Patterico's Pontifications

4/14/2017

Wellesley Editors: Conform to Our Politically Correct Beliefs or Be Cast Out

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 9:00 am



Nothing makes me angrier these days than the thought of paying tens of thousands of dollars per year to a university full of entitled leftists looking to brainwash my children with politically correct claptrap about “hate speech.” Nowhere is this sort of attitude more blatantly on display than in this editorial at The Wellesley News:

Many members of our community, including students, alumnae and faculty, have criticized the Wellesley community for becoming an environment where free speech is not allowed or is a violated right. Many outside sources have painted us as a bunch of hot house flowers who cannot exist in the real world. However, we fundamentally disagree with that characterization, and we disagree with the idea that free speech is infringed upon at Wellesley. Rather, our Wellesley community will not stand for hate speech, and will call it out when possible.

Wellesley students are generally correct in their attempts to differentiate what is viable discourse from what is just hate speech. Wellesley is certainly not a place for racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, transphobia or any other type of discriminatory speech. Shutting down rhetoric that undermines the existence and rights of others is not a violation of free speech; it is hate speech. The founding fathers put free speech in the Constitution as a way to protect the disenfranchised and to protect individual citizens from the power of the government. The spirit of free speech is to protect the suppressed, not to protect a free-for-all where anything is acceptable, no matter how hateful and damaging.

This being said, the tone surrounding the current discourse is becoming increasingly hostile. Wellesley College is an institution whose aim is to educate. Students who come to Wellesley hail from a variety of diverse backgrounds. With this diversity comes previously-held biases that are in part the products of home environments. Wellesley forces us to both recognize and grow from these beliefs, as is the mark of a good college education. However, as students, it is important to recognize that this process does not occur without bumps along the way. It is inevitable that there will be moments in this growth process where mistakes will happen and controversial statements will be said. However, we argue that these questionable claims should be mitigated by education as opposed to personal attacks.

We have all said problematic claims, the origins of which were ingrained in us by our discriminatory and biased society. Luckily, most of us have been taught by our peers and mentors at Wellesley in a productive way. It is vital that we encourage people to correct and learn from their mistakes rather than berate them for a lack of education they could not control. While it is expected that these lessons will be difficult and often personal, holding difficult conversations for the sake of educating is very different from shaming on the basis of ignorance.

First of all, this piece rates about a C minus on the basis of its writing alone. “We have all said problematic claims” is a phrase that would get a strikethrough from my red pen. I’d tell the authors to reword that sentence so it doesn’t sound like a slow seventh-grader wrote it. And I don’t think the authors understand what they are saying when they write: “Shutting down rhetoric that undermines the existence and rights of others is not a violation of free speech; it is hate speech.” Do they mean to say that shutting down speech is hate speech? I think they meant to say: “Rhetoric that undermines the existence and rights of others is not free speech; it is hate speech.” That would still be a nonsensical statement, but at least it would convey the message the authors intended to convey — even if that message is a vapid parroting of leftist cant.

Also — and now I’m getting really picky, but I can’t help myself — it’s “hothouse flowers” and not “hot house flowers.” A “hot house” is a house that is hot. A “hothouse” is a greenhouse — which is not the same thing as a green house, which is a house that is green. Another stroke of the red pen! Or take this monstrosity of a sentence: “The emotional labor required to educate people is immense and is additional weight that is put on those who are already forced to defend their human rights.” Bleccch! How does someone who writes this badly get into college, much less become a college newspaper editor?!

I could go on, but you get the point. Everyone expects students to emerge from these institutions as brainwashed P.C. robots. Is it too much to ask that they at least learn some basic writing skills?

But I would award an F to the authors of this diatribe on the basis of content. The founding generation did not intend to prohibit speech that is “hateful and damaging” when it ratified the Bill of Rights. In addition to writing instruction, these students need some remedial civics and history classes.

But the rhetoric isn’t just wrongheaded — it is, at times, positively menacing:

This being said, if people are given the resources to learn and either continue to speak hate speech or refuse to adapt their beliefs, then hostility may be warranted. If people continue to support racist politicians or pay for speakers that prop up speech that will lead to the harm of others, then it is critical to take the appropriate measures to hold them accountable for their actions.

Conform or be cast out.

