Monday, November 30, 2015



University Students Comforted with ‘Counseling’ after Seeing Confederate Flag on Laptop

What wimps!



University students in Massachusetts who were upset by an image of a Confederate flag sticker on another student’s laptop were offered counseling services at Framingham State University.

The offer came after the university’s “chief diversity and inclusion officer,” Sean Huddleston, described the display of the small Confederate flag sticker as a “bias incident.”

According to Metrowest Daily News, students filed two “bias reports” within the past month as a result of a student displaying the flag in some way. The most recent bias incident – reported on November 19 – was a report of a student having seen a Confederate flag sticker on another student’s laptop.

In an email to students, Huddleston did not declare a ban on displaying the flag, but claimed that it upsets some students.  MRCTV obtained the email in which Huddleston wrote:

A student reported a bias incident today, in which the image of the Confederate flag was displayed on a laptop. Many of you may be aware that last month we received a Bias Incident involving two other students for a similar issue. Although related in nature, the two incidents involve separate parties.

The FSU Bias Protocol and Response Team has been made aware of the incident, and will meet to determine any measures that may be needed to respond to the incident. Our primary goal continues to be to expeditiously address and resolve incidents of bias that impede our progress toward a welcoming and inclusive campus community.

“Many see the Confederate flag as an inflammatory symbol of oppression and constant reminder of a dark period in the history of the United States in which slavery was a legal,” Huddleston continued, while “Others may simply view this flag as a symbol of shared southern heritage and in memory of the Civil War.”

Huddleston said the flag and other symbols “are not condoned by Framingham State University, as they violate the core values of our institution and not considered consistent with our desire to maintain a safe, respectful and welcoming campus community for all.”

He further described “bias incidents” as “situations that may not rise to the level of a criminal act, but still clearly communicate offensive or derogatory behaviors.”

Observing that students on campus in general may have suffered a traumatic reaction from seeing an image of the Confederate flag, Huddleston continued, “We recognize that bias incidents are upsetting for the entire campus community, but especially for the target(s) and witness(es) of these incidents.”

“It is strongly suggested that anyone impacted by a bias incident find someone to speak with,” he wrote.

SOURCE






UK: We used to send young people to university to expand their horizons - now the main objective seems to be close their minds

By Katie Hopkins

Was it something I said? Hardly – because I’d only just introduced myself as part of a panel at Brunel University about the future of the welfare state when about 50 students stood, turned their backs in and walked out en masse, as part of a staged protest, actively encouraged by a member of the University staff who promptly tweeted his support:

Naturally I carried on regardless. Because, for them, I have no regard. Because they are already decided.

Or, as the Left-wing writer Frank deBoer observing the way students on campus look to silence anyone with an alternative view put it: 'What's more, we are all already decided and the thing you think is deeply ridiculous.’

After what happened to me at Brunel University I wonder if we no longer teach students how to think but what to think.

A terrifying number conform to one way of thinking. Not only do they demand that you comply with their view, but seek to deride and delegitimise anyone with an alternative opinion.

And it’s not just students. Remember the argument between Elton John and Dolce & Gabbana earlier this year over the use of IVF for gay couples? Dolce & Gabbana were not supportive of the process.

The response from the LGBT community was typical: Boycott Dolce & Gabbana. Don't debate the issue - label it and shut it down. Those preaching tolerance suddenly became the most intolerant of them all.

And it isn't just minorities who can play the offence card. Nobel Laureate Sir Tim Hunt fell victim to it earlier this year when he made a quip about the impact of women in laboratories, and was shamed from his profession.

Shunned by his peers and thrown out of UCL for sharing an off-the-cuff remark, his quote was played from the Twitter gallows as feminists threw rotten tomatoes, as a stark reminder to others that silence is easier than confrontation.

This generation of students raised on social media are fast to join crusades and shun traitors, and demand the head of the guilty served to them on a pike.

There have always been people who believe they have a right not to be offended. But in recent times their numbers have exploded, creating an Offended Young Nation.

Offence is no longer regarded as an emotional reaction. If someone is offended by something I say, they now have the right to bring a public charge against me because I have done something wrong and should be punished for it.

Three hundred thousand people signed a petition to have me sacked as a columnist; 55,000 signed a petition to have me swapped for a Syrian migrant. Neither with any effect.

Students no longer debate. They label and slate:

    When I supported Ched Evans's right to re-employment, they called me a rape apologist.

    Because I'm a Conservative-voting female, they decided I was a homophobe.

    When I criticised our immigration policy, they labelled me a racist.

    And because I am not a fan of huge divorce settlements for women, they labelled me a misogynist.

All because my views are different from theirs.

Students on American and British campuses are plagued by this lazy thinking. At Yale a Professor and Associate Master is under heavy fire for tactfully suggesting students should wear whatever Halloween costume they felt comfortable in.

The Yale offendatrons screamed out the label of first choice - racist - and want her fired because she wrote: 'If you don’t like a costume someone is wearing, look away, or tell them you are offended. Talk to each other. Free speech and the ability to tolerate offence are the hallmarks of a free and open society.'

