This story pretty much sums up today's situation in academia

[Dan Druff]

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation...onger-teaching


Cliffs:

- A black drama student told a visiting professor at Coastal Carolina University (CCU) that she wanted to meet "nonwhite students". The professor complied with the request, and wrote a name of their nonwhite students on a whiteboard.

- The teacher didn't erase the whiteboard. Other students came in later and came to the very rational and totally sane conclusion that this was a list of nonwhite students to target in some way (lol).

- An "investigation" ensued, and instead of just explaining the truth and being done with it, everyone apologized to the offended students. The department head apologized. The visiting professor (who had done absolutely nothing wrong) apologized, writing, "No matter the good intention. ... I still want you to know I’m an idiot and I am sorry."

- One of the drama professors in the e-mail chain -- the lone conservative in the drama department at CCU -- thought this was all ridiculous. Steve Earnest, who is white and 62, wrote in a department-wide e-mail, "Sorry but I don’t think it’s a big deal. I'm just sad people get their feelings hurt so easily. And they are going into Theatre?"

- Everyone freaked out and demanded his resignation. He was then fired from teaching by the woke drama department and given bullshit background administrative jobs.

- There are further demands to fire him completely






Apparently there was a Title IX complaint against him for another incident. What horrible, awful thing did he do that time?

On Instagram, he wrote, "Sorry, not attractive", as a comment on this video where a student flipped off the camera:

A post shared by on Jan 01, 2017 at 12:00pm PDT

 

https://instagram.com/p/CHrDetIF451/

Why was there a Title IX complaint? Because he said "not attractive", and that was supposedly about the girl's race -- not that she's flipping off the camera for no reason.


Anyway, the school kept pressuring him to take early retirement. He refused to do so, and in fact claimed that his rights to free speech, due process, and academic freedom were being violated.

He ultimately won his appeal, and he's going to be back to teaching in January 2022.

Keep in mind that everyone agrees at this point that the whiteboard thing was a complete misunderstanding. Earnest wasn't even involved in that incident -- he was only commenting that these students needed to toughen up, given the rigors and frequent rejections in the world of theater. For that, they want him fired.

See next post for some lol excerpts from the article.

[Dan Druff]

It wasn’t long before department leaders released a response: “We failed. We, the CCU Theatre department, were negligent in our responsibility to render care and compassion. … We acknowledge the pain and triggering.”

The department instituted several changes, forming a “diversity, equity and inclusion” committee, updating a pedagogical list of plays to include more diverse voices, hosting virtual town halls and requiring faculty to attend workshops including “Anti-Racism as a Daily Practice” and “From Snap Judgements to Micro-aggressions.”

Most distressing to Earnest was the rush of administrators to side with the students. He said that in a faculty Zoom meeting the department chair, Eric M. Hall, had characterized the words in his email as “white supremacist language.”

Under pressure from students, administrators had to decide whether Earnest should be disciplined for violating those emerging norms. As more speech is construed as hurtful or even dangerous, can a professor be dismissed for creating an “uncomfortable” learning environment or “endangering” students?

Earnest later received a letter from the university saying that his behavior was under review to determine whether his emails “endangered the welfare of students” or violated the code of ethical conduct requiring employees to “create a respectful environment” and “nurture a climate of fairness and civility toward others. … even in the face of disagreement.”

[limitles]

The department instituted several changes, forming a “diversity, equity and inclusion” committee, updating a pedagogical list of plays to include more diverse voices, hosting virtual town halls and requiring faculty to attend workshops including “Anti-Racism as a Daily Practice” and “From Snap Judgements to Micro-aggressions.”

Your world is changing. You cannot deal with it
SUFFER

[country978]

For the 1st time ever I cannot finish reading a druff post. these are not lol comments they're unbelievably outrageous and offensive. I'm so sick of these dumb people. Sometimes I think its all our fault anyway for spoiling our kids.

