The man is condemned for objecting to a "Day of Absence" demonstration that took the form of asking white students to stay off campus for one day.
In the past, the Day of Absence has been a day where black and Latino students leave campus to highlight their significance on campus. This year students wanted to change the format. Instead of leaving campus themselves, they wanted white students and professors to leave campus, thereby creating a safe space for the students left behind. Professor Weinstein objected to that format and wrote and email saying he would not be leaving campus and encouraged others not to do so.The students are now calling him a racist and demanding that he resign.
He's also been warned by by the Chief of Police that he's not safe on campus, and he obliged (ironically) by staying off campus. He appears very calm and courageous in the video as he's confronted by a horrible mob, so I'm not sure why he didn't stand his ground and teach his class in the usual place (especially considering his position on the Day of Absence).
There's something in the video that I really like. Professor Weinstein says:
"There’s a difference between debate and dialectic. Debate means you are trying to win. Dialectic means you are using disagreement to discover what is true. I am not interested in debate. I am only interested in dialectic, which does mean I listen to you, and you listen to me."That's so well put. I've been saying for years I won't debate. Students at the law school would often set up events as debates and ask me to speak on one side of the debate. It was usually a side I wasn't even on, but that's beside the point. I resist the human interaction that is debate. I'd love to think the students would respond to the calmly stated, crisp debate/dialectic distinction, but it got this aggravated comeback:
"We don’t care what terms you want to speak on. This is not about you. We are not speaking on terms — on terms of white privilege. This is not a discussion. You have lost that one."ADDED: "You have lost that one" is an interesting declaration. It's so arrogant in its faux authoritativeness but if there's "one," there's also another. In this case, the next "one" is this public airing of the video, and it's pitifully obvious that the students have lost this one.
ALSO: This story disturbed me so much, but it took me longer than usual to come over and blog it, because I wanted to research the subject of students attacking teachers. It's a big subject, but I took the time to read "Student Attacks Against Teachers: The Revolution of 1966," by Youqin Wang. If you're wondering how bad things can get, read that.
Posts
181 comments:
Weinstein strikes me as a real mensch.
But there I go, being a white male bigot, favoring reason and tolerance.
I gotta get with the new program, as dictated by the feral children.
Lord of the Flies, folks.
I wish I could understand the mindset of these students. Are they really so convinced in their righteousness that they feel uninhibited by basic decency and tolerance? Where does that come from? I find it hard to believe these kids are entering colleges with that mindset from their parents and high school experiences.
As the one fellow said, "What is truth?"
I like the debate and dialectic distinction too. It's useful for understanding the goals of different commenters hereabouts.
I'm generally interested in dialectic too.
The students sound like they're not interested in debate or dialectic but in the pursuit of power so as to upend the class distinction between students and professors. Which pretty much undermines the whole university structure. But, whatever. No one knows the ways of life and oppression better than highly privileged 18-22 year olds with a lot of extra time on their hands.
"I wish I could understand the mindset of these students."
When they say, "Jump!" You say..
They're steamrollering us. Where's the opposition? How and when do we fight back? We're loosing.
More Trump, comin' up.
Socratic dialogues work best when you have someone like Socrates interviewing someone like Plato..........If they treat white people like this when they're an oppressed minority, just think how much fun it's going to be when whites are the minority.
Blogger Paddy O said...
""I wish I could understand the mindset of these students."
When they say, "Jump!" You say.."
...drop dead. Or something like that. Or maybe just a deep, guttural cackle.
When evil becomes embodied in "those guys", the only thing that remains is what one is personally willing to do to oppose evil.
One young man decides to blow up himself and spray nails around a public space, to oppose evil.
Others only yell and say rude things in a self righteous tone.
But on what principal are the two distinguished?
Physical harm to others? Is that the line being consciously observed?
I've always thought of debate as a form of dialectic. Not the competitive kind of debate where one side or the other is determined to have 'won.' But where opposing views are pitted against each other, and in the end the audience (and participants) reevaluate where they stand.
Something tells me the kids are looking for a way to get past that stack of papers they still owe and tests they haven't studied for, or the stack of bad grades they've already gotten. If you are losing the chess game, you need to turn the board over and change the subject. If they really blow things up, they can explain that hole in their transcript as The Year of Rage.
Also, they might score an interview on Oprah or something. And huge social media. Look at me in my Che shirt, confronting white privilege!
What this country really needs is some kind of very powerful Pied Piper. What a relief that would be ...
You say debate, I say dialectic.......
You say dialectic, I say debate .....
Doesn't mean squat unless you expel these young leftist morons who trespass and violate other people's first amendment rights.
Evergreen State College? Where's that? These kids couldn't get admitted into a spelling class at the West Texas Community College for retarded truckers.
To me its just Trotsky vs. Stalin. Weinstein is a "progressive".
The only way to cure the College liberal arts is burn the place down and build anew.
Dialectic means you are using disagreement to discover what is true.
Except the Truth has already been determined to be a construct of the Straight, White, Cis-Gendered Patriarchy.
Most of the protesters don't look like they get invited to many parties on campus.
Maybe Left-wing activism is the closest thing to sex for ugly college students.
Leeatmg said...
I wish I could understand the mindset of these students. Are they really so convinced in their righteousness that they feel uninhibited by basic decency and tolerance?
No, they understand a rational evaluation of the options does not result in people supporting their preferences so they choose intimidation and coercive authority instead.
That at least is perfectly rational given their goals and values.
In the contemporary university, where mobs real and virtual assert that "This is not a discussion," debate is a good second best to "dialectic."
Of course, I think the legacy of the Dialektik der Aufklaerung is part of the problem, but I'd be happy to debate that.
"I wish I could understand the mindset of these students." What's so mysterious? The only difference with the Red Guards is that the US mobs don't have as much power yet.
"Except the Truth has already been determined to be a construct of the Straight, White, Cis-Gendered Patriarchy."
So is the process of dialectic.
Ah, yes. The Evergreen State College.
If the next civil war breaks out? This will be one of the places it starts.
Mark my words.
The students didn't lose this one. The video is out for all to see and they will suffer no consequence.
That's a win for them.
Blogger Leeatmg said...
I wish I could understand the mindset of these students. Are they really so convinced in their righteousness that they feel uninhibited by basic decency and tolerance? Where does that come from? I find it hard to believe these kids are entering colleges with that mindset from their parents and high school experiences.
**
WIth all respect, knowing the answer to your questions doesn't help. They are what they are. So what are we going to do about it? I think it's time they were confronted with equal numbers, equally angry. Nothing else will work.
Dialectic means you are using disagreement to discover what is true.
Which presumes that what is true is not already known -- or worse, that there really is no "truth" -- and is often a relativistic excuse for never-ending "discussion."
