It’s a negotiation. As those in business, law and politics: there’s always give and take on both sides. Just because the original list of demands says x and y doesn’t mean that the two sides can’t compromise. I suspect the football players and their supporting students will declare victory even without every one of these demands being met. They got the big kahuna, after all…
Here is the link to the executive cabinet of the University of Missouri Student Association. The Missouri Students Association (MSA) is MU’s official undergraduate student government. Of the six photos of student leaders, five are African American.
No, katliamom. That’s not a negotiation.
Typically we use the label terrorist to people who issue demands and expect them to be met with no argument.
But in any negotiation, the proposal must be rational. I’ve had unreasonable business proposals to review, and chosen to not respond at all.
This is a problem I’ve noticed with lists of demands–all the way from this one to the demands about presidential debates–if you have more than one or two demands, there will stupid demands on your list that will cause the whole list to be discounted. This comes from the process of letting a committee develop the list of demands, during which the demands are escalated and nobody says, “Now, wait a minute…”
This whole thing is going pear shaped -
https://twitter.com/MSAmizzou <—twitter account for the image
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CTYDTjlUwAAF_3w.png
The student council has released a letter they wrote to the university governing board.
EDIT:Updated the link because it loaded the image (i think this violates the TOS)
“Terrorist?” Is this for real?
8-|
From today’s NYT:
A protest evolves on your campus over the space of two months until it engulfs the football team??? And you can’t find the time to utter a single peep about it??? You deserve to have your car blocked.
Like more minority faculty? That the university come up with a ten year plan to be more inclusive of marginalized groups? Hiring more professional counselors? What the heck are you talking about?
@circuitrider - How marginalized can these groups be when they control the student government?
One person calls another person a racial slur on a campus of 30,000 students and they expected the university president to get involved. Please. Does the university president get involved every time someone insults someone else on campus? Or every time men cat call women? He’d do nothing else. Or did the student body president expect that his was a special case?
Terrorism? Really PG? How about striking workers or other cases when students conducted strikes or sit-ins or other actions? Do you consider UAW workers terrorists for striking for better pay or benefits? We generally reserve the term terrorism for those that present demands with threats of violence. The school could have ignored the football players and see whether they did not play, have non-striking players play, or forfeit the game. Since when is a strike saying do this my way or else. A strike says I won’t do what you want until you agree (or until we come to a mutual decision). Generally, neither side ends up with exactly what they want.
The big demand was the Wolfe resign - rightly or wrongly he became the fall guy. The rest of the demands may or may not have been met, but looks like the game will go on.
No, we don’t. Not typically or even atypically.
This is how we use that label:
a person who uses terrorism in the pursuit of political aims
(terrorism: the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims.)
I asked @Zinhead back at post#22 whether that was the argument he was making:
Both he and @Pizzagirl changed the subject. Now, we’re back to it.
God help the person who steps in to fill Wolfe’s shoes. He/she will have no real authority whatsoever. Instead that person will simply be at the mercy of the demands of the most organized or most vocal interest group on campus.
No matter where you come down on the issues surrounding this matter (and I believe there had to be many beyond racial tensions) I don’t think it is prudent to allow any group of students to lay claim to the firing of a university president. That authority lies with the Board of Trustees. If Wolfe was not performing his job responsibilities or not responding to the concerns of the student body, then the Trustees should have convened and determined the appropriate course of action - which might have included firing him. But they should not have allowed that termination to happen in response to a hunger strike by a graduate student or to a threat by the football team.
@circuitrider - I responded to you in #32.
And does anyone think that making Wolfe read a letter “admitting his white male privilege” will change any minds? It’s like when hostages are forced to say xyz by their kidnappers. Everyone knows they are saying what they are saying because they’re forced to.
Circuit rider, the answer is no. Saying that a university president typically doesn’t get involved in every mouthy-kid altercation on campus is NOT the same as saying either a) “racial epithets are so common” or b) “we should all just get used to it.” It is possible to simultaneously believe that using racial epithets is inappropriate AND not “blame” a univ president for every comment made by every single student on his/her campus.
@Pizzagirl And, I guess I’m saying that if that “mouthy altercation” gets to the point where it engulfs the entire campus for a two month period, it behooves a university president to become “involved”.
Well, at least the players’ conduct was more dignified and constructive than that of the screaming harpies who confronted Wolfe on the sidewalk last month.