Sunday, May 28, 2017

What a College President SHOULD Say When Besieged by SJB's

Good afternoon, everyone.

As the president of Noname State College, I have called this meeting to address the recent unrest that has overtaken our campus community in the wake of Dr. Everett Jones' refusal to participate in a scheduled protest against "America's endemic white supremacy." I'm happy that so many student activists have decided to attend today's meeting, as what I am about to say will, I hope, represent a vital step towards quelling this unrest and restoring peace.

Several student groups - including the Concerned African Student Union, the Club for Intersectional Feminism, and the Nation of Aztlan - came to my office this past Wednesday and presented me with a list of fifty specific demands. These demands included increasing funding for our Multicultural Student Center and our Women's Center; establishing new full departments in Ethnic, Women's, and Queer Studies; setting aside black and Hispanic-only dormitories; adding a mandatory social justice course to our general education requirements; and committing to meeting specific quotas in hiring nonwhite, non-male faculty within the next five years. I have been told that if my administration and I do not fulfill these demands, the occupation of Barker and Trent Hall will continue and regular campus operations will be severely disrupted.

Over the past few days, I have carefully considered how I should respond to these students and their petition, and I have settled on the following course of action:

NO.


No, I'm not going to give you anything you want. You can scream, you can cry, you can stomp your feet -- but I'm not changing our policies one iota.

I'm certainly not going to admit that we here at Noname State College are racists because I know we aren't. If we were actually racists and you were actually oppressed as "black and brown" students, you would not be here. Period. A truly racist administration would not have admitted you, let alone built a Multicultural Center, permitted the formation and funding of ethnic student groups, or welcomed the original protest that started this controversy. Further, if you were actually oppressed, you would not feel free to hound Dr. Jones off campus for his principled objection to your demonstration, nor would you feel entitled to harass other students in the campus library because they declined to join your rally and elected to study for their midterm exams instead. This is not how truly oppressed people behave; these are the tactics of the powerful. Having witnessed other colleges and universities capitulating to similar disorders, you believe you have the upper hand and consequently have every right to do whatever you wish.

It stops here.

I'm not giving you what you want or admitting to any wrongdoing. As a matter of fact, I have called this meeting to announce the following:
  1. As of this moment, I'm giving student protestors one hour to vacate Barker and Trent. If you do not comply with this order, I will call the police and have you all charged with trespassing.
  2. I will also be launching an investigation into the many reported instances of criminal intimidation associated with these protests, including the egregious mistreatment of Dr. Jones. All accused students will, of course, be afforded full due process of law, but if any are found guilty, appropriate disciplinary steps will be taken.
  3. In the future, any students who are found guilty of intimidating faculty, students, or invited guests or of otherwise violating others' civil rights will be summarily expelled.
You are here, first and foremost, to improve your minds. This means tolerating people who disagree with you, for how else will you learn to defend - or, if necessary, amend - your own beliefs? This is an uncomfortable proposition to be sure, but I have news for you: The world outside this campus is not comfortable, or safe, or perfectly inoffensive and it never will be. Thus, your job at this college is to prepare yourself for that world. Read good books. Study hard. Learn to civilly articulate your opinions and set a good example for your fellow citizens. Recognize that no one will listen if you insist on screeching like banshees and chanting empty slogans. Become the sort of upstanding, contributing adults that others will have no choice but to respect.

Or, to put it more succinctly: Grow the hell up. The world does not revolve around you and your "feelings."

Thank you.

*mic drop*

ETA: Welcome, Instapundit readers!

17 comments:

  1. A better name for the school might be ESU, for Enormous State University. Hat tip to Tand McNamara. But all else is right on.

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    1. I went with "State College" because of a very recent campus outrage. If your blood pressure ever gets too low, I suggest Googling "Evergreen State College" because that'll fix you right up.

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    2. Alas, I suspect a more realistic name for the school might be No Where College, because apart from a few outliers such as Hillsdale, it doesn't exist.

      Which is too bad. A university that stood for free speech could set itself all from the great mass by taking a stand and expelling students who prevent others from spe

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  2. Isn't Evergreen College the Alma Mater of Saint Jemima? What was her name... Rachel Corrie?

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    Replies
    1. I believe she was known as Saint Pancake, not Saint Jemima.

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  3. "The world outside this campus is not comfortable, or safe, or perfectly inoffensive and it never will be."

    The world doesn't just deal in words. Most of the world will meet your words with guns and knives, so it's best you learn now that some people will never be persuaded, cajoled or otherwise moved in their positions.

    You are a fluke of the universe.
    You have no right to be here.
    And whether you can hear it or not,
    The universe is laughing behind your back.

    "Deteriorata" - National Lampoon

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFLvhKv-Lbo

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  4. Wow, get ready for the Insta-flood. Congrats!

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  5. One English Dean said it best to unruly students: "You have everything to learn from us, we have NOTHING to learn from you."

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  6. "Anyone here in five minutes won't be here tomorrow "

    http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/11/adult-leadership-remembered.php

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  7. Working at a well known Land Grant University, what some of the commenters claim is everywhere doesn't apply to my campus.

    There are about 4,000 institutions of higher education - so at least one of them will have something idiotic happen each week, and then the media will headline that, and ignore the other 3,999.

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    1. True, #NotAll institutions of higher learning have these issues. The school I went to, for example, is very pro-free-speech, and while there have been a few controversies in recent years regarding statuary, the students there handled these disagreements in a mature manner.

      That being said, there are enough universities that ARE having issues with this nonsense to be greatly concerned about where this country is headed.

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  8. I also work at a well-known land grant university, in the business school in a Red State, no less, and our former department head would jump whenever an undergraduate student would tell him to jump. She was a customer, he said, and my job as a professor was to make sure she felt satisfied. Thankfully, he retired this year, but higher administration, which supported him completely, is still in place. Our entrepreneurship faculty is even worse. Never hire someone from our entrepreneurship program.

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    1. You bring up an interesting angle with this comment: Students are approaching college like it's a customer service operation rather than a place of learning. And, of course, admins are encouraging it by building rock walls and other such luxury items and ignoring the TEACHING.

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    2. Actually it is society in general that is the customer of the university system. Students are goods in production. Graduates are the product.

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  9. Paragraph 2 is a bit muddled. If it's intended to address the criminal aspects- it's turned over to LEOs who do the investigation, charges by the DA, handled by the courts.

    If the school is doing the investigating, it's about violations of school policies and it won't be handled in accordance with the low. It will be handled in accordance with the schools guidelines for disciplinary action.

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