It’s not enough to respond to speech with speech, you see. You must “adapt” your “beliefs” or “hostility may be warranted.” If you bring speakers to campus whom we don’t like, we will have to “hold you accountable” — whatever that means (and it sure sounds like punishment of some sort, doesn’t it?).

Gee, this editorial is starting to sound “hateful and damaging,” isn’t it? And in a very real way, with the violence we have seen at Berkeley and Middlebury College, the sort of attitudes on display in this ignorant editorial are more “problematic” (to use the editors’ laughable and repeatedly used term) than anything Charles Murray ever said. Sentiments like this tend to lead to the throwing of Molotov cocktails. They result in professors wearing neck braces.

Why, viewed in the correct light, the sentiments expressed in this editorial are positively hateful!

Maybe The Wellesley News needs to be shuttered, and its editors brought up on vague disciplinary charges for their hate speech. In the name of free speech.

It’s what the founding fathers would have wanted, don’t you think?

[Cross-posted at RedState and The Jury Talks Back.]

90 Responses to “Wellesley Editors: Conform to Our Politically Correct Beliefs or Be Cast Out”

  1. Fans of Mao’s Red Guard obviously.

    NJRob (43d957)

  2. It seems to me actually Wellesley is promoting a religion. Which, as a private school, they have a right to do.

    Sammy Finkelman (c0fa89)

  3. What’s really annoying is the extreme intolerance of this religion. And the fact that in many places they are surely wrong.

    Sammy Finkelman (c0fa89)

  4. Dig the Rush reference in the title. I see you included the video. Nice.

    G (f85a02)

  5. Ha – yeah, I was also going to tip my hat for the Rush reference.

    Eric Lindholm (5fd8a0)

  6. Sounds good to be. Nobody likes an opinionated woman. (Wellesley is a women’s college.) It’s not ladylike. Those girls should learn to be quiet and demure and keep their personal opinions to themselves, whatever those opinions may be.

    nk (dbc370)

  7. Why is it that advocates for violence in the name of a cause never seem to understand that violence will eventually be turned against them?

    Xmas (3a75bb)

  8. Is hijab optional?

    papertiger (c8116c)

  9. “Rather, our Wellesley community will not stand for hate speech, and will call it out when possible.”

    The article should have ended there. The best response to bad speech is better speech. But apparently, they aren’t confident of their positions, so they advocate violence instead.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  10. Is hijab optional?

    For men.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  11. Women with blue hair and orthopedic shoes have always been “wagging their fingers” and “tsk-tsking” at other people about how they talk and how they behave. The only difference is that it used to be old women and now it’s young ones.

    nk (dbc370)

  12. It’s a women’s college. What are they going to do? Throw their Birkenstocks and topsiders? Start a bonfire with their brassieres?

    nk (dbc370)

  13. “the thought of paying tens of thousands of dollars per year to a university”

    The complete four year indoctrination cost for Wellesley is around $280,000. There is no guarantee completion of indoctrination will mean capability to parrot puerile pap with the same level of quality as those who typed the editorial with faculty help and supervision. The quality of the effort reflects the effect of daily contact with tenured professors who carefully monitor the efforts of those entrusted to their care.

    Rick Ballard (313992)

  14. i work with a wellesley chick she’s a little odd but not ignorant like these ones

    happyfeet (a037ad)

  15. I think the editors at Wellesley need to take a refresher course in English grammar. They began a sentence with “However”; you should never begin a sentence with a conjunction. Then there’s this gem:

    Shutting down rhetoric that undermines the existence and rights of others is not a violation of free speech; it is hate speech.

    If you deconstruct that sentence, “Shutting down rhetoric” is “hate speech”. I don’t think that’s the message they wished to convey.

    Chuck Bartowski (bc1c71)

  16. Yeah, they’re hicks, Rita.

    [YouTube]

    papertiger (c8116c)

  17. Newspeak can be difficult. That’s why assistance from faculty and staff is so important during indoctrination. Prevention of the possibility of actual doubleplusungood thought occurring is paramount because it can easily lead to hatespeech. Thoughtcrime is taken very seriously at Wellesley, all in accordance with Orwell’s primer.

    Rick Ballard (313992)

  18. Maybe the first time anyone has paid attention.

    You’re an editor with only the one good idea. You wrote that up last week.

    Now what?

    Hey, start preaching to the choir. That way it doesn’t have to be a good or even coherent.

    papertiger (c8116c)

  19. “The founding fathers put free speech in the Constitution as a way to protect the disenfranchised and to protect individual citizens from the power of the government.”

