uttertrashdumpster asked:
Here's a story I think you might want to check out: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/03/23/law-student-protests-stifle-speakers-yale-uc-hastings
It's pretty interesting that the events turned out differently at the two schools. You might find it interesting to take a closer look at the open letters that the students wrote to the administration as well.
[ Sorry, while responding, Tumblr ate your Ask when it hung up while I was saving a Draft. (Anyone else get that?) So I've had to recreate your question here.]
It's honestly kind of amazing. These schools appear to be on the verge of Evergreening themselves into oblivion.
In 2015, Yale memorably exploded into insanity over Halloween costumes.
This played out as a mirror universe reality where the administrator who sent out an email containing links to dozens of racist stereotype and caricature images, scolding students not dress like any of them drew no reaction, but the professor who students can, and have, decide what is right on their own, without being infantalized by the administration ended up having to quit, but not before her husband spent three hours in front of a crowd of triggered, fragile, crying student fanatics, who wailed that they were literally dying.
Yale did absolutely nothing about this. Why would it, when its own administrators orchestrated it in the first place? Worse, it rewarded some of the more unhinged Puritan ringleaders.
So it should be no surprise to fast-forward a few years to two more incidents, and find one of them occurring at Yale.
The Yale one did proceed. The mob shouted over the top of the speakers, including physical threats (“I’ll literally fight you, bitch.”), were told to leave, and they did but then continued to disrupt the event from the outside, shouting and banging on the walls from the outside to make it as difficult as possible for the speakers. There's plenty of footage of all of this.
One of the speakers had her own security for exactly the reasons demonstrated by the mob.
The ringleaders then had the gall to release a statement condemning the police security, which was there for self-fulfilling reasons, and held up LGBT students as a sort o ideological human shield.
We write today because, in addition to the deeply disrespectful presence of ADF on campus and the faculty moderator’s dismissal of our peaceful action as childish, armed police officers were called into the Sterling Law Building in response to our exercise of peaceful protest.
Police-related trauma includes, but is certainly not limited to, physical harm. Even with all of the privilege afforded to us at YLS, the decision to allow police officers in as a response to the protest put YLS’ queer student body at risk of harm.
The language is of course the usual hyperbole of "trauma" and "harm" by the police merely being there. This language is deliberate. If security staff simply being there can be construed as "harm" and causing "trauma," then they can justify escalating it to actual physical harm. You say something I don't like, I punch you in the face, and we're even.
We are saddened and appalled that a group of YLS’ most vulnerable students were put in danger
In mental health circles, this type of alarmism is referred to as "Catastrophizing" and it's one of several cognitive distortions that contribute significantly to depression and anxiety.
Catastrophizing is when someone assumes that the worst will happen. Often, it involves believing that you’re in a worse situation than you really are or exaggerating the difficulties you face.
For example, someone might worry that they’ll fail an exam. From there, they might assume that failing an exam means they’re a bad student and bound to never pass, get a degree, or find a job. They might conclude that this means they’ll never be financially stable.
These students are literally making themselves crazy by not only acting like, not only insisting that an exaggerated hypothetical is the reality, and not only insisting that it's a moral obligation to think this way, but making it a moral deficiency if you don't.
And I'm not being hyperbolic here. It's the classic Church Lady mentality.
This mentality actually creates the same problem it claims to be battling in the first place. What we've learned from experience with Xianity is that the more you tell someone that they're broken, helpless, incapable and "nothing without god," the more they believe it and become it.
The more you tell people that they're a victim and at risk, the more they will adopt a victimhood identity and become as fragile and incapable as you presumed them to be in the first place.
Victimhood and a persecution complex have become both moral and social currency.
Nobody was in actual "danger." Except, of course, the speakers. There was a brief altercation between a guard and someone described as "trans," and while it's implied by the letter that this was entirely the result of transphobia, there's no evidence given (remember, these are law students) that it was anything other than two people getting in each other's space in a charged situation.