[limitles]

The department instituted several changes, forming a “diversity, equity and inclusion” committee, updating a pedagogical list of plays to include more diverse voices, hosting virtual town halls and requiring faculty to attend workshops including “Anti-Racism as a Daily Practice” and “From Snap Judgements to Micro-aggressions.”

Your world is changing. You cannot deal with it
SUFFER

You do not even belong in this thread. North American economy is roughly in third place compared to the rest. You don't realize the impacts of this at this time but it will change your or your offsprings lives to a point you will recognize

[Texter]

Reminds me of that case where that couple worked as residence advisors or whatever and told students that it wasn’t their job to tell adults what the could and couldn’t wear for Halloween.

Haha…students today are spoiled pussies. Cases like this minimize when something serious happens…people just get to the point where they see so much of this shit they don’t care anymore.

[gut]

Something is off about this story. I don't have LA Times access, but found this, which is slightly different than Druff's cliffs

https://www.thefire.org/a-theater-pr...e-termination/

I know we are dealing with idiot college kids here, but what good does it do to write a bunch of names on a whiteboard? Like, are they supposed to go look them up in the fucking phone book? How does the visiting artist know all these other people?

Not saying the professor did anything wrong, but story just really doesn't make much sense.

[The Boz]

Your world is changing. You cannot deal with it
SUFFER

You do not even belong in this thread. North American economy is roughly in third place compared to the rest. You don't realize the impacts of this at this time but it will change your or your offsprings lives to a point you will recognize

Nope, the lazy and stupid will always be poor by their OWN life choices. Junkies will always end up broke and dead early because no matter what you give them, they will blow it. Certain blacks will always look to blame something that ended almost 150 years ago for their life choices. Instead of seizing the opportunities right in found of them with all the advantages they are given today.

And those who work hard and make the tough life choices will always do just fine.

NOPE, nothing will change until people start taking responsibility for their lives with their decisions. I’m confident not enough are willing to do that to ever make a difference.

[Dan Druff]

Something is off about this story. I don't have LA Times access, but found this, which is slightly different than Druff's cliffs

https://www.thefire.org/a-theater-pr...e-termination/

I know we are dealing with idiot college kids here, but what good does it do to write a bunch of names on a whiteboard? Like, are they supposed to go look them up in the fucking phone book? How does the visiting artist know all these other people?

Not saying the professor did anything wrong, but story just really doesn't make much sense.

FYI, just have a second browser which auto-clears cookies when you close it, and then you can always read LA Times articles.

Anyway, the visiting professor taught a class at the college, but wasn't employted directly by CCU. Not sure how the girl requesting the names were supposed to find these students. Maybe look them up on social media or something?

Doesn't really matter because it is acknowledged that the whiteboard thing happened, and that it was just a (stupid and paranoid) misunderstanding. The controversy here stems from this one professor refusing to treat this as something needing an apology -- he wasn't the one involved at all in the incident itself.

[gut]

Something is off about this story. I don't have LA Times access, but found this, which is slightly different than Druff's cliffs

https://www.thefire.org/a-theater-pr...e-termination/

I know we are dealing with idiot college kids here, but what good does it do to write a bunch of names on a whiteboard? Like, are they supposed to go look them up in the fucking phone book? How does the visiting artist know all these other people?

Not saying the professor did anything wrong, but story just really doesn't make much sense.

FYI, just have a second browser which auto-clears cookies when you close it, and then you can always read LA Times articles.

Anyway, the visiting professor taught a class at the college, but wasn't employted directly by CCU. Not sure how the girl requesting the names were supposed to find these students. Maybe look them up on social media or something?

Doesn't really matter because it is acknowledged that the whiteboard thing happened, and that it was just a (stupid and paranoid) misunderstanding. The controversy here stems from this one professor refusing to treat this as something needing an apology -- he wasn't the one involved at all in the incident itself.

Yeah, I'm completely in agreement with the prof's actions. Don't apologize if you have no reason to apologize.

