RUTHFULLY YOURS

Expressing gratitude to students of color for calling attention “to actions needed to address racism and injustice on our campus,” Brown President Christina H. Paxson has developed a plan and asked students, faculty and staff to comment on it.

Brown’s own president is admitting there is racism on campus. What is it about liberal universities that make them hotbeds of racism? Why do liberals hate blacks and other minorities so much?

But at least they are offering reparations:

The university plans to invest $100 million over the next 10 years on achieving the goals outlined in the plan, Paxson said in her introduction.

Called “Pathways to Diversity and Inclusion: An Action Plan for Brown University,” the 19-page plan outlines steps for “creating a just and inclusive campus community,” increasing the university’s racial and ethnic diversity and adding issues of race, ethnicity and identity to teaching and research on such topics as environment, health, technology and global affairs.

So you have a school that claims to be one of the top in the country, Brown University, and yet it teaches environment, health, and technology, all from a white perspective. Can you imagine being forced to learn only the white version of physics? The white version of anatomy? The white version of oceanography? It’s like we’re still stuck in racist Woodrow Wilson’s early 20th century worldview!

The plan has a number of other measures:

1) The training of public safety officers. Right now, I imagine that they are untrained, simply given a gun and told to close their eyes and squeeze the trigger whenever it seems best. It’s great to know they’re going to get trained now.

2) The creation of “How Structural Racism Works” seminars. That’s a good start, but what about the unstructural racism, the racism without foundation; shouldn’t there be seminars for that as well?

3) Excluding white people from professorial jobs. The school pledges to discriminate against white people in the hiring of professors so more professors of color can be hired.

4) Discriminating against white students in graduate admissions. I fully support this. Why should white people be given special credit for grades or test scores?

5) Keeping statistics on bias. Good. I want to know how many Asian and Caucasian students with higher grades and test scores are excluded from admission.

6) Adding staff to the black student center, the women student center, and the gay/transvestite student center. I am not against this per se, but just wonder — what exactly does staff do there? Is it about serving drinks and giving massages?

7) Expand mentoring for black & gay/transvestite students. Isn’t this racism again, by saying that minorities need more mentoring than white people?

8) The Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice will study slavery in America more. We still have slavery in America? If it’s going on anywhere, I’ll bet it’s at places like Berkeley, Amherst, or especially Wellesley.

Most of this is quite good. I am glad that these liberal schools are finally owning up to their racism. But I can’t help but notice that conservative colleges don’t have these problems. Do you think the problems of racism at these schools could be solved more easily if they were simply run by conservatives?

This article was written by Ed Straker, senior writer of NewsMachete.com, the conservative news site.