After some Cal Poly students protested a “Free Speech Wall” in November, the students made a list of 41 demands for the administration—and the university has agreed to accept most of them.
The group of students call themselves SLO Solidarity, an unregistered club on campus. Before going into their list of demands (which were obtained by Mustang News), the group declares, “We are tired of the discrimination evidenced in acts such as the ‘Free Speech Wall,’ the ‘Colonial Bros and Navahoes party,’ the crops house incident, as well as the daily micro and macro aggressions that underrepresented students face on this campus. To address these issues, we have formed a student collective called SLO Solidarity. Our goal is to make Cal Poly a better place where equality for all students is realized, not just idealized.”
The Daily Wire previously reported on the free speech Berlin Wall. The Colonial Bros and Navahoes party was a frat party that women and Native Americans both found offensive, prompting a campus investigation followed by a forum about the incident that descended into a “pity party.”
The crops house incident referenced involved students in 2008 posting “racist symbols and words” on the Crops House, where crop science students resided, including a Confederate Flag and a noose. The students involved apologized, and Cal Poly did not punish them, allowing their actions qualified as free speech.
Here are some of SLO Solidarity’s most ridiculous demands:
- “We demand the expansion of the Student Ombuds service to encompass bias incident reporting systems specifically targeting instances of racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, Islamophobia, xenophobia, or queerphobia including an online reporting system with ties to the Ombuds office.”
- They also want quarterly updates from the campus office about the bias incidents.
- Gender-neutral bathrooms/housing options
- More minority faculty members and giving more minority faculty members tenure
- Mandatory diversity and inclusivity programs
- Limits on ASI campaign spending
- Funding allocated for low-income and minority students for ASI campaigns
- STEM curriculum to feature “feminism and anti-racism perspectives”
- Establish a “Women’s, Gender, & Queer Studies major”
In a statement emailed to The Daily Wire, SLO Solidarity organizer Matt Klepfer wrote:
Every underrepresented student I’ve met here has felt unsafe or unwelcome at one point or another. Many of them want to leave and regret coming here, but transferring is a really difficult and time consuming process. Some stick it out, but I’ve had a ton of friends leave. People leave not because of the quality of education, but rather because they don’t feel comfortable here. It’s time for that to change.
We likely won’t be able to improve campus quickly enough for us to experience improved campus climate, so we aren’t fighting to make our experiences any better. We are fighting to make campus better for the next generation of underrepresented students, so they don’t feel the same way we do. So they can enjoy campus like everyone else does. So they don’t feel isolated, regretting their decision coming here. I hope the administration wants that too. If they don’t, I hope they will leave and let someone who cares about every student take their place.
When asked if he, or anyone else he knew, experienced systemic discrimination at Cal Poly, Klepfer simply responded that “many underrepresented students experience systematic discrimination,” but did not respond when asked to give any specific examples.
Meha Ghariibian, another organizer for SLO Solidarity, told The Daily Wire that while he had never experienced any sort of discrimination from faculty or staff at Cal Poly, he knew friends of his that did, none of whom wanted to be interviewed by The Daily Wire.
Paul Sullivan, president of the Cal Poly College Republicans, told The Daily Wire that he had concerns about most of the demands, especially the one involving bias incident reporting, which he said could be “pretty nefarious.”
“I don’t know why we need to have a reporting system for things that aren’t illegal,” Sullivan said. “Depending on what powers the service holds… this could certainly be used to, you know, file reports against what shows up on our wall next year. And presumably, since we’re the only ones that have our name attached to it… we’ll be the ones that get the flack.”
In addition, Sullivan felt like SLO Solidarity’s demands would cost too much money without much benefit and that adding diversity and inclusivity training would be a waste of time, especially since the RA training already features that kind of training.
Limits on campaign spending would be a violation of free speech and providing funding for low-income/minority campaigns is a form of affirmative action, which is reverse discrimination. “Feminism and anti-racism” has literally nothing to do with science, technology, engineering and math education. A major like “Women’s, Gender, & Queer Studies” would do nothing to help students find a job after they graduate.
SLO Solidarity said if these demands weren’t accepted, “we will demand a new administration which will treat underrepresented students with equity and make Cal Poly a place where everyone is equally empowered to obtain a high quality education.”
Cal Poly’s administration decided to accept most of the demands.
“The university agrees with most of these student-generated ideas and indeed already had some similar proposals in development before these recent discussions began,” Keith Humphrey, vice-president of student affairs, wrote in an email to Mustang News.
There is nothing wrong with condemning individual acts of racism, and death threats like the one Klepfer received should be condemned and investigated by the campus, but it’s not feasible for the campus to pursue each instance of racism, especially when speech–even when it’s offensive–is protected by the First Amendment. The key issue is if there is systemic discrimination occurring on the campus, and so far there is no concrete evidence that this is the case.. The demands appear to be another call for the creation of a so-called “safe space” for students, which they will not find outside the confines of the campus.
Student Mitchell Cairns summed it up best in a letter posted in Mustang News:
The classes that SLO Solidarity wants do not focus on objective truths. There are many of us that do not support the modern feminism movement, because it has deviated from what feminism truly is. There are those of us that support LGBT rights, but don’t want your sexuality shoved in our faces. There are those of us that acknowledge that racial and cultural minorities can be racist toward whites.
These are all very opinionated things, and would do well in a debate-centered class. However, SLO Solidarity does not want them to be opinionated. They want them to be presented as objective truths. If you disagree with them, they want you to be marked as wrong. This is nothing short of propaganda.
The rest of SLO Solidarity’s “demands” also detract from our education. They do not make the university more inclusive. They only serve to divide us more. SLO Solidarity will be the dividing line between students who are simply here for an education, and two sides of radical students who refuse to admit that they can be wrong.
Fight SLO Solidarity’s “demands.” Tell them that we will not be bullied like this. They think that by oppressing the majority, their stance in life will be better. They think that they can blame their own problems on biases against them for their race, culture, sexuality, or sex. This is bullying, plain and simple.
Cal Poly is descending from “Learn by Doing” to “learn by political correctness.”
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