Harvard's Holiday Placemat for Social Justice

[Zinhead]

The Office for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion at Harvard University distributed what it is calling “Holiday Placemats for Social Justice” on campus to help freshmen students navigate difficult conversations when they return home for Christmas break.

http://www.campusreform.org/?ID=7093

The placemat, a copy of which was obtained by Campus Reform, offers students tips for talking to their family members about controversial topics such as “Black Murders in the Street,” “House Master Title,” and “Islamophobia/Refugees.” The placemat, divided into four possible topics of conversation, provides students with a series of sample questions they may encounter when they return home to their families along with an acceptable response to each question.

"The project… was intended to provide a framework to help first-year students with potentially difficult conversations during their first visits back home.” Under the topic “Black Murders in the Street,” students are advised to prepare answers to the question: “Why didn’t they just listen to the officer? If they had just obeyed the law this wouldn’t have happened.”

Students are advised to say to their families: “Do you think the response would be the same if it was a white person being pulled over? In many incidents that result in the death of a black body in the street, these victims are not breaking the law and are unarmed.”

“Why are Black students complaining? Shouldn’t they be happy to be in college?” the placemat puts forward as a possible question.

When answering, the placemat recommends students acknowledge their privilege rather than criticize the experience of students of color.

[GMTplus7]

…to help freshmen students navigate difficult conversations when they return home for Christmas break.

I thought the difficult conversations during break were about GF/BFs and grades.

[Ohiodad51]

The best critique I saw of this was something to the effect of “Nothing says critical thinking like providing your students with a cheat sheet of talking points.”

[blossom]

Zinhead, how do you hold down a job with your busy life tracking each and every news nugget that comes out of Cambridge or New Haven?

[garland]

^JUST wondering the same thing!

[katliamom]

^^ maybe he works for Princeton

[Hanna]

I don’t view family holiday dinners as spaces to exercise critical thinking. It’s more a space for emotional intelligence. If you’re lucky enough to come from a family that has a free intellectual discourse at Thanksgiving, you don’t need the placemat.

[dietz199]

I wonder the same thing about posters with 10K plus postings.

[garland]

That’s easy. 12+ years.

Plus–I don’t have an agenda. My posts are all over the place, and always have been. I’m a generalist.

[Scipio]

And then Harvard apologized for having distributed the placemats:

http://www.campusreform.org/?ID=7101

[zobroward]

“If you’re lucky enough to come from a family that has a free intellectual discourse at Thanksgiving, you don’t need the placemat.”
you probably neither need or want harvard to tell you what to think or say. it is very sad and embarrassing that the school did this (this was not students printing this nonsense it was the adults!)
maybe the “adults” who run the school need some winter break reading.

animal farm and 1984!

[Hanna]

Since this is part of my job, there isn’t much to wonder about.

[tiger1307]

The investigative reporter for the piece above worked for the Daily Caller. He graduated from the University of St. Thomas in Saint Paul in 2015. He has written thought provoking pieces about Guns on Campus at the University of Kansas and why student rape victims should carry guns. I wonder how long it is before he gets his dream job at Fox News

[compmom]

Fire them. Seriously.

[Zinhead]

The investigative reporter for the piece above worked for the Daily Caller. He graduated from the University of St. Thomas in Saint Paul in 2015. He has written thought provoking pieces about Guns on Campus at the University of Kansas and why student rape victims should carry guns. I wonder how long it is before he gets his dream job at Fox News

Show me the man, and I will show you the crime.

[Gator88NE]

The alternate placemat put together by the Harvard GOP is hilarious (it’s in the link in post #9).

Really, when did colleges start giving political talking points to students to share with their families (on a #$#@ placemat!)? That’s getting a bit creepy…

[Nerdyparent]

Why would Harvard students need a placemat telling them how to think and respond to questions?

Isn’t part of the college experience learning to form one’s own opinions?

Sheeeeeeez!

[Scipio]

Based on the dozen or so recent Harvard graduates I know, I’d say that Harvard students in general are some of people LEAST likely to need any kind of help or coaching on how to form a relevant opinion and articulate a discussion of it.

[zobroward]

scipio, they should also hopefully have their own opinion not one handed down from harvard aka big brother. not to mention why do these so called adults running harvard worry about conversations the students have with uncle bob and aunt tina? are they afraid somebody may expose the kids at harvard to opinions other than those mandated by harvard group think?

[Gator88NE]

why do these so called adults running harvard worry about conversations the students have with uncle bob and aunt tina?

I’m sure Harvard’s gotten a lot of pushback from Alumni and parents (and media) about they way they have handled these issues. It’s an effort to rally support, more, I think, than to “educate” students.