Former Provost: What We Can Learn From Evergreen College’s Meltdown

Read this description of an event and tell me where you think it happened:

“Several students, I think there was probably 20 or 30 students there, decided that they were going to get up in front and take over the entire event, with noisemakers, and drums, and horns and the PA. They actually went and took one of the microphones out of, I believe it was the vice president’s hand, just jerked it out of her hand. They were cursing, saying all kinds of things. It just went on and on. It was complete chaos. It got to the point where, after about 15 minutes President Bridges decided that the ceremony wasn’t going to happen. I personally watched some of these students go up to Chief Brown, right up to her face, and call her all kinds of names, cursing at her. As well as, she had her young children with her who were fearful of what was gong on.”

If you guessed “a college campus in America,” then you’re right. (And you’ve probably been reading this blog for a while.)  This scene, at Evergreen State College, is playing itself out across the nation. Michael Zimmerman, Evergreen’s former provost, recently described how on earth this happened — how can a college turn into a place where students are perfectly fine with calling professors racist and demanding resignations.

He writes on Huffington Post:

The Evergreen campus has become a place where identity politics takes precedence over every other aspect of social intercourse. It has become a place where it is acceptable for colleagues to levy personal attacks on colleagues in response to differences of opinion and even in response to calls for dialogue. It has become a place where it is acceptable to shout down those with whom you disagree. And it has become a place where the administration watches from the sidelines, apparently fearful of antagonizing anyone.

He also described the scene with biology professor Bret Weinstein that was very popular on YouTube.  He explained that the blow up was simmering even since he requested a conversation about the college’s Equity Council‘s plan:

The Council created a plan without any public input and scheduled a meeting in the middle of November to present it to the campus community having announced that it had already received the blessing of President Bridges. The plan, as presented, was built on a statistical analysis of retention, achievement and graduation data and proposed to make significant changes to faculty hiring practices as well as to the structure of the curriculum. The meeting offered no opportunity for open discussion of the plan and was structured as an opportunity to celebrate the plan’s creation. Building on the region’s Salish culture, the meeting concluded with attendees being asked to metaphorically climb into a canoe to embark on a journey to equity. The implication was that if people failed to board the canoe, they would be left behind. Indeed, the sentiment was expressed by some that if you were unwilling to get on board, perhaps Evergreen was not the place you should be working.

Sheesh.  You know what’s coming next.  Immediately, because he was trying to apply common sense and reasoning to the plan, he was called a racist.

A faculty member who sat on the Equity Council explicitly called him a racist in two different faculty meetings. When Professor Weinstein asked for an opportunity to defend himself, he was told that a faculty meeting was not the appropriate venue for such a defense. When he asked what the appropriate venue was, he was told that no such venue existed because he was a racist. Neither the president nor the interim provost interceded to make it clear that leveling such charges against a fellow faculty member was unacceptable within the college community. When Professor Weinstein spoke privately with both of those administrators about these incidents, they both acknowledged the inappropriateness of the behavior but each said that it was the responsibility of the other to do something about it. Neither administrator took any public action in response.

When even the adults provide no adult supervision, things don’t turn out well.  If the Democratic Fascists have their way, the entire nation will look like Evergreen College.  Like the book, Lord of the Flies, when not taught the concepts of “good,” or “civility,” and in fact when they are taught the opposite, young students become dangerous, violent thugs.

Image Credit: PRO Washington State House Republicans on Flickr

h/t HotAir