I am at a complete loss to comprehend the ruckus at ESC south of Seattle. It was like the “progressive” and LGBT students were a mob reminiscent of a Third Reich rally in 1939. We had anti-apartheid marches at my campus back in the day. We were young and agitated, but nothing like the intimidating screamers who held the administration hostage at ESC the other day. And do any of the protesters realize the irony of insisting that all white people leave campus?
There’s another thread that discusses the precipitous drop in applications at Missouri this year (40% I believe). I suspect that we’ll see similar fallout at other schools where this type of activity is occurring (Berkely and Drexel come to mind). ESC doesn’t seem to have the ability to weather a significant drop in applications or enrollment that schools like Berkeley and Drexel have. According to their CDS from 2015-1026, they already accept almost everyone that applies. Less than 1/3rd of those accepted end up enrolling.
However, ESC seems to have a reputation that may attract the kind of student who may not object to the protest in question (with more than a few who would join such a protest). For a non-flagship state university that is not very selective, it does seem to have a high percentage of out-of-state students (38% in fall 2014 according to https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=evergreen&s=all&md=0&id=235167 ).
Remember, the stories that make the news are the exceptions to the rule, not the rule. The professor’s comments seem well reasoned and logical. I just hope he’s going onto shows other than Fox News to explain himself.
I don’t think there was any political post??? An interesting commentary about an incident at a college, with reasoned discussion regarding its veracity and possible impact upon applications. I thought that what this forum was all about.
So the campus police tells Prof. Weinstein that he should stay off campus because his safety is at risk and they have been directed by the president of the college to stand down. So he has to hold his biology class in a public park? This is truly out of hand and that President Bridges should have to account for this. Just plain insanity.
The professor’s interview with Tucker Carlson could be on SNL - the expression of disbelief on Carlson’s face is priceless. Agree that Weinstein appears totally reasonable and after reading the email that is the basis for all this abuse I can find nothing racist in it. He simply opposed the format of the “day of absence” this year and advised that he would not participate.
Many people tend to be skeptical if right-leaning media runs a story critical of something left-leaning, and vice-versa. So it can be more believable if one can get the story critical of something left-leaning in left-leaning media, or the story critical of something right-leaning in right-leaning media.
So in this case, if he had given an interview on left-leaning MSNBC, people may be less skeptical of the story.
The Day of Presence and Absence is a tradition at ESC, an annual day of reflection on race. Last year blacks were asked to be absent. This year whites are asked. In this frame asking a race makes some sense as an exercise in human relationships.
I don’t know why anyone would believe Fox News, given its history of biased reporting, but there is a tragic shift in the media and citizen responsibility. As a responsible citizen, I feel obligated to go beyond most sources, which is why I use the BBC, NYTimes, and Washington Post primarily.
I’m becoming more and more convinced that “Colleges That Change Lives” should be changed to “Colleges That Are Over-the-top Left Wing”. See also Hampshire College.
The Day of Presence and Absence is a tradition at ESC, an annual day of reflection on race. Last year blacks were asked to be absent. This year whites are asked. In this frame asking a race makes some sense as an exercise in human relationships."
It seems Prof. Weinstein has a different interpretation of the “tradition”. It sounds like from his point of view it was something done by black students and Professors voluntarily each year. This year whites were asked to leave for the first time. His email stated he felt that they should not be take part in the Day. It was his opinion and he had no power to compel compliance. Students and professors were free to act as those chose. Again I think its not so much the protests as it is the threats and the danger being presented to someone who a group disagrees with.
"Day of Absence is a tradition at Evergreen. In previous years students and faculty of color organized a day on which they met off campus—a symbolic act based on the Douglas Turner Ward play in which all the black residents of a Southern town fail to show up one morning. This year, however, the formula was reversed. “White students, staff and faculty will be invited to leave the campus for the day’s activities,” the student newspaper reported, adding that the decision was reached after people of color “voiced concern over feeling as if they are unwelcome on campus, following the 2016 election.”
In March I objected in an email to all staff and faculty. “There is a huge difference between a group or coalition deciding to voluntarily absent themselves from a shared space in order to highlight their vital and under-appreciated roles . . . and a group or coalition encouraging another group to go away,” I wrote. “On a college campus, one’s right to speak—or to be—must never be based on skin color.”
From the webpage: “The Day of Absence, as it was originally known, began in the 1970s when Faculty member Maxine Mimms, inspired by the play, approached administrator Stone Thomas about the idea of joining with other faculty and staff of color in spending a work day away from campus as a grassroots collective action. In the decades following, Day of Absence grew to become an opportunity for all students, faculty and staff at Evergreen to explore and celebrate the richness of our diversity by facilitating conversations about issues of difference. In 1992, Day of Presence was added in order to reunite the college community and honor diversity and unity as a whole campus.”
It seems there was a significant history of exploring identity. I have no comment on Weinstein, but given what I am reading on the college website, whites have been involved for decades.
^ which completely misses the entire point. It’s really not that hard. Leaving aside the utter stupidity of “protesting” racism/exclusion in an explicitly race based and exclusionary way, there is a difference between voluntary action and coercion. If people want to leave campus because they are of a particular pigmentation in the name of “diversity” or “multiculturalism” or whatever then that may say something about their powers of reason but it is their right. However, those same people and their fellow travellers do not have the right to force people off campus because they don’t like the color of their skin. I thought we were past all that.