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America's Ten Most Oppressive Colleges
An anonymous reader writes: A new review of free speech on campuses across the United States has listed the country's ten most oppressive colleges, with examples of why they earned this odious status.
The first link is the actual report, while the second provides a good quick summary. In either case, the behavior of college officials in attempting to squelch dissent is quite disgusting. Far more horrifying and worrisome for the future were the number of cases where the students themselves moved to stamp down on opposing views. They are the future, and that future does not look pleasant. In South Carolina students are suing their college for interrogating them for daring to hold an event in support of free speech that offended some students.
The first link is the actual report, while the second provides a good quick summary. In either case, the behavior of college officials in attempting to squelch dissent is quite disgusting. Far more horrifying and worrisome for the future were the number of cases where the students themselves moved to stamp down on opposing views. They are the future, and that future does not look pleasant. In South Carolina students are suing their college for interrogating them for daring to hold an event in support of free speech that offended some students.
I'm pretty sure there are quite a few more universities that won't even let you have a slightly different religion.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
You have no right not to be offended.
Shove your idea of "microagressions" right up your ass. So it can be near your brain.
'Oppressive' seems a bit over-the-top. Even TFA article doesn't use that word.
Next up: "America's Most Genocidal Colleges"!
The president is a total imbecile and everybody regrets his ascension, but it's overall a fantastic university.
So let's be clear: pretty much all of these situations are completely unacceptable, and most disturbingly they show a tendency for much of these sorts of problems to occur on the left, what essentially amounts to the "illiberal left" http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/01/liberals-and-the-illiberal-left/384988/. However, FIRE's own biases are coming into play in this list, in that every example they decide to include is on the left or has no political aspect. But there were a lot of rimilar activities with an apparently right-wing bent, such as the situation at Wheaton College https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/01/06/wheaton-illinois-moves-fire-professor-who-wore-hijab. It may be that FIRE's top list is still more of an issue for legitimate reasons because many of these universities are large, public universities and thus engaging in trampling on free speech is even more serious, but it does seem like FIRE's own biases may be having a role in what they've decided to highlight.
However, the general upshot should be clear: trampling on free speech is not ok. And we should support free speech whether or not it is speech we agree with. Universities must be bastions of free expression for them to effectively do their jobs. And groups of all sorts should remember that even if they have power now to censor others, they may not always be the ones in power.
In some senses, Americas most oppressive colleges are the ones that don't try to curb sexist and racist speech at all.
A lot depends on if you're a black woman or a middle-class white male.
I can guess which side most of the middle-class white males here will fall.
The John William Pope Center is a mouthpiece for a right-wing think tank, and is no friend of higher education.
That having been said, some of the incidents described are pretty egregious. But then university administrators have been cowardly autocrats since universities began.
I expected this SJW shit at Berkley. But now it's poisoning even public state colleges in red states. Scary shit.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Some folks sure do scare easy. Most of these could be qualified as 'spats'.
I'm 100% for free speech, I'd much rather people come right out and say what's on their minds. And I'd never dream of suggesting you may not call these examples oppressive or scary but I'll definitely call you silly if you do so.
I always assumed all higher education facilities oppressed...my pockets! But seriously, the report only lists one example and screams bloody murder that the colleges squash some dumb rhetoric or comment the idiots make to prevent this SJW future the perceive will ruin or pussify the country. That second link only provides are slanted summary of list. Scary future indeed, a future of morons that regurgitate questionable ideas as truth.
I'm 40, so way out of college, but mainstream media targeted at us old folks loves to hype up the "soft squishy hypersensitive Milennial" meme. It's presented in the form of "look at these damn kids, they can't handle the real world, and everyone should be able to say whatever they want to each other without any consequences."
