Today's College Campus: Where Helicopter Mommying Meets Helicopter Adulting
There's the notion that the Army will make boys into men. Well, college now does just the opposite. If you weren't raised by a helicopter mommy, they'll make up for that at Syracuse "University" by making it seem like Syracuse Nursery School.
Anthony Gockowski writes at Campus Reform that Syracuse has just launched a "STOP Bias" campaign warning students about potential offenses like "displaying a sign that is color-coded pink for girls and blue for boys."
Yes, that's right. College -- formerly a center of free speech and free inquiry -- is now about restraining young adult men and women from associating the horror of the color pink with being female.
The website helpfully goes on to list numerous "examples of bias incidents," such as "telling someone that they have to wear pants because they are man and a skirt because they are female," "displaying a sign that is color-coded pink for girls and blue for boys," and even simply "avoiding or excluding others."...Other potential violations include "telling jokes based on a stereotype," "name-calling," "stereotyping" in general, "offensive graffiti or images/drawing," and "posting or commenting on social media related to someone's identity in a bias matter [sic]."
...The "STOP Bias" program offers a "Bias Incident Reporting Form" for students "who feel they have been the target of bias" can use to inform the appropriate authorities, ominously reminding them that "as a student of SU, you have an obligation to take an active role in fostering an appreciation for diversity and sending the message loud and clear that bias-related acts will not be tolerated."
Best of all, the reporting site is anonymous (unless you want to include your identity), so you can accuse anyone you want to give some problems! Yaaay!
Here's the Syracuse "STOP Bias" site.
Absurdly, they have this at the top:
Syracuse University puts students' rights front and center.
They of course don't mean that yicky "right to free speech" thing.
Here's the list:
Some examples of bias incidents include:Telling jokes based on a stereotype
Name-calling
Stereotyping
Offensive graffiti or images/drawing
Avoiding or excluding others
Posting or commenting on social media related to someone's identity in a bias matter
Calling someone the r-word, n-word, f-word... (in person, in writing, on social media, white boards, etc.)Using the phrase 'no homo'
Calling a person or a behavior 'gay' as an insult
Making jokes or using stereotypes when talking about someone
Saying that all ______ [people of a certain group or identity] are _____ [stereotyping]
Using a racial, ethnic, or other slur to identify someone
Making a joke about someone being deaf or hard of hearing, or blind, etc.
Imitating someone with any kind of disability, or imitating someone's cultural norm or practice
Making comments on social media about someone's disability, ethnicity, race, national origin, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, religion, or political affiliations/beliefs
Writing on a white board about someone's disability, ethnicity, national origin, race, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, religion, or political affiliations/beliefs
Displaying a sign that is color-coded pink for girls and blue for boys
Telling someone that they have to wear pants because they are man and a skirt because they are female [or other specific limitations and expectations]
Drawing faith symbols on someone's door not from the same belief, or drawing or writing over someone's faith symbols
Taking down someone else's holiday decoration because you do not believe in that faith
Drawing or creating pictures that imitate, stereotype, or belittle/ridicule someone because of their gender, gender expression, race, ethnicity, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, faith, or political affiliation
So many of these are absurd, but check this out:
Avoiding or excluding others.
So, if you don't invite the ENTIRE CAMPUS to your cocktail party at your house, you're a hater and should be instructified/reprogrammed?
This sounds like a horrible place to go to school:
Bias-related incidents are defined as behavior which constitutes an expression of hostility against the person or property of another because of the targeted person's age, creed, disability, ethnic or national origin, gender, gender identity, gender expression, marital status, political or social affiliation, race, religion, or sexual orientation. Even when offenders are not aware of bias or intend to offend, bias may be revealed which is worthy of a response and can serve as an opportunity for education.
"An opportunity for education."
Yes, your parents (or you) are paying a fuckton for you to go to college so you can get a nursery-school education.
Avoiding or excluding others.
Shit, I'd be in the gulag.
Much of my inglorious college career was spent actively avoiding other students. The amount of planned social direction (much of which involved "school spirit") was extreme, and I already had plenty of friends. They got my money and the classes had my attention; I didn't owe them my leisure hours as well.
Kevin at January 11, 2017 11:17 PM
"Saying that all ______ [people of a certain group or identity] are _____ [stereotyping]"
So, would that include that old "all men are rapists" slogan?
Brad R at January 12, 2017 4:38 AM
The joys of selective enforcement. You get to make up crazy rules everyone is guilty of and then only use them against the people you don't like.
Ben at January 12, 2017 6:12 AM
I'm not sure why, but Syracuse University has really become a destination for special snowflakes in New York. When I go there for business, I see and hear them in the airport, flying to the Hamptons for the weekend and back. An awful lot of Syracuse is still a post-industrial wasteland (the business community there is trying; they have a big hole to dig out of), but downtown near the campus sure is chock-full of trendy bars.
