College Becomes More And More Indistinguishable From Nursery School
Michigan State University is banning whiteboards on dorm doors due to students' fragility.
No, that's not how they put it.
And the truth is, if you have a whiteboard up on your dorm room door -- publicly available to scrawl on -- people may write less than well-mannered, kind messages.
The answer -- if that possibility disturbs you -- is to avoid having a white board on your door. It is not -- or rather, should not be -- having a complete ban on white boards on dorm room doors.
Holly Fournier writes for The Detroit News:
Whiteboards on dorm room doors have evolved from valuable tools of communication to ready-made vehicles for bullying, according to Michigan State University officials.As a result, the university will ban the whiteboards from students' doors this fall, in an effort to cut down on the number of negative, anonymous messages left outside dorm rooms.
"In any given month, there are several incidents like this. There was no one incident that was the straw that broke the camel's back," said Kat Cooper, director of University Residential Services Communications. "Sometimes these things are racial, sometimes they're sexual in nature. There are all sorts of things that happen."
There has been no uptick in incidents, Cooper said. The ban is limited to hanging whiteboards on dorm doors; students will still be permitted to use the items inside their rooms.
...Officials acknowledge that the ban likely will not dissuade people determined to leave harmful messages through other avenues. Instead, eliminating the boards is meant to address impulsive scribbles.
Perish forbid the "impulsive scribble"!
I like the comment from this Greg Starky person, on the Detroit News' site:
Greg Starky, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Perhaps they should ban computers and paper as well, they have been used by bad people as well. Just to hard to believe these are supposedly educated people making these decisions.
Here's another gooder:
Matt Smith, West Bloomfield Township, Michigan
If someone uses the PlayDoh or crayons in the safe space to leave a bullying message, willl PlayDoh, crayons and safe spaces get banned too?
Betcha those of you out there who are employers just can't wait to hire from this pool.
via @WalterOlson
Why aren't the parents of these children, who must be paying for a least some portion of this education, challenging the school administrators about this stupidity?
Presumably Americans have been clucked at so hard and so long —and have seen so much gloriously trite clucking on dramatic television and in news media for so many years— that they now sincerely believe the only meaningfully admirable conduct is to cluck. Courage, clarity, and plain assertiveness count for nothing.
Crid at March 9, 2017 3:47 AM
The parents are likely clucking along in agreement.
I R A Darth Aggie at March 9, 2017 6:01 AM
When I talk to the kids at the high school (predominantly populated from the inner city) I tell them how I slept on a door propped on two milk crates and took bad jobs in order to become a writer -- and how satisfying it was to have that pay off.
Struggling is good. Hardship is good. Including emotional hardship. Having no friends as a kid scarred me in some ways but it also made me compassionate and is probably what made me the person who has a radar for who in the room is feeling lost. I go bring that person into the conversation. As a bonus, one guy I did that for (along with my friend Rachel R.) -- a guy who arrived at an event looking horrified at having to "mingle" with strangers -- ended up being a big TV showrunner. Turns out he knew Gregg (Rachel told him who my boyfriend was when I was talking to somebody next to me). Anyway, he had had Gregg work for him years before, wanted to reconnect with him, and ended up hiring him to do research on a TV show. All of this happened because I'm a "nosy broad," as Gregg jokingly says it, who "could do 20 minutes with" (talking to) "a parking meter."
Amy Alkon at March 9, 2017 6:25 AM
I feel sorry for them in a cataclysm
Christopher Guzman at March 9, 2017 7:49 AM
The term "Black Holes" found in space exploration shall henceforth be forever banned as racist.
Nick at March 9, 2017 8:17 AM
> shall henceforth be forever
> banned as racist
Fuck everything, Man... Go for the deuce!…
"Black HOLES is sexist, too.
Crid at March 9, 2017 11:03 AM
Why aren't the parents of these children, who must be paying for a least some portion of this education, challenging the school administrators about this stupidity?
Because the parents are the wellspring, the enablers and the encouragers of such stupidity.
These eggshells didn't exactly arrive at college as industrial diamonds.
Kevin at March 9, 2017 11:33 AM
So, there are no whiteboards on the doors to reduce bullying and harassment?
'cause Michigan State University students don't have access to Sharpies?
Conan the Grammarian at March 9, 2017 11:48 AM
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