We know the truth here -- the "protesters" are despotic thugs who are interested not in equality and fairness, but in imposing themselves to acquire and wield power.
So these kids are lucky not to be enrolled in a rigorous study of Marxism-Leninism, Dialectical Materialism, and Scientific Socialism. Leftists, indeed.
Never-ending, perpetually on-going dialogue, dialectic, debate or whatever the hell you want to call it is not a search for truth, it is a denial of objective truth. And that denial of truth is quite convenient for -- and really the objective of -- those who oppose that truth.
It's useless to debate, engage in a dialectic, have a "national conversation" with these closed-minded jerks. They want only to harangue, not to listen. Better to tell them you have not an ounce of liberal guilt and you'll be teaching your class and inhabiting the campus as usual.
Press two for ...
First, they denied intrinsic value. Second, they denied individual dignity. Third, they advised us to judge people by the "color of their skin".
[class] diversity is a first-order forcing of catastrophic anthropogenic climate change and generational prejudice.
There's a huge crowd of people out there that are not interested in having a discussion, they only want to win an argument.
Honestly, whether I agree with them or not, I generally find my life much more pleasant when I am successful in avoiding them.
Ann Althouse said...ADDED: "You have lost that one" is an interesting declaration. It's so arrogant in its faux authoritativeness but if there's "one," there's also another. In this case, the next "one" is this public airing of the video, and it's pitifully obvious that the students have lost this one.
Oh? The students have lost this one? Are you certain? Even if you are, what about the next one?
Anyway I'm still not sure why this particular example isn't just "more speech." Aren't the students just no-platforming a speaker they strongly dislike, and didn't we agree that was cool? The people have spoken! It's not like they blew the guy up or anything--he can find somewhere else to speak if he so wishes. Maybe somewhere where he can speak and teach with an appropriate context-giving speaker who'll come right afterwards, I dunno. Let these smart kids decide--the children are our future.
ADDED: One of the students physically preventing the photographer from walking past in the Melissa Click "get some muscle over here" episode memorably said "you lost this one, bro" to the photographer (indicating that the photog was outnumbered and should desist in trying to do his job, etc). I guess it's a common phrase...maybe just among certain types.
Weinstein wimped out. He should have announced that not only was he holding class, he was also scheduling a big test on that day with no make up time. So if you don't show up in class that day, your grade will suffer.
Giving in to these snowflakes only encourages them.
This is not about you.
If it's not about him, why are they trying to reeducate him?
Blogger Jim at said...
If the next civil war breaks out?
**
You'd get younger Canadians like myself down there fighting alongside the STEM students, if they can be woken from the dead. But if it breaks out in the US, it breaks out here and Europe simultaneously.
Bring it on. Why waste time.
The left has twisted the meanings of words relating to the search for truth. For example "conversation," has come to mean a lecture to the benighted conservatives or deplorables who have not come around to the left's way of thinking.
The best teaching the university could for these kids is to expel them. The schock will prepare them for the reality of the real world.
And he (Weinstein) should also have challenged to campus police to protect him. That's their job, after all. He should have said "I'm holding class, and the police know I'm in some danger of being attacked. Therefore if I am successfully attacked, the campus police have failed to do their job."
These students are the new Red Guards. He will be forced to parade around campus with a sign on his neck that states he is an evil white man and then he will be executed.
Dave in Tucson said...There's a huge crowd of people out there that are not interested in having a discussion, they only want to win an argument.
I disagree, Dave (ha!). You should drop the "an argument" from that sentence. There exists a huge crowd of people who don't believe in argument or debate--that crowd does not want to win an argument, they insist no disagreement is possible nor should be permitted, and therefore any attempt (by anyone who somehow doesn't agree) at argument is clear evidence of evil and must be treated as such--with ostracism, shouting, no-platforming, and/or outright violence.
The Cultural Revolution.
Watch the whole thing, as the man says.
"Confess your crime! Confess your crime!"
Cubanbob: "...expel them." With no refund, no degree, no transcript. Un-person them. Let them enjoy all that nondischargeable debt, as they apply for that coveted barista slot.
Radical leftists want to punch you in the face.
Moderate leftists want radical leftists to punch you in the face.
It's useless to debate, engage in a dialectic, have a "national conversation" with these closed-minded jerks.
"To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture. Enjoy, sir, your insensibility of feeling and reflecting. It is the prerogative of animals."
-- Thomas Paine
And it's not ironic that Weinstein stayed off campus after being warned by the police, it's outrageous. The students' intimidation worked. The chief of police should have been told to get off his raggedy ass and protect Weinstein, not warn him to stay away.
It is a tactic copied from the favored Muslims. They declare that they alone have truth and they have occupied your territory while you slept, and you must bow to their Idol and pay the submission tax or be beheaded after your second refusal.
They were taught that tactic by a Muslim Community Organizer named Obama.
Rob said...
And it's not ironic that Weinstein stayed off campus after being warned by the police, it's outrageous. The students' intimidation worked"
And it will continue to work as long as adults refuse to be adults and let the spoiled brats get their way. Or even worse, applaud them for what they do.
"Blogger sodal ye said...
Blogger Leeatmg said...
I wish I could understand the mindset of these students. Are they really so convinced in their righteousness that they feel uninhibited by basic decency and tolerance? Where does that come from? I find it hard to believe these kids are entering colleges with that mindset from their parents and high school experiences.
**
WIth all respect, knowing the answer to your questions doesn't help. They are what they are. So what are we going to do about it? I think it's time they were confronted with equal numbers, equally angry. Nothing else will work."
I agree, which is why the question. Understanding where this comes from helps target the response. If it's coming from some college experience...which one? Is this a faculty problem, a campus culture problem, or something else?
Confronting them with equal numbers can mean many different things. Cutting off funding to universities who tolerate this behavior is one. Counter protests are another. There are other means beyond those.
Someday this foolishness may represent the mainstream. It has to be countered, and now.
I hadn't even read the "Also" when I thought of that Last Emperor clip. The parallels are plain as day.
I feel like it's a fever that's going to break soon.
I thought of Cultural Revolution half way through reading. Now THAT was a country losing its mind. Last Emperor a mild example.
I know Chinese contemporaries who gave up education as teens because sent into the countryside to work.
"Dialectic" is a Marxist virtue-signalling term. When you use it, you're saying you're a member of the cult. He uses that term right at the front of the video. He was trying to tell the students, who probably didn't know the term well, and who likely don't care about his distinction between "debate" and "dialectic", which is a pretty stupid distinction, oh, gee, this sentence is getting waaaaaaaaaaaay too long...
Anyway, when a person says "dialectic", he or she is saying "I'm a Marxist too!"
Jeff said...
Weinstein wimped out."
