That Was Fast: Mizzou President Resigns

[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
smh, what you said about us seeing students who may not represent the entire student body is true. That’s the only thing that gives me some hope in all of this. Believe me, my husband and I have been wondering if we’re doing the right thing paying tuition at a certain school that rhymes with Kale. [/quote]

Ha, I wouldn’t worry – I think that in hindsight, schools like the one that rhymes with kale tend to have been a good idea. Certainly in terms of average mid-career salary, assuming that he isn’t majoring in Experimental Omnisexual Caribbean Poetry.

Not that there’s anything wrong with Experimental Omnisexual Caribbean Poetry, in moderation.

[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:

And I mean that when I say I’m not sure. I’m just not close enough to any of these situations to know whether the problems are legitimate or not. But it does make me wonder if we’re heading for a year or two where it’s the trendy thing to do, just protest and demand the school President’s removal.
[/quote]

Here’s what I do know about Mizzou, living fairly proximal to the campus (about 100 miles away), and having former students on campus and personally knowing two faculty members that work there:

The racial sentiments tied initially back to what happened in Ferguson. Apparently no one in an official capacity made a statement about the issue, and supposedly little, if any, leeway was given for the campus media to cover the incident in a sufficient manner. Mizzou is one of the top journalism schools in the US, and it apparently draws a respectable student population from St. Louis and the surrounding metropolitan region.

Anger towards the administration had been simmering since earlier this year. The university decided to stop paying for health insurance for graduate assistants and research assistants. The administration double-backed, after graduate assistants demonstrated, threatened a walkout, started pursuing formation of a union, and, as key to what went down on Monday, joined forces with the 1950 group protesting discrimination. That was all on top of a few incidents of alleged racial hostility, promulgated by social media, where a few notable black students on campus publicized their apparently being a victim of racial epithets or slurs by heretofore anonymous purveyors. Finally, there was the whole swastika made out of fecal matter that appeared on campus a week or two ago.

During the whole Planned Parenthood debacle earlier this fall, Mizzou came under fire from some Republicans for ties that its medical center and medical school had to Planned Parenthood. Mizzou severed most of those ties, apparently, which then drew some pretty major ire from liberals who accused the administration and the systemic hierarchy of yielding to political pressure, at the expense of students, many of whom are from lower socioeconomic classes or students of color. Again, tying the issue to disenfranchisement of the poor and/or other social minorities exacerbated the expediency of the message here. There were apparently other minor faculty vs. administration grievances that plague most campuses, which just added fuel to the fire.

Finally, when the student body president was the recipient of said racial epithets, and the administration was seen as being slow, week or apathetic to respond, the perfect storm commenced. The football team demonstrated that the power of money lies with its being green.

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
smh, what you said about us seeing students who may not represent the entire student body is true. That’s the only thing that gives me some hope in all of this. Believe me, my husband and I have been wondering if we’re doing the right thing paying tuition at a certain school that rhymes with Kale. [/quote]

Ha, I wouldn’t worry – I think that in hindsight, schools like the one that rhymes with kale tend to have been a good idea. Certainly in terms of average mid-career salary, assuming that he isn’t majoring in Experimental Omnisexual Caribbean Poetry.[/quote]

:slight_smile: Omnisexual Poetry is my favorite kind, but I try not to appropriate the Caribbean culture when I write it.

About my kid, he had a letter to the editor in support of free speech, even hurtful speech, published in the WSJ this past summer. I’m a proud mom.


@ Some of these instances are part of a bigger picture, or are maybe the icing on the cake. One of the reasons Jonathan Butler was protesting at Mizzou was about graduate student health insurance costs. The reason for the insurance policy change?

Wait for it…

The Affordable Care Act.


@ The situation at Yale. Some of you might want to read the actual letter written by Silliman Residential College Master Erika Christakis. Here it is. This is what sparked the protest.