I have the opposite view -- I feel there needs to be some sort of consequences for inflammatory speech. Look at how awful political discourse is now, on both the left and the right. Everyone is hyper-focused on their opinions, partially because social media and targeted advertising continuously reinforces it. I really don't want a country of 300 million angry loudmouth Donald Trump clones walking around. People should be sensitive to others' feelings and opinions. Even tenured professors need to operate within an authority structure, as do most of us. Anyone who has worked for a large corporation with crappy office politics knows that you don't get far by shooting your mouth off at every turn.
"Click here to read about these ten weird free speech tricks discovered by a student!"
I dare say that all the professors losing their jobs and students getting expelled for saying the wrong thing would view it as more than a "spat."
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Looks like some serious pandering to the whole SJW screaming match here. I mean sometimes we get the dub articles about the "gender/race" gap, that riles up the SJWs and makes them feel good, and brings out the anti-SJWs. Then here we have the opposite something that will bring out the anti-SJWs to say "yeah, those college SJW's by gum!".
Thankfully I use adblock so jokes on Slashdot, fuckers.
Let's add another to that list, take it all the way up to 11
Oh! The ironing!
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
"All" in this context is less fingers than you have unless you suck with power tools out of 10's of thousands.
I can think of things that are more lethal and more likely that I'd reserve 'scary' for.
Not right, concerning, wrong, cause for action, sure. Scary no.
The "source" is one of the heads of FIRE, which is a civil liberties organization specifically devoted to issues like protecting the free speech rights of students and faculty from everything from overly broad speech codes, to not getting tenure because the professor fails to hold the right views. Chances are that if you are a university student or professor who has been victimized by campus commissars of political correctness, you will be represented by FIRE if you aren't doing it by yourself.
Your whole comment just screams "ad hominem" because it focuses on one particular source cited when the writer is the head of a different organization that has an excellent record at defending the rights of students and faculty from campus autocrats. And yes, that is "ad hominem" in the true sense. Hey folks, don't believe it because damn dirty right wingers are involved, even if they are arguing that college campuses are trampling the rights of political minorities.
When so many people started talking about the importance of "trigger warnings" and how they had developped "PTSD" from encountering divergent opinions from theirs, I just shrugged and. When my younger brother transitioned to female and started raving hard about all things Social-Justice-y, I was stupefied. When she started talkign about her anxiety attacks over the mere mention of the word "rape" (she has never been sexually assaulted nor witnessed any rape except on TV), I started digging into the science of anxiety fits to see what there really was about it.
It turns out that one can indeed teach one's own brain to develop PTSD over any kind of stimuli at all. All you need to do is to foster a sense of being threatened every time you encounter the stimulus of your choice. For example, you start thinking about people trying to beat you up, of menacing predators pouncing, of natural disasters closing in on you, whenever the stimulus is there. You can also jsut go and read detailed testimonies of aggressions - the more expressive and vivid, the better. You then reinforce and validate this self-inflicted perception of threat by expressing to other people how you feel threatened by the stimulus of your choice, and have the other people agree with you. Basically, this retrains your amygdala into stimulating your cingulate cortex so that it activates the limbic axis for fight-or-flight response. With enough practice, you can push yourself deep into somatization, and develop identical symptoms to that of genuine PTSD-sufferers, to the point where you will have nausea and dizziness just from thinking about the stimulus.
The interesting thing is, it's the kind of the reverse of desensitization therapy for actual PTSD: if you have a rape victim with severa agoraphobia, you can slowly train their amygdala into NOT stimulating the cingulate cortex and thus not triggering panic attacks by desensitizing them to open spaces or the outside, until the link between "outside" and "being attacked" ceases to exist in the brain.
That, IMO, is how SJWs make themselves sick, and make others around them sick, with an acquired mental disorder.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
There are two classes of school policies that should be resulting in the prosecution of public school officials who implement them: zero tolerance policies and any sort of speech code that goes beyond upholding basic legal tenants like not creating a public disturbance. Enough of this bullshit about how the laws of our society don't apply in the one part of government most young people can't avoid (K-12) by law and at most of the universities they can afford.