    Their lack of education shows in the fact that they believe the right to free speech is granted by the Constitution. Someone needs to explain to them the concept of inalienable rights.

    Amazed_476 (5b5799)

  20. . If people continue to support racist politicians or pay for speakers that prop up speech that will lead to the harm of others
    So no more invites to Al Sharpton and Students for Palestine?

    kishnevi (b6646b)

  21. BTW, Hoppy Easter to everyone.
    I would say “Happy Good Friday” but that seems a bit oxymoronic.

    kishnevi (b6646b)

  22. Greetings:

    Dear God in Heaven, please let the Wellesley hostility begin with me.

    And isn’t that a girl(ie)s’ school ???

    11B40 (6abb5c)

  23. Chuck Bartowski @15

    If you deconstruct that sentence, “Shutting down rhetoric” is “hate speech”.

    And you can also deduce: “hate speech is not a violation of free speech.”

    Sammy Finkelman (c0fa89)

  24. The dditors seem to be in favor (pf course!) of shutting down rhetoric that undermines the existence and rights of others, but not on making personal attacks against the people who say things like that, at least if they are students, as opposed to guest speakers.

    It is vital, they indicate, that students with wrong ideas should not be berated, but corrected; and educated, but not shamed.

    That is kind of similar to the attitude of moderate Moslems toward apostasy.

    The editorial says they all had wrong ideas (made problematic claims or statements) before they came to Wellesley – the result of a lack of education they could not control.

    Sammy Finkelman (c0fa89)

  25. If a man claims to now be a woman, it is the people who disagree with that in any respect who need to have a difficult conversation with other people; not the man who claims to be a woman. Ze’s right. Every form of self-identification is right, except what might be cultural appropriation or slumming.

    Sammy Finkelman (c0fa89)

  26. Nothing makes me angrier these days than the thought of paying tens of thousands of dollars per year to a university full of entitled leftists looking to brainwash my children with politically correct claptrap about “hate speech.”

    Then don’t.

    Empty rant. Freedom of choice; free market. There’s always Liberty University.

    I say, hard cheese old boy.” – Raymond Delauney [Terry-Thomas] ‘School For Scoundrels’ 1960

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  27. Brought to you from the generation that needed play-doh and coloring books to deal with an election, that tells white women not to wear hoop earrings, which insists whites practicing yoga should be ashamed for appropriating another culture and which created human barricades on a campus to allow non-whites only to pass.

    Because tolerance!

    harkin (517285)

  28. If you deconstruct that sentence, “Shutting down rhetoric” is “hate speech”. I don’t think that’s the message they wished to convey.

    They obviously never had the benefit of nuns hammering grammar at them.

    Mike K (f469ea)

  29. We need some more ampllification of these moral precepts.

    How about: Nobody has any right to argue with the existence of any category of being, nor with the description of what it means, if it has been around awhile; nor to argue with any form of self-identification, if a plausible cae can be made for it, nor to say there should be any penalties on someone for being in any category, and is approved of by the Wellesley faculty.

    Serial killers and pedophiles and rapists, for instance, may be bad categories. Also unrepetent Republicans.

    Sammy Finkelman (c0fa89)

  30. It should be more obvious than ever that nobody gives a sh*t what the students or faculty of Wellesley think. Their whining is counterproductive at every level.

    Good luck paying back those student loans, y’all.

    Leviticus (efada1)

  31. Another good recent example of people who refuse to embrace reality making the rules:

    “It’s not bigotry to point out that only a woman has a uterus and only a man has testicles (the rare intersex conditions that do exist are properly understood as disabilities, thereby being exceptions that prove the rule)…….Obergefell is a head domino, and we’re about to see it knock down a lot more sex-distinct policies.

    It’s a pretty sure bet Americans did not expect tolerance for two consenting adults doing whatever behind closed doors to become a spearhead for forcing naked boys to shower next to naked girls and make girls second-class players on their own fields. That’s what happens when you base social policy on feelings retroactively justified by pretend reasoning, and use courts as a major vehicle for turning those feelings into policy rather than through elected officials more responsive to legislating by consent.”

    http://thefederalist.com/2017/04/11/boys-will-keep-winning-girls-sports-trophies-willing-re-assert-sex-distinctions/

    harkin (517285)

  32. APRIL 14, 2017
    “WELL, WELL: Judge Andrew Napolitano was apparently right about British surveillance on the American election. “He was openly mocked — and suspended from Fox News — but now, it seems, he was right.” Prediction: Trace it back, if you can, and you’ll find Obama or one of his henchmen asking the Brits to do this. Or henchwomen.

