I am working on a campus where I see Regressive Leftism daily, and now it’s taking the form of requests to create segregated facilities and curricula, to make fraternities official University of Chicago organizations so they can be punished, and to exempt students themselves from being punished when they disrupt talks they don’t like (this happened three times here in the last two years).
According to both the student newspaper, the Maroon, and to Campus Reform (a right-wing site), a group of U of C student multicultural organizations had a rally for an umbrella organization called UChicago United, and issued a list of no fewer than 43 demands. From the Maroon:
The organizations leading the rally, titled “We Demand,” were the African Caribbean Students Association (ACSA), Arab Student Association, Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanx de Aztlan (MEChA), Organization of Black Students (OBS), Organization of Latin American Students (OLAS), and PanAsia Solidarity Coalition.
Around 50 people attended the rally, which was held outside Levi Hall, the University’s main administrative building.
During the rally, second-year MEChA member Maya Ruiz described the circumstances leading to UChicago United’s formation. The campaign grew out of a letter penned by several multicultural organizations in response to a construction-themed party held by Phi Gamma Delta (FIJI) on Cinco de Mayo. Ruiz stressed, however, that FIJI’s party did not represent a unique incident.
“What FIJI did was not an isolated misunderstanding. It was just one event in a long and continuous history of racism and exclusion that runs deep into the culture and logic of this University,” she said.
Ruiz referenced e-mails exchanged by brothers of Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi) that were leaked in February 2016 and included several racial slurs.
“Black, Palestinian, and Muslim students shouldn’t have to endure the pain of racist, xenophobic, sexist e-mails last year only to have the university step farther away from the fraternities today,” she said.
I wrote about the fraternity construction party earlier, which in no way I see can be construed as racist, but those earlier emails were reprehensible. However, since fraternities for University of Chicago students have no formal affiliation with the University (they’re purely private), the students can’t be punished for what they say, and one might consider that what their members say, however offensive, is still free speech.
Regardless. this week the the University of Chicago Faculty Senate approved the “Picker Report” on how to deal with student disruptions during demonstrations and talks. The previous codes were created after the campus disruptions of the Sixties, during which some students were actually expelled, but the 1970-1990s student disciplinary codes were a bit unclear because they didn’t define “disruptive conduct”, and sanctions were rarely if ever employed. Thus, in view of recent disruptions of speakers on campus, my University convened the “Picker Committee” (named after the law professor who headed it) to formulate University policy to clarify “disruptive conduct.” Students didn’t like this–at least the Regressive Leftists ones–for they want the right to disrupt any speaker they want without any possibility of suffering for their actions.
The report (Appendix V here) sets out in detail investigatory and disciplinary procedures for students who disrupt talks or campus activities. Disruptive conduct was defined, with emendations of the previous definition, as follows:
Sanctions were laid out, including these:
- Warning: An official letter is placed in the student’s educational record. A prior warning related to misconduct under Statute 21 must be considered in determining a sanction for a current offense.
- Disciplinary Probation: During this defined period, a student may continue to enjoy all the rights and privileges of a student except as the Committee stipulates. A prior disciplinary probation related to misconduct under Statute 21 must be considered in determining a sanction for a current offense.
- Loss of University Privileges: Specific student rights and privileges, such as access to certain University buildings, events, organizations, or employment, may be suspended for a defined period.
- Discretionary Sanctions: The Committee may require the completion of additional academic work, community service, or restitution/fines by a given deadline
- Disciplinary Suspension: For a period of no more than nine consecutive quarters, a student is prohibited from exercising any rights or privileges of a student at the University
- Disciplinary Expulsion: An expelled student forfeits the rights and privileges of a student at the University. Ordinarily, the University will not consider a re-application for eleven consecutive quarters following the date of the expulsion.
- Revocation of a Degree: A policy violation that occurred before a degree was awarded may lead to a Committee recommendation that a degree be revoked.