As for private schools that promise free speech and renege, they should be fully liable for breech of contract, payment of legal fees and whatever else is necessary to make the student whole if they go after them in violation of their stated policies and values.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
http://www.thedailybeast.com/a...
I can close this out fast.
CHECK YOUR PRIVILEGE!!!1111111
There... end of discussion.
https://reason.com/blog/2016/0...
A University of Texas at Austin cop issued a disorderly conduct citation to a preacher because his words were offensive to some students.
It's enough if 1-2 lose their jobs for the remaining 1000 to get the message, be scared and not open their mouth any more. Censorship is most successful when a system is established in which people self-censor for fear of negative consequences if they actually use their right to free speech which they still have on paper.
A few lost jobs is all it takes to make people self-censor and to be a serious threat to freedom. SJWs are a far greater threat than many people think and should be fought accordingly
.
Perhaps this is just an extension of the filter bubble that everyone creates for themselves in their view of the internet, i.e., tending to visit sites or "friend" people with opinions similar to yours. Then when these people get to college, they are offended that there are others with differing viewpoints.
College, as a home for new and fresh ideas, is dying.
Some of the fired professors were fired *because* of their SJW proclivities. They were offended by something some autocrat said, spoke out and the autocrat fired them. Are you going to defend them even though they're special little snow flakes whose feelings were hurt by the idea of drowning little bunnies or do you approve of their firing ?
Free speech is free speech, it's not limited to just those you agree with. If you're truly that concerned about free speech then defend free speech. If you're more concerned about defending your personally held beliefs from the SJW crowd that's fine but don't conflate it with a general love of free speech.
For what it's worth I like the analogy and wholeheartedly agree with the idea of drowning the little bunnies, increasing retention at any cost is a dumb idea but the factulty shouldn't have been fired for being offended.
1st amendment to the constitution? Pssst. Why should that matter when some 20 year olds fee-fees are at stake! You might trigger someone who's had such a rough life living middle class and loved.
I graduated college back in 2009. Went to a small Baptist university in rural North Carolina that had only recently broken from the Southern Baptist Convention. They had chapel every Thursday morning a students were basically required to go to at least some of them while you attended (you had to attend a certain number of events such as chapel, plays, and concerts but unless you went to every single play and concert you had to go to some chapels because you wouldn't have enough events). But even there we still had comparative religion classes, there were class trips (purely historical and sightseeing) that went to places like Tunisia.
What is the whole purpose of going to college if not to challenge not only you, but also the way in which you view the world. Is that not how you learn and grow as a person? Just as you can't win a debate by shouting down your opponent (although Trump seems to think that counts as a victory), stifling every opinion that differs from your own doesn't mean that your side is right. Instead it simply shows that either your side or your own beliefs are so weak that any challenge of them will bring the whole thing crashing down. I'm afraid we will eventually get in a situation where a whole generation of people will be unable to cope with challenging or dissenting viewpoints, and instead of trying to defend their own beliefs will simply do the equivalent of holding their hands over their ears while shouting "la la la, can't hear you".
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
I have the opposite view -- I feel there needs to be some sort of consequences for inflammatory speech.
Careful there. You are correct that free speech does not (and should not) equal consequence free speech except where Constitutionally defined. HOWEVER sometimes what is considered inflammatory by some is considered ordinary by others. Just because an opinion is unpopular doesn't mean there should always be consequences. It wasn't that long ago that saying something like "man evolved from apes" or "interracial marriage is ok" could get you into some serious hot water. Heck there are still parts of this country that (technically) you cannot hold public office if you say you don't believe in god. Always having consequences for spoken ideas can result in things like Jim Crow laws if you aren't careful. It can easily become a tyranny of the majority or of the powerful.
It would seem that a few colleges out there are in the hands of little Hitlers.