    Flashback: “Hypothesis: The spying-on-Trump thing is worse than we even imagine, and once it was clear Hillary had lost and it would inevitably come out, the Trump/Russia collusion talking point was created as a distraction. Now it’s being rowed back because the talk of “transcripts” supports the spying-on-Trump storyline. Will we ever know? Maybe, if there’s a proper investigation into Obama Administration political spying.”

    As a commenter says to this post, about Obama: “We kept thinking he was Carter and it turned out he was Nixon.”

    https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/262519/

    Colonel Haiku (572840)

  33. Hahaha… PJ Media linking to Althouse linking to Don Surber linking to zerohedge, then following up with a link to a Guardian article stating that “Britain’s spy agencies played a crucial role in alerting their counterparts in Washington to contacts between members of Donald Trump’s campaign team and Russian intelligence operatives.”

    WELL, WELL. Your move, Obama.

    Leviticus (efada1)

  34. “Britain’s spy agencies played a crucial role in alerting their counterparts in Washington to contacts between members of Donald Trump’s campaign team and Russian intelligence operatives.”

    We knew that! This is the dossier. It wasn’t just one person alerting Senator McCain. Christopher Steele thought tthe information was accurate and serious, and he tried to pass it on.

    Sammy Finkelman (c0fa89)

  35. “Prediction: Trace it back, if you can, and you’ll find Obama or one of his henchmen asking the Brits to do this. Or henchwomen.”

    Time will tell. Hahahahaha… HA!!!

    Colonel Haiku (3bf827)

  36. so according to CNN, our military must defend dropping a large bomb on ISIS.

    Colonel Haiku (3bf827)

  37. Well they could have dropped CNN but that would be a war crime.

    narciso (74fa99)

  38. Odd that a school that discriminates on the basis of sex wants to lecture other people on their discriminatory habits.

    Jerryskids (3308c1)

  39. Our new Mexico Esquire doesn’t understand triplethink.

    narciso (74fa99)

  40. “Britain’s spy agencies played a crucial role
    “Role”, eh? Was it a movie or a play?

    in alerting their counterparts in Washington to contacts between members of Donald Trump’s campaign team
    Oh, it was a contact sport then. Rugby or football?

    and Russian intelligence operatives.”
    Trump can use all the intelligence he can get. I didn’t know there was an operation for it, but I’m not surprised that it’s Russians. They also invented radial keratotomy (Lasik) for vision correction.

    Well, Patterico started it on the Wellesley thread!

    nk (dbc370)

  41. From your link @36, Colonel:

    (CNN) — The US military on Friday defended its decision to drop its most powerful non-nuclear bomb on ISIS positions in Afghanistan, describing it as a “tactical” move.

    Since when does thee US military need to “defend” dropping a bomb on the enemy? What has happened to our country?

    Rev. Hoagie® (785e38)

  42. Rev. Hoagie® (785e38) — 4/14/2017 @ 5:25 pm

    Leave it to the MSM to mis-characterize it in that fashion.

    felipe (023cc9)

  43. Since when does thee US military need to “defend” dropping a bomb on the enemy?

    Since the Department of War became the Department of Defense?

    nk (dbc370)

  44. They also invented radial keratotomy (Lasik) for vision correction.

    Radial keratotomy is not LASIK. RK involves making a series of incisions on the lens to correct vision. LASIK (short for Laser-Assisted In Situ Keratomileusis) consists of using a laser to reshape the lens by blasting away tiny portion.

    I hate correcting you, nk, you’re usually right about things 🙂

    Chuck Bartowski (211c17)

  45. No problem, Chuck.

    nk (dbc370)

  46. Good answer, nk.

    Rev. Hoagie® (785e38)

  47. For heaven’s sake, don’t try to teach leftists to write better. At best, it’s a waste of time, like trying to teach a pig to sing.

    Worse yet, it might actually work. If it works, you risk making their arguments seem more plausible. No, far better that they write like slow seventh-graders. They’ll persuade fewer people that way.

    gwjd (032bef)

  48. Chuck Bartkowski #15:

    you should never begin a sentence with a conjunction.