But that first part of the story is still just baffling. Even when I was in college, there were minority student groups with flyers all over the place saying when they would meet. Black student alliance, hispanic one, asian one, etc. That would be a good place to start for that student.

[Sloppy Joe]

Definitely don't send your son to college, have him go to welding school or something.

[Kuntmissioner]

Todd, I'm curious to know if you agree with the boz and his nuanced point of view?

[nutty007]

Interesting article and demonstrates how soft we have become as human beings, it was in short a ' non story'

What does however intrigue me is if the original student had asked for a list of 'white only' students what the response would have been and the presumptions made..

I hate how this world is becoming and the humans that reside, I know it is common to feel nostalgic and reminisce about the 'good old days' but my god how I long for the eighties and early nineties..

[Kalam]

Something is off about this story. I don't have LA Times access, but found this, which is slightly different than Druff's cliffs

https://www.thefire.org/a-theater-pr...e-termination/

I know we are dealing with idiot college kids here, but what good does it do to write a bunch of names on a whiteboard? Like, are they supposed to go look them up in the fucking phone book? How does the visiting artist know all these other people?

Not saying the professor did anything wrong, but story just really doesn't make much sense.

FYI, just have a second browser which auto-clears cookies when you close it, and then you can always read LA Times articles.

Anyway, the visiting professor taught a class at the college, but wasn't employted directly by CCU. Not sure how the girl requesting the names were supposed to find these students. Maybe look them up on social media or something?

Doesn't really matter because it is acknowledged that the whiteboard thing happened, and that it was just a (stupid and paranoid) misunderstanding. The controversy here stems from this one professor refusing to treat this as something needing an apology -- he wasn't the one involved at all in the incident itself.

LA Times is notorious for leaving out any details that dont fit a super progressive narrative, and their interpretation of what happened in this instance is no different. I skimmed the article and I guarantee Druff's tweet timeline has more of the pertinent details than the LA Times article.

Also, I wouldn't be surprised if we aren't getting the full story of why the names are on the blackboard. But it isn't really pertinent to the story, as the professor being attacked wasn't even involved; he just called out the students for their performative outrage and hyper sensitivity.

[Kalam]

Definitely don't send your son to college, have him go to welding school or something.

Yeah. Unless things change drastically in the next 8 years or so, unless my son looks like he has an aptitude for engineering or medicine or computer science (so far he has shown no such aptitude), I definitely am not sending him to a university just so he can burn through all his college savings just to be given some bad ideas about how the world works and be given no useful skills in the process. I definitely am going to try to steer him towards something more useful and mentally healthy, and invest his savings instead of blowing it all on college.

[Dan Druff]

Todd, I'm curious to know if you agree with the boz and his nuanced point of view?

I don't agree with everything Boz said, but I do agree with the general principle that nobody should be excused for bad behavior just because they're a member of a so-called "victim" group.

The aim should be to treat everyone equally, regardless of race, sexual preference, religion, etc. The goal should NOT be equal outcome among all subgroups. That's impossible. The goal should be equal opportunity, but not equal outcome.

The problem is that college campuses are now entrenched in a dogma of victim culture, and that takes priority over everything else, including free speech. Furthermore, if anyone from a "victim" group claims to be offended, even if nothing objectionable occurred, everyone falls all over themselves to apologize and take blame. That's not healthy, and it just hurts these students when they get out into the real world and life isn't like that.

That was the point this professor was trying to make. The world of theather is very tough -- between the intense competition, frequent rejection, demanding/rude directors, etc. If you have a snowflake personality, you're not going to make it. He refused to go along with this BS exercise where everyone apologized for something which didn't deserve an apology, and he got fired from his position because of it

Glad to see he ultimately won, but only because conservative media took interest in the case and hired lawyers to help him.

[Sloppy Joe]

Definitely don't send your son to college, have him go to welding school or something.