He's a liberal himself and certain liberals have long believed "there are no enemies to the left." Academics are used to thinking of Republicans and Trump voters as the enemy. Just as I doubt it ever occurred to Lou Reed that non-conservative college students would find "Walk on the Wild Side" offensive, I don't think leftist academics thought they would be attacked by their own students.
Evergreen is pretty far left. Rachel Corrie attended Evergreen before running off to the Middle East to plop her ass down in front of an Israeli bulldozer.
The university is ripping these students off - they don't understand the difference between removing yourself from campus for a day to make a point vs demanding other races remove themselves.
get off his raggedy ass and protect Weinstein, not warn him to stay away
Consider the optics: Dreamers vs dreaming. Think of the [unPlanned] children!
demanding other races remove themselves
Not races, just people in the white diversity class. Hispanics, when the mood should strike them. Jews, when there is an opportunity. Koreans, when they're feeling peckish.
"I don't think leftist academics thought they would be attacked by their own students."
They would do well to heed the following from the linked paper:
"When their parents were denounced by the new student organizations, the Red Guards fell
victim to the movement that they had started. However, the decline of the original Red Guards
did not mean the end of the philosophy of violent attacks."
But people tend not to learn obvious lessons, even those that are fairly screaming in their ears.
How can you make the campus more diverse? Force the whites to leave, of course.
It's bad all around. Remember at Yale, where students attacked the administrative "master" Professor Nicholas Christakis? Well, they've been given a campus award for promoting racial "healing and understanding," improving racial understanding on campus. That's 1966 all over again, like the Cultural Revolution. Here, "Yale Awards Student 'Truthtellers' Who Bullied Faculty.
If I'd been Weinstein, I would've asked at some point, "Is is just me, or is everyone here white?"
Blogger Rusty said...
Radical leftists want to punch you in the face.
Moderate leftists want radical leftists to punch you in the face.
**
You could swop out Leftist for Muslim and it still works.
"If I'd been Weinstein, I would've asked at some point, "Is is just me, or is everyone here white?" "
it certainly seems like most of the people that want white students to have a day are white students. presumably upset that the students of color got a day off, and they didn't
That college is the one attended by the radical activist Rachel Corrie who was killed trying to block an Israeli bulldozer. An armored bulldozer for good reasons.
They were blocking a Palestinian tunnel.
they are appropriating the cultural revolution
Paddy O said...
"I wish I could understand the mindset of these students."
When they say, "Jump!" You say..
5/26/17, 5:40 PM
Aaa-ohh Hey you! Who said that?
Baby how you been?
You say you don't know, you won't know until you begin.
The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington is a state school. It is "different." They don't have grades, each professor gives the student an "evaluation." It is a place where all the hippies and disillusioned youth go to fuck off for 5 years. I've known former Evergreen students and the dorms are referred to as "Neverclean." They have problems with bedbugs.
I have read transcripts of Evergreen students who have applied to graduate school and the professor evaluations are just new age education bullshit-speak.
The place is an embarrassment.
It's a big subject, but I took the time to read "Student Attacks Against Teachers: The Revolution of 1966," by Youqin Wang. If you're wondering how bad things can get, read that.
I had a friend in college, an older woman who had survived the Cultural Revolution. A scholar, she got off lightly, I guess, being sent from Beijing to tend livestock in Inner Mongolia for several years. I remember my sense of smug security as I listened to her stories, thinking "thank God nothing like that can ever, ever happen here in my country".
And here we are. Think these pig-ignorant, brainwashed young people are incapable of getting it on like they did in my friend's country? I don't. Not any more.
Another key point of similarity with the Cultural Revolution is that the Red Guards had official sanction for their actions. Mao used them as easily-disposable tools to crush elements of the CCP he didn't like (among other things).
Likewise, these students aren't coming up with this stuff on their own. If you look at the linked material, you'll see that the whole weissfreitag idiocy is being promoted by a (presumably official) campus organization, the "First Peoples Multicultural Advising Services".
The administration is actively supporting this stuff (not surprising being it's Evergreen State).
I wish these students could be transported - just for a few days - to one of the totalitarian shitholes of the world like North Korea or Venezuela. That would be a more effective learning experience than any debate or dialectic with Weinstein could provide.
That these idiots believe the U.S. is somehow uniquely evil or racist only shows how pitiful the educational system in this country is.
Inga believes conservatives exaggerate the anti-Americanism taught in public schools these days. Where else do these kids learn such crap?
Dialectic" is a Marxist virtue-signalling term.
This is the essence of the dialectic
Your post makes me go back to find a photo that was especially resonant these last years. Although it wasn't easily available anymore on a google search, i still have it in my tweets . . . from 2014, haha, two-thirds through the Obama Republic.
the leftist totalitarian impulse has only gotten more crazy in these years, which is why the american system has now begun a tough-love self-correction.
anyway, the words could use an update, but let's if this works
https://twitter.com/Ertist/status/434366434286632960
Every blessing on the courageous True Believers that insist on actual dialogue -- and dialectic! What a great, patient distinction this besieged professor made under awful conditions.
Weinstein is so typical of the campus radicals I knew at Madison in the Sixties. That's what makes this youtube of current campus fascism so horrifying. It makes clear how vast a decline has occurred from that era of campus protest to this. I am not romanticizing the Sixties, because I realize it, too, degenerated into extremes of anti-intellectualism. However, this time it seems different. There is no degeneration from anywhere else. It is in essence the ideology of the fist and the mass. I agree with Leeatmg. The mystery is what is generating this mindset? These people have no respect for, no apparent grasp at all of the essence of the civilization of which they are the supreme beneficiaries.
"I took the time to read "Student Attacks Against Teachers: The Revolution of 1966," by Youqin Wang. If you're wondering how bad things can get, read that." Wang's work is part of the record I was referring to in my earlier mention of the Red Guards. Google Song Binbin for a useful morality tale.
I don't think it's easy to fail out of Evergreen State.
I find some of the reactions to this video a bit precious/snow flaky. Weinstein didn't seem uncomfortable at any point, he remained in control of this emotions and of the crowd. The crowd did not seem the slightest bit intimidating. They did seem clueless, but that is a different problem, I blame their parents.
These people have no respect for, no apparent grasp at all of the essence of the civilization of which they are the supreme beneficiaries.
That's because they have been taught, and believe, that their civilization is evil. It is oppressive, repressive and parasitic.
I love how they claim that we have to continue to allow immigration from countries that hate us of people who hate us because it is a "traditional American value" but free speech? Not so much.