    There is no such rule.

    gwjd (032bef)

  49. They end up in academia, govt and even business so their attitudes are not theoretical.

    narciso (966606)

  50. The judge for whom a clerked, Carolyn King of the Fifth Circuit, went to Smith College before going to Yale Law School. As the daughter of the New York State Commissioner of Insurance and the sister-in-law of Citicorp chairman Walt Wriston, attending one of the Seven Sisters schools made perfect sense in that era. I’m not sure that it does anymore. I hope your daughter also considers state schools, although I can’t so enthusiastically recommend UT-Austin as I once would have, before its admission scandals tarnished the undergraduate and law school reputations. Good luck to her regardless!

    Beldar (fa637a)

  51. For whom *I* clerked, I meant to write.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  52. 42, 43… one of the best things Trump has done was his statement that he didn’t authorize the dropping of that bomb, but he authorized the military to do their job to the best of their ability, within the moral, legal and ethical constraints they are to operate under. Effectively ending the previous 8 years of routing all military decisions through the office of the genius Obama.

    Colonel Haiku (3bf827)

  53. My ex had an RK done in about 1984 by an ophthalmologist who’d trained in the technique in Russia, Dr. Ralph Berkeley here in Houston. He’s considered one of the pioneers of corneal surgery to correct vision problems. Lasik is indeed different — it doesn’t involve radial incisions like my ex had — but it’s a direct outgrowth of earlier studies on RKs and, of course, dramatic refinements in computer- and laser-assisted eye surgery techniques.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  54. Let me make it simple for all of you. Liberals. Marxists, and our current neo-fascists are making the case, that YOUR FREE SPEECH is not protected by the Constitution……SIMPLY BECAUSE THEY WILL NOT TOLERATE IT.
    What happens when THOSE WHOSE FREE SPEECH has been denied and disallowed by LIB/MARXIST/INTOLERANT/NEO-FASCISTS……..decide that LAWS and CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS….do not PROTECT the LIB/MARXIST/INTOLERANT/NEO-FASCISTS????? When the LIBTARDS unilaterally DECIDE what IS and ISN’T Constitutionally protected FREE SPEECH…….How are the MUZZZLED and SILENCED supposed to respond?????

    GUS (30b6bd)

  55. Col Haiku. Consider our recent Afghan incursion, the MOTHER of all DRONES. No problem??

    GUS (30b6bd)

  56. I find it’s helpful to listen to the most unhinged liberal racists and bigots in order to focus your response.

    That’s where Bill Maher comes in. Here is Bill Maher in the original Politically Incorrect with guests Sarah Silverman, Anne Marie Johnson, Guy Aoki, and David Spade. arguing about what words you can use in a joke.

    [YouTube]

    papertiger (c8116c)

  57. Hint = the ones saying you can’t say that, shut up, I can’t stand to hear that, are the bad guys.

    They see themselves as totally righteous. I don’t give a flying monkey ear [edit].

    You do not have a right never to be offended. My freedom of speech trumps your feelings.

    papertiger (c8116c)

  58. I’m almost sure the prose at The Wellesley News wasn’t this putrid back when I was taking classes there and reading the paper on campus. Not only does this generation harbor some wacky ideas, but they are uniquely unable to express them clearly and coherently without lapsing into the stale jargon of the crybully.

    JVW (5de783)

  59. I would send my child to one of the military academies,

    AZ Bob (07f1eb)

  60. There are still some great schools that haven’t been drowned in Koolaid, but it does depend on the course of study. I’m guessing pre-law.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  61. I can’t think of a thing I’d rather see happen to ISIS than a MOAB getting dropped on them. I also wonder what it was like in that C-130 when the bomb rolled out the back. I bet it was a wild ride and something those guys will never forget.

    In the context of this and the frankly very weird attack on Syria, I bet North Korea is feeling all kinds of pressure and has no idea how to predict the future. Trump may be vindicated on the international stage after all. I would certainly like that to happen.

    I can’t so enthusiastically recommend UT-Austin as I once would have, before its admission scandals tarnished the undergraduate and law school reputations. Good luck to her regardless!