Besides the fact the article is lacking in its method to rank the schools, they forgot about Wheaton College.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
[mit.edu] found would chh7ose to use
In one case a student was expelled and the administrator attempted to prevent the student from getting a degree at any other college. Had he been successful, the student would have been out tens of thousands of dollars and had his career damaged or destroyed, all for exercising his right to free speech. That is scary.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Look at the "Filthy Speech Movement" of 1965.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Well, well, well...
Talking about Freshmen as 'bunnies' is bad? Any Senior in college has thought something similar, and Sophomores know that the freshman casualty rate is rather spectacular (where remedial courses are not the freshman year...).
College is tough. Learning facts by itself is daunting, and learning to think past 'what mama always said...' is even worse.
Darwinian is a good word for freshman classes ( NO Remediation classes when I started college...) and the resulting casualty rate.
Flunk the dummies and in 4 years you will have graduates worth having.
As for the other items - PC? Offended? Safe Zones?
What is all this poop? Who thinks that rose-colored glasses ( and ear-filters ) will last past the first trip to jail for any infraction?
Or past the first mugging? Or exclusion from a bar/coffee shop because their clothing/hair/attitude is offensive to the owners/patrons ?
I know it wont last past the kickbacks/bribes needed to start a business, or the sudden realization of the actual meanings in business contracts.
No, children, and administrators, you are educational institutions/students - not businesses. ( retention for more $$$ )
The difference between education and business has become blurred. Grants, loans, sports income have all contributed to the business model creeping into education.
So the good old days are gone... And the BS/BA is not worth real parchment.
Watered down, so the graduates are crippled by their own inability to think without protection ( mind condoms? )
They ought to get 'safety helmets' instead of a diploma.
Such is what happens when Administration and helicopter parents and social/educational/psychological specialists interfere with the educational process.
So how many graduates in any PC setting really understand agression ( not micro ) competition, honesty ( buy reports, grades ),
their own ignorance vs knowledge, sexual harassment vs verbal sexual play, racism vs verbal satire on race/religion/politics/body types ?
Children - 'they' have done you a disservice.
Helicopter parents : you raised children, you should have raised adults.
Administrators: You value money/fear lawsuits more than allowing an idjit to have your institutions name.
Now, get this: cold hard facts say that we have decided to value PC and egg-walking more than truth or honesty.
And until things are straightened out.... Stay off my lawn and dont try to sell that doublespeak to me.
You can't shout "Fire" in a crowded theatre. And you shouldn't be able to use racial and sexist profanities to intimidate people.
Wait, you have a younger brother who "transitioned to female" and you refer to your brother as "she"? You must be one of those mushy-brained SJWs that people complain about.
When was the last time you stopped yourself from saying something you believed to be true for fear of being punished for saying it?
If you are on an American campus, it probably hasn't been long.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Full-disclosure: I attended BYU and actually really enjoyed my time there. Brigham Young University should be on that list. Student's will be expelled (and their transcripts locked so they can't transfer credits either) if they convert from Mormonism to any other religion while a student. You can literally get academically disciplined for profanity or criticizing LDS leaders. It isn't just student's though. Faculty can also get in serious trouble for what they say. For example, a BYU professor and historian (Michael Quinn) was strongly pressured to leave after he published honest histories of the LDS church's history with polygamy. He had been an excellent professor as evidenced by the fact that one of his years at BYU the graduating class voted him the best professor on campus. BYU is absolutely not a place where you can talk about the LDS church honestly and openly without getting kicked out (at least if you want to talk about large parts of history that the church tries to bury).
I caused a minor revolt and pissed off the ultra-leftists (the sane leftists sympathized with my views) when I publically accused our micro-aggressions indocrnitator that she was being culturally insensitive and that it was absolutely unethical and a violation of university policy for her to conflate cultural idioms with aggressions. Something like "When speaking a rural Appalachian dialect is a microaggression, you have banned my culture" and then quoted our "cultural diversity" statement. Itw as funny. The indoctrinator was red faced and puffy. The ultra-leftists went off on their screed, the sane leftists argued with them, and then the hour allotted was over. I'm sure I'll be summoned to the dean's office again, and I think I'll have the EO complaint written.
