The University of Michigan’s law school has cancelled a planned “self-care” event, designed to help students cope with Donald Trump’s election, following a wave of Internet ridicule.
The event, called “Post-Election Self-Care With Food and Play” appeared Friday on the school’s website, entreating students to work out their Trump-driven anxiety with “stress-busting self-care activities” including coloring, blowing bubbles, sculpting with Play-Doh and “positive card making.”
The event has now been removed from UMich’s website, though a version still lives on Google cache.
The event, hosted by the school’s “embedded psychologist” Reena Sheth, drew swift and acerbic criticism from people on social media, who found it risible that adult graduate students, studying to enter a difficult and often stressful profession, would require crayons and comfort food to cope with a function of American democracy.
What, no binkies? If this is true: LOL https://t.co/9ZCZImfCSK via @dailycaller
— Rick Duncan (@FedSocLawProf) November 13, 2016
.@UMichLaw held a Play-Doh and coloring event for LAW STUDENTS whose feelings were hurt by Trump win.
God help us!https://t.co/8NrppjcO0F
— Mark Romano (@TheMarkRomano) November 12, 2016
So disappointed at my alma mater @umich providing play doh and coloring books for students following election. What, no milk and cookies??
— Allen Rioux (@allenrioux) November 11, 2016
UMich law school, apparently, responded by removing the event from its website. Instead, it appears, the law school will host a more traditional, professional event on Friday, featuring a panel of three of the school’s law professors, discussing the “limitations of executive power”.
But UMich students who require “self-care” in order to achieve emotional balance, are still engaging in these prekindergarten activities, just not as part of an organized event.
This is at the University of Michigan, not a preschool. pic.twitter.com/E6hPd7Sg0F
— Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) November 10, 2016
In deference to the students, UMich does appear to be one place where there has been a documented case of harassment against a Muslim student.
A disheveled and intoxicated man in his “20s or 30s,” approached a young woman wearing a hijab on campus on Friday evening. She claims the man brandished a lighter and threatened to set her headscarf on fire if she did not remove it. The UMich Public Safety department and the Ann Arbor Police Department says they are investigating, and that they are calling the incident a “hate crime.”