Sadly I fear our young society is a lot less free than we might hope.

Encouraged by Left-leaning tutors, students do not wish to open their minds to society. They want to hear what they have already decided is true.

It might explain why Brunel University students who wouldn’t listen to me thronged off-site to hear the wisdom of hate-preachers Uthman Lateef and Doctor Fikry.

Lateef has publicly stated he hates homosexuals and Dr Fikry told the students: ‘Killing the Sunni is to raise your rank in Paradise, raping a Sunni woman is a matter that pleases Allah.’

Not one student walked out of these talks - presumably because these speakers aren't whitesplaining or this is accepted thinking at Brunel and does not cause offence?

So to those who stayed and debated openly, I am grateful. Not because you stayed to listen, but because you give me hope our future is not entirely populated by closed minds.

SOURCE





The grievance generation

Whiny college students are protesting when their feelings are hurt

Remember the campus unrest in the 1960s? Whether you agreed with the students or not, they were protesting about things of great consequence — like civil rights, or the military draft, or the Vietnam War. They had chants like “hell no, we won’t go.” Those were the good old days.

Now we are witnessing whiney college kids marching in the streets screaming obscenities or taking over the university president’s office for what? Feeling slighted? Having their feelings hurt? Talk about rebels without a cause.

One of the trendy demand by the aggrieved students is free college tuition. And why not? Nearly everything else these millennials have ever had was handed to them for free.

I’ve traveled to many campuses in recent weeks and experienced the melodrama of student grievances first-hand. To be fair, I should note that many of the students are impressive with open and inquiring minds. It’s only a loud-mouthed minority whose mission is to shut out and shut down views they find a way to be offended by.

These leftist kids are agitated. Angry. This the hangover effect, I suspect, from the shattered utopian dreams of Hope and Change. I have noticed in recent months that these students attend my lectures not to learn anything — they know everything already — but hoping that I will slip up or say something they can label as offensive or that violates their eight-volume campus speech code.

When I ask them what they want, a typical response is a “radical transformation of the economy” to reduce income inequality, racism, sexism, and, of course, to end climate change. Government will command these changes to achieve this transformation. These are young Stalinists who are willing to suspend almost every basic freedom and civil liberty for “the greater good.”

They’re on a roll having already successfully removed university presidents and faculty for the sin of being insufficiently responsive to their latest grievance.

At one recent visit to University of Massachusetts I asked a few kids what their plans were for Thanksgiving. They practically spat at me for even mentioning this white supremacy holiday, that only trivializes and glorifies the genocide of the Native Americans by the pilgrims. Wow. Sorry, I brought it up, especially in your “safe space.” if they had their way, I would be sentenced to six months of sensitivity training.

I can’t help contrasting these campus attitudes with a recent meeting I had with a group of soldiers who had returned from Afghanistan. These brave men and women risked their lives everyday. They had real bullets shot at them, not the verbal ones that the campus leftists find so offensive. They have genuine and in some cases life-changing injuries — ringing in the ear, post-traumatic stress syndrome, and broken limbs.

They served so that the leftists on college campuses who day after day remain sheltered in their cocoons and protest the wounds to their fragile psyche of having to listen to a point of view they disagree with. The horror. How do they little darlings go on? Maybe they will do all us a favor and stay there and never graduate.

Can you imagine the tyranny you would bring upon yourself by actually hiring one of these self-righteous complainers. Within a month they’d be slapping you with a lawsuit for not having a transgender bathroom. And you’ll be thinking: Right, but did you actually finish that assignment I gave you? Employers tell me despondently that the millennials are by far the highest maintenance generation they’ve ever seen. One recruiter recently told me: “They need their hands held, they demand affirmation, they are forever whining about their feelings. We really don’t have time to deal with their petty grievances.” Ironically, when I graduated from college in the early 1980s they called us the “me generation.”

Who’s to blame for all of this? Alas, we are. The parents who caved in to every instant gratification demand they ever had, arranged “play dates,” for them, showered them with daily positive affirmation, and gave them time-outs rather than spankings. Our schools are to blame for labeling them “gifted and talented,” and awarding them towering trophies for finishing in 6th place so as not to damage their self-esteem. The college professors who corrupt their minds with hate-America ideology and now are the administrators who cave into their every petty demand.

Worst of all are the successful Americans who well-meaningly think they are being charitable by giving their money to the very universities that are indoctrinating these kids with nonsensical ideas. Why? Just stop. Society would be better off if you just burned your money.

Yes, I admit that these complaints are made of every generation. But this one seems seriously off and we made them this way. A generation that has grown up in more affluence and personal freedom than any other in history has been taught to hate the free enterprise wealth-creation process that gave them what they want in the first place. A generation that has been drilled since pre-kindergarten that the highest virtue in life is tolerance, has suddenly become the most intolerant in history.

What they lack most is gratitude. Something to think about this Thanksgiving.

SOURCE



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