Wait, you have a younger brother who "transitioned to female" and you refer to your brother as "she"? You must be one of those mushy-brained SJWs that people complain about.
No, a SJW would have probably used a made-up pronoun like "hir".
Far more horrifying and worrisome for the future were the number of cases where the students themselves moved to stamp down on opposing views.
And they shouldn't be allowed to do that? Sounds like Subby wants those students censored, in the name of "free speech".
I'm from rural Appalachia. "People like you dont' belong here". Nobody dares say that to a black woman, but it was perfectly acceptable for someone to say that to me because of my cultural background and dialect. Further, show me a systematic attempt to suppress the freedom of speech of blacks as a group, and I'll join the fight to fix it. You, however, just tried to whitewash a systematic attempt to silence a group that's not "politically convenient"
Freedom of speech restricts governments and not private actors. Half of these schools are private. If we're going to discuss freedom speech we oughta know what the hell we're talking about; we oughta get the damn words right.
'Social normalization of deviance means that people within the organization become so much accustomed to a deviant behaviour that they don't consider it as deviant, despite the fact that they far exceed their own rules for the elementary safety.' - Diane Vaughan
The longer it goes on within an organisation, the more people become accustomed to it. People on the outside see it as abnormal but within the organisation it becomes accepted as everyday practise.
http://www.fastjetperformance....
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Yes, because you either get hyper-offended by all ideas and words that don't conform the the SJW code, or you are a hate-filled ass who only refers to homosexuals as 'fags' and would call his transgender sibling a sissy and tell him to man-up rather than using her preferred name and pronouns.
That's what hir said!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Berkeley, the town, is as hardcore liberal as ever. Berkeley, the University, transitioned some years ago to overachiever central. Everyone over at Cal is too busy studying and working hard to get their science, engineering, business, and law degrees to have time for SJW-ism. UCSC has taken up the kookiness mantle lately. But they get less press because they don't have the historical notoriety of Berkeley.
Imagine all the people...
It appears to be a combination of both conservative and liberal colleges. I would have expected it to be more 1 sided than split.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
You're still not getting into the coven.
You have the right to say anything. This is an unalienable right; it is not given to you by any authority. Authorities can oppress you but they can not take away your human rights... You simply choose to not exercise your rights due to your fear of the authorities.
Yelling Fire is not the crime - you are free to do that and it should be legal if your rights are being respected. The crime is in causing a panic which harms people; which can be done by other methods (like by setting off the fire alarm.) It is also a crime to falsely report a fire (done by yelling, alarm, 911, etc.) You can say stuff at the airport too and they can choose to strip search you and detain you at their own discretion as well... The speech itself shouldn't be the crime.
People who can not control their own emotions always resort to trying to control other people. Profanities exist because of the power YOU give them over yourself. Grow a pair and take some responsibility over your emotions. WIMPS can not handle being offended or intimidated - the younger generations seem to be progressing towards becoming hypersensitive.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Ordered as presented, ranking not given. Read the article for why.
Mount St. Mary's University
Northwestern University
Louisiana State University
University of California, San Diego
Saint Mary's University of Minnesota
University of Oklahoma
Marquette University
Colorado College
University of Tulsa
Wesleyan University
I would suggest that you and your new sister sit down and watch some Portlandia, specifically the "Feminist Bookstore" episodes.
The one where the character Carrie plays forcefully tells an HVAC contractor to stop saying "unit", as that word has a connotation for a male sex organ.
Hilarious to the last.
Nothing can let the hot air out of a PC Kop like comedy.
If there is anyone in current American Culture who is "taking the piss out of" SJW's and the politically correct nightmare they have created for themselves, it is the writers and actors of Portlandia.
