What’s great about the Mizzou protests is that they really freaked out the administrators. Here is an excerpt from a long and rambling statement by our university’s president:
“Ibrought together our three chief diversity officers for amuch needed conversation to think about some big strategies that could help us be more effective in advancing diversity and inclusivity values.”
It’s the same university, by the way, that hired a token Native American for the crappiest teaching job on campus and sends out HR people with brochures on how to evaluate the job candidates’ race in a way that would be less noticeable. But hey, we had a much needed conversation about thinking about being more effective about advancing diversity. Yippee.
Clarissa's Blog 
They are all freaking out. My university also sent out an email about how they are addressing racial issues and such.
My biggest concern is this will just encourage the lunatics in the fringes of the Sociology and Gender studies departments to make crazier and crazier demands. Some universities are already talking about mandatory racial/gender sensitivity classes for all.
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This kind of thing always and only originates with the administration and bureaucratic staff. Gender studies departments are extremely marginalized on campuses and have no influence on anything.
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They do when they start screaming and claiming discrimination/sexism. Administrators have become extremely sensitive to that kind of accusation and bend over backwards to avoid being labelled as such.
I’m sure they are not the majority by any means, but they are an extremely loud minority.
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At all 4 of the universities where I worked both the Sociology and Gender Studies departments were mousy, quiet and barely present. All these diversity and inclusion compliance initiatives come from the bureaucrats and not because they are afraid of professors and students. Why on earth would they be afraid? But because that’s a way of asserting their control and exercise domination. Administration is not “sensitive to accusations.” It manufactures both sensitivity and accusations to exercise power.
I’ve been in academia for 15 years and I’m yet to meet a professor who supported these diversity and sensitivity initiatives. None of this madness comes from academic units.
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You bring a good point. This is very self-serving for them, as it increases the amount of administrators and bureaucracy. In the end students pay the price with increased tuition costs.
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It’s almost as if a generation of smothering parental over-protection produces young adults with no coping skills whatsoever….
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In other news, while in Berlin I watched a little of Russia Today (it’s on my cable lineup but I usually don’t bother it) and it’s the funniest thing ever.
More precisely the anglophone weirdos they’ve found to give shows to (partial exception Max Kaiser who I kind of like). I can’t even tell if it’s unintentional or some kind of bizarre and very dry parody….
I may end up watching more of it now on purpose it was so funny. My favorite was a demented Scottish woman (independence supporter I believe) who was ranting about people starving in Scotland…. Scotland? Scotland!
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Yes, RT is priceless. But I’ve met people in Western Europe who quoted it to me as a legitimate source of information and there was no budging them from that belief.
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Off-topic: The quote is going off the post and running into the widget where you put your email address, Clarissa. This is the first time I’ve seen it happen, but I’m wondering if it’s a formatting issue?
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WordPress is living a life of its own. Thank you for letting me know.
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At least the students aren’t burning down the campus ROTC buildings now, like they did at my undergraduate alma mater back in 1968. 🙂
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Also in today’s news: The Mizzou head football coach, who supported the black players’ strike, has announced that he will resign after this season.
He stated that he had already decided to step down back in May after being diagnosed with lymphoma — which is certainly a deadly disease. Still, the fact that he made the announcement four days after the player strike ended caught the university administration by surprise. The timing of his announcement likely isn’t a coincidence.
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I’m guessing that a person with such a serious condition will not want to be in the midst of a fraught, tense environment. I can definitely understand this gentleman.
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Of course. But he’s still ultimately a casualty of the campus hysteria.
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