The campus political correctness thread

[Anaxagoras]

Figured we should have a catchall thread for the wackiest examples of political correctness at universities.

So here's an opening bid:

Facial, not racial

When two students at University of Wisconsin-Whitewater posted a picture on Snapchat wearing what appeared to be blackface, the school's chancellor quickly - and publicly - condemned the photo. But days later, Beverly Kopper backed off when it was revealed the students were simply wearing skin care treatment masks.

“Last night a disturbing racist post that was made to social media was brought to my attention,” Kopper said in a letter released on Thursday. “This post was hurtful and destructive to our campus community. While social media can certainly bring about positive change, it can also be a place that deeply hurts and harms others.”

Kopper's antennae was up following an unrelated racially-charged incident and complaints from some of the school's black students. In her initial letter, she announced the formation of a faculty group for the purpose of meeting with students to work towards an “action plan” for combatting racism on campus.

http://www.channel3000.com/image/view/- ... er-jpg.jpg

[Doctor X]

I do not know, I can sort of see the mistake. Would have been smarter to have investigated first, of course.

Not sure if I would call it political correctness.

--J.D.

[Witness]

PC Texas style:

http://4.1m.yt/Zk6yHo1.png

[hammegk]

They forget arm yourself.

[Doctor X]

Professors will just carry bigger guns.

--J.D.

[Anaxagoras]

http://www.bbc.com/news/education-35659685

Harvard abolishes 'master' in titles in slavery row

I think you can still get a Masters degree though.

[Doctor X]

Classic:

[youtube][/youtube]

but UTTERLY Unsafe for Work due to language.

--J.D.

[Witness]

So are we back to "comrade" or "citizen"?

[Anaxagoras]

HT to Wildcat for finding this one:

Oberlin College president defends professor’s rights after social media uproar

Apparently "academic freedom" extends to posting conspiracy theories that Jews are behind everything from 9/11 to the Paris attacks, to the Charlie Hebdo attacks, and even ISIS.

Oberlin College president defends professor’s rights after social media uproar

In his written statement, [Oberlin president] Krislov said the postings affected him on a very personal level.

“I am a practicing Jew, grandson of an Orthodox rabbi. Members of our family were murdered in the Holocaust,” he wrote. “As someone who has studied history, I cannot comprehend how any person could or would question its existence, its horrors and the evil which caused it. I feel the same way about anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Regardless of the reason for spreading these materials, they cause pain for many people — members of our community and beyond.”

Krislov’s personal feelings are coupled with his professional beliefs, he wrote.

“I am also the son of a tenured faculty member at a large research university. My father instilled in me a strong belief in academic freedom,” he wrote. “I believe, as the American Association of University Professors says, that academic freedom is ‘the indispensable quality of institutions of higher education’ because it encourages free inquiry, promotes the expansion of knowledge, and creates an environment in which learning and research can flourish.”

The professor in question is not backing down in the least:

Karega said in the post that she is unbothered by the attacks.

“Trust, when I come up out of my Unbothered state of being, I’ll have a lot to say (analysis, no doubt) about the kinds of intimidation and silencing tactics that are rhetorically enacted in digital spaces, through email, through telephone communication, and propagandized editorial articles, masquerading as “journalism,” and how common it is for Black women, who are early in their career on the tenure track as part of the professoriate, to be prime targets for these kinds of activities and practices,” she wrote.

“And… I’m going to talk about why it is so important to resist these intimidation and silencing tactics and not coil under pressure. But for now, still unbothered.”

Karega received her doctorate from the University of Louisville in 2014 and according to Oberlin College’s website, began teaching courses at Oberlin in 2015. In December, students in the Black Student Union issued an extensive list of demands to the Oberlin College administration. One demand was to guarantee tenure to a number of professors, including Karega.

She only started teaching there in 2015 and the Black Student Union is demanding that she be guaranteed tenure. :roll:

More here:
Inside the Twisted Anti-Semitic Mind of Oberlin Professor Joy Karega

[Doctor X]

That will do it.

"Academic freedom" does not mean "freedom for us to pay you to be stupid and a Cunt," nor does it apply before tenure.

--J.D.

[Anaxagoras]

I would agree but apparently the president of the college sees it differently. I wonder if he's worried about how the black student union would react if he fired her.

[Doctor X]

Oh no, he does not have to fire her. He has just made it far, far easier justify her denial of tenure in about two years.