God Bless Them!
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
One can be trans (or trans-supporting) without being one of your SJWs... your reaction, however, seems to match what would be expected if you had trained yourself to have a mental disorder... as the person was describing. Congratulations!
If she had transitioned to male it would be "hir".
In this context it is "shim".
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
Could you please share some of the sources you got this info from? I would like to read them for myself.
For those who seek perfection there can be no rest on this side of the grave.
Or xi, or zi, or whatever made-up crap.
Circumcision is child abuse.
Methinks the pundit doth protest too much.
That's awesome, I'm going to generate myself a schizophrenic tulpa with PTSD.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
This is too good!
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
The problem in these instances is the one that is attacking all western society since the turn of the century. For some strange reason, people now think they have the right to feel offended and that people that offends them must be shut up
There is this sense of self entitlement fed by the media going around, that if someone says something against any particular aspect of some social justice cause, you deserve some kind of punishment. You are essentially bared from contesting any kind of argument about any aspect of say, feminism, black empowerment, religion and a few other. No matter how idiotic is the specific pro argument for one of those issues, if you point that out, you are automatically dismissed and any public forum will do its best to shut you up.
See the FIRE site. There are *hundreds* and *hundreds* of enumerated complaints and more being listed all the time.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I like to call them "Social Justice Whiners." No need to embolden them with the word warrior in their moniker.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
I often won't watch videos, but in this case I'm glad I did. Spitting out the best bit for those like me:
Filmed at the University of New Hampshire.
"People in search of a safe space inside a safety school."
In better news, they fired that professor we saw in a few videos attacking journalists and police
http://www.columbiatribune.com....
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Hey Slashdot how about not posting rightwing nonsense from Art Pope's pet think tank. What's the tech angle here, other than comp sci majors resent the liberal arts?
That expression is like mating a $50 straight man to a $5 funny man—Bud Abbott teamed with Rosie O'Donell, as scripted by Vince McMahon?
Who needs scare quotes when you've got "proclivities" near to hand?
The main job of a college is to prepare you for the work world, and in the workplace you CANNOT say what you want. So, what's the problem?
Table-ized A.I.
Wait, you have a younger brother who "transitioned to female" and you refer to your brother as "she"? You must be one of those mushy-brained SJWs that people complain about.
Absolutely perfect comeback! And the vote-down is the height of cluelessness.
You still have hate speech laws, and have ever since the USA had its own legal system. Calling them "fighting words" doesn't stop it being hate speech, but you don't know the word exists because you're a dumbass enough to think they're different.
You are obviously aware of how frequently trans people are beat up or killed. Never mind yelled at agressively. So, how can you say that it's "self-inflicted"? How often does someone have to encounter random people threatening to hurt them on the street before worrying about it a lot is a reasonable, sane response? Developing PTSD is clearly not a good response, and the brain stuff is interesting, but they are *not* making this stuff up.
Blaming the victim?
In each of the situations listed, somebody was punished for speaking against racial equality, religious equality, or civil justice. This is not an unbiased study, and it concludes by saying that "mid-level" administrators have too much power. The study skipped the professor fired for observing that Muslims, Christians and Jews worship the same Creator; why wasn't that important? The study also skipped anybody punished for asking for equality; this gets punished every day, especially in traditionally Republican states, but it's not mentioned. This study is also focused on "mid-level" administrators; conservative governors try to change the course material in state colleges all the time, likewise parents; so there is a "high-level" problem and a "low-level" problem, but the article focuses on "mid-level". It appears to me that if I wanted to teach or be a student, the author of this study would have no problem with me being banned from a school for being gay, for having a Catholic background, or for having served honorably in the military: the author would celebrate or at least ignore this, but he will protect as sacred the right of students and faculty to raise "all gays must die" banners: I perceive that the author is a Fox News viewer and that the article's basis is dishonest.
