The Coddling Of The American Mind (Trigger Warning Article In The Atlantic...)

I don't think the writer of the email should be fired, no. Maybe she should step down from her residential thingy position which doesn't sound like all that big a deal anyway.

The residential thingy position is tied directly to her residence, which is also tied to her husband; it will be difficult/impossible for her to "step down" without taking him with her and they'll definitely have to move out of the housing they're currently in.

OIC. No, I don't think she should step down then, but I have a real problem with the email and the attitudes behind it.

I'm not sure if anyone has gone into how the housing system works but "colleges" at Yale are upperclass dorms; you get into one starting your sophomore year and you live there for the next three years of school, with the intent being that you are part of a community of students all living under the broad care of a faculty member living in the residence with you. That faculty member and his/her spouse (as they are usually married people) are the masters. The reason this is a big deal is because the faculty members responsible for building community and making the students who live in their residence feel welcomed and like the belong, as part of their baseline job description, are othering the kids underneath their care.

This article is a good perspective on this, from a Yale alum: http://time.com/4108632/yale-controversy-belonging/

ok that's helpful, I had no idea about this stuff, went to a state school and moved off campus after first year

Yeah, it's not like this is an RA or someone responsible for a floor; this is someone responsible for the well-being of the entire dorm hamfistedly communicating with the students she's supposed to be looking out for. Now, bear in mind that "look out for" does not mean "agree with" and shouldn't, BUT given that this started because one group of students felt that they were being condescended towards by suggestions in a campuswide email, the solution probably shouldn't involve being condescending to another group of students.

http://m.richmond.com/news/local/city-of-richmond/article_4a05d70e-99fe-539f-9097-8415205caafd.html?mode=jqm

Black students take over VCU's president's office to demand changes

BY LOUIS LLOVIO Richmond Times-Dispatch | Posted 3 hours ago

About 30 Virginia Commonwealth University student activists took over the school president’s office Thursday morning demanding, among other things, an increase in the number of black professors and more cultural competency training on campus.

The students took over first floor of the office on Franklin Street about 10 a.m.

They read a prepared letter expressing their solidarity with students at the main campus of the University of Missouri and a list of changes they are demanding from VCU officials.

What followed was not a 1960s-style protest rife with tension but an open and frank conversation about the issues black students confront at VCU.

The students talked about feeling like outsiders on campus and alienated at a place to which they turned to improve their future. Several said they were angry and felt abandoned by the university.

Participating in that conversation was Michael Rao, VCU’s president, who came downstairs when he heard the students and sat on an end table listening to them for more than two hours.

Their main concern is a lack of black professors at VCU. They say it’s often difficult for them to deal with educators who don’t understand their cultural concerns or the experience driving their thoughts and world view.

A lack of black professors also means that other students are missing out on a valuable educational point of view.

VCU says 5 percent of its professors are black. Fifteen percent of the student body is black.

Coupled with their classroom concerns is a feeling of being an outsider on campus because there is no effort being made to foster a community for black students, they said.

“You can go a whole four years talking to white people, being taught by white people and not having anything to do with black people,” sophomore Reyna Smith said.

Among the demands are to double the number of black faculty members to 10 percent of the total number of professors by 2017, to have at least one of every three candidates interviewing for a faculty position be black, and to create a position to make sure the policies are being implemented.

The students also demand the creation of a cultural competency course for all students and the hiring of an ombudsman so students have someone who will understand their experiences and concerns.

The students also want to see an increase in funding for cultural organizations and events on campus.

For his part, Rao sympathized with the students and encouraged them to talk about their concerns.

He told them that their concerns are not a complete surprise and that VCU is taking steps to bring more black professors into the university.

Still, he said, it must be acknowledged that black students have a unique perspective and that the university needs to work to bring about fundamental change.

“Students of color can’t take on the burden themselves,” Rao said, adding, “I very much have the same vision for VCU. I think there’s greater capacity to do what we know we need to do for all fellow human beings, and it needs to be a model for the rest of the nation.”

ilxor with the logical conclusion. LOCK THREAD!

http://gawker.com/maybe-the-college-kids-should-destroy-college-1741946658

I agree with the second part

we need to send tombot to yale to straighten all this out. he can hold a workshop.

yes he can

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3PvcpWbUIg

can we all at least agree to fire mitch daniels

an increase in the number of black professors and more cultural competency training on campus.