    Beldar

    I think all top ranked law schools act this way. It’s unfair for sure, but it is how the world works. The only real problem I had with UT’s scandal was that the university president lied about the behavior. If you’re going to make a decision like that, be willing to own and defend it. Even after the scandal they never said they would stop the practice.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  62. Wellesley vermin love them some Patriot Day pressure cooker explosions.
    Living amongst the cesspool of college professors is exhausting. Hoping for a bomb free marathon.

    mg (31009b)

  63. A friend I work with building custom staircases grandson went to a welding school and became a marine welder (underwater welding) Made well over $350,000.00 last year.
    Trade Schools Rock. The instructors don’t have a degree in commie b.s.

    mg (31009b)

  64. push april push

    breathe breathe breathe

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  65. As if to declare they will not take a back seat to anyone in espousing ridiculous intolerance, the Huffpo posts that the world’s white men need their rights suspended for two decades:

    http://m.huffingtonpost.co.za/shelley-garland/could-it-be-time-to-deny-white-men-the-franchise_a_22036640/

    harkin (517285)

  66. I’ve often thought people should have the option of a monthly stipend for giving up their vote.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  67. Kevin M – avocado a month?

    mg (31009b)

  68. narciso – thanks for the link.
    I feel lucky to have learned about the Katyn massacre in 7th grade History. Thank You Mr. Bosshart.

    mg (31009b)

  69. The most important aspect of the editorial is that it never says what idea specifically is the offending one. In fact, if the article named the bad idea, a reasoned argument would be required; instead, we have just the condemnation: lesser people (that is: we) need only to be said what is forbidden and what is allowed by the “educated” ones.

    Paolo Pagliaro (0da413)

  70. It is itself crimethink to utter it, like dospleasing the demonic child in twilight zone.

    narciso (04fe1d)

  71. Kids should know more History and should not be taught how to put a rubber on a banana.
    That should be done in the back seat of a 57 Chevy.

    mg (31009b)

  72. Interesting link, narciso. Once the government got into the “education” business the writing was on the wall. Then the government allowed the teachers to unionize therefore making them an operational arm of the Democrat party. They followed that up by implementing kindergarten followed by pre-school and then day-care and removed the parents, especially the mothers from the responsibility of rearing their childruns. That makes “moms” democrats or they have to stay home for their kids; God Forbid!

    In your linked article the author says we need to “take back” education.

    Rev. Hoagie® (785e38)

  73. I’ve been in the gullet of the beast, rev down in South florida

    narciso (04fe1d)

  74. Did they cough you up, or did you stick in their craw??

    papertiger (c8116c)

  75. That should be done in the back seat of a 57 Chevy.

    There are, now, more virgins than 57 Chevys. Not a lot, though.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  76. Why has every so called news report on the net turned into an episode of Match Game?

    Kim Jong Un Just Did The … blank. Let’s ask Richard Dawson.

    Gene: Richard? What did Kim Jong Un just do?

    Richard: Kim Jong Un just did the Gangnam Style.

    Gene: Sorry. No match from Richard. Let’s move to Betty White.
    Gene: Betty. Kim Jong Un just did the ______ blank.

    Betty: I had no idea Richard was a dancer, but I answered Kim Jong Un just did the dishes!
    He belongs in the kitchen.

    Gene: Cheese n rice can we get a straight answer?

    papertiger (c8116c)

  77. Manbo no 5, that s how out of it they are, tiger.

    narciso (04fe1d)

  78. Sick of the stupid meme of helpless girl facing down imposing beast with just her charm, so popular with the Film Actor’s Guild, and statists trying to pretend they’re human.

    [YouTube – YouTube – and jpg]

    papertiger (c8116c)

  79. Reminds me of the string of heat strokes in college and pro football after denzel washington water is for cowards, or the uptick in people crawling into the polar bear cage at the zoo.

    [YouTube – YouTube]

    Little girls are going to get stomped by horses, bulls, moose, whatever else they encounter, thinking all they have to do is stand there like Alice.

    papertiger (c8116c)

  80. after Al Gore made polar bears into agw posters.

    papertiger (c8116c)

  81. When I went to college, Madalyn Murray O’Hair made a speech at the university and the local church’s went nuts about it. You see, she was religiously incorrect.

    Tillman (a95660)

  82. But she did make the speech without being shouted down or closed down by those nasty religious folks and the damn Christians didn’t march over with masks on and beat the sh!t out of the university students, did they?

    The only acceptable religion at university is leftism. Well, moslems okay too.

