed by retired Hawkeye coach Hayden Fry.

Her intention, she said, is to bring diversity to how Herky feels, not to eliminate the ambitious, competitive, go-getter Herky.

Oral’s message to the Faculty Senate came in response to a series of posters and fliers on campus with messages welcoming new students — “On Iowa! Welcome Class of 2020! You’ll always be a Hawkeye. This is where it begins” — atop the images of Herky or the Tigerhawk.

“I would like to bring to the Faculty Senate’s attention that the attached Herky images are totally against the nonviolent, all accepting, nondiscriminatory messages we are trying to convey through campus,” Oral wrote in the email to her fellow senate members.

Oral stressed that she thinks the iconic images of Herky definitely have a place within the highly competitive nature of college athletics, but she wants other parts of the university to have some nonaggressive options for using such a beloved symbol.

“As we strive to tackle depression, suicide, violence, and behavioral challenges and help our students succeed, I plead with you to allow Herky to be like one of us, sometimes sad, sometimes happy, sometimes angry, sometimes concentrated,” she wrote.

The suggestion Dr. Oral —why isn’t she a mouth doctor?—was given to a new faculty and staff committee devoted to “working on the larger issue of ensuring that the university climate is one that is safe, inclusive and supportive of all of our community.” I won’t comment on that, but here’s their response to Dr. Oral’s thoughtful suggestions for Herky:

At this time, the committee is not focused specifically on how Herky is depicted,” said Thomas Vaughn, an associate professor of public health and president of the UI Faculty Senate.

Translation: “Leave us alone!”

Now this is one isolated professor, but she’s clearly infected with the Regressive Virus. By implying that Herky is actually violent, much less prone to inspire thoughts of violence, suicide, and depression in students, Dr. Oral shows she’s clearly drunk the Kool-Aid. And how is Herky supposed to show a diversity of expressions like happiness, puzzlement, concentration, and so on? It’s a plastic head, for crying out loud! Or perhaps she’s suggesting that there be a variety of Herky Heads that are changed during breaks in the game.

Either way, she needs to realize that it’s a mascot, Jake!

ImageHandler
Resmiye Oral (not angry)

h/t: Reader Jay

Film screening cancelled at Syracuse merely because professor feared pushback from BDS supporters

September 2, 2016 • 11:15 am

We’ve all seen plenty of examples of speeches at universities disrupted by offended students, speech invitations withdrawn because of student protests, and honorary degrees rescinded because of political offense (viz., Ayaan Hirsi Ali at Brandeis). But this is the first case I know of where a presentation was cancelled out of fear that it might offend students. And that fear was unsubstantiated and would have been unwarranted.

It’s reported in The Atlantic, so you can’t say this is biased right-wing reporting. The piece, “How political correctness chills speech on campus,” is by Conor Friedersdorf, a writer whom we’ve met before as a free-speech defender. And the case is distressing.

What happened, in brief, is that Syracuse University planned a conference next spring called “The Place of Religion in Film”, and a documentary filmmaker was invited to show a relevant (and well regarded) film there. The invitation came from a professor at the University of Nebraska who was also an organizer of the conference. The film was by Simon Dotan, and I’ll quote from The Atlantic:

The award-winning filmmaker, who sits on the faculty of New York University’s graduate school of journalism, recently finished a feature length documentary,The Settlers, that chronicles the history and present state of the religious settler movement in the West Bank, where more than 400,000 Israeli Jews live on occupied land.

The film is “one of the first close-up views of the motives and personalities in a group that rarely opens up to outsiders,” The New York Times noted. Variety raved that its festival presence is assured, and said that it is gripping enough to break out to wider audiences.

More about the film’s message later, but it’s not what you’re probably thinking.

After the invitation to Dotan was extended, with an offer to fly him from Israel to Syracuse, and then to Omaha for another screening, Professor M. Gail Hamner, a professor of Religion at Syracuse, put the kibosh on the invitation. Not because there were protests, mind you, but because she feared that the BDS group (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions, a notoriously nasty and anti-Semitic outfit) would object. But Hamner hadn’t even seen the film, or, apparently, knew anything about it. Here’s the letter she wrote to Dotan rescinding the invitation (my emphases):

Dear Professor Dotan,

I know you have been in contact with my Omaha colleague, Bill Blizek, about screening The Settlers and serving as plenary speaker at a religion and film conference in Syracuse in March, 2017. I am the convener of that conference and I found Bill’s description of your work, and the reviews I read of it exciting.

