Email To A Campus Speech Criminal
A male professor I know was accused of making a student feel "unsafe" because he supposely used unfeminist terminology and body language.
He felt the accusation was bullshit -- that the notion he did anything wrong or damaging is unfair and unwarranted -- and he is right. (He told me what happened.)
A bit from my email exchange with him that he appreciated:
It is impossible to win as a man. And by win, I mean get out unscathed. Absolutely anything that they say is wrong is wrong, and they can interpret anything to be wrong.
More that I wrote him later:
It is not about you in the slightest. It's like getting hit in the head by a tennis ball. It happens because you're walking near the tennis court when it bounces off the edge of somebody's racket. The tennis ball hasn't noticed, "Hmm, there's some guy who deserves a bonk in the head!"In this case, three things happened to allow this to happen: You were white, male, and there.
How crazy are things on campus? Unless you have friends who are profs, it's hard to believ. Here, from Peter Hasson at SeeThruEdu, sharing a belief is now reported as a "hate crime."
As the war on free speech and hurt feelings drags on, we've now reached the point where professing one's faithful Catholic beliefs can get one reported to and investigated by campus police - even at a Catholic university.Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles is one of many schools to have a "Bias Incident Response Team" (BIRT). The name explains the purpose of the BIRT pretty well - responding to "bias incidents."
One campus employee at LMU is currently under investigation for the "hate crime" of telling a student that only two genders exist - male and female. It's worth noting that her statement is perfectly in line with Catholic Church teaching. (LMU is a Catholic university, if you take their word for it.)
As reported by The College Fix, "Both the police and the university's Bias Incident Response Team are investigating the stated belief that only two genders exist, male and female, as a hate crime."
Three students, one of whom identifies as "gender neutral," reported her. One student, Cosette Carleo, claimed the employee was guilty of "denying transgenderism." This at a Catholic university.
I'm not Catholic and I don't believe in god, but how many "genders" you think there are is your business.
This is what we merely used to call an "opinion," and not any sort of thought or speech crime.
But the crazy is spreading. From the Hasson link above:
Nevertheless, on college campus after college campus, feelings run the show. How else do campus cops become the solution to hurt feelings? Because its not just at LMU.Last November, the University of Missouri instructed students to "call the police immediately" if they encountered "hurtful speech."
Yes, the whole world is devolving into one big nursery school. DLM! (Diapered Lives Matter!)
I would be a lot more sympathetic but college professors and administrators with their socialist affirmative action, SJW hiring policies fermented this idiocy.
Now it is coming back around to bite them in the ass.
Isab at May 6, 2016 7:03 AM
Even back in the 90s if you expressed non-left wing ideas you were at risk of being flunked. You've noted the political bias at universities and in your own field. That happened because of blatant discrimination at all levels. My only advice for your friend is look for a new job in a different field. The only way to save the universities is to burn them to the ground and start over new with a completely different staff. It is too late for anything else.
Ben at May 6, 2016 8:31 AM
At first I was against that insane amount of student debt that's going to financially cripple a lot of young adults well into their senior. But then I read on the news what the hell is happening and you know what? Serves them right.
Sixclaws at May 6, 2016 8:58 AM
I think I've figured out the plot of the upcoming Independence Day sequel:
Alien 1: Those humans have WAAAYYYY too much fight in them. How can we make them docile?
Alien 2: Help them infantilize themselves? Doesn't cost much, and we'll have a world of psychotic fools ready for enslavement!
DaveG at May 6, 2016 9:25 AM
A thought and a question:
Thought: We're doomed!
Question: Who raises kids to be like this?
Jay at May 6, 2016 11:47 AM
"Question: Who raises kids to be like this?"
This. 100 times this. Who helicopters their kids? Who raises them in a way that does anything but laugh at the concept of "microaggressions"? I don't know anyone, personally, who is that weird. Apparently, I live in a bubble?
Anyway, the pendulum is beginning, slowly, to swing back. The absurdity has lived it's time. I feel for the people who will experience the opposite extreme, in 40 years or so, but for the next little while "schadenfreude" will be a thing of pleasure.
a_random_guy at May 6, 2016 12:38 PM
Man, I hope you're right, a_random_guy. I can't take much more of these speshul sneauxflaykes.
Daghain at May 6, 2016 1:25 PM
Your prof friend had bad body language? hahahahah happens all the time of course that people stand too close or to far or are so tall ! that they look down on you. But that is the awkward reality of human interaction.
If you hug: sexual
If you stand with arms folded: hostile
If you stand close: aggression
If you stand too far: indifference
If you make eye contact: flirting
If you don't make eye contact: rejection
good luck surviving that
Craig Loehle at May 6, 2016 2:13 PM
Three students, one of whom identifies as "gender neutral," reported her. One student, Cosette Carleo, claimed the employee was guilty of "denying transgenderism."
I identify as a poodle. Who can deny my splendid transpecism?
kenmce at May 6, 2016 3:12 PM
You can deny my existence all you want, as long as you don't put Descartes before the horse.
Cogito Ergo Spud (I think, therefore I yam).
Conan the Grammarian at May 7, 2016 9:16 AM
Bad body language? All men, according to women, have bad body language.
The whole body language thing is being politicized as proof of men dismissing women or of men's lack of ability to communicate.
The fact is, men and women use different body language. Women's body language is being pushed as the norm.
Men cross their arms when considering something. Women cross their arms as a defensive measure, to shut someone out. So, we're being taught in HR-mandated communication seminars not to cross our arms.
Men nod to show agreement only. Women nod to show encouragement, to show the speaker they are listening. So, what are we being taught in our HR-mandated communication seminars? To nod while someone speaks.
Women make frequent and lasting eye contact in a conversation. Men avoid lasting eye contact, seeing it as a challenge. In fact, men often look away during a conversation (evolution has taught us to frequently scan for danger or prey). Women take that lack of eye contact as a lack of interest.
Men lean forward to do something else while someone speaks or to get a word in edgewise. Women lean forward to engage. Men lean back to consider something. Women lean back to disengage. So, the HR-mandated communication seminars are teaching people to lean forward in conversation.
Women prefer to be approached from the front. Men are okay with a from-the-side approach.
Jerry Seinfeld captured the differences in attention in his men vs. women for the television remote bit. Women, he explained, want to watch what's on, whereas men want to see what else is on.
I attended a human resources seminar that told us ("us" being the men in the seminar) not to use sports metaphors like "home run" or "the whole nine yards."
When I told the presenter that the expression was not a sports metaphor, she got defensive and insisted it was from football. Except, I explained to her, in football, ten yards is the objective. In fact, in no modern sport is 27 feet a regular objective.
And "the whole nine yards" was not even an expression in general use until after 1967. In fact, the origin of that phrase is an etymological mystery.
Conan the Grammarian at May 8, 2016 11:36 AM
Leave a comment