The Wang paper was horrifying and doesn't seem that far removed
I find some of the reactions to this video a bit precious/snow flaky. Weinstein didn't seem uncomfortable at any point, he remained in control of this emotions and of the crowd
It's not the confrontation with the crowd we are upset about (although we are upset about that too) It is the police chief warning him not to come to work and do his job we are upset with. Not only is the mob not being punished, the mob is being allowed to bully a professor.
Jon Burack: "...These people have no respect for, no apparent grasp at all of the essence of the civilization of which they are the supreme beneficiaries." Human nature. What you never had to earn, you will readily allow to burn.
Old expression to describe the wealth cycle in a family business: "From shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations." Same idea applies to societies.
ARM, Weinstein was on Carlson tonight and he is absolutely uncomfortable. He said there is no video after the short clip we have but he said they became much more violent. He had to be protected and removed from campus by the cops. The President, George Bridges, a complete weakling and scurrilous coward, has ordered the campus cops to stand down. Weinstein says they are barricaded inside the campus police station. Weinstein says further that Bridges has effectively turned over administration of the college to the Nazis (my word).
Lol, leftist scum hoist on their own petard.
My schadenboner is enormous. Let them have their fun. When they've fired, or hospitalized, or killed all their shitlib professors, we can introduce them to the tender mercies of the 5.56.
Gahrie said...
It is the police chief warning him not to come to work and do his job we are upset with.
I agree with this but Weinstein should have forced the issue.
I want to add one point: it's true that there has been an ongoing takeover of universities by the left. But one strand of this takeover is because of the dangerous factions created by the government. And I mean to indict Democrats and Republicans for the creation of these factions. And the Courts. What we have seen for 50 years is the expanding classification of Americans into many classes. We are classed for taxes, we are classed for educational opportunities, we are classed for employment and more. These stupid children are merely taking the government edicts to their natural conclusion. Don't like what they're doing? Then stop asking for more government! Because this is more government.
"I find it hard to believe these kids are entering colleges with that mindset from their parents"
Parents? LOL.
We've known what the problem is for 30 years, and that's it. If these kids have even one "parent," they probably think of themselves as "my kid's best friend!"
"I find some of the reactions to this video a bit precious/snow flaky. Weinstein didn't seem uncomfortable at any point, he remained in control of this emotions and of the crowd. The crowd did not seem the slightest bit intimidating."
Well then watch this temper tantrum.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3CRVLVGa5E
"I took the time to read Student Attacks Against Teachers: The Revolution of 1966, by Youqin Wang. If you're wondering how bad things can get, read that."
Second verse, same as first:
Jeder Student ein SA-Mann!: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Westfälischen Wilhelms-Universität Münster in den Jahren 1933 bis 1939 (Each Student a Storm Trooper!: A Report on the History of the Westphalian University of Muenster in the Years 1933 to 1939) by Hubert Mattonet.
Just like the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution, German students in the Nazi years took hidden direction from above while thinking they were taking action independently. Students were the public face of demands for university libraries to burn books. The first book burning at a German university took place at the University of Marburg, where Martin Heidegger urged students in private to keep up the pressure for purging the university of Jewish and "degenerate" influences.
Jack Wayne said...
ARM, Weinstein was on Carlson tonight and he is absolutely uncomfortable.
I haven't seen this. If there is a link can you post it? In the posted video I thought he performed well and looked in control. Part of teaching is crowd control so this should not be entirely outside of his skill set.
Going on FOX News seems odd. It is provocative in a way that nothing else he has said or done has been. He must either be very pissed off at this point or he is underplaying his long standing frustrations with the university/students.
The mob of students want Weinstein fired and these days college administrators are into total capitulation mode. Sure Weinstein would have a pretty good lawsuit and the college would probably settle but nonetheless.
There's a Red Square at Evergreen, and is it EVER so appropriate.
I had several friends who taught at Evergreen State, one of the most deplorably [no appropriation] leftist institutions in the NW. Colleges and universities have apparently not learned anything since the 60's. You don't let the patients take over the asylum.
Jon Burack: However, this time it seems different. There is no degeneration from anywhere else.
"There is no degeneration from anywhere else." Nicely phrased. I think it gets at something essential.
These young people exist "nowhere", they've been given, at best, a cartoon version of history, and cut off from any meaningful relationship to the past. Humans are creatures of time, and being cut off from that sense of integration with a rich and complex past seems to breed a kind of insanity. (Not that humans with a rich a complex sense of the past and their place in time and space can't be batshit crazy and destructive. But it's a different kind of crazy.)
It is in essence the ideology of the fist and the mass. I agree with Leeatmg. The mystery is what is generating this mindset? These people have no respect for, no apparent grasp at all of the essence of the civilization of which they are the supreme beneficiaries.
They know nothing about that civilization. If they're of European descent, they're taught that their ancestors were nothing but oppressors, a plague on the world. If they're of non-European descent, they're taught that they, like their ancestors before them, are the oppressed victims of a worthless civilization. I doubt that those students could pass the most rudimentary assessment of historical knowledge. They're coming of age at the later stages of a slower-motion cultural revolution, having been deliberately cut off from their links to the past. The past was bad, only those of us living now know God's will. The foundation of their moral world is a pathological presentism.
How did this come to pass? Well, long story. It didn't start yesterday.
The Department of Education Office of Civil Rights needs to send a new kind of "Dear Colleague" letter. Informing them that behavior of this sort is not to be tolerated and students are to be immediately suspended from school for 1 year. Failure to follow this request will result in the loss of all federal funds.
Going on FOX News seems odd. It is provocative in a way that nothing else he has said or done has been
I'm willing to bet that Fox is the only network that asked him to appear.
Climate change, black lives matter more, any immigration law is racist, any one not agreeing to support gay marriage with their business are homophobic and need to be shut down, all whites are racist, all men are rapists...
It's all been settled. The democrats and their storm troopers can all get bent.
Johnny Sokko said...
Well then watch this temper tantrum.
I skipped through most of this. It was pathetic, but orderly and not intimidatory, in my view. The administration certainly shouldn't fire Weinstein but instead make it clear that the faculty are in charge not the students. I agree that they may lack the spine to do this but they need to back Weinstein or their own necks will be on the line next time. Young people are challenging, can be intimidatory and they sense fear. The aged have to have the will to stand their ground while letting youth explore their limits. Not always an easy balance either as a parent or a college administrator but this case is pretty clear cut.
As a parent I can't imagine sending a child to a place like this to get an education. But I can't imagine sending my child to the University of Wisconsin either. The number 1 party university in the nation is not some place I am going to spend my education dollar.
This is Evergreen State. Unlike private Unis this one (or the State really) loses money on every student (tuition is $8000 a year), unless they are foreigners.
Its a public charity.
There is a budgetary incentive at the College level, but not on the WA State system.
Gahrie said...
I'm willing to bet that Fox is the only network that asked him to appear.
