Cornell University assistant professor Russell Rickford, in a lecture titled "Ferguson: The Next Steps," told a packed auditorium: "Let's be very clear about what's going on. It's one every 28 hours. Dead black bodies in the street is a sacrifice America makes to the gods of white supremacy." He added: "The propertied classes leverage state violence to discipline, repress and contain them. America fears and despises all poor people."
Blake Armstrong, a South Texas College psychology professor, equating the tea party to Nazis, told his class: "In 1931, which was really interesting, the Nazis -- people are kind of tired of them. They've been around since 1920, 11 years now. They've won seats. They're like the tea party! That's such a good example." Armstrong continued, "Don't tell anybody I said that, though."
William Claggett, a professor at Florida State University, told his class, "I don't read The Wall Street Journal -- again, a rag of lies -- unless I'm interested in who's the CEO of some particular company." As for news, he said, "So you know, when I'm at home clicking through the stations, oh, here comes Fox News, the Fox News Channel. Oh, I don't stop there. I know they're simply lying, and I keep on going."
Students learn from their professors. The University of California Student Association recently voted to divest financially of the United States government and companies that do business with Israel. Both resolutions passed overwhelmingly. Reasons given for divestiture included U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen, as well as disproportionate imprisonment of racial minorities. It's early yet, but I'm wondering whether university trustees will instruct their fund managers to replace their U.S. equity holdings with those from the Middle East or Africa.
The University of Michigan spent $16,000 to launch a new "Inclusive Language Campaign" so as to not say hurtful things. Terms deemed unacceptable include crazy, insane, retarded, gay, tranny, gypped, illegal alien, fag, ghetto and raghead. Also banned are sentences such as "I want to die" and "That test raped me" because they diminish the experience of people who've attempted suicide or experienced sexual assault.
One wonders what advice University of Michigan students would give their brethren attending the University of Wisconsin. When College Republicans urged fellow students to keep an open mind about Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's planned cuts to the university's budget, the College Republicans received responses such as, "You must have a big hairy pair of brass balls and a marginally functional brain to be recruiting for Republicans on the UW campus right now." "F--- Scott Walker." "Listen you c---s, Don't email me this political bull----."
Last month, Megan Andelloux, aka "The Sex Ed Warrior Queen," encouraged Vanderbilt University students to put their cellphones on vibrate so as to masturbate in their seats as she spoke during an interactive sex workshop. (http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/21124). I'm wondering whether Vanderbilt University recruiters inform parents of high-school seniors about such a "learning opportunity."
Then there's Bryn Mawr College, founded in 1885, a private women's liberal arts college located in Philadelphia's wealthy Main Line suburbs. This year, Bryn Mawr will accept men, but it will remain a women's college. You might say, "Williams, that's impossible!" You'd be wrong. Bryn Mawr College will accept applications from men who identify as women. It will challenge what's become known as gender binarism as it transitions from a single-sex to a "single-gendered" college. Classification of sex into two distinct, opposite and disconnected forms of masculine and feminine is oppressive. I wonder whether Bryn Mawr biology professors will continue to teach the chromosomal distinction that males are 46,XY and females 46,XX. Could there be something in between?
There's another issue: What will Bryn Mawr's administrators do when brawny XY people dominate their sports teams? Maybe they will set quotas for XY and XX people.
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