Cousin Dave at January 12, 2017 6:57 AM
Name-calling
Hmmm...so...if one were to call a Trump supporter a Nazi, is that name-calling or speaking truth to power?
I R A Darth Aggie at January 12, 2017 7:39 AM
Using a racial, ethnic, or other slur to identify someone
So, dago, wap, kike and kraut are all off the table?
I R A Darth Aggie at January 12, 2017 7:41 AM
And what if I don't invite a particular person to my cocktail party because I don't like them as a person and it has nothing to do with their race, gender, skin tone, first or second language, religious outlook or any of the other rot.
Or will that devolve into a case of well, you're a white guy so obviously you were motivated by racial animus. ?
I R A Darth Aggie at January 12, 2017 7:45 AM
the campus sure is chock-full of trendy bars
Well, of course it is. Makes it easier to separate the students from their dad's money. Having a liquor license is about as close as it comes to being granted the right to print money.
I R A Darth Aggie at January 12, 2017 7:50 AM
That's right, I R A Darth Aggie. You are only permitted to specifically exclude white guys.
Fayd at January 12, 2017 7:53 AM
I filed a complaint, said the very notion of reporting free speech as a bias incident offended me as a veteran and an american
lujlp at January 12, 2017 8:41 AM
Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. spent four years at the US Military Academy at West Point: 1932-1936. As the only African-American cadet, he was shunned for the entire four years, eating and studying alone. Instead of breaking his fragile ego, the treatment made him more determined than before to graduate. He was only the fourth African-American ever to graduate from the USMA.
When he graduated, he was commissioned an officer in the US Army. At that time, there was only one other serving line officer of African-American ancestry, Benjamin O. Davis, Sr. So, for a while, it was the Davises against the US Army. The Davises won.
Junior learned to fly and was assigned to the US Army Air Force where he went on to command the 99th Pursuit Squadron and later the 332nd Fighter Group, the famous Tuskegee Airmen. After a successful record in ground attack and air superiority missions, the 332nd was assigned to bomber escort, a mission that was considered tedious and dull, scut work. Junior defied the USAAF's established doctrine in this mission and his pilots established a record for bringing bombers home safely that had white bomber groups specifically requesting his fighter group as escorts. In his career, Davis, Jr. had to fight the Army bureaucracy and racism as hard as he had to fight the Nazis, maybe harder.
In 1948, Harry Truman desegregated the armed forces. Davis, Jr. helped draft the now US Air Force's desegregation plan, making it the first of the four branches to fully desegregate.
After retiring from the US Air Force, he headed the Federal Sky Marshall program. Later, he joined the Department of Transportation as an Assistant Secretary of Transportation and advocated for nation-wide 55 mph speed limit.
Our experiences, good and bad, make us who we are. And, maybe, Davis' experience fighting the US Army at West Point made him capable of fighting the US Army when it tried to disband the 99th, and thus enabled him to establish and preserve a legacy for the generations that came later and needed inspiration.
We still need tough, hard people. And making everyone's life experience rosy will not generate them for us. Sometimes, you're gonna be offended. Laugh it off, suck it up, or lash out, but use that experience.
Conan the Grammarian at January 12, 2017 8:53 AM
Conan, thanks for the bio on B. O. Davis. If we ever lose that spirit, which I don't think we will, we just as well thow in the towel.
Now back to our regularly scheduled outrage: Would these new guidelines include women wearing sweatpants with the word 'PINK' stenciled across their ass?
Canvasback at January 12, 2017 9:20 AM
Am I the only one who thinks the only stain on Davis's record is advocating FOR the double nickel?
MarkD at January 12, 2017 9:55 AM
Am I the only one who thinks the only stain on Davis's record is advocating FOR the double nickel?
Sooner or later, everyone makes a mistake...
I R A Darth Aggie at January 12, 2017 10:23 AM
Nope. However, I'll let slide that one mistake. It was the Carter years. Everyone was kinda loopy then. OPEC embargoes made saving gasoline a priority.
Conan the Grammarian at January 12, 2017 11:49 AM
"avoiding or excluding others.": you have to let me in the tree-house, because...but this doesn't apply to the black dormitory, does it. Plus, some people really need to be avoided because they are crazy or dangerous.
"telling jokes based on a stereotype,", well, so much for humor. They agree with the Ayatollah, then, that humor has no place in society?
They have effectively made it illegal to be a jerk, have a big mouth, not love everyone with a hippy-dippy kind of love, or even be an awkward teenager. And what exactly are the punishments for these crimes? What about blacks who use the N word or play violent rap music? oh silly me, selective enforcement.
cc at January 12, 2017 12:04 PM
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