Every time she posts and opens her mouth, she digs herself deeper. She will lose many supporters and if the Black Student Union wishes to go on the record supporting a racist loon, it will only invalidate their influence. In the meantime, expect a horde of detractors including alumni who donate to be organized against this Cunt. Expect reporters to be reminded of this when she goes up for tenure. This sort of thing also is in the wheelhouse of a St. Bill O'Reilly.

--J.D.

[Anaxagoras]

The funny part is, she seems to think she's winning. No apologies, no I better be more careful about what I say.

Karega views letters like Sherizzy’s and others as fodder for her theories: “My Oberlin email, my Facebook message inbox, my office phone voicemail, and my Twitter account are the gifts that keep on giving. Honestly, I’ve been having these moments (very brief moments, haha) where I want to say to those of you who are emailing, calling, and surveilling my social media accounts for malicious, intimidation, and/or silencing purposes: ‘Folks, you all are making my work too easy; handing my research right to me.’”

What research is that? “My second book project, which I have made significant progress on in terms of research, planning, and the drafting of chapter templates, is entitled Conspiratorial Political Literacies: Rhetorical Practice, Contested Knowledge, and Subversive Politics… It’s downright lazy, uncritical, apolitical, homogenizing, and reductionist to frame conspiracy theories — and the rhetors, writers, and theorists who espouse such theories — in the way that much of the general public, governments, and the academy do. (I won’t lay out that argument here. But it’ll be CLEARLY articulated in one of the chapters of the book).”

Karega continues: “(1) How has the term “conspiracy theory” been used (is being used) to control the parameters of inquiry and research in the academy?; (2) How has the uncomplicated tying of conspiracy theories to accusations of anti-Semitism been used (is being used) to control the parameters of inquiry and research in the academy?; (3) What are we dealing with when we’re witnessing accusations of anti-Semitism being directed at scholars and researchers who explore, espouse, and even defend conspiracy theories? Rhetorically, are we looking at silencing techniques, intimidation tactics, etc.?”

The disturbing argument at work behind all the impressive academic verbiage is that a conspiracy theory, and more specifically an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory, is a legitimate social discourse that should not be silenced or controlled by “relations of power” that authorize accusations of anti-Semitism. In other words, Karega wants to study how Jews silence anti-Semites.

Here’s Karega again: “Also worth investigating and exploring, I can generate articles for days on what I can describe as ‘anti-Semitism call-out culture’ and some of its accompanying practices. I don’t have to tell some of you that these recent activities in my own professional life have handed me a LARGE body of data (emails, voicemail messages, tweets, Facebook inbox messages, etc.) that will shed light on and provide insight into how and to what extent anti-Blackness rhetorics show up in anti-Semitic call-out culture and practices.”

“Anti-Semitism call-out culture” (which, despite its flaws, other people might think of as “social justice culture” or “human rights culture”) contains “anti-Blackness rhetorics,” according to Karega. So when Jews defend themselves against racism and hate speech they are 1) engaging in a kind of rhetoric based not in morality but in power dynamics, and 2) they are themselves guilty, in an as yet undisclosed manner, of anti-black rhetoric. Elsewhere Karega has argued that it is common “for Black women, who are early in their career on the tenure track as part of the professoriate, to be prime targets for these kinds of activities and practices.”

[Doctor X]

http://i170.photobucket.com/albums/u264 ... e9df9f.gif

--J.D.

[WildCat]

That thread has gone to pot with Upchurch taking offense at the term SJW and demanding a definition for it.

[Anaxagoras]

That thread has gone to pot with Upchurch taking offense at the term SJW and demanding a definition for it.

Well her own profile says this:

According to her profile on Oberlin’s website, Karega’s teaching and research interests include black political and protest literacies, translingual composition, rhetoric and composition historiography, social justice writing and writing pedagogy. Karega is working on a book project that draws upon archival research and oral history and historicizes the political literacy education of the Black Liberation Front International, a black student organization at Michigan State University from 1968 to 1975.

So calling her a social justice warrior doesn't seem like a stretch to me.

At the same time there are probably some SJWs who would be appalled by what she's saying. And also some who would say "right on sister!"
Is anyone particularly defending her comments (as opposed to simply saying that she is protected by academic freedom)?

[Doctor X]

That thread has gone to pot with Upchurch taking offense at the term SJW and demanding a definition for it.

Someone might as well ask Upchurch the definition of "honesty."