No doubt, but he should have resisted the limelight. Young people view FOX News much the same way you view Pravda, or the Washington Post.
Reasonable - there are moments where I think this could get out of hand. There are 3-4 people who spoke that were close to acting.
They were unhinged.
Agree with most of your statements. This won't end well for free speech or academic freedom at Evergreen.
The students are now calling him a racist and demanding that he resign.
They should all be expelled for being predictable and uninteresting.
Weinstein on Carlson.
Angel-Dyne said...
They know nothing about that civilization. If they're of European descent, they're taught that their ancestors were nothing but oppressors, a plague on the world.
I am not sure about this. White people have a pretty robust sense of self-worth, in my experience. No matter what they are taught by teachers the emotional content of their beliefs comes from the home. I doubt that there are many white students who feel like their primary quality is as an oppressor or a plague on the world. Nor should they. No doubt there are a few whose nitwit parents inculcated these beliefs but the vast majority do not see themselves this way.
White students taught to loathe whiteness attack white teacher for daring to disagree that he is automatically the oppressor. They also show their love of fascism, refusing to respect the rights of those who disagree with them to speak or behave in a way they disapprove of.
Jack Wayne said...
Weinstein on Carlson.
Thanks. He is pissed, but primarily with the president not the students. He is right to be pissed.
ARM: I am not sure about this.
You know, mon vieux, I do believe I detect a note of panic these days in your "don't look there, look here" diversionary efforts.
More and more often your full-of-shitness seems to be mastering you, instead of you controlling your full-of-shitness.
Well, maybe it's just a bad patch. Hope to see you back in more subtle form soon.
Part of teaching is crowd control so this should not be entirely outside of his skill set.
Absolutely not! Is Evergreen College the Blackboard Jungle? There is no requirement for crowd control when one is teaching college. The students are supposed to act like they are mature individuals and show respect for the teacher.
I think it would be interesting to corner each one of those students individually and ask them what Weinstein's email said and what they were protesting. I bet you'd get a huge percentage of garble and misinformation. Social media has trained the culture to be reactive, conformist and uncritical. If you check out this guy's Rate My Professor ratings he was revered as exactly the kind of teacher you want to have the good fortune of learning from. And they're yelling at him to resign. Way to punch yourselves in the face, kids.
The thing that jumps out at me is that the majority of students protesting are white. They WANT to be banned from campus. Question: is this not a delicious example of white privilege or am I wrong?
Angel-Dyne said...
I do believe I detect a note of panic these days in your "don't look there, look here" diversionary efforts.
I don't feel panicked. I am even in at least partial agreement with the majority here for a change. If I was looking for a diversion I would have asked, 'Whatever happened to that nice young man, Milo?".
Richard said...
The students are supposed to act like they are mature individuals and show respect for the teacher.
That expectation is a form crowd control. As long as it remains unchallenged it is a very effective one.
Snark said...
If you check out this guy's Rate My Professor ratings he was revered as exactly the kind of teacher you want to have the good fortune of learning from.
Good idea to check this. What I found odd was that almost all the students referred to him as 'Bret'.
"Good idea to check this. What I found odd was that almost all the students referred to him as 'Bret'. "
I think that's probably the ethos of the school. The top two professors there are "Sean" and "Heather" in the reviews. I didn't check any others, but I suspect you'd find more of that.
It took a long time for "higher" education to get to where it is today. It's not just Evergreen. It's not just Mizzou. There's Duke, there's Yale, there's Harvard, there's [fill in the name of your favorite selective college]. What are you going to do about it?
Do you have children or grandchildren? Don't pay for them to attend a college like this.
Are you a voter? If your State funds colleges and universities like this, demand that your state representatives use the power of the purse to get things under control. Do this even if the U has a GREAT football or basketball team. It's THAT important.
It took a long while to get here, and it will take a long time to get back to sanity, but DON'T BE PATIENT! BE AS IMPATIENT AS HELL!
Angel-Dyne said...
Hope to see you back in more subtle form soon.
I generally reject the hypothesis that teachers are responsible for the decline of western civilization. My view is based almost entirely on my own experience as a student. If a teacher said a thing was black then it was white to me forever more. Not only did I actively resist learning anything they had to teach but I did it it with an attitude. I was not alone at my school. When I got to college it slowly dawned on me that I should have paid at least some attention, especially in math.
That expectation is a form crowd control. As long as it remains unchallenged it is a very effective one.
No it is not. You are being disingenuous. Nobody would ever characterize the teacher student interaction in a college classroom as crowd control. We are supposed to be living in a civilized society. The students are supposed to be going to college to learn from the professors. The professor is not a lion tamer. The idea that a professor would think that there would be a need to control the crowd of students is ludicrous.
The Godfather said...
Do this even if the U has a GREAT football or basketball team.
For me this would be the first red flag.
Richard said...
We are supposed to be living in a civilized society.
Margaret Thatcher - “the veneer of civilization is very thin.” Especially, I would add, when dealing with yutes.
In case this isn't resolved in the next several years, I'm looking at colleges overseas for my kids.
My brother went to Evergreen. He was a leftist yet probably the most rightwing person there.
This article, written from the viewpoint of the students, is fairly terrifying:
http://www.afropunk.com/profiles/blogs/urgent-olympia-wa-students-reportedly-attacked-by-police-for?xg_source=activity
"During the protest, Weinstein was confronted by the students and held accountable for his actions. Students describe 'peppering' him with questions, but according to Twitter videos, tried to take turns providing insight and giving Weinstein opportunities to understand. Visibly frustrated, but unwilling to concede his racist position, Weinstein opted to call the police on the peaceful crowd, saying he was 'cornered' by the group. Never mind that this was, essentially, a school sponsored day of actions and the fact that the contents of Weinstein’s emails were in fact pretty racist at worse, and contemptuous of POC at best."
Freeman Hunt said...
My brother went to Evergreen.
Did he learn anything? Anything that helped in later life.
Patents don't let your kids go to Evergreen State College, annual tuition (out of state) $24,000 per year.
Tarrou said..."My schadenboner is enormous. Let them have their fun. When they've fired, or hospitalized, or killed all their shitlib professors, we can introduce them to the tender mercies of the 5.56."
That would be too fast and too kind.
This is an interesting interview with Weinstein. Predictably this is part of a broader fight over campus politics.
Richard to ARM: "That expectation is a form crowd control. As long as it remains unchallenged it is a very effective one."
No it is not. You are being disingenuous.
That's one way of putting it.
ARM to me: "Hope to see you back in more subtle form soon."
I generally reject the hypothesis that teachers are responsible for the decline of western civilization. My view is based almost entirely on my own experience as a student. [...]
On the other hand, maybe I've been overestimating you all along, and you aren't just playing dumb.