And these recommendations have already been incorporated into the University’s student manual on the University Disciplinary System. I do approve of the clarification of “disruptive conduct” and the spelling out of how student interruptions and disruptions will be investigated and punished. My own view, which I’ve stated here frequently, is that students should be removed from talks that they disrupt, that no student should be allowed to block access to a talk or shout down speakers, but that they have every right to protest without violating the conduct rules and every right to issue counter-speech or have counter-talks or demonstrations. And sufficiently severe or repeated disruption should mandate disciplinary action. That, it seems, is the University’s policy as well.
I think the approved Picker report is fair, but of course many students want to protest disruptively without being punished, and so that request is part of the 43 demands issued by UChicago United, which are here. They include these “demands”:
UCHICAGO UNITED CORE DEMANDS
We demand that The University of Chicago formally recognize all Greek organizations active on the University of Chicago campus as Registered Student Organizations (RSOs). [JAC: This allows the University to discipline fraternities.]
We demand the creation of a University funded and run cultural houses, specifically a Black House, a Latinx House, and an Asian House that stand independent of the Office of Multicultural Student Affairs. These houses shall function similarly to The Center for Identity + Inclusion but will focus on the specified community.
We demand a Race and Ethnic Studies Department as well as an increased budget for programming carried out through the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture.
We demand that the University hire more faculty of color.
We demand that the university keep the 1970 Disciplinary System for Disruptive Conduct for the time being and suspend the faculty senate vote on the Picker Report. [JAC: That is, they want no real punishment for disrupting events.]
It goes on and on; remember, there are 43 of these.
Campus Reform summarizes the rest of the demands:
. . . a coalition of student groups known as “UChicago United” has called for the establishment of a “Race and Ethnic Studies Department,” a “Black Studies Academic Department,” an “African Studies Department,” a “Caribbean Studies Department,” an “Asian American Studies Program,” plus a “Center for African and Caribbean Studies” and a “Latinx Affairs Office,” all of which would exist independently but receive funding from the university.
The ultimatum also asks for a set of “university-funded and run cultural houses, specifically a Black House, a Latinx House, and an Asian House,” before turning its attention to the school’s core curriculum, demanding “a new ‘Diversity and Inclusion’ graduation requirement” that would be “primarily focused on any US-centric structural oppression, such as race, gender, and sexuality.”
Additionally, the document twice calls for “the creation of a pre-orientation program specifically for incoming students of color,” which would “familiarize students with campus resources and multicultural registered student organizations” while easing “the transition to the university’s campus climate and academic demands.”
The coalition also demands a “revitalization of the Bias Response Team,” including additional funding, the hiring of “individuals with the specific responsibility of running” the program, and the building of “infrastructure for transparent disciplinary processes against faculty and staff who are reported to the Bias Response Team.”
In contrast to its own appeals for money to fund the new initiatives, UChicago United also requests that “limits and/or restrictions” should be placed “on the funding allotted to student organizations that are accused and/or found guilty of discriminatory behavior.”
Finally, the set of demands concludes with specific requests for illegal immigrant students, asking for an increase in the “recruitment and admission” of “undocumented Latinx students,” as well as “full financial, legal, and mental health resources” for such students.
Having lived my academic life here, I’m trying to see which demands are justified, but right now all I can see is that students want more balkanization of the University, dividing up curricula and perhaps housing by race alone, even though they’d probably maintain that race is a social construct (it’s not clear whether the cultural centers would include student housing segregated by ethnicity). In effect, the students are demanding that the University become a place of Identity Politics, with every group having its own center, grievances, and demands for hiring and changes in curricula.
This is sad, but I have confidence that the University won’t cave to most of these demands, as some other schools have. Insofar as there really is bigotry here, that should be investigated and if it violates student codes, punished; but it makes me sad that what seems like segregation is increasing, not only here but elsewhere. Perhaps it’s just my Sixties idealism, but it seems to me that what we want is not more separation of groups, but finding ways to bring them together, for it’s my belief that the best way to eliminate bigotry is to get to know people from other classes, ethnic groups, nations, and so on. Yet students everywhere seem to want to separate themselves as much as possible from other groups, and of course from “cis-het white males”. And while students are welcome to give input into the curriculum, it’s presumptuous to think that they should dictate their curriculum.
h/t: Mark