Most places are not religious institutions.
A number of the ones on the list are, though not all.
From the shorter version ( http://www.popecenter.org/comm... ) the ten most oppressive colleges were:
1. Mount St. Mary’s University in Maryland ("recently thrown into turmoil by president Simon Newman’s firing of two faculty members who criticized his idea that the school should reduce its freshman class by “drowning some of the bunnies” (i.e., culling out academically weak students).")
2. Northwestern University,
3. Louisiana State
4. University of California—San Diego
5. Saint Mary’s University in Minnesota
6. University of Oklahoma
7. Marquette University
8. Colorado College
9. University of Tulsa,
10. Wesleyan University
So, the religious universities on that list are Mount St. Mary’s University, Saint Mary’s University, Marquette University, and Wesleyan University. Four out of ten. Doesn't seem too bad, but only 20% of the US Universities are religiously affiliated, so it's about twice what you would expect.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
I've been in college before, studying engineering, and I didn't see much "indoctrination" like many claimed that colleges have. I saw hints of it with groups speaking on campus, flyers hung on billboards, but nothing in class. While in engineering I felt largely insulated from the liberal nonsense that I was told would surround me in college. In engineering we were there to solve practical problems such as accurately simulating a circuit, estimating the yield of a manufacturing process, and properly encoding a message and then decoding it on the other end.
My how things have changed now that I'm studying statistics and computer science. In one statistics text an example was made on the Bush v. Gore election fiasco in Florida, it showed how Bush "stole" the election. That same text likes to give examples on how global warming is affecting the ice pack, water levels, and so forth. If the other examples had not tipped me off on the left leaning authors I might not have thought much about the study they highlighted on HPV vaccines. If they are going to pick on Presidents named Bush, oil companies, then why not pick on those that advocate abstinence and put an HPV vaccine study in there.
I had a computer science professor spend half of a class lecturing us on how war is bad. She had to know that it is quite likely that half of her class will end up working in the "military industrial complex" that she was speaking about. Not all of them are going to be coding iPhone apps and online shopping websites. Quite a few of them are going to be designing crypto communication systems, deadly accurate navigation, ballistic prediction software, and what not.
I've had other courses that discussed probabilities, algorithms, and so forth like these statistics and computer science courses. What they didn't do is work politically loaded examples into the coursework. Examples on statistics and probability while in engineering involved problems of fruit flies interbreeding, noise in a communications channel, cards/dice/coins, letters in the alphabet, and just generally examples that were practical to getting a job done or curiosities of physics.
Why give a statistics example on Bush v. Gore? Why not choose something like people's favorite ice cream flavor? Perhaps give examples in astronomy, biology, a manufacturing process. Instead we get to look at climate change, election results, income inequality, gender roles, and so on.
These statistics and computer science courses are just as much about creating the next generation of social justice warriors as it is about teaching practical skills.
At least my math and music courses haven't tried to indoctrinate me into a way of thinking. At least not yet. Courses on calculus, matrix algebra, and numerical analysis might not be conducive to social justice indoctrination. My music lessons are on folk songs and Christian hymns, which might have something to do with a long shared history between "Western" music and Christian churches. All the instruments we commonly play, and the way we note music, in the "Western World" draws from a time and place where Christianity was prevalent. If you are going to learn to play the piano then you are not going to find a lot of pieces to play that the "diversity police" can impose upon you. While I would not be opposed to learn some music from around the world at least I know I won't be considered "insensitive" for wanting to play a Christmas hymn for my semester end recital.
There are some things I'd like to discuss in class but I fear I might be considered being "micro-aggressive" if I speak up. This can be stressful and I feel like I have to just shut up and keep my head down or I might find myself being retaliated against. Oh, I'm a white Christian male that also happens to be a veteran of the US Army. Being that I'm quite tall I kind of stick out in a crowd, people remember me.
