Now that oppression is rampant on our nation’s campuses, many colleges and universities have established “bias teams” and “diversity officers” whose job it is to root out and eliminate any whiff of patriarchy or disenfranchisement before social justice warriors melt down, safe spaces are invaded and entire campus communities collapse under the weight of their own manufactured outrage.
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The University of Minnesota, for example, which just hosted a “fat activist” to help its School of Public Health students learn why diets and exercise are the tools of “thin privilege,” has a VP of diversity who holds “office hours” on three random dates, for two hours at a time.
You have to make your appointments in advance, you forfeit your appointment if you’re five minutes late, and sign up begins 30 minutes in advance of office-hour shifts. So students should prepare for safe space violations as they vie, elbow to elbow, with other social justice warriors for some precious gripe time.
The University of Oregon has a different approach. Its “Bias Response Team,” which sounds rather ominous (nifty logo, though), is composed of seven administrators, including an LGBT director, a “multicultural inclusion specialist,” a “director of global citizenship,” and a “Native American retention specialist” to “gather information about bias incidents,” to provide a safe space for victims of bias to heal, and to educate the Oregon community on triggering micro-aggressions.
The Bias Response Team released its annual report this week and it’s clear the university is simply overrun with bias-related incidents. The team took on 85 “bias incidents” in the 2014-2015 school year, including:
A staff member reported that a poster featured a triggering image.
Bias Type: Body Size
Location: Housing
Response: Reported for information only. A BRT Advocate offered support to the reporter.
It sounds a little like someone might have had a poster of a pretty girl in their dorm room. Unacceptable!
A student reported a culturally appropriative themed party.
Bias Type: Ethnicity, Race
Location: Student Programs
Response: A BRT Advocate reached out to the reporter. A BRT Case Manager met with the president of the student program to discuss the incident.
We thought everyone had learned their lesson about tiny sombreros.
A student reported an offensive comment written on a whiteboard.
Bias Type: Sexual/Romantic Orientation
Location: Housing
Response: Reported for information only. A BRT Advocate offered support to the reporter.
It’s not as though a problematic phrase was written in a temporary medium that could be easily erased. Oh, wait.
An anonymous student reported that an official online form asked for demographic information in a way that excluded certain identity groups.
Bias Type: Gender Identity/Expression, Ethnicity, Race
Location: Administrative Building
Response: A BRT Case Manager met with administrators of the form to provide resources on inclusive surveying techniques. The administrators used these techniques on a survey they sent out the very next week.
Heaven help the student forced to select “other.”
An international student reported they were not admitted to an academic program.
Bias Type: Nationality
Location: Academic Building
Response: A BRT Advocate met with the reporter, and a BRT Case Manager held an informational conversation with the department.
Huh.
Of course, while some of the complaints are ludicrous, occasionally the responses tend to be very serious, bordering on restrictive. Universities are supposed to be bastions of intellectual discourse and challenging thought, but the University of Oregon seems to routinely step in to chill free speech where it offends the sensibilities of its more sensitive students.
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For instance, the student newspaper was chastised for its “editorial bias.”
An anonymous student reported that a newspaper gave less press coverage to trans students and students of color.
Bias Type: Ethnicity, Race, Political Affiliation
Location: Online
Response: A BRT Case Manager held an educational conversation with the newspaper reporter and editor.
A student newspaper is a constitutionally protected medium. Generally, journalists and editors at student publications aren’t subject to prior review or prior restraint—except, it seems, where social justice warriors are concerned.
In some cases, “bias incidents” were reported to school authorities, presumably so that the offender would receive some sort of training (or punishment).
A staff member reported that another staff member made a culturally incompetent remark while facilitating a training.
Bias Type: Ability, Gender Identity/Expression
Location: Administrative Building
Response: A BRT Case Manager referred the case to the Dean of Students.
It’s not clear what kind of restorative justice the Bias Response Team can dole out. They do offer “anti-bias” training and a terrifying input/output flow chart, but if the cases are serious, they’re referred, as above, to a more senior authority.
But Oregon and Minnesota are hardly the only schools with social justice regimes. According to the New Republic, hardly a conservative outlet, there are more than 100 such entities, most of them meeting behind closed doors and with little oversight from any outside authority. Many of them fail to define bias in any substantive way, and include small slights—microagressions—among the actionable “bias events.” One Bias Response Team, at the University of Michigan, was forced to respond to a “snow object” shaped like a penis.
Triggering.