https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/07/how-universities-weaponize-freshman-orientation/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=right-rail&utm_content=top-stories&utm_term=second
Instead of simply informing students about the resources on campus, orientation can amount to an ideological hazing.
I arrived at Princeton University in September 2019. I had looked at Princeton online and thought, “one day . . .” Suddenly, I was experiencing day one. My eager arrival on campus was emotionally amplified by bright smiles, copious pamphlets, and dormitory supervisors dancing in tiger suits. Orientation innocently began with introductions of names and hometowns — then descended into divisive lectures and panels. The intention of these programs was not to assimilate us into our new (and intimidating) surroundings, but rather to coerce students into accepting and affirming a resident orthodoxy.
We often hear about how college students are indoctrinated in the classroom. But the brainwashing begins on move-in day.
Ideally, freshman orientation should be a procedural, social assimilation to familiarize students with the resources the university offers and how to access them. However, Princeton University undertook a mission to present incoming students with sexual, moral, and political guidance, wholly omitting widely held perspectives and effectively insulating progressive views from intellectual trial. Moreover, attendance at these events was compulsory, thus constituting an ideological hazing.
The mandatory “Safer Sexpo” event series within orientation provides condoms, lube, and other sexual products; in 2020, the university provided unspecified “sex toys” to students and emphasized “solo sex.” Each year, freshmen are given a “You’re So Sexy When You Aren’t Transmitting STI’s” comic book with crude pornographic drawings, complete with a condom attached to the back; the author’s website clarifies that “the ideal target audience for this book is college campuses and sex positive organizations that are involved with young people and adults.” Students are informed where they can obtain contraception, abortifacients, and abortions, but there’s no mention of local pregnancy centers. There is a mandatory LGBTQ+ panel, which provides flyers of “The Genderbread Person” diagram. The Gender + Sexuality Resource Center Peer Ed Training Terminology handouts include a “primer on trans inclusive feminism” which explains that “trans women are women” and “there’s no ifs, ands or buts about it.” The Way You Move play includes characters hooking up without regret; meanwhile, an abstinent character is nonexistent.