And here is a response from a more liberal point of view. I appreciated some of what he has to say, but I disagree that her letter was “callous”, or that “Erika Christakis was willing to throw the marginalized students of Silliman College under the bus.” I think that’s a very narrow, and unkind interpretation of what she was trying to say, when you read her letter in it’s entirety. Some good comments/rebuttal.

One more about the Yale situation, from The Harvard Law Record.
“Fascism at Yale”
http://hlrecord.org/2015/11/fascism-at-yale/

Nicholas Christakis here, trying to respond to student outrage over his wife’s email regarding Halloween costumes.

[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
One more about the Yale situation, from The Harvard Law Record.
“Fascism at Yale”
http://hlrecord.org/2015/11/fascism-at-yale/

Nicholas Christakis here, trying to respond to student outrage over his wife’s email regarding Halloween costumes.

Let us be grateful this generation of delicate little flowers didn’t have to fight the Nazis.

Marine veteran James Erickson put the students in the #MillionStudentMarch in their place with one simple tweet.

“I wanted money for school, so I marched too… #millionstudentmarch This one was about 25 miles”… #USMC

[quote]MaximusB wrote:
Let us be grateful this generation of delicate little flowers didn’t have to fight the Nazis.
[/quote]

Pray to god there is not another conflict which tests the valor of a generation, because we are totally fucked.

[quote]Aggv wrote:

[quote]MaximusB wrote:
Let us be grateful this generation of delicate little flowers didn’t have to fight the Nazis.
[/quote]

Pray to god there is not another conflict which tests the valor of a generation, because we are totally fucked. [/quote]

No we aren’t. These fucking cry babies are few and far between. Even for my generation. Lets not forget a lot of millennials have spent time in the Middle East.

In my limited world view this doesn’t really seem all that different than the dumb ass college kids scream baby killer and non-sense like that during the Vietnam era. College students are generally young and dumb adults that haven’t figured out they don’t have everything figured out. This was true in 1905, 1965, and now in 2015.

Am I wrong?

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

Am I wrong? [/quote]

No, I spent part of this week discussing this whole debacle with my sociology students, since we are doing the unit on race, ethnicity and social structure. I work in a fairly progressive state university town. These adolescents pretty much all agree that these college students seeking refuge from offense, including going as far as asking the administration at public universities to consider censoring offensive speech or expression (e.g., Yale), are exactly that - special snowflake crybabies.

It makes for good fodder, but don’t get the impression that it constitutes the collective thought of an entire generation, or that these like minded plebs are in the majority. There are still plenty of sane millennials and Gen Xers who understand that protecting them from uncomfortable viewpoints castrates the resiliency they need to navigate the world when they truly being “adulting.”

JR, out of curiosity, what percentage of your class are minority and have you gotten different feedback from them on this situation? (Your write up on the recent history at Mizzou was enlightening btw).

[quote]Tyler23 wrote:
JR, out of curiosity, what percentage of your class are minority and have you gotten different feedback from them on this situation? (Your write up on the recent history at Mizzou was enlightening btw).[/quote]

Of this particular section, 29 students total: 5 Black, 4 Asian/Pacific Islander, 20 White

The black students consistently sympathize overall with the activists’ cause, and tend to vocalize reasons why the experiences of minorities, particularly blacks, are not socially parallel with those of white Americans (they’d generally give you reasons why white privilege is a very real phenomena).

There tends to be more disdain or disagreement with the activism among the white students. The Asian students tend to be shy about giving personal opinions in front of the class, though about 20-30% of white students tend to side with the black students’ viewpoints.

That having been said, not a single person defended censorship or violating the First Amendment to combat racism. A couple of kids referred to them as “crybabies.” Those who expressed disdain were focused more on the discussion about those cases were campus activism infringed on free speech, e.g., the treatment of the media at Mizzou’s rally in respect to “safe space,” and the calls for the firing of the professors at Yale who defended free expression over controversial Halloween costumes.

