UC Irvine "Stands in Solidarity" With Whatever

I had hoped that UC Irvine, where I teach part-time, would be spared the silliness and boorishness that hit so many other campuses this week. After all, UCI has a small humanities and social sciences presence as compared to places like UCLA and UC Berkeley. The overwhelming majority of students are studying hard sciences and overall, the campus is pretty quiet (except when anti-Israel week comes around every May). In addition, we have a smaller number of radical, loopy professors on our campus.

At any rate, there was a noon gathering at the flagpoles dedicated to the proposition that a college education should be free. In addition, certain parts of the campus were adorned with messages written in chalk on the sidewalks "in solidarity with the University of Missouri" madness.

And, of course, there were the demands of the Black Student Union. Aside from hiring and centers, there is also a demand for a separate black dorm.

(I am not making this up.)

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/students-691896-uci-black.html

"Saying there’s “a climate of anti-blackness at UCI,” the students’ demands include the creation and funding of a student resource, outreach and retention center, similar to those on other UC campuses, with the hiring of two black program coordinators from the previous graduating class, as well as black psychologists, peer counselors and academic counselors. They also want administrators to promote UCI’s African American Studies program to full departmental status and create a zero-tolerance policy for racism.

In response, Chancellor Howard Gillman assembled a task force. So far, Lawhon said, administrators have agreed to at least three of the group’s demands: the creation of a permanent task force for outreach efforts, restoring a resident adviser to the Ele Si Rosa Parks Theme House, (a residence house for students interested in African American studies,) and creating a Black Scholars Excellence Hall, where dorms will be set aside for black students in the Mesa Court residence hall expansion."

What's next- separate drinking fountains for black students?

I would ask why if there is a climate of anti-blackness at UCI, would any black student choose to study there? How could it be that until recently, the chancellor at UCI was Michael Drake, himself African-American? The vice chancellor for student affairs is also African-American.

But cheer up: There is good news. All this campus craziness is alerting the American public up to a fact the rest of us have known for years-decades, no less.  American academia is in the hands of radicals who wish to tear down our institutions. This is what tax-payers are dishing their hard earned dollars for. That we would actually go back to segregated dorms.