"cultural competency training" = be very very careful what you ask for

i would tell you guys stories about the "diversity workshops" i had to attend as a teacher here but i don't really want to relive the abject pointlessness.

I'm not sure teachers having pointless experiences equals 'careful what you ask for' for minority students?

with regards this kind of racial awareness/diversity training: do the students demanding it believe that it can be taught in such a way that it is useful and does make people consider points of view they hadn't previously considered, better understand how they should conduct themselves?
or is it more of a symbolic thing, that the university making this kind of course mandatory equals the university admitting that there is a problem, it sends a message to students and faculty that this is something the uni takes seriously and that the uni may punish students or faculty if they mess up? (or if they the university doesn't agree to make this kind of training mandatory then that gives the protesters something tangible they can point to as evidence that the university is not doing enough to combat racism, rather than others ways the uni is being responsive which may be more difficult to pin down/rally around?)

I suppose it gets rid of plausible deniability, so people can't claim that they had no idea that blacking up for halloween or whatever could be offensive if they have been explicitly told that this was the case?

interview focusing specifically on the involvement of the football team in the Missouri protests and the possible ramifications for the NCAA going forward:
http://www.salon.com/2015/11/13/im_sure_it_scares_the_living_sht_out_of_them_why_the_protests_at_the_university_of_missouri_may_have_the_ncaa_terrified/

Will be interesting to see if the NCAA would really try to lock down coaches and players protesting and what kind of backlash would follow.

I'm not sure teachers having pointless experiences equals 'careful what you ask for' for minority students?

― Frederik B, Friday, November 13, 2015 1:44 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

didn't they advocating this sort of training for all /students/ and faculty, though? that's the impression i received. and yes i suppose these are being advocated less because of the faith they have in this sort of training than the symbolic value of the university acknowledging they are 'necessary.' which seems like a sad dead-end to me.

diversity training workshops have one real purpose only, and that's to provide deniability for the employer. 'we covered this in our diversity training workshop.' the actual substance of these workshops is no better than any other corporate 'motivational' workshop, that is to say, stultifying.

rather than others ways the uni is being responsive which may be more difficult to pin down/rally around?

this should have been unresponsive

lol as it happens I'm at a workshop called "Creating Culturally Engaging Campus Environment."

diversity training workshops have one real purpose only, and that's to provide deniability for the employer. 'we covered this in our diversity training workshop.' the actual substance of these workshops is no better than any other corporate 'motivational' workshop, that is to say, stultifying.

― wizzz! (amateurist), Friday, November 13, 2015 3:15 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I've been in very purposeful, pointed anti-racism/"undoing racism" training and discussion workshops that were extremely effective, but I think when you try to soft-pedal "diversity" so that it's palatable to everyone and doesn't focus on historic and contemporary violence done to ppl, sure, that would be pretty meaningless.

I don't want to think much about this argument, but I would like to remind people of how bargaining works. You don't expect to get your demands, you hope they will bring your opponents closer to what you want. Criticizing the demands of students is missing the point.

^^^

otm x 100

mordy is a clown

i also linked to the article he spent 20 posts flustered about maybe 100 posts ago

the right to the safe space for offensive halloween costumes is about free speech, but the right to a safe space free from offensive halloween costumes is about coddling

yeah i assume he read it which is why...he responded to it xp

anyway dowd otm

I don't want to think much about this argument, but I would like to remind people of how bargaining works. You don't expect to get your demands, you hope they will bring your opponents closer to what you want. Criticizing the demands of students is missing the point.

the most ridiculous requests are the ones that are easiest for yale/u of m to actually achieve!

yeah i assume he read it which is why...he responded to it xp

anyway dowd otm

― k3vin k., Friday, November 13, 2015 12:22 PM (43 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

he responded to when scott linked it 80 posts later

Stop it deej you're killing him

lol

https://sports.vice.com/en_us/article/my-mizzou-story-was-hijacked-by-conservatives

http://www.amherstsoul.com/post/133122838315/amherst-uprising-what-we-stand-for

this is excellent:

http://chronicle.com/article/When-Free-Speech-Becomes-a/234207

Consider the structure of the events at Yale. After the Intercultural Affairs Committee sent its original email, Erika Christakis opposed it — not merely its content, but the very act of their issuing it. The students then opposed her opposition — alleging that she ought not to have spoken as she did, given her position as associate master of Silliman College. And many pundits have, in turn, opposed their opposition — holding that the students ought not to be protesting thus. So far, so similar; these speech acts are on a par not only constitutionally, but also insofar as each opposes the one aforementioned.