    Rev. Hoagie® (785e38)

  83. @ my friend Dustin (#62): Texas Law School didn’t offer admission to young George W. Bush, but his Yale grades & test scores were obviously sufficient for Harvard Business School, which was Dubya’s second choice. I’ve always thought, and still maintain, that Dubya was a far better Governor and POTUS than he’d have been if he’d gone to law school, and I believe Texas Law’s then-rigorous enforcement of its admission standards were a credit to the University and a gift to the people of the United States. Bill Powers and the people who cooperated with him on its cover-up, including (to my great dismay & regret, Bill McRaven), have devalued the degree I earned from Texas Law School, and I’m still mad as hell about it, and I’ll go to my grave mad as hell about it. I don’t disagree with anything you wrote, and yours is the more rational reaction than my admittedly personal and biased one.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  84. Let me try one of those long sentences again, to say what I meant:

    Bill Powers — and all of the many people who cooperated with him in the bogus admissions, and then in their cover-up (including to my great dismay & regret, Bill McRaven) — have devalued the degree I earned ….

    I didn’t have Powers as a prof when I was at UT — he taught Torts to another section of 1Ls then — but I worked quite a bit with him in my second & third years on law review stuff, including editing a book review he wrote for publication in the Texas Law Review. I can’t express how disappointed I was to find him elbow-deep in influence peddling, but perhaps from outside I must appear to resemble Captain Renault being “shocked, shocked!” to learn of gambling at Rick’s.

    Big institutions usually ride out their scandals, and certainly the University of Texas system has had its fair share; the massive endowment, protected by the Texas Constitution, is a comfort against much bad publicity, and more people pay attention to the football team’s prospects than the fact that UT Law has admitted and graduated some very privileged sons and daughters who then repeatedly prove themselves incapable of passing the Texas bar exam despite multiple attempts.

    A last footnote: My observation about young Dubya’s fate is not original; it was first mentioned to me, in passing, by a former colleague at Baker Botts, another Texas Law grad like me, who’d known Dubya during his summer job working in the Baker Botts mailroom. My colleague thought things had definitely worked out for the best when Dubya went to Harvard Business School rather than some less prestigious law school, or any law school, and as things turned out, I certainly agree.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  85. Well, now I’m wound up to rant. Sorry, way off topic. But by way of further explanation for why I am as sore as I am about the whole thing:

    Since the founding of Texas Law School, as with many other state schools, there has always been an institutional tendency for tension between those who want to create and maintain high standards of academic excellence, on the one hand, and those who want particularly well-connected individuals to have a guaranteed seat, regardless of aptitude or merit, at the state’s flagship, “crown-jewel” graduate institution, as Texas Law School has been for the UT System since its founding.

    Early on, an overtly political compromise was brokered, but one that made considerable sense: Texas Law School has, historically, always had large entering classes, in both absolute terms and even relative even to other comparable state flagship schools, adjusted for population. The Texas Legislature has consistently demanded that and supported that, and consistently turned back any discussion of shrinking class size to raise average admissions standards.

    You see, if Texas Law School simply lopped off the bottom two-thirds of its admittees, the resulting change in the school’s average LSAT and grades figures would catapult it ahead of a few other public & private law schools into the top 10 in the USN&WR rankings. Some people think that would be cool. But it would have meant denying entry to the new smaller classes to an unacceptable number of kids of well-connected movers and shakers, kids who couldn’t possibly get into Dartmouth or Duke but whose families have the right sort of influence and access to peddle with college and law school administrators, all the way up to dean of the law school or president of UT-Austin.

    So the unspoken assumption of the compromise — we’ll keep the big classes, and we’ll be satisfied to be a mid-top-20 law school in the rankings, instead of a top-10 law school — was that seats in the bigger entering classes would be honestly and fairly distributed based on merit. (Well, okay, not on merit, because the University is committed to putting a thumb of racial preference on that scale, but that’s a whole ‘nuther conversation, and I’m mad about it too.) The premise of the compromise was, “Your sharper kids of the privileged & influential should still be able to find a seat, even if influence can’t guarantee one.” So the breach of trust feels particularly painful; the rich & powerful end up not only with the bigger classes that dilute quality, but with the effectively ability to rig/purchase-with-influence a good chunk of the seats in each entering class.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  86. Excellent and passionate point of view, Beldar. You and many other friends of mine worked very hard to achieve that UT law degree and expecting the institution to maintain honest standards is perfectly reasonable.