I now am embarrassed to share that my SU colleagues, on hearing about my attempt to secure your presentation, have warned me that the BDS faction on campus will make matters very unpleasant for you and for me if you come. In particular my film colleague in English who granted me affiliated faculty in the film and screen studies program and who supported my proposal to the Humanities Council for this conference told me point blank that if I have not myself seen your film and cannot myself vouch for it to the Council, I will lose credibility with a number of film and Women/Gender studies colleagues. Sadly, I have not had the chance to see your film and can only vouch for it through my friend and through published reviews.

Clearly I am politically naive. I also feel tremendous shame in reneging on a half-offered invitation.

I do want to stress that my colleague who Chairs our SU Jewish Studies program, Zak Braiterman, was fully willing to strongly support your coming, even though he too has not yet screened your film.

Obviously, my decision here has nothing to do with you or your work, and nothing to do with Bill, who contacted you in good faith. I feel caught in an ideological matrix and by my own egoic needs to sustain certain institutional affiliations.

I sign off in hopes that I do have the chance to engage your work one day, and in prayer that you’ll forgive me. My sincere apology and best wishes,

M. Gail Hamner
Professor
Religion Department
Affiliated Faculty in Women and Gender Studies
Affiliated Faculty in Film and Screen Studies
Syracuse University

And so Dotan’s film will not be shown because of the mere perception and fear that BDS activists would make trouble, and Hamner’s reputation would be sullied! I know of no similar cases.

But here’s the real kicker: BDS wouldn’t be making trouble if they knew about the film, for it’s not pro-settler! As Friedersdorf notes:

The political viewpoint of The Settlers shouldn’t matter. But a final irony is that the documentary, while allowing all sides to speak in their own words, portrays the settlements in a negative light, and is skeptical, at the very least, toward many settlers. A typical educated audience member would emerge with new knowledge of terrorist acts perpetrated by Israeli settlers, explicit racism in the settler movement, and a sense of the apartheid culture that has been created in the West Bank. Had I seen the film before learning of this controversy rather than after, I would have expected any attempts to stop it from being screened to come from the pro-Israel faction that has threatened free speech at the University of California.

Now I’ve argued that using the “apartheid” trope isn’t really appropriate to Israeli treatment of Arabs, but I’m not going to get into that argument now. The film deserved to be shown because of its quality and because it would provoke discussion.  I haven’t seen it, but I would go to see it, and I would never protest its being shown.

If you don’t think that The Offense Culture of students has had a chilling effect on free speech, read the above. In fact, it’s prevented the showing a film that the Perpetually Offended would have welcomed. They’re hoist with their own petard, but so are the rest of us—as this toxic student culture spreads through the US and UK.

hamner-m.gail
M. Gail (Ban)Hammer

The Halloween madness continues: “Three blind mice” costumes reported for “ableism”

August 5, 2016 • 9:45 am

I’m sure you won’t find this in The New York Times, so I’m trusting Heat Street‘s reportage here. What they report is another example of Costume Fascism, in which Halloween outfits that seem innocuous are deemed offensive to those whose avocation is to investigate and report anything that could possibly be deemed offensive. In this case it’s the costume below: “Three blind mice” (not worn by the original perpetrators, but demonstrated by others):

Screen Shot 2016-08-04 at 11.10.20 AM

The school: The University of Wisconsin-Platteville (UWP), where, around Halloween of last year, three women posted pictures of themselves in these costumes on their Facebook page. Recently, a member of UWP’s “Bias incident report team” decided to file a report on these costumes, apparently because they made fun of the disabled:

The documents,which Heat Street obtained under open records laws [JAC: I can’t find them], reveal that a member of the Bias Incident Team reported the students herself: “There was concern about their choice as it makes fun of a disability,” says the team’s meeting minutes.

The Bias Incident Team decided to follow up directly with the costume wearers, noting that “this incident is being considered a personnel issue in Residence Life” because the students were also staffers.

. . . Apparently the mouse costumes were a cautionary tale for the Bias Incident Team. During at least two different Bias Incident Team meetings, administrators discussed the need to “be pro-active next year before Halloween about choosing an appropriate Halloween costume,” also suggesting that “we may do an ‘inappropriate costumes’ de-briefing such as a news media article or overview.”

By deadline, members of the Bias Incident Team had not responded to inquiries about whether any disabled students reported being offended by the Three Blind Mice costumes or whether UW-Platteville had established guidelines about what constitutes an appropriate costume.

The Facebook picture was removed (ergo the reenactment above), though it’s not clear whether the damn Bias Report Team ordered this or the cowed students did it themselves.