And let's not forget, the "most vulnerable students" were part of a large, aggressive mob.
If you want to talk trauma and harm of LGBT and racial minorities, I can't think of many more consistently successful ways of inflicting it than teaching and reinforcing how helpless and disempowered they are. Except, perhaps, setting society itself up around the notion of them being less-than, as SocJus activists are demanding. Which, of course, is what groups like the KKK advocated.
Using this, you need never defend your claims or tactics, you simply cry about it, and make it a false dichotomy that you either agree with them or you hate the children. It's particularly useful because it avoids the problems of saying something like "I will be harmed" and having to explain how and why. Instead, you simply point to "these people over here" who you are protecting.
And functions as a form of moral Münchausen Syndrome by Proxy in the process.
What the letter does try to do is attach the presence of security for the speaker to some kind of police/security endorsement of the speaker's position. Kevin Costner wasn't there to defend or promote Whitney Houston's music, he was there to protect her.
We urge YLS to change any policies or practices that invite police officers onto our campus in response to peaceful student protests. We also ask that the administration, in collaboration with students, work to build explicit policy that such a response is unwarranted, regardless of who summons police officers.
Remember, these students created the situation where security was required in the first place. Basically, they're demanding that they be able to intimidate anyone they disagree with away from appearing at all, because such a person will not be able to engage anyone to protect them or their right to freedom of speech. And framing it as a moral imperative.
While continuing to gaslight by calling it "peaceful." Repeat a lie often enough...
This is also a pre-emptive strike. They knew they'd get bad publicity from the event, and so went on the offensive. Nowhere in the letter is there any concession that some in their group went overboard, or a recognition that the event was completely legitimate at all. They were right about everything: it was wrong to hold the event at all, and it was wrong for the speaker who brought her own security to take measures to protect herself.
So, while the event, which was on freedom of speech, did proceed, it was an ironic portrait of Woke ideological possession.
This is a real Yale Law School t-shirt, from the Office of Student Affairs. That is, it's not simply a particular group of students. The institution itself has been captured by ideologues.
At the UC Hastings, the event was shut down by the mob, by yelling over the top of their target, and at one point, physically intimidating him by standing right next to him as he attempted to speak. This, they claimed, was their "free speech."
Again, the open letter that came out of this concedes nothing, and again admonishes the university that the mob was in the right the whole time.
We also write to reiterate that the overarching issues faced by Black students, students of color, and other marginalized communities on the UC Hastings campus are rooted in the prevalence of white supremacy and misogyny, and are not tied to the single Federalist Society event.
This is textbook Critical Race Theory language, and was absolutely pervasive throughout Evergreen State College before it notoriously melted down in 2017.
As Sensoy and DiAngelo say in "Is Everyone Really Equal?"
“STOP: When we use the term White supremacy, we are not referring to extreme hate groups or “bad racists.” We use the term to capture the all-encompassing dimensions of White privilege, dominance, and assumed superiority in mainstream society.”
The dominance and superiority they're referring to is that of liberal, secular values, like evidence, reason, logic, individualism and neutral principles of law.
This would seem to be ironic for law students. But Critical Race Theory attributes these to "whiteness" and "white culture" and therefore "bad." Rather than embracing Enlightenment values as universal, and beneficial to everyone throughout the develoment of the Modern Era.
Am I exaggerating? No, I'm not.
From Delgado and Stefancic, in "Critical Race Theory: An Introduction."
Unlike traditional civil rights, which embraces incrementalism and step-by-step progress, critical race theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law.
A reminder too, that this protest was law students opposing values espoused in the US Constitution. No accident.
Marginalized students do not feel welcomed on this campus, and our concerns have not been adequately addressed.
Keep in mind, this is the same law school US Vice President Kamala Harris attended. In San Francisco. California. This is not some backwater town under the stranglehold of Strom Thurmond or David Duke.
It can also hardly be surprising that they don't feel safe when there is this sort of rhetoric flying around the campus of pervasive, yet unquantified "white supremacy."
