Posted on 01/16/2018 11:28:19 AM PST by nickcarraway
Williams College Students Can Report Each Other for 'Making Comments on Social Media' About Religion or Politics
Bias incident reporting system undermines the very point of having a university.
Williams College is one of at least 100 campuses with a system in place for students to report each other for saying or doing something slightly offensive. These trivially disturbing occurrences are known as "bias incidents"—and at Williams, virtually anything could qualify.
According to the Massachusetts college's website, "name-calling and stereotyping" are examples of bias. Telling a joke that draws its humor from a stereotype is also wrong. Students shouldn't use slurs, or the word "gay" as an insult, or display "a sign that is colorcoded pink for girls and blue for boys," or imitate someone's "cultural norm or practice."
And since religion and political affiliation are considered protected classes for the purposes of categorizing bias incidents, the following kinds of expression are also considered verboten:
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
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
Mocking someone's disability on Twitter would be awful. "Making comments on social media" about another person's religious or political beliefs isn't remotely similar. Some people's religious and political beliefs should be discussed, challenged, and even mocked. As the Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker once observed, "that's the difference between a university and a madrassa."
As The College Fix noted in a recent article about Williams' bias reporting procedures, the college's website correctly distinguishes between a bias incident and a hate crime, explicitly telling students that the former is not a crime. Still, the website claims that bias incidents are "abhorrent and intolerable" and that any people who think they're victims of, or witnesses to, such an episode should feel free to report it to the proper authorities: the Dean of the College, the Office of Strategic Planning and Diversity, counselling services, or even campus security.
It bears repeating that the theory behind bias reporting systems—that relatively trivial slights, known as microaggressions, can negatively impact students' educational experience if left unaddressed—is scientifically unsound. In his review of the research concerning microaggressions, the Emory clinical psychologist Scott Lilienfeld found little evidence of such a connection between microaggressions and psychological trauma. And when the Cato Institute polled minority students about whether various microaggressions offended them, most said nope.
But some student's rights to voice their opinions on topics are more equal than others.
How much are are parents paying for this brainwashing? $70,000 per year?
"Progressives" talk a lot about "diversity." By that, Hillary and her crew, as well as the "sheeple" who follow her, mean "diversity" of anything and everything except freedom of conscience, freedom of expression of ideas which differ from the "Progressive" agenda for "changing" America from adherence and devotion to the ideas of liberty outlined in its Declaration of Independence and structured into its Constitution for self-government.
Shame on them and all whom they control through fear!
The things we are witnessing are the consequences of decades of Progressive academic and government "elitists'" indoctrination of America away from its founding principles in the ideas of liberty and toward the cultish and oppressive ideology of Progressivism, an ideology which demands complete submission to "progressive" regressives who believe they are entitled, and were appointed, to rule over everyone else. A society where Progressives rule is a society where the ideas of liberty have been subordinated to the ideas of tyranny.
Thomas Jefferson, only days before his death on July 4, 1826, explaining his inability to attend a gathering to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Declaration, wrote to Roger Weightman:
"I should, indeed, with peculiar delight, have met and exchanged there congratulations personally with the small band, the remnant of that host of worthies, who joined with us on that day, in the bold and doubtful election we were to make for our country, between submission or the sword; and to have enjoyed with them the consolatory fact, that our fellow citizens, after half a century of experience and prosperity, continue to approve the choice we made. may it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all) the Signal of arousing men to burst the chains, under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings & security of self-government. That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. the general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view. the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of god. These are grounds of hope for others. for ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them." (Jefferson, June 24, 1826, to Roger Weightman, End of Jefferson quotation)
Those who advocate for the policy that some human beings are to decide for other human beings what they will think already have committed themselves to the ideas of tyranny instead of the ideas of liberty announced in the Declaration of Independence and protected by the United States Constitution.
"The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God. The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. ... Reason and free enquiry are the only effectual agents against error." - Thomas Jefferson
What happened to little Pavlik? To his parents?
Yes, I agree.
Follow the link in comment 5.
Stasi Club of the Bruts
Definitely a policy the KGB would have approved of.
LOL!
Had to look that one up!
Yes! Whitey can't be blowing on no hollowed out tree limb!
Brownshirts?
The “progressives” favorite magic trick is to change the rules on what is allowed—without warning.
So one day you are an ideal citizen—and the next you are an evil reactionary!
Nasty, nasty stuff.
In such an environment the citizen quickly learns that silence is not the best option, it is the only option.
When forced to speak one pleads ignorance and says “I don’t know what is allowed—please tell me what I am supposed to say!”
watch for students to make up stories to humiliate someone who may have offended them, or worse.
To be most compliant with the historical standard, the shirts at the campus store they would buy for their duties should be just plain brown, no college logo.
Nazi party would have loved living in this time and seeing all these people embrace their agenda...
If you have no biases, it must be because you have no opinions, and if you have no opinions, it must be because you have no discernment, which is one of the things an education should be helping you to acquire, not helping to suppress.
You’ll pry me didgeridoo CDs from me cold dead hands!
wow the sheer arrogance of Obama truly comes through. The cluelessness of Kerry.
The Oblivious nature where these leftist think that this is only a blib on their road to totalitarianism. just wow.
This is pure propaganda. Another good reason to ignore hbo.
;-)
Dickie Durbin has squealed on President Trump about some word or phrasing he didn't like in a private meeting.
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