<p>Paying3tuitions, I completely agree. I have a son who is a senior in the Con, was perfectly okay with the way the Administration chose to deal with several incidents over an extended period of time. I have to say I was most proud of the students, including my son, who participated in the activities to bond the community together against hate speak and return, as it were, to the roots on which Oberlin was founded. Rather than apathy, (and/or xbox) this very engaged group of smart students found a positive outlet for their concerns. And the jazz department threw together a New Orleans-style brass band which I thought was historical and creative, and indicative of the passion young folks express in these situations.</p>
<p>I don’t think these incidents are “hoaxes”. More likely they’re pranks done by young adults, whether Oberlin College students or Oberlin’s local HS kids, displays of poor taste and bad judgment, without consideration of consequences. Cable TV and movies sure have enough “prank-related bad-taste” media content. </p>
<p>Spent some time researching Grinnell, which shares some commonalities with Oberlin. Recalling another non-urban highly-regarded LAC’s experiences, Grinnell had a grossly inappropriate “sex party” hosted by some male students last year, as well as several other student harassment incidents. Also recall reading online last summer that Grinnell townies on occasion harrass Grinnell College students. After driving around Grinnell’s working-class neighborhoods and seeing some “young adults” hanging out, I thought it a very plausible story.</p>
<p>These campuses aren’t Shangri-La. A fair amount of stupid stuff can still occur, even if the student body models itself as relatively politically-correct and well-intentioned.</p>
<p>“These campuses aren’t Shangri-La. A fair amount of stupid stuff can still occur, even if the student body models itself as relatively politically-correct and well-intentioned.”</p>
<p>I don’t think politically correct and well intentioned = Shangri-La anywhere, even without an ounce of stupid stuff. In fact, politically correct = stupid stuff to many of us.</p>
<p>Don’t know about now, but when I was a student there, the locals from the town and nearby areas who would taunt college students with racist, sexist, homophobic taunts/actions ranging from drive-by harassment to being told to speak English on a public street* weren’t done by Oberlin high school kids. </p>
<p>Instead, the demographic tended to be older ne’er do wells ranging from 20-late middle age. </p>
<p>Maybe high school aged students were also involved…but that wasn’t my experience during the mid-late '90s. </p>
<ul>
<li>Happened to me while speaking in Mandarin with some Chinese international students on a public street. Busybody “speak English” jerk seemed late middle age with a mix of possible racist motives and a “get off my lawn” vibe. Didn’t think much of it as I responded by giving him a lecture on civics and the First Amendment giving me the right to use whatever damned language I pleased on a public street in the US of A. IMO…he’s the one who looked like he had egg on his ignorant busybody face.</li>
</ul>
<p>There was a bit of that…though a bit ironic when directed at students like myself who were FA/scholarship students. Read from a regional paper at the time the local county was one of the two poorest in the state. </p>
<p>There was also resentments due to comparative greater racial diversity and serious gaps in political and social outlooks. </p>
<p>Granted, this had to be considered by the fact that when I entered Oberlin, it was around 74% White according to that year’s Fiske’s Guide to Colleges. You can probably figure out the diversity of the town/surrounding area from that. </p>
<p>As for the latter, students tended to be radically-left politically when I attended. Greens and certainly Democrats would have been considered “too right wing” by the classmates during my undergrad years. They were also much more accepting of open GBLTQ relationships*. That…and students were so politically active that campus-wide protests were commonplace enough that it was our equivalent of Div I sports…albeit with much more seriousness and dedication…sometimes to the point of overextension of some students. There was also a bit of a neo-hippie revival culture among many classmates as well. Most students also tended to hail from the coastal urban/suburban areas and Chicago. </p>
<p>The town/surrounding area residents were more conventional right-leaning conservatives. Even the ones who I struck up casual friendships with would sometimes let slip that they thought students at my college were “Commie pinko” malcontents…present company excepted. You can imagine the tension arising from such a social and political gap in the period I was there (mid-late '90s). </p>
<ul>
<li>Oberlin was named one of the most GBLTQ friendly colleges in the nation at the time I attended.</li>
</ul>
<p>When I was a student at Antioch, charter buses would drive through campus so people could stare at the hippies. No one ever got off those buses, you can bet! And consider Kent State.</p>
<p>Incidentally, the only other college which could match Oberlin in terms of similarity of student culture…especially regarding political leanings and activism was Antioch. :D</p>
<p>Some older California relatives would have said the same of Berkeley. However, we actually had someone transfer in from Berkeley because as he put it “Berkeley’s becoming too damned conservative and pre-professional for him.”</p>
<p>Town/gown problems are common not only with LACs but with universities as well - and are found to some degree in pretty much all college towns. And they’ve been around longer than there has been a USA. Oxford was having major, even violent, town/gown conflicts at least as far back as the 1300s.</p>