Given these symmetries, why the markedly different reactions? Part of it is that, when people lower down in social and institutional hierarchies criticize the speech acts of those higher up, it often reads as insubordination, defiance, or insolence. When things go the other way, it tends to read as business as usual.

or maybe it's that christakis didn't ask the dean to lose his job over sending the initial email.

there's a huge difference between trying to suppress speech and arguing against it - that's the problem

The notion of freedom of speech tends to be ambiguous. It is used to refer to both the political right it enshrines, and the ethical ideal it embodies. The former is guaranteed in this country by the First Amendment to the Constitution. Together with the 14th Amendment, this means that nobody’s right to express himself or herself may be interfered with by the government. (The few exceptions to the rule — unprotected speech — include acts like falsely claiming "fire!" in a crowded theater, "fighting words," slander, and hate speech.)

maybe this is the problem. they don't realize that hate speech is protected speech in the US.

yeah I winced at that

maybe this is the problem. they don't realize that hate speech is protected speech in the US.

― Mordy, Friday, November 13, 2015 3:12 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

did you read the kelefa piece i also posted in this thread

(no, obviously)

you realize you're only helping his position by your complete inability to do anything but cast aspersions, right?

i've read this piece before but i just looked over it again

Waldron is unimpressed by the “liberal bravado” of free-speech advocates who say, “I hate what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” In his view, the people who say this rarely feel threatened by the speech they say they hate. Unfettered political expression came to seem like a bedrock American value only in the twentieth century, when the government no longer feared radical pamphleteers.

this seems to be the intellectual bedrock of the argument for more rigorous social policing of speech, right? i can only speak from my personal experience but i am a member of a minority group and i have read + heard legal hate speech in the US against my minority group that has literally made my blood run cold and given me nightmares. that said: i believe the US' commitment to free speech is intricately linked to its freedom of press and religion and I think these 3 freedoms are what has made the US the home of a little less than half of my minority group worldwide. it would be terrible to win the battle over suppressing speech and then lose the war that ultimately guarantees our freedoms.

I have also had anti-pot activist nightmares

mot <3

idk seems to me if a person was saying 'boys will be boys' about blackface & they're in charge of a residence hall or whatever they probably aren't very good at their job & students would be right to react without it being a free speech issue ffs

That paragraph overstates things (Jefferson overturned the Alien and Sedition acts of 1798 on First Amendment grounds) but look at what was enacted during WWI in response to Communism:

During the patriotic fervor of World War I and the First Red Scare, the Espionage Act of 1917 imposed a maximum sentence of twenty years for anyone who caused or attempted to cause "insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty in the military or naval forces of the United States." Specifically, the Espionage Act of 1917 states that if anyone allows any enemies to enter or fly over the United States and obtain information from a place connected with the national defense, they will be punished.[47] Hundreds of prosecutions followed.[48] In 1919, the Supreme Court heard four appeals resulting from these cases: Schenck v. United States, Debs v. United States, Frohwerk v. United States, and Abrams v. United States.[49]

In the first of these cases, Socialist Party of America official Charles Schenck had been convicted under the Espionage Act for publishing leaflets urging resistance to the draft.[50] Schenck appealed, arguing that the Espionage Act violated the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. In Schenck v. United States, the Supreme Court unanimously rejected Schenck's appeal and affirmed his conviction.[51] This conviction continued to be debated over whether Schenck went against the right to freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment.[52] Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., writing for the Court, explained that "the question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent."[53] One week later, in Frohwerk v. United States, the court again upheld an Espionage Act conviction, this time that of a journalist who had criticized U.S. involvement in foreign wars.[54] Both of these cases show that the government can overrule The Bill of Rights with certain acts like The Espionage Act of 1917. It all depends on what was done to put the United States in danger.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Speech_critical_of_the_government

deej, what is your point? if she said something far more heinous everyone would agree she should be fired therefore we should support the students in dragging the line of what constitutes heinous fireable speech to the pt where her email would constitute grounds for dismissal?

Holmes' dissents later became the basis for what how fed courts interpret the First Amendment iirc

They're not demanding that she be fired as professor, just step down as house master, right? Which I don't necessarily agree with but if you feel she's not fulfilling her duties as house master it's a reasonable request.