Two threads about this same article have been merged, so some of the comments may appear repetitive or oddly sequenced. In general, if you see two threads about the same thing, even if they are in different forums, it would be great if you sent a note via the flag report function. A comment, which has now been deleted as irrelevant, was that in a forum other than Oberlin more people will see it. That might well be true, but we strive to have only one current thread per topic, and try to put it in the most relevant forum. When there are multiples it is very confusing. The earlier we can merge them the better. I will recommend this thread be placed in the highlight reel. Thanks!!! - Fallenchemist
My kid is very liberal, but after reading this, I am glad she didn’t choose Oberlin. It’s a truly excellent college, but at some point, does all the activism get in the way of education? Interesting article.
It certainly seems to make for a stressful environment as traditional liberal norms of openess, tolerance for differing viewpoints and ideas, and inquiry (which I support strongly) are being overthrown.
^^^ there is no tolerance for differing viewpoints at Oberlin. Many lefty LACs are becoming very Bob Jones-like and the sad thing is that they have no clue. Many of these kids will be eaten alive in the real world which has a low tolerance for narcissism and whining.
I would love to hear from current students if this is an accurate picture of Oberlin. It sounds awful. I remember a couple of previous article about out-of-control reputation bashing by students of other students. Sounded very unpleasant and unhealthy, and the general atmosphere seemed very repressive. Kind of ironic, isn’t it? I have not visited but would like to hear first hand experiences. Any Oberlin students parents or alums out there?
I read this…I thought the background information (probably the parts you consider tedious) provided a useful framework for understanding the current situation at Oberlin. I wonder if Kenyon is having the same problems?
I am reading it but have to pause due to nausea. I plan to finish tomorrow. That is what $60,000 a year of crap looks like. Nothing against crap of course as I don’t want to offend anyone with a gastrointestinal disorder. I guess I should have given a trigger warning.
Not unique to Oberlin, though. I recently heard Yale’s president speak quite eloquently on the increasingly fraught and narrow terrain between free speech and safe spaces.
I truly do wonder how deep this strain of activism runs within the student population at Oberlin. I remember reading some time ago a rant written by a Latino student who was deeply offended that a white student had dared to use the word “futbol” instead of soccer, as though his culture was being appropriated by white supremacists. The offending student attempted to explain and offered a civil apology, which was received with additional scorn and contempt.
However, when I scrolled down to the comments section, there were none. Perhaps a goodly percentage of the student body rolls their eyes and moves on.
This article isn’t just about Oberlin. It’s about “intersectionality.” I mentioned on another thread a few weeks ago that intersectionality is the hot topic on campuses now. http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/19641762/#Comment_19641762. It’s not just an Oberlin thing. I heard about it from my D who goes to Pomona.
Change is hard, and it doesn’t come quickly, but like Civil Rights and second-wave feminism, it’s getting its start on college campuses. That means (A) there will be some excesses (hey, college-age kids are prone to excess. Un-myelinated brains something something) and (B) the battles may seem remote and/or petty to those of us on the outside–especially those of us from older generations.
I think it may even feel “repressive” to some privileged white people who aren’t used to having to think twice and be circumspect about this stuff–remember when it was okay to make racist, sexist, homophobic jokes? Wasn’t that long ago. In some ways, life was easier for people like me back then, but it doesn’t take a ton of insight to realize that those were actually the bad old days for whole swaths of society. And my learning not to say that kind of thing isn’t really too onerous, especially when weighed against the pain that sort of discourse surely caused those groups.
As an older white man, it’s “new” and even a bit shocking to me how much things are changing and how much of what I’ve taken for granted has actually contributed to the marginalization of POCs, women, and sexual minorities, but the reality–as I see it–is that my discomfort and growing pains are a very, very, very small price to pay for the long-overdue empowerment, visibility, and support of POCs, women, and sexual minorities.
These kids are incapable of thought. The only somewhat humorous angle is that these liberal college professors are finally reaping what they have sewn, rendering the academic world a leftist, totalitarian, intolerant bunch of whiners.
Talk about privilege? How about being one of the 1-3% of high school students who get selected for admission to these elite LAC’s, receive financial aid (mostly off the backs of the vilified), become liberated enough to be their “true selves”, but then are so apoplectic with their micro aggressions that they flunk out - or beg the administration to outlaw C’s because they are busy protesting. I am referring to some of the crocks described in the article which are a small but growing minority of students.
These are not simply young people growing up. These are the new brown shirts of liberalism.
