RUTHFULLY YOURS

It’s so normal now for universities to surrender when confronted with the fear of force coming from the left that what follows is only local story on Channel 8 in Salinas:

Students protesting what they believe is a “hostile climate” toward black students at the University of California Santa Cruz were locked inside an administrative building for three days until they scored a sweeping victory Thursday.

Members of the university’s African/Black Student Alliance organization took over Kerr Hall Tuesday, locked all of the doors, covered the windows with slogan-filled posters, and vowed to not leave until their demands were met.

“If the university fails us, there will be no business as usual,” A/BSA told the university’s newspaper.

That’s a pretty explicit threat of disruption by force.

But don’t worry: a heroic surrender was on the way.

Despite fearing for his safety, Chancellor George Blumenthal sat down at a negotiating table with 10 protesters at 4 p.m. Thursday.

Blumenthal declined to meet protesters inside Kerr Hall because he had received threats. Instead, the meeting was moved to the biology building, and Blumenthal agreed to meet all four of the group’s demands.

The student’s primary demand was over the Rosa Parks African-themed house, as well as combating racism at the university.

As far as the Rosa Parks residence house, some of what was demanded could have been discussed and probably achieved with much less trouble.  They wanted control of the lounge.  Fine.  Just ask.  They wanted the university to repaint the house in their own bright colors.  How about offering to repaint it yourselves, instead of demanding that the university spend a lot of money hiring people to do it?  You’ll get it done the way you want it, and self-reliance is a virtue that even Kwanzaa pays lip service to.

The fourth of the four demands is more troubling:

We demand that all new incoming students from 2017-2018 school year forward (first years and transfers) go through a mandatory in-person diversity competency training in the event that the online module is not implemented by JUNE 2017. We demand that the training be reviewed and approved by A/BSA board every two years. We demand that every incoming student complete this training by their first day of class.

Handing over control of mandatory brainwashing sessions to a group that has resorted to the threat of force is another step toward handing control of the university over to organized mobs, enforcing heartless indoctrination sessions.

I was a spectator of the late 1960s/early 1970s takeovers of many campus buildings by leftists, and I watched as the consequences of the surrenders that followed unfolded.  That is how academia took its left turn, with recruiting handed over to the activists, who staffed up two generations of leftists and brought us today’s academy.

The latest round of surrender to the mob can only make matters worse.