Self-loathing professors and faculty members at Occidental College are voting on a system that will allow students to report them for “microaggressions,” according to Reason.
The proposed system is a response to the black student solidarity movement at the college campus which had resulted in student protests against alleged racism by faculty members and demands that the president of the school resign, and is scheduled to be introduced by the school’s Faculty Council at a faculty meeting on December 1.
“We recognize and are inspired by the leadership of Oxy United for Black Liberation and their call for widespread institutional change in the culture of the College,” the sob letter/”microaggressions” draft begins. “We affirm that Black lives matter and also affirm the broader ideals of social justice to which their call speaks. We recognize that the structural racism and other forms of oppression of the College violate our commitment to ensuring equity and excellence in our educational programs for all of our students. We also acknowledge that our collective inaction as a faculty body makes us complicit in the failures of the College to make our Mission a lived reality. For this, we apologize for failing you, our students.”
In addition to its “microaggressions” reporting system, the plan calls for mandatory diversity training for faculty members and a requirement that all academic departments at the school include “issues of cultural and racial identity and diversity” in the curriculum.
According to the plan, the creation of a “microaggression”-reporting system would help to acknowledge “the power imbalance between faculty and students.” One example of such atrocious power imbalance would likely be the inability of students to choose their own grades, which forces them to have to study for their exams instead of participate in day-long peace rallies.
Despite the proposed resolution’s alleged focus to reduce inequality by keeping students and faculty on a level playing field, it makes an exception for race by saying it will especially “prioritize” the success of students of color over other students.
External reviews of academic departments and programs will prioritize the manner and extent to which departments promote the success of a diverse group of students and in particular, historically underrepresented students of color.
Greg Lukianoff, the president at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, said that he is “troubled” by the proposed faculty resolution, vowing to challenge the resolution if it is adopted by the faculty.
We are troubled by the new proposed faculty resolution at Occidental College as it requires speech policing, substitutes academic freedom and judgment with top-down ideological commitments, and stifles diversity of opinion in the favor of imposed orthodoxy.
Given that microaggressions can be unconscious and often exist in the eye of the beholder, the call to “address and report” professors’ microaggressions creates a bottomless pit of speech policing.
Mandatory diversity training of all faculty puts even seasoned professors in the position of being told what ideological assumptions they should or even must have. Academic freedom requires professors to follow their own research where it takes them regardless of the opinions of paid consultants.
Finally the requirement that all professors, even hard science professors, incorporate “issues of cultural and racial identity and diversity in their curricula,” violates basic tenets of academic freedom and scholarly independence.
“We also acknowledge that our collective inaction as a faculty body makes us complicit in the failures of the College to make our Mission a lived reality. For this, we apologize for failing you, our students.”
The pantywaist professors at Occidental College
Reason said that it had not received requested comment from Occidental College or Faculty Council Chair Anthony Chase.