    Dustin (cbc18d)

  87. I would send my child to one of the military academies,
    AZ Bob (07f1eb) — 4/14/2017 @ 11:40 pm

    They ain’t what they used to be, AZ Bob, thanks to the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute (DEOMI). All the race/gender/queer grievance studies rot has been injected into the academies because it’s one of the few places these grads can get a job outside of Seattle’s Best Coffee or Starbucks.

    It’s ruining the fleet, too.

    https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2014-01/deckplates-do-not-use-job

    The Department of Defense continues to make news for the wrong reasons. A recent example involves reports of Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute (DEOMI) training for personnel assigned as equal opportunity advisers throughout the DOD.

    Criticism of DEOMI last October involved a lesson on Power and Privilege, chapter EOAC-3000 of the Equal Opportunity Advisor Course student guide. The chapter emphasizes how “power and privilege can sometimes create exclusive work environments at the expense of others” and introduces students to the concept of white privilege. Two themes of that chapter deserve scrutiny. The first is that white males gain privileges and success through “unearned advantage.” The second is the assumption that “racism is everywhere.”

    DEOMI defines white privilege as “the package of unearned advantages granted to those members of a diverse society with white skin.” Discussion of the concept explains that whites today benefit unfairly from historical institutional racism. By logical extension, that argument means whites—the text emphasizes white men—who achieve some level of status do so unfairly, suggesting their accomplishments are undeserved…

    To the point where Sailors can’t wait to get out due to the constant SJW harangue.

    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/mar/25/sailors-leaving-navy-over-stress-on-social-issues-/

    A Navy F-18 fighter pilot and former Top Gun instructor is publicly warning admirals that retention is beginning to suffer from the military’s relentless social conditioning programs.

    Cmdr. Guy Snodgrass, until recently a Pentagon speech writer for the chief of naval operations, Adm. Jonathan Greenert, said sailors are becoming fed-up with the constant emphasis on social issues — an apparent reference to gays in the military, women in combat and ending sexual harassment.

    “Sailors continue to cite the over-focus on social issues by senior leadership, above and beyond discussions on war fighting — a fact that demoralizes junior and mid-grade officers alike,” Cmdr. Snodgrass wrote this month on the U.S. Naval Institute website, an independent forum for active and retired sailors and Marines.

    The Senior Chief who wrote the USNI article I cited first was already retired. I don’t blame him for that, of course; it’s always been the retired guys’ job to say what they know they know the active duty guys can’t. It was remarkably ballsy of CDR Snodgrass to write that article considering he probably wanted to make Captain and perhaps flag rank (I wonder how his command tour went). But it was not doubt entirely because he was about to take command of a Hornet squadron that he felt compelled to write it. Would you want to fly in something maintained by a bunch of demoralized Sailors, who don’t have time to learn their jobs because they spend nearly all their time in SJW Maoist struggle sessions/beatdowns where they have to acknowledge their privilege?

    By the way, mg beat me to it. I’d much rather pay for my kid to go to something like Lincoln Tech. Employers who need certified welders go begging for applicants because there just aren’t enough to go around. If you’re willing to go where the jobs are like the Bakken oil field you can make a killing and write your own ticket.

    Even better, maybe, become a certified auto technician and have that warm glow inside knowing that the dumb b**** who wrote that Wellesley article and is now a barrista at Seattle’s Best Coffee has to hand over her entire two week paycheck plus tips to pay you for fixing her ten-year old junker.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  88. I’m sorry. I just clicked on the link and was reminded this juvenile article was a team effort.

    Here’s where they got every single thought, if you can call them that, which no doubt they’ve been indoctrinated to believe are original, fresh, and new.

    http://www.marcuse.org/herbert/pubs/60spubs/65repressivetolerance.htm

    Repressive Tolerance
    by Herbert Marcuse
    1965

    It’s all warmed over cultural Marxism, brought to you by one of the leading lights among the depraved degenerates that comprised the Frankfurt School. Marcuse is sometimes called the “Father of the 1960s” and make no mistake, after finding refuge in the United States from the Nazis who surely would have murdered them being both Communists and Jews they immediately set out to devise ideas to destroy it.

    I wonder how the editorial staff at Wellesley would feel knowing they are nothing more than the mindless tools of old dead white men like Marcuse, Lenin, Marx, and Engels.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)


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