--J.D.

[Witness]

Ah, at last they've come to the logical conclusion:

Brown student protesters complain homework is interfering with their activism

http://www.campusreform.org/?ID=7308

:lmao:

[Anaxagoras]

Justice Gaines, an undergraduate student who uses the pronouns xe, xem and xyr, even recounted suffering from what xe describes as “a panic attack” related to xyr emotions over the Daily Herald op-eds, adding that xe “couldn’t go to class for several days” following the episode.

Liliana Sampedro, one of the students who compiled the diversity ultimatum, argued that refusal to grant such accommodations “has systemic effects on students of color,” who she said may sometimes feel obligated to prioritize their activist work over their studies.

[Nyarlathotep]

Interesting Popehat piece on how we got to the state of affairs we are at.

Something Doesn't Click Here

[Doctor X]

So good reading it a second time!

TRIGGER!

Now to start a thread in Boss Kean's Ditch demanding Personal Viewing Pleasure be respected and enabled!

GOVERN YOURSELF ACCORDINGLY, Nyarl!

--J.D.

[Witness]

http://www.dittoville.com/wp-content/up ... -15-22.jpg

[Ben Trovado]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... story.html

Students at Western Washington University have reached a turning point in their campus’s hxstory. (For one thing, they’re now spelling it with an X—more on that later.) Activists are demanding the creation of a new college dedicated to social justice activism, a student committee to police offensive speech, and culturally segregated living arrangements at the school, which is in Bellingham, up in the very northwest corner of the state.

* * *
WWU’s student-activist community—the frightening-sounding Assembly for Power and Liberation . . . "

That's it. We are done as a country. America is history. Sorry, "hxstory."

[Anaxagoras]

Harry Potter and the Pointless Outrage
Reason

Synopsis: Cultural appropriation from the Injuns.

Isn't it kind of telling that she refuses to explain how or why it is harmful? I'm sure there's lots of genuinely harmful things in American history that Native Americans have legitimate reasons to be angry about, but it would seem to me that J.K. Rowling's "cultural appropriation" is the least of them.

My favorite part:

I had a long phone call with one of my friends/mentors today, who is Navajo, asking her about the concepts Rowling is drawing upon here, and discussing how to best talk about this in a culturally appropriate way that can help you (the reader, and maybe Rowling) understand the depths to the harm this causes, while not crossing boundaries and taboos of culture. What did I decide? That you don’t need to know. It’s not for you to know. I am performing a refusal.

M'kay . . . Sounds like you couldn't think of any argument to make that isn't risible on its face, so instead you just gave up and said, "It's not my job to educate you, whitey. I'm not going to enact that labor".

Imagine if white people complained about "cultural appropriation" because, say, there are black ballet dancers? How stupid and racist would that be? And note that in the past the complaint was about "eurocentrism". Now if white people try to be more inclusive of other cultural ideas, it's "cultural appropriation". Either way, you are being racist. Racist if you ignore other cultures, racist if you don't.

[Witness]

After Texas, PC Georgia style:

HB 859 allows for anyone 21 years or older with a weapon license, to carry a concealed gun in a classroom, cafeteria, or library of any public technical school, vocational school, college, or university. Private schools are not covered by this bill.

Exemptions are dormitories, fraternities, sorority houses, and athletic events. An exception to the exemption is a person can carry a concealed weapon to a concert on campus.

It allows students to carry weapons into a classroom with no instructions or supervision, and the bill does not require any training on how to safely use a gun.

From some godless Commie site

[Anaxagoras]

UC Davis students ‘heavily traumatized’ by 'anti-Asian,' 'fat-shaming' sumo wrestler game

[Doctor X]

http://rr.img.naver.jp/mig?src=http%3A% ... t=jpg&op=r

"I'm not fat! I feel Excluded!"

[youtube][/youtube]

--J. "Sweetie! Those were All Lies! You're Just Fat!" D.

[Pyrrho]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... nd-up.html

A student was almost kicked out of a meeting after she violated a 'safe space' by raising her arm at Edinburgh University.

Imogen Wilson wanted to make a point at Thursday's student council session when she was told off by officials.

The vice-president for academic affairs at the university's Student Association was accused of failing disabled students by not responding to an open letter.

She immediately raised her arm to disagree but was made the subject of a 'ludicrous' complaint and told not to make the gesture again.

Imogen was also warned for shaking her head during the meeting as it again breached the 'safe space' which is part of the university's Student Association rules.