Since I'm considered disabled because of an injury while in the Army I am considered a "minority", it's not a very visible disability, I just walk with a bit of a limp. I get the e-mail announcements from the "office of diversity" or whatever its called that invite me to certain events. I have not yet gone to any events because I doubt I'd be welcomed.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
For f***'s sake, get some spine and live your life, children. Would you like us to chew your food for you too?
There's a distinction between fearing rape and fearing the word "rape". Please go reread GP's post before commenting further.
That's sort of the definition of deviance, isn't it? Something that's out of the norms.
The Senate is enough to serve the purpose of giving all states value. The electoral college runs counter to the will of the people, and made sense only before instant communication.
The answer to bad speech is not controls on speaking, it's more speech. However the liberals out there don't want more speech because that means that logic wins out over feelings. The liberals' answer to "bad" speech is "shut up".
Andrew Klavan explains this well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
That anything of value is gained from the current university experience is an accident. You needn't look any further than freshman live-in rules, or mandatory tutorial sessions or math labs to see quick examples of parenting. Making these resources available is one thing, but making them mandatory is parenting.
Suppressing free speech fits with the parental mindset that you're there to control or shape behavior, and not necessarily engage in conversation or enlighten.
For the second time in as many semesters, the Student Life and Involvement Center (SLIC) at the Jesuit institution rejected Justin Carrizales’ application to start a chapter of Turning Point USA, a nonpartisan student organization dedicated to free markets, limited government and personal responsibility.
You do realize this means all those Twitter rape threats are an actual hazard to health, since they may induce PTSD? It's hard to read a message saying someone's going to rape you without thinking about someone raping you, at least at that exact moment, and thus reinforcing the mental image. And that means sending someone a threat - or any kind of description of them coming to harm - is as much of an attack as a fist to the face.
In other words, your own research shows that political correctness - or enforced civility - is both justified and necessary since uncivility damages people's mental health. So... epic fail :D.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
in which nerds on slashdot pretend they are medical professionals.
Colleges and universities are for-profit nowadays....for profit of their tenured staff. So ,why would this be shocking?
Interesting read, could you please link some sources, would like to make this point to some people I know as well :)
Or maybe I'm just not (that much of) an asshole.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
Thanks for the suggestion, I'll check this out.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
Nope, it's done over the internet so the "receiver" of the stimuli is in a safe an controlled environment. It is the perfect setting for desensitization. So, quite to the contrary, getting SJWs all riled up over perceived threats jut by discussing topics that make them uncomfortable can be therapeutic to them.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
The funny thing is, I'm the one who got gang-beaten, not her. I healed from the trauma rapidly. And then she transitions and develop that unhealthy mentality to the point where she gets 'triggered' over a word. The interpretation I posted above is mostly derived from observing our opposite evolutions, enlightened by running through the process of healing from that sort of damage.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
Well it's a pretty convoluted train of reflexion, I'm afraid not much of it is sourced. As I mention in my other replies here I was gang-beaten one evening of last century, and healed from that with cognitive behavioral therapy. Following on that I solved anxiety-caused back pain using the research of Dr John E. Sarno (good insight about the probable physiological mechanisms of somatization), and later on I had to confront a couple of people with narcissistic personality disorders (in a professional setting) and wanted to learn more about what make them tick. This led me to current neuroscience of the brain and especially the roles of the amygdala and the various parts of the cingulate cortex - how they manage the perception of threats and rewards to ourselves and to others. I've also been active in a support group for children of narcissistic parents and quite a few of us have noticed strong parallels between the more rabid/crazy of SJWs and the many stereotypical antics of Ns. And now I have a vivid example of a SJW 'cranked to eleven' in my transgender sister and her immediate entourage, who was raised in the same family and environment as I, as an enlightening comparison point.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
To be fair, Berkeley wasn't mentioned in this list. It is surely a haven of liberalism (yay!) with a tendency towards thought-policing (boo!) but does not, at least, appear in this article.