I especially liked the part where the students crashed the professors having cake and they all went together to occupy the library. And the part where the police have been made dispensable because their presence makes the students feel unsafe. What a monster higher education has created. A monster that eats its own.
Are we surprised? Evergreen State is Rachel Corrie's alma mater.
What a benighted sh*thole.
Angel-Dyne said...
you aren't just playing dumb.
It is certainly true that I didn't learn much at school.
Margaret Thatcher - “the veneer of civilization is very thin.”
Thomas Sowell added "and progressives are constantly chipping away at the crust."
ARM wrote: "It is certainly true that I didn't learn much at school."
Nor anywhere else.
I read Weinstein's "racist" email, and he hits the nail on the head. Making your own protest by walking out is one thing, but forcing OTHERS to walk out, based on race, to accommodate YOUR protest, is quite another. It's a little like the MTV snowflakes who thought they could make resolutions for other people, except they forced the issue.
I sincerely hope the Evergreen mob dies from AIDS, slowly and painfully.
AReasonableMan said...It is certainly true that I didn't learn much at school.
You Don't Learn That In School
exiledonmainstreet said...
Nor anywhere else.
This is the kind of cheap shot that trolls use. Trolls need to hate the other, even when they are making fun of themselves.
AReasonableMan said...
Gahrie said...
I'm willing to bet that Fox is the only network that asked him to appear.
No doubt, but he should have resisted the limelight. Young people view FOX News much the same way you view Pravda, or the Washington Post.
5/26/17, 8:40 PM
Oh, of course- musn't upset the "young people" or challenge their prejudices.
You throw a slow curveball right over the plate, ARM, and I'll hit it.
Hmm,
Mao crushed the Red Guards, when they had served their purpose, by sending them into the countryside to be re-educated by living in rural poverty. This seems an approach worth exploring.
Michael Fitzgerald said...
Oh, of course- musn't upset the "young people" or challenge their prejudices.
Self evidently I am not suggesting this. I am on Weinstein's side on this one.
openidname: This article, written from the viewpoint of the students, is fairly terrifying:
[...]
"During the protest, Weinstein was confronted by the students and held accountable for his actions. Students describe 'peppering' him with questions, but according to Twitter videos, tried to take turns providing insight and giving Weinstein opportunities to understand. Visibly frustrated, but unwilling to concede his racist position..."
The terrifying part is that in a couple of years some of these morons are going to show up at your place of employment as mandatory diversity-sensitivity training consultants, and you're going to have to sit there and pretend that they aren't complete fucking morons. They will be paid comfortable six-figure salaries to test your self-control and social-dissimulation skills in this fashion.
It's the Chinese Cultural Revolution revisited. Scary.
exiledonmainstreet said...
You throw a slow curveball right over the plate
You are only playing Tee-ball. The ball was not even moving.
Angel-Dyne is right. People like to joke about they'll all end up working as surly baristas, but some of they will end up in HR or as "diversity consultants" all primed to ferret out heretics in the workplace. Employers have already shown they're as gutless as university administrators are when it comes to charges of homophobia, transphobia, racism etc.
And the ones from the better schools will go to law and grad school and continue the fight for social justice from positions inside the government bureaucracy.
They are not close to being done wrecking people's lives.
openidname, that article is chilling, every word a disgusting lie. Weinstein was certainly peppered with questions, and given no opportunity to respond -- I guess there was no time for him to respond due to the students taking turns to provide "insight", and "opportunities" for Weinstein to "understand". Weinstein was subjected to a struggle session, two minutes, and more,of hate.
"You are only playing Tee-ball. The ball was not even moving."
Are you saying you're that easy to hit? I agree.
Does anybody believe those little darlings would not be capable of doing what the students in China did, if they thought they could get away with it?
While colleges and universities have been disgracing themselves with their handling of these student mobs the last few years, the problem doesn't start in college. An adequate K-12 education that exposed students to dialectic and critical thinking and taught them how to think would leave them far less vulnerable to all of this nonsense. Instead they get there not intellectually mature enough, and coupled with some evil opportunists on campus, the results are not pretty.
I don't know how it will affect job prospects, but the companies I've worked for absolutely will not put up with people like that. They mostly get cut off at the interview process, in part because they can't stop talking about themselves, their problems, or their cause(s) du jour. Most of the time their best fit seems to be with an inner city non profit with fellow SJWs in a low paying job that exists by the charity of local foundations or government funding (just don't tell them what the directors of such non-profits make, it might be triggering).
The students aren’t really at fault. They are only acting out what they’ve been taught by academia and the MSM. This trend of intolerance on campus is the inevitable product of many years of decadence in both institutions.
There’s sporadic, mostly imperfect attempts to turn things towards a more wholesome direction – of which Trumpism represents the latest effort.
I don’t believe the MSM anti-Trump blitz will work. Things have evolved. The MSM’s credibility has fallen at about the same rate as its descent into today’s abysmal matter-of-fact level of corruption. It’s power to persuade is much diminished from its former glory days, credible now only to those who want to be persuaded. It’s audience now is primarily the same type of audience as the Daily Show in its Jon Stewart heyday, laughing(or rioting) on cue.
I think to the viewing and reading public it’s like the same reality show on all the cables all the time. Pick your favorite cable personalities and tune in to the latest Trump gossip. The MSM’s fixation on all things Trump is also fueled by higher ratings. News about Trump brings viewers. Entertaining? Yes. But believable? Sure, as believable as any other reality show, unless you are true believers like the students.
WWE is popular not because it is believable, most folks know it is staged, but because it is an entertaining spectacle – a reality show with phony violence. So it goes, I think, with the MSM – a reality show with fake news.
I wish I could understand the mindset of these students. Are they really so convinced in their righteousness that they feel uninhibited by basic decency and tolerance? Where does that come from? I find it hard to believe these kids are entering colleges with that mindset from their parents and high school experiences.
It is not difficult to understand them. This is not a unique occurrence in history. Marxism is a cancer that has grown on a body politic numerous times. They always turn to violence and purges. Always.
exiledonmainstreet said...
Just as I doubt it ever occurred to Lou Reed that non-conservative college students would find "Walk on the Wild Side" offensive, I don't think leftist academics thought they would be attacked by their own students.
More historical ignorance. The educated elite are often the first to be purged when the progressives take over.
AReasonableMan said...
I find some of the reactions to this video a bit precious/snow flaky. Weinstein didn't seem uncomfortable at any point, he remained in control of this emotions and of the crowd. The crowd did not seem the slightest bit intimidating. They did seem clueless, but that is a different problem, I blame their parents.
Rusty said...
Radical leftists want to punch you in the face.
Moderate leftists want radical leftists to punch you in the face.