This costume is not offensive, and if someone deems it offensive, well, I don’t have to accept their judgment. In some cases, of course, I would—say a costume in blackface, which has a history of racism behind it. But “Three Blind Mice”? Here’s the famous rhyme that dates back to at least 1609:

Three blind mice.
Three blind mice.
See how they run.
See how they run.
They all ran after the farmer’s wife,
Who cut off their tails with a carving knife,
Did you ever see such a sight in your life,
As three blind mice?

The “bias report” form of UWP specifies that “The purpose of this confidential reporting form is to monitor the occurrence of hate incidents both on and off campus.” So how is “Three blind mice” a “hate incident”?  How, exactly, is it making fun of a disability. In what world can the Pecksniff who reported this be living? And can we look forward to both students and children being vilified for wearing costumes like this?

deluxe-captain-hook-child-costume

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t consider the feelings of those who report themselves offended, but if we bowed to every such claim, not only would society meld into a homogenous blandness, but the principle of free expression would gradually be eroded. I’d love to see venues other than those on the Right (or FIRE) report issues like this.

Halloween is only three months away, and only Ceiling Cat knows what kind of madness we’ll see this year.

h/t: Greg Mayer

Purdue student called to meet Dean over Facebook post criticizing Black Lives Matter

July 12, 2016 • 11:00 am

UPDATE:  I sent an email to the Dean, as well as to the President of Purdue. I reproduce both my email and the President’s response below. President Daniels denies there were any threats, but calling a student into an administrative meeting to “explore possible ways to establish a dialogue” seems to me like intimidation. Well, read for yourself.

Me to Andrew Pettee, copied to Purdue’s President and Dean of Students:

Dear Dr. Pettee,

I was distressed to learn that you have called one of your university’s  students, Joshua Nash, to your office for a discussion about his “alleged comments on Facebook.”  I have read Nash’s comments about the  Black Lives Matter movement, and find those comments deplorable, but that’s no reason to call him to account, scare him by holding a meeting  whose subject is withheld from him, and especially, as he’s said, to threaten him with expulsion. As you’re surely aware, what Nash says on social media counts as free speech, and should not be dealt with in anyway by your university. (An exception would be if he harasses or threatens other students, which he apparently didn’t).

At the University of Chicago we wouldn’t have any administrative contact with a student about his or her remarks on social media, for our  University has an unremitting policy of free speech. Apparently Purdue doesn’t.

I’ve written about this incident on my website, which has over 41,000 followers. I hope Purdue finally learns to do the right thing and stop threatening students for their extracurricular statements.

https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2016/07/12/purdue-student-called-to-meet-dean-over-facebook-post-criticizing-black-lives-matter/

Yours sincerely,
Jerry Coyne

From President Mitch Daniels to me;

Thank you for your inquiry.  Purdue Northwest has never suggested, let alone threatened, the idea of disciplining the student in question for exercising his right to freedom of expression.  When, as here, an administrative meeting is called with a student on our Calumet campus, the purpose is to explore possible ways to support or establish a dialogue with that student, not to discipline him or her.  The idea is to see if there might be a teachable moment opportunity for the student, not to treat it as a conduct matter.  Protecting free speech is of central importance to our university, a commitment recognized by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education when it conferred on Purdue Northwest its highest “green light” rating for its speech policies.  Nothing involved in our administrative meeting process represents an abridgement of that stance.

*******

I have mixed feelings about the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. They have eminently justifiable complaints about racism, but, as someone who grew up with the nonviolence and peaceful protests of the civil rights movement of the Sixties, I see some of their tactics as counterproductive. It was unconscionable, I thought, for the BLM to block the Gay Pride parade in Toronto and hold it hostage until their list of demands was met.  That’s hardly civil disobedience! Nor do I see criticism of the BLM, a generally positive movement, as equivalent to racism. Back in the day, for instance, one could criticize the Black Panthers while praising the NAACP.

That aside, a student at Purdue University named Joshua Nash apparently did criticize the BLM—on his Facebook page (see story here and here). As Reason.com reports:

“Black Lives Matter is trash because they do not really care about black lives,” Nash recalled writing on Facebook, according to The College Fix. “They simply care about making money and disrupting events for dead people.” Someone reported the comment to Facebook, which removed it and suspended him for a month.

On Twitter, Nash describes himself as a gay conservative Christian who uses the pronouns “God, Overlord, and #DangerousFaggot,” the latter being a reference to Breitbart tech editor Milo Yiannopoulos. A Purdue administrator told Nash that describing himself in such a manner was “homopohobic,” according to The Fix.