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

[quote]Aggv wrote:

[quote]MaximusB wrote:
Let us be grateful this generation of delicate little flowers didn’t have to fight the Nazis.
[/quote]

Pray to god there is not another conflict which tests the valor of a generation, because we are totally fucked. [/quote]

No we aren’t. These fucking cry babies are few and far between. Even for my generation. Lets not forget a lot of millennials have spent time in the Middle East.

In my limited world view this doesn’t really seem all that different than the dumb ass college kids scream baby killer and non-sense like that during the Vietnam era. College students are generally young and dumb adults that haven’t figured out they don’t have everything figured out. This was true in 1905, 1965, and now in 2015.

Am I wrong? [/quote]

I completely agree, USMC.

(And don’t think for one instant that during WW-I and II, every American had a Flag in front of their house, and sang “God Bless America” before going to bed).

Mufasa

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

[quote]Aggv wrote:

[quote]MaximusB wrote:
Let us be grateful this generation of delicate little flowers didn’t have to fight the Nazis.
[/quote]

Pray to god there is not another conflict which tests the valor of a generation, because we are totally fucked. [/quote]

No we aren’t. These fucking cry babies are few and far between. Even for my generation. Lets not forget a lot of millennials have spent time in the Middle East.

In my limited world view this doesn’t really seem all that different than the dumb ass college kids scream baby killer and non-sense like that during the Vietnam era. College students are generally young and dumb adults that haven’t figured out they don’t have everything figured out. This was true in 1905, 1965, and now in 2015.

Am I wrong? [/quote]

You’re not wrong, but for comparison, Vietnam protesters were protesting because people being drafted and going off to war, and in many cases, being killed. Calling those who returned baby killers was just beyond insane.

Compare that with today’s microaggressions, which can be as simple as saying “America is the land of oppurtunity” or “America is a melting pot.”

Seriously these people are all mental patients, I mean, you want to talk about people not being wrapped too tight ?

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

[quote]Aggv wrote:

[quote]MaximusB wrote:
Let us be grateful this generation of delicate little flowers didn’t have to fight the Nazis.
[/quote]

Pray to god there is not another conflict which tests the valor of a generation, because we are totally fucked. [/quote]

No we aren’t. These fucking cry babies are few and far between. Even for my generation. Lets not forget a lot of millennials have spent time in the Middle East.

In my limited world view this doesn’t really seem all that different than the dumb ass college kids scream baby killer and non-sense like that during the Vietnam era. College students are generally young and dumb adults that haven’t figured out they don’t have everything figured out. This was true in 1905, 1965, and now in 2015.

Am I wrong? [/quote]

You’re not wrong, but i think the gap is widening and there are a hell of a lot more kids in college today than in the past. In our society you either go to college, or you’re a fuckin loser.

[quote]Aggv wrote:

You’re not wrong, but i think the gap is widening…
[/quote]

It’s nice to think these are few isolated wing-dings, but I see a country divided in many ways. Historically, societies that become divided on fundamental ideology don’t do well.

We’re becoming very politically polarized. I have a hard time talking about the issues to some of my more liberal friends because I feel we are coming from completely different points of view.

I’m too young to remember the Vietnam Era and the cultural upheaval of the 1960’s. I think we may be seeing something similar, where a significant portion of the population hold very different values in terms of really fundamental things, or core values, or things outlined in our constitution.

I hope I’m wrong.

[quote]pushharder wrote:
http://dailycaller.com/2015/11/13/amherst-activists-demand-reeducation-for-students-who-celebrated-free-speech/[/quote]

@ Amherst. For the students demanding “reeducation” for people who are pro-free speech - I was thinking a study abroad program in North Korea might be good. I hear it’s a really nice place.

There have been little announcements of solidarity for the students at Mizzou from student groups all over today, and groups asking for similar demands. One I saw of students asking for separate space in the dorms for black scholars. I think separate housing has been tried before. It was called segregation.

The most appropriate way to respond to these lists of demands.