AReasonableMan said...
I find some of the reactions to this video a bit precious/snow flaky.
I have to hand it to leftists, they are very good at immediately appropriating the catch-phrases of the right- the phrases that make fun of leftists. They then try to lob the grenade back at us, but it doesn't quite work. People started calling the spoiled children of the left "snowflakes" because they are far too delicate to hear different opinions and scream and melt down and sob for safe spaces if they do. ARM uses it to describe the people who object to such behavior.
Ritmo has taken to calling Trump voters "cucks." "Cucks" (derived, of course, from "cuckold" a man whose wife is unfaithful; I guess there is a porn genre for guys who are actually aroused by that) are white guys who are so subservient to PC that they have internalized hatred against white men and Western civilization. Ritmo uses it - well I'm not exactly sure what he means when he uses it. It's just a new insult, a shiny toy he bats around like a cat batting a ball of yarn, with as much understanding as the cat.
The current leader of this august institution -- (Evergreen State):
"After earning his undergraduate degree in 1972 from the University of Washington, Dr. Bridges pursued his graduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania. There he earned his M.A. in criminology and Ph.D. in sociology. Prior to pursuing an academic career full time, Dr. Bridges worked as a social scientist in the staff office of the Attorney General of the United States. In this capacity he assisted in the design and implementation of research programs on federal law and justice policy.
Over the course of his career Dr. Bridges has taught and lectured at many universities, holding faculty appointments at American University, University of Maryland, Case Western Reserve University, and the University of Washington. He has testified numerous times before legislative bodies, including the U.S. Congress, the Washington State Legislature, and the U. S. Civil Rights Commission, primarily on subjects pertaining to legal policy and treatment of racial and ethnic minorities in the administration of criminal justice."
I went to TESC many years ago. There is a deep divide between the sciences and the other stuff there. Like someone mentioned above, TESC has a different structure -- no letter grades, no individual classes, no majors (you choose a BA or BS path). For instance, I enrolled in a 48 credit, full year long course that contained integrated chemistry, physics, calculus, lab, and seminar.
I guess I can't speak for what has happened in the intervening 20 years, but at the time, the science portion of the school was pretty good.
Also, the dialectic thing -- though the Marxist use of the term has overshadowed it, it's also considered the second stage of the Trivium in classical education. College students should be expected to operating in the Rhetoric stage, but these guys look like they never made it out of Grammar.
Good reminder about the 60s. In 1969 Herbert Marcuse, who had remained in the States while some of his friends returned to Germany, disagreed with his old friend Theodor Adorno about how to respond to the occupation of campuses by student groups; Marcuse was convinced that the students were better than the police, and although they were not a true revolutionary movement (in a Marxist or even neo-Marxist sense--the students were not exactly an oppressed class), they were “a breath of fresh air.” Marcuse and Adorno seem to have agreed that the students did not know much history, economics, or psychology; Adorno suspected that the student protests had become an example of “left fascism,” and he thought that if a class was disrupted, the police should be called. After an exchange of letters, Marcuse cancelled planned lectures that might have involved Adorno’s Institute for Social Research, and almost immediately began some lectures in Italy which were disrupted by students who had learned he had earlier worked for the precursor to the CIA. Marcuse commented in an interview on his disagreements with Horkheimer and other colleagues--the latter thinking it should be emphasized that the U.S. was significantly less repressive than the Soviet Union, whereas Marcuse thought this might let the U.S. "off the hook."
exiledonmainstreet said...
ARM uses it to describe the people who object to such behavior.
They are two sides of the same coin. The social justice warriors are hysterical but the reaction to them is also hysterical. In both cases people are exaggerating their grievances to advance political agendas that have no place on a campus.
It is clear that some here have developed a deep visceral dislike of universities and university faculty. This is the exact opposite of my own experience. When I went to university I finally met people deeply engaged in their studies. They weren't doing it to grub grades, please mummy and daddy or to get rich. There were genuine scholars who cared deeply about the body of knowledge that had been accumulated to date and also about expanding that knowledge, to the best of their limited abilities. These were admirable people. Weinstein seems to be in this mold.
Chinese students come here in large numbers to get a good education. They spend a lot of money and go to a lot of trouble to do this. The market is, therefore, providing a clear signal that US universities are world competitive and in many cases the best in the world. US universities compete and compete effective in the international market place, this is not universally true for much of US commercial activity. Attacks on universities by either partisan side are harmful to the long term best interests of the US. Universities are a major engine of economic growth in a country that is struggling to grow its economy.
AReasonableMan said...
I find some of the reactions to this video a bit precious/snow flaky. Weinstein didn't seem uncomfortable at any point, he remained in control of this emotions and of the crowd. The crowd did not seem the slightest bit intimidating. They did seem clueless, but that is a different problem, I blame their parents.
Of course not! A bunch of people, most of whom you don't know. None of them members of the faculty or administration , walk into your classroom while you're doing your job and demand that you leave. Not at all intimidating. Must happen to you, what? Four or five times a month?
Perfectly reasonable behavior.
Rusty said...
Perfectly reasonable behavior.
I did not say this. As someone who clearly actively participates in faculty politics Weinstein has a robust sense of his own position and views. He did a good job presenting those views and establishing his position. It is not exactly unknown for faculty to be told they should be fired or shouldn't have been hired in the first place. Faculty politics ain't beanbag. He no doubt also views some of his colleagues with considerable skepticism.
So tell me, ARM, do we wait until the SJWs actually injure or kill people before you will find it acceptable to push back against them? Because the injuries have already happened at Berkeley and Middlebury. Are you waiting until someone is murdered?
Big Mike said...
Are you waiting until someone is murdered?
Like this, for instance.
Extreme emotionalism in politics creates problems for a lot of people. Weinstein was never in peril from what I saw. Some level of robust debate on campus is not unreasonable. In the specific case of the right wing provocateurs, the primary problem is the mind numbing stupidity of protestors, who elevate the provocateurs to a status that their abilities as social commentators does not justify. Unfortunately, you can't teach stupid.
It's always fun to watch the monster turn on Dr. Frankenstein.
This is what purity tests look like, Lefties.
Most of you won't survive.
Sad.
ARM @ 8:41
Except we're talking about the intimidating effect a group of people, most of whom you don't know, have on your psyche when they suddenly appear in your classroom and tell you to get out. You don't belong here.
I think the reasonable response is to be alarmed and demand to know what they are doing there.
Rusty said...
I think the reasonable response is to be alarmed and demand to know what they are doing there.
Even if this were the reasonable response it is not what Weinstein actually did. He was quite clearly comfortable engaging them and battling them to a draw so that they ended up leaving in a huff. The faculty naturally have the upper hand in dealing with students, both because they are older and smarter and because they can really fuck with a student's life if they put their minds to it.