At any rate, Nash’s comments‚—which I deplore—have gotten him in trouble with his University. On his Twi**er page he reproduced a letter he got from the Director of Student Assistance, Leadership, and conduct, asking for an “administrative meeting” regarding “alleged comments [he] made on Facbook:

https://twitter.com/ConservativeJZN/status/751126069449752576

Now it’s not clear that Nash’s problematic comments refer to the Black Lives Movement, though I suspect they do, but it doesn’t really matter. Whatever Nash says on social media—besides threatening or harassing other students, of which there’s no report—counts as free speech, and should not subject him to sanctions, much less the chilling request for an “administrative meeting” with the Purdue administration.

I can imagine how scared Nash, a biology major, is about this meeting—a meeting about which the University will provide no details, although they’ve apparently threatened him with expulsion.

Since receiving the summons, Nash said he asked the university for more details during a phone call. He alleges that, over the phone, a campus official said his social media comments could result in his expulsion. The College Fix could not immediately reach a campus official Friday to confirm or deny the claim.

Nash said the campus official he spoke to called the “#DangerousFaggot” in his Twitter bio “homophobic” over the phone.

“Those were their words,” according to Nash.

The #DangerousFaggot hashtag was made popular by Yiannopoulos, who toured college campuses nationwide under that moniker.

Nash told The Fix campus officials rejected his request for an email outlining specific details regarding the nature of his summons. He alleges they told him he must wait until he attends the required Administrative Meeting. Nash said he plans to attend the meeting, now slated for early August, with an attorney.

Pettee apparently runs the office of the Dean of Students (though not himself the Dean) at Purdue, and his website is here, along with an email address that you can use (and I will use) to email him.

Defending bigots is not the world’s most pleasant task, but it’s something we have to do for a greater good: preserving the free speech that undergirds all democracy.

 

The University of Wisconsin to require “cultural competency” training for all incoming students

June 15, 2016 • 9:00 am

It looks as if the University Follies aren’t over, even though the academic year of 2015-2016 has ended. According to the Wisconsin State Journal, a previously respected school—the University of Wisconsin at Madison—is going to require 1000 of its entering students to receive “cultural compentency training” this fall, and then for all its first years (over 7,000) to get that training in the fall of 2017. The new program is called “Our Wisconsin,” and is described in a University Press release. The program is more or less what you’d expect: an attempt to indoctrinate students into a politically correct point of view:

“College is often the first time where people are exposed to people who are different from themselves — those could be religious differences, racial, socio-economic status, or sexual orientation,” says Joshua Moon Johnson, who is leading the program’s development as interim special assistant to the Vice Provost for Student Life. Most of the problems seen on college campuses stem from ignorance, not malice, he says.

Johnson, who chairs the UW–Madison Hate and Bias Incident Team says many of the incidents reported to the team involve disrespectful speech that was intended to be funny or inquisitive. Those result from people lacking an understanding of the historical context surrounding race, difference and violence, he says.

The training will be conducted in person in two sessions. It will provide an opportunity to discuss topics such as identity, culture and microaggressions.

“This pilot is an effort to definitely create some broad awareness of difference — not to tell people how to think, but to tell people how to critique the ways in which they think,” Johnson says.

And if you believe that last line, I have some land in Florida I’d like to sell you. The dissimulation here is revealed by what was said by one organizer of the “Our Wisconsin” team:

Katrina Morrison, a junior from Milwaukee, is one of the students who are helping to shape the program. She campaigned as a representative for the Associated Students of Madison pledging to address campus climate and continues to fight for progress on the Equity and Inclusion Committee.

“We wanted to talk about privilege. What is white privilege? What are sets of privileges that we all have?” says Morrison. “It’s okay that we all have these different sets of privileges and identities and we can still coexist.”

Yes, so long as the “privileged” acknowledge their status and the shame that is supposed to accompany it.

The Wisconsin State Journal reports a bit more:

Michael Davis, a black graduate student who helped organize a protest this spring, said the training program could be one step toward improving the campus. But he said UW shouldn’t only address racism on an individual level, and must take steps to combat structural inequality.

“Cultural competency has a place when done right,” Davis said. “But ultimately if the University of Wisconsin wants to see real change, they’ll shift power to students.”

Now I don’t mind students being acquainted with a college’s rules and sanctions when they enter, but I do bridle at what seems like ideological indoctrination. The indication that “privilege” will be a part of this indoctrination suggests that we have an Authoritarian Leftist program. “Disrespectful speech” will certainly be taught as a no-no, as will “microaggressions.”

I wonder, but doubt, whether there will also be a unit on freedom of expression. So, readers, do you think such training should be part of the college experience?