“For years, a campus café and performance space called the Cat in the Cream had a music-themed mural, painted by an alumnus, that celebrated multiculturalism: it featured a turbanned snake charmer, a black man playing a saxophone, and so on. Students recently raised concerns that the mural was exoticizing. “We ended up putting drywall over it, and painting over that,” Robert Bonfiglio, who had been the chair of the Student Union Board, told me. “They were saying, ‘Students are being harmed. Just do something now.’ ” But if individuals’ feelings were grounds to efface art work, he reasoned, every piece of art at Oberlin would be in constant danger of being covered up, or worse—a practice with uncomfortable antecedents. “The fear in class isn’t getting something wrong but having your voice rejected,” he said. “People are so amazed that other people could have a different opinion from them that they don’t want to hear it.”
Wow. Can’t wait for the kids to graduate and be released in the working world. I wonder what the job recruitment stats are at Oberlin. Employees reading this are going to run the other way… Such annoying and whiney students.
The behavior is not so much repressive as it is ridiculous to me, a non-white person.
I find the entire concept of “white privilege” to be a convenient excuse for lack of achievement. That is not to say racism doesn’t exist, but its effects are dwarfed by other factors such as intelligence, grit, and emphasis on education.
But that’s not how it works on campus. It’s not just a matter of white people learning to be more thoughtful and circumspect. As I said on the “Isolated or Over-Reacting thread” it means that if you are a cis-gendered white person you are supposed to follow very strict rules about how to be a good ally. And being a good ally means you stay out of the spotlight and absolutely do not question the arguments, tactics or interpretation of events made by a student of color or a transgendered person on any issue, because you are then trying to dominate them and exert your privilege.
With many, many of these activists, you cannot have a rational debate about facts because the activists play by different rules of discourse, where you cannot use facts or evidence to challenge their arguments. Their arguments are based on their feelings which is their “lived experience” and of paramount importance. If you even try to argue facts you are asserting your “white supremacy”, “traumatizing” them and “exhausting” them. The safe response is often to opt for a sort of hashtag activism where you make appropriate expressions of solidarity especially on social media and mostly try to keep a low profile.
“Exhaustion” is frequently invoked to shut down discussion. It’s based on the legitimate idea that students of color shouldn’t always have the burden of having to educate the white students about privilege, racism, etc. But it’s also very handy to invoke whenever an activist student doesn’t want to engage or explain a position in the face of a counter-argument.
Note that in the article even Professor Kozol, one of the main proponents of “intersectionality”, complains about the effect on the classroom:
As I said earlier, this is not something that is limited to Oberlin but something that has been playing out at campuses across the country in varying degrees.
These types of fringe activists who say things like “only a white person can be racist” are not new. They can be noisy, and can make enough noise to appear more numerous and popular than they are.
Of course, the difficulty of understanding that someone can agree with some of one’s positions but not others is not unique to these activists. But they, and counterparts of other politics, seem to think that everyone who does not agree everything is the enemy.
@ucbalumnus I don’t agree that this (what is described in the Oberlin article) is confined to fringe activists. My kid’s personal observation was based on her freshman “sponsor group.” She said several of the students of color in her sponsor group and dorm were initially very open to socializing with the white students until they became active in the various affinity groups on campus. Within two months these formerly sociable SOC’s had adopted the language of the groups, which included the whole parlance of “exhaustion” “trauma” “white feminism” “white dominance” “problematic” (a vague term for “not okay”), etc. They also started socializing almost exclusively with their affinity group or related affinity groups.
The New Yorker author quotes the music professor (O’Leary) saying: “Students believe that their gender, their ethnicity, their race, whatever, gives them a sort of privileged knowledge—a community-based knowledge—that other groups don’t have, * * * The trouble comes when their perspectives clash."
O’Leary said that the problem with the idea of “privileged knowledge” (or “lived experience”) based on your ethnicity is that it creates clashes of perspective. I think the other problem it creates is that it reinforces voluntary separation of groups. Students in the affinity groups are told that (1) those outside the group cannot understand them, and (2) it’s too burdensome and unfair (exhausting) to ask those inside the affinity group to make outsiders understand them. So it becomes easier to just hang with your affinity group. In fact, spending too much time outside your affinity group might cause some to question your loyalty.
Frank Bruni had an interesting op-ed about “The Lie of College Diversity” last December that talked about this problem. It’s one thing to recruit a diverse class and encourage affinity groups to support those diverse students. It’s quite another thing to get the groups to mingle and actually experience the benefits of the diversity. Even schools that have done a very good job with the first steps, creating a diverse class and providing a support network, have yet to master the vital step of helping students experience the benefits of learning from their diverse peers.
Change may be messy and uncomfortable, but this change is good I think. Better to try to address these issues than pretend they don’t exist. For those of you who see this as a “problem”, I’d like to ask what you see as the alternative?
What exactly is this “change?” What could possibly be good about what is described in that article? Whiny entitled kids, professors dragged through the mud with no due process, silencing of free speech, microscopic hypersensitivity to every perceived slight? An alternative would be for the grownups at those institutions to ignore them and instruct them to get back to the business at hand of learning something useful outside of their solipsistic grievances.