Yeah. Unless things change drastically in the next 8 years or so, unless my son looks like he has an aptitude for engineering or medicine or computer science (so far he has shown no such aptitude), I definitely am not sending him to a university just so he can burn through all his college savings just to be given some bad ideas about how the world works and be given no useful skills in the process. I definitely am going to try to steer him towards something more useful and mentally healthy, and invest his savings instead of blowing it all on college.

My bachelor's degrees (psychology and economics) are useless to my daily work.

My master's (applied data science) served as a good foot in the door but honestly think I could have learned basic R, Python, SQL at some community college just as effectively and learned on the job from there.

I do think there's more value for a foreigner looking to work in America as a means for how to present work, cultural norms etc. and to a lesser extent Americans with no life experience but for the average kid looking to party it's a complete waste.

My son will have the option if he has a specific track in mind but if he as aimless as I was at 18, no chance.

[Dan Druff]

Here is the problem:

In the white collar world, there is still a stigma against those who didn't go to college. There shouldn't be, but there is. You can't change that system -- only work within it.

Therefore, if you want that sort of job, you are giving yourself a big handicap by skipping college. Even if your degree has nothing to do with the position you're going for, they love to see that degree. The thinking is that someone who was responsible enough to get a college diploma is more likely to be responsible on the job. Probably true to some extent, but it's way overvalued, especially given that some schools and majors are fairly easy to skate through with relatively little work.

I realize I'm old and it's been three decades since my college years, but some things haven't changed. I was in a major (computer science) which did provide coursework relevant to my chosen upcoming career, but most majors outside of the sciences and engineering didn't do much of that. For others, college was just a stepping stone, such as those going into law, who needed a good college GPA in order to get into desirable law schools.

Anyway, bottom line is that academia has strayed too far from its original intent, and for the average attendee provides only limited practical usefulness. Furthermore, they have become backbreakingly expensive to attend, as the scammy college loan situation encouraged schools to rapidly jack up tuition. A big problem is that even public colleges operate on their own closed budgets, so they operate more with a profit motive than a motive to serve the people. This was true even in my day. I was repeatedly alarmed at how colleges would go as far as breaking state law to earn a few extra bucks, and banked on the ignorance of their young clientele to get away with it.

Academia honestly needs tremendous reform. There are so many things wrong with it, and it goes far beyond the extreme leftist echo chamber which now exists at almost all campuses. Even the admissions process is corrupt. The scandal with Lori Loughlin just scratched the surface there.



Bottom line: Will I send Benjamin to college? Sadly, the answer is probably yes, even if nothing changes. From what I see of him so far, he will likely go into some kind of white collar career, and I don't want the lack of college degree to hurt him. Fortunately he isn't easily brainwashed, but I can't tell you how devastated I'd be if he went off to college and came back as one of those terrible SJW types.

[limitles]

You do not even belong in this thread. North American economy is roughly in third place compared to the rest. You don't realize the impacts of this at this time but it will change your or your offsprings lives to a point you will recognize

Nope, the lazy and stupid will always be poor by their OWN life choices. Junkies will always end up broke and dead early because no matter what you give them, they will blow it. Certain blacks will always look to blame something that ended almost 150 years ago for their life choices. Instead of seizing the opportunities right in found of them with all the advantages they are given today.

And those who work hard and make the tough life choices will always do just fine.

NOPE, nothing will change until people start taking responsibility for their lives with their decisions. I’m confident not enough are willing to do that to ever make a difference.

The middle class in North America is shrinking, dropping 10 to 13% in the last ten years. Half of all households have less than $10,000 in annual disposable income. Median income in real dollars is now what it was in1997

By contrast the middle class of BRIC nations, Brazil, Russia, India, and China is projected to double by 2030, a growth surge not seen the Industrial Revolution.

The BRIC nations are becoming world power shapers in population, incomes and influence

Russia is now the worlds biggest energy producer supplying the Western Union giving it the third largest reserve of foreign currency.

BRIC nations are sending big signals to the world