If you disrupt a class, you need to be expelled. End of story. I mean these students even if they graduated are worthless as alumni.
I don't know what my children will do for college. It makes me so sad.
"He's a liberal himself and certain liberals have long believed 'there are no enemies to the left.'"
Are you kidding? There is no more quarrelsome, often self-defeatingly contentious cohort of ideologues than activist leftists! (At least, among those who actually hold ideologies. These kids may lack any coherent ideology, acting reflexively as dogs to dog whistles.)
"To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture. Enjoy, sir, your insensibility of feeling and reflecting. It is the prerogative of animals."
-- Thomas Paine
Wonderful! Thanks, Mark.
As is written in the book of Hosea: “For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.”
"The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington is a state school. It is 'different.' They don't have grades, each professor gives the student an 'evaluation.' It is a place where all the hippies and disillusioned youth go to fuck off for 5 years. I've known former Evergreen students and the dorms are referred to as 'Neverclean.' They have problems with bedbugs."
Cartoonists Matt Groening, (creator of The Simpsons), Charles Burns, and Linda Barry are alums of Evergreen State College.
Please to note that their open space mid-campus is red brick, and known as Red Square.
White people have a pretty robust sense of self-worth, in my experience.
I think you mistake them. These students, whatever else they may be, are not short on self-worth. White people are bad and western civilization is a trail of horrors, but they... they are different. They're not like the others. They understand the evil that is "Whiteness", and this is what gives them their self-worth.
The problem here is that this self-inflation is dependent on on the denigration of white people who aren't part of their group. That's why we see this sort of behavior from them.
Don't be too hard on Evergreen. It's where you go when you don't want to live at home and attend community college but don't have the grades or self-discipline for a serious school. Plus it's in one of the whitest, most self-congratulatory passive-aggressive communities on the face of the planet. Believe me, many, many, of the students see the hypocrisy clearly. It's basically a mill for producing unskilled state workers.
Leftists:
The question is always about power. And when that power is achieved, the second question is which groups will be first against the (proverbial?) respective walls.
"Attacks on universities by either partisan side are harmful to the long term best interests of the US. Universities are a major engine of economic growth in a country that is struggling to grow its economy."
Burn 'em down. Salt the earth. Let not one stone stand upon another.
Jupiter said...
Burn 'em down. Salt the earth. Let not one stone stand upon another.
Obviously this is one approach that could be tried. Hard to see it working well in the long run.
The original founders of Evergreen were mostly African/American activists who had threatened the wealthy white elite of Seattle into creating a "new university". I am a pretty straight white gal who happens to be married to a very good man. His interests are in interdisciplinary education and adult learning. At one time he was a Dept. Chair at another very liberal university. We attended a reception for one of the African/American founders of Evergreen in a private home (high end).When this person entered the room, I walked up and offered my hand to shake his, in response he bent me over backward and shoved his tongue down my throat. When he released me I stood up and was stunned. He said, " you don't even know what's been done to you do you?" He laughed and walked over to another group across the room. His wife was white. Her hate for white men was palatable. This was about 20 years ago. Evergreen still gets more money from the WA State budget per student than any other school. Don't forget Rachel Corrie see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Corrie
Annie, your recollections do not correlate with mine. IIRC, Dan Evans, our RINO governor at the time, founded the school in Olympia. I don't recall African Americans involved at at all. At the time, I think all the faculty and virtually all the students were white.
First the Tea Party attempted to recreate the American Revolution; now the left wants to
recreate the French Revolution.
Here's a story from 2012 about the founding of the college, its vision and its practices: http://www.theolympian.com/news/local/article25312423.html
Dan Evans is generally considered the founder, the former governor of Washington who became the college's second president.
I graduated from Evergreen in 1977. One of the founding faculty members was black, but the place was hardly a hotbed of black radicalism. A general awareness of civil rights was certainly in the air at the time. Certainly none of the founding faculty I knew would exhibit or condone the kind of behavior recounted by Anne Lee above.
Evergreen was part of a trend in the 1970s and much of that trend was positive. The idea was to provide students with a real education, rather than just a piece of paper. At the time there was a common perception that colleges were becoming "diploma mills" where kids would party for four years and come out with low skills and high expectations. (A trend that obviously has continued until now, when things are finally reaching a breaking point. As Glenn Reynolds has covered nicely in his book and elsewhere.)
Evergreen has apparently not aged well, but it was originally one of the best of these experimental schools. People really cared about learning and took it seriously. Founding President Charles McCann was an inspiring leader. He was accessible and serious. I remember his moving welcoming speech the first week of school and I remember his insightful comments during a writing seminar in one of my last weeks before graduating. I had a great writing teacher there, the late Sandra Simon.
As has been mentioned, back in the day it was a pretty serious science school. It was known for an impressive number of National Science Foundation grants, and for being very hands-on. When I was there, students did some good early work in aquaculture, growing mussels.
Part of the ethic was that everything was student focused, they tried to abolish the notion of faculty privilege. Instead of being encouraged to publish, the faculty was encouraged to spend time with students. That access was great for us. I also appreciated the emphasis on inter-disiplinary learning. It was a good liberal arts college in the best sense of the term.
One of the great Evergreen inventions was the Disappearing Task Force. To keep committees from getting out of hand, they were expected to dissolve themselves on completion of the task they had been formed to address. Success was having your committee disappear quickly. This is an idea worth reviving!
One of the great Evergreen inventions was the Disappearing Task Force. To keep committees from getting out of hand, they were expected to dissolve themselves on completion of the task they had been formed to address. Success was having your committee disappear quickly. This is an idea worth reviving!
Too bad we can't get Congress to adopt such a strategy!
They have been raised in the church of PC. Don't be surprised when they act like religious zealots.
That professor looks and talks about as right wing and “racist” as Frank Zappa. I feel sorry for his being the victim of this type of ridiculous and deliberately orchestrated SJW PC oppression. This PC pogrom all the hallmarks of a COINTELPRO operation is very likely the work of the foremost COINTELPRO “activist” and agent provocateur at TESC, Evergreen uberprofessor Pete Bohmer. If you watch the video of the meeting with the College President, Bohmer is the white haired old dude in the back standing up egging on his SJW PC Storm Troopers to even greater acts of PC fascist zealotry. For over 30 years Bohmer has been working for his COINTELPRO handlers channelling and directing all the bogus activism at TESC into forms that make a mockery of real political action and which are used to justify further oppression. In Bohmer’s own words…Cointlepro is a program coordinated by the FBI to “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit or otherwise neutralize” individuals and groups….Looks like Bohmer and his COINTELPRO handlers’ work has been accomplished at TESC with this nutty SJW farce.
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