She told The Huffington Post: '...I raised my arms in disagreement, as we had contacted the writers of the letter and tried hard to organise a meeting. It was for that reason that a safe space complaint was made.'

Student Association policy says that council members should be respectful and considerate.

Section 6c of the safe space policy is defined as: 'Refraining from hand gestures which denote disagreement or in any other way indicating disagreement with a point or points being made. Disagreements should only be evident through the normal course of debate.'

[Doctor X]

A "normal course of debate" where no disagreement maybe indicated.

http://i.imgur.com/MmZfSIH.jpg

--J.D.

[Pyrrho]

[youtube][/youtube]

[Pyrrho]

http://thetab.com/us/indiana/2016/04/05 ... nsman-1804

Everyone mistook a priest for a KKK member last night

[Anaxagoras]

I don't know if they were trying to be sensitive or politically correct. Probably just a lame attempt at humor. Someone wasn't in a humorous mood I guess. Either way, the offense taken is pretty silly. Oh, I suppose it could have been some kind of political correctness. There are people today who like to identify themselves as neither male nor female, so maybe that's what they meant. If you say women, that excludes those people. (Oh, the horror!)

[Witness]

http://www.bookwormroom.com/wp-content/ ... adness.jpg

[hammegk]

Intro to theoretical ... Can't go wrong with that start. :? :D :tater: :o

[Witness]

https://www.historytoday.com/sites/defa ... tories.jpg

[Anaxagoras]

University Of Washington Cheerleading Squad Receive Backlash For 'Ideal Cheerleader' Checklist [VIDEO]

I'm shocked that they would expect cheerleaders to look a certain way! This is patriarchy!

http://images.universityherald.com/data ... oregon.jpg

The infographic "Cheer and Dance Tryout Look" was posted by the University of Washington cheerleading team for their upcoming tryouts. The team received backlash from students and other critics who said that the poster was sexist as it told women to look a certain way to qualify.

Some students complained that the cheerleader checklist poster undermined the seriousness of cheerleading as a real sport, Daily Mail notes. Some said that as students of color, they felt excluded as they do not embody the descriptions of the checklist that specifically asked for "bronzed or tanned" looks.

The Associated Students of the University of Washington posted on their Facebook page to say that the old cheerleader checklist goes against the prevention of objectification of women that many students and women worked so hard for. They promised to maintain an inclusive environment for all and hopes for the university administration to do the same. People Magazine reports that Washington State University and Louisiana State University had similar cheerleader checklist posters. After the controversy, Louisiana State had removed theirs.

[ed]

"the cheerleader checklist poster undermined the seriousness of cheerleading as a real sport"

[Rob Lister]

I'm surprised cheerleading is still allowed.

[Pyrrho]

Quick before it vanishes:

White privilege is dangerous and destructive, but also systemic and normalized. And I'm not singling out my colleague Wendy Beth Hyman's article here by attaching it. There were several articles published in the Oberlin Review this past week that I could have attached here. But this one by Wendy Hyman will do. It's really sad and embarrassing when students are doing a better job than faculty at modeling how to engage in rhetorical debate and create space for critical inquiry.

The article in question:

http://oberlinreview.org/10462/opinions ... -theories/

When I first was made aware of Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Composition Joy Karega’s postings on social media by a colleague, I was disgusted by her claims that Israel and “Zionist Jews” were somehow behind ISIS, Charlie Hebdo, the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight 370 and even 9/11. Even more distressing were posts that promulgated a claim of a secret Jewish conspiracy behind the media, the economy and the world’s governments. I have come across such materials before in archival sources documenting the anti-Semitic propaganda that helped launch the Holocaust and on contemporary neo-Nazi websites. My colleague disseminated other conspiracies, too, like the existence of government-controlled “chemtrails.” Based on one video she posted, for example, Hurricane Sandy was deliberately “weaponized” in order to get Obama reelected.

As a Jew, I was certainly offended by these posts. But I was even more offended as an intellectual. One might expect to find such paranoid accusations festering somewhere on the web, but there is a reason you don’t generally hear such things being espoused by scholars with Ph.Ds. That is because such unsubstantiated, unfalsifiable, speculative hypotheses are not only overwhelmingly wrong, but are also the opposite of research.

[Rob Lister]

Joy is out there.

https://www.google.com/search?q=joy+kar ... ygC#imgrc=_