"There ware all these allegations of white supremacy at Evergreen, and every so often somebody, sometimes me, sometimes it was somebody else, asked about, okay, where is this white supremacy? Can we see it? Can we evaluate it?
And this faculty member said, to ask students who are suffering from white supremacy to tell us about the instances of white supremacy is itself racism.
And she said we must stop asking them because we are inflicting harm on them asking for evidence.
And the phrase she used, she said to ask for evidence of racism is racism with a capital R."
It is an article of faith that simply saying "white supremacy" is accepted unquestioningly. Again, this is particularly ironic for law school students.
WE DEMAND:
(1) No disciplinary actions will be taken against students who exercised their free speech rights on March 1, 2022.
Let's carefully note that they're all too eager to hide behind their constitutional rights in order to deny others theirs. The crux of this demand is that they must be allowed and endorsed by the administration to go about their agenda without challenge or accountability.
"We will hold other people responsible for what they do and say, but but must not be held responsible ourselves." This is made all the worse when they claim to be speaking on behalf of minorities, and particularly non-white people.
The students who took the faculty hostage - yes, hostage - during the Evergreen siege demanded, and got, the same immunity.
(2) UC Hastings administration will work to transparently create an on-campus event procedure, similar to procedures done at UCLA Law, where student organizations provide substantial information regarding their event including information on the potential volatile nature of events and a dedicated staff member who helps student organizations execute thoughtful and enriching programs.
We want veto power, or at least the ability and authority to influence or affect events we don't like.
(3) UC Hastings administration will add additional student seats to the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Working Group and Campus Climate Advisory Committee and current and future students serving on DEIWG will be justly compensated for their time and work as DEIWG research assistants.
More administrative bloat that reinforces a particular political position (Wokeness). Also pay us for this.
(4) UC Hastings will prioritize the hiring of tenured and tenure-track faculty members who have a specialization in Critical Race Theory, Race and the Law, and/or Identity Subordination with an emphasis on anti-Blackness, as other UC law campuses have done.
(5) UC Hastings will require students to complete a Critical Race Theory or race and law course as a graduation requirement, similar to the requirement recently instituted at UC Berkeley School of Law.
You may have thought me bringing up Critical Race Theory at all was a stretch. Surprise! Critical Race Theory everywhere.
Let's be clear here though. This only makes sense in the context of wanting to change how people think. Particularly making it mandatory. It's therefore almost certainly not the case that they're aiming for all students to know about it, but to believe it's true and adhere to its dogma.
This is even more apparent when you notice the remaining demands (I won't list here) which are all about dropping a dumptruck of money on the DEI industry to basically act as overlords
What's telling and remarkable about this, aside from lack of personal accountability and self-awareness of some of the most privileged people at one of the most privileged institutions in one of the most privileged countries in the world, is how certain they are about making these demands. They know they've achieved cultural and institutional hegemony, and if the administration declines, they will go ahead and ruin it.
Either reputationally, or literally razing it. Remember what I said previously about "trauma" and "harm"? "You say something I don't like, I punch you in the face, and we're even." That's what that means. It's authoritarianism, and that only works when you actually hold power.
Read it again and pay attention to when it switches back and forth from playing the helpless victim to making authoritarian demands with certainty and clarity. This is a symptom typical of certain personality disorders. Someone taking the strategic position of the put-upon victim then makes threatening demands about how you are to make it up to them. Jesus, for example.
The correct answer to this list of demands is simple. LOL, no. Sit down and get back to class.
I predict that if the UC Hastings administration capitulates to this mob, and I expect they will, at least to most things, even if not all, then it will only be a matter of time before it either implodes like Evergreen or descends into a reputational black hole anyway.
What might be even more troubling is that there's signs that neither of these two incidents are aberrations.
If you really want to be troubled, here's an even deeper rabbit hole to go digging down into.
P.S. I presume it goes without saying that I don't have to agree with what the speakers have to say in order to expect that they should be allowed to exercise their freedom of speech to say it?
