Rutgers
University published a guide to preventing “bias incidents” in which it warned
students that the very idea of free speech is a lie. There is a page in the
guide, dedicated to the school’s “Bias Prevention & Education Committee,”
stating, “There is no such thing as ‘free’ speech. All speech has a cost and
consequences.”
The
school has since backed off on that statement, but is racing full speed ahead
in its attempt to get students to “think before you speak” and therefore reduce
the occurrence of “microaggressions.” As part of this effort, Rutgers has
instituted a “language matters” campaign consisting, in part, of 60-90 minute
workshops examining how “negatively charged words…create a damaging environment
for all of society.” Presenters at the workshops seek “to demonstrate how
microaggressions hinder our ability to have a diverse and inclusive
society/community.”
These
heinous microaggressions are often unintentional and can be “nonverbal” or even
“environmental,” according to the university. (I’m sure it’s a microaggression if you accidentally, quietly drop your
empty Aquafina bottle into the garbage rather than a recycle bin).
Rutgers
is heroically attempting to eradicate other egregious behaviors, as well,
including microinsults, microinvalidations and microassaults. Pray tell, what
are these you ask? Telling someone
they are strong “for a girl,” would be an example of a microinsult. Asking a
person of color where they are from would be a classic case of
microinvalidation. The school claims that “avoiding someone” qualifies as a
microassault. Avoiding someone is an
assault??!
Avoiding
someone is essentially the opposite of
assaulting them. Avoidance and assault are virtually antonyms. Would you rather
have someone avoid you or assault you?
Trigger
Warning: Some may be offended
by the following statement. Please seek out the closest available safe space,
preferably one containing puppies. Grab some play-dough and a warm cookie, and
put on a Barbara Streisand song.
When
we’ve reached the point where we deliberately conflate these two concepts at
our “institutions of higher learning” because we value diversity and inclusion
over the truth, real learning, work ethic and integrity, it is (past) time to
pull the plug on them.
*************************
“Hello darkness my old friend, I’ve come to
talk with you again, because a vision softly creeping left its seeds while I
was sleeping. And the vision that was planted in my brain still remains within
the sound of silence…
“And no
one dares disturb the sound… of silence.”
(excerpts from “The Sound of Silence”--written
by Paul Simon—Copyright © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Universal Music
Publishing Group)
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