Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Begging To Be Treated Like Children

Students of the 60s wanted universities to get out of the in loco parentis mode, today's students want to return to mother's warm bosom:
Half a century ago, student activists liberated themselves—partly, at least—from in loco parentis: the paternalistic notion that college administrators should serve as watchful guardians, restricting students’ activities and rights in order to provide a safe environment for them, the way a mother or father would. Today, students across the country are determined to undo this liberation.

At Yale University, a group of aggrieved minority students have demanded the resignations of administrators who wisely rejected calls for emotional coddling...

Students at the University of Missouri were even more immediately successful: they forced President Tim Wolfe to resign for being insufficiently attentive to a string of painful incidents—someone yelling a racial slur at the black student government president, the appearance of a swastika on campus, etc. Wolfe’s ouster was prompted by a student’s hunger strike and the football team’s decision to boycott all future games.

Perhaps the most astonishing thing about these students’ censorious actions is how profoundly conservative they are. By communicating an expectation that their master or president protect them from unsightly Halloween costumes, or promise them no more hurtful words will be said at their expense, students are essentially calling for a return to campus life under in loco parentis. They reject not merely a free and open campus dialogue, but adulthood itself.
Schools (and students) expect mommy and daddy to pay for college, they want the college to protect them from scary monsters who don't think like they do, but they want to be free from any strictures themselves.  In other words, what we're seeing is the very definition of a spoiled brat.

Perhaps mockery is part of the solution:
David Burge, a.k.a. @Iowahawkblog, had the perfect idea last night to answer the lunacy of what we’re witnessing at college campuses across America.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to #NatioanlOffendACollgeStudentDay...
What follows at the link is comedy gold.

1 comment:

Jean said...

Yesterday I read an article that questioned the reality of the swastika. Is it supposed to have been a, ahem, poop swastika in a dorm bathroom? Apparently there are no eyewitnesses or photos, just a story? I'm not too clear on it, but I'd sure be interested in hearing more about evidence for its reality, if any.