This is beyond parody. Harvard decided that it would be a grand idea to give students talking points for the holidays so that they could follow the politically correct line on various topics.
Harvard has advised students to lecture their non-Ivy-League relatives on liberal values in a bizarre set of holiday placemats to take home over Christmas.
The laminated cards raise some likely hot topics that lesser-educated family members may raise at the dinner table, then offers a suggested response.
Covering such complex issues as police brutality, racial divisions, and the Syrian war, one of the sections tells students to say: ‘Racial justice includes welcoming Syrian refugees.’
One question to be braced for is: ‘Why are black students complaining? Shouldn’t they be happy to be in college?’
In response, the worldly scholars should ‘calmly’ explain: ‘When I hear students expressing their experiences on campus I don’t hear complaining.’
Students are also told what side to take on the issue of murdered black teenager Tamir Rice in 2014 – an issue which continues to divide the country.
To make it through the spate of pesky questions, Harvard advised, students should ‘breathe’ and ‘listen mindfully’.
After a furor was raised about it, Harvard made “a sorry we were caught” response:
Thomas Dingman, dean of freshmen, and Stephen Lassoed, dean of student life, said in a letter to students on Wednesday: ‘We write to acknowledge that the placemat distributed in some of your dining halls this week failed to account for the many viewpoints that exist on our campus on some of the most complex issues we confront as a community and society today.
‘Our goal was to provide a framework for you to engage in conversations with peers and family members as you return home for the winter break, however, it was not effectively presented and it ultimately caused confusion in our community.’
Go here to read the rest. Harvard attendance cost is 60k a year which is sort of pricy to have a kid indoctrinated rather than educated.
Yeah, I saw this yesterday.
I graduated in 1995, a 25 year old veteran. As early as that PC was beginning to effect administration. I experienced this in the form of losing out on a Resident Assistant position. When I asked why I was “not qualified,” I was told that my age, military experience, and presodency of the pro-life organization suggested to the Resident Life Director that I would be too rigid to be able to deal with undergraduates. I asked if something was wrong with the interview and was told that the committee gave me universally high marks but that the Director had “experience” with people like me and would not sign off on it.
That was at an ostensibly Catholic college so God knows what it was like at secular ones even then.
My responses:
.
Yale / Student Activism: You are in college to learn and not to be an activist. You are a student because really, you don’t know anything. Shut your freaking trap and learn so that you can successfully graduate, get a job and not be a burden on the taxpayer.
.
Islamaphobia / Refugees: If you commit an act of terrorism, then regardless of your religion or where you are from, you will be shot dead. Got that? And in the United States, we have this thing called the US Constitution. So take your Sharia Law and shove it wwhere the sun does not shine.
.
House Master Title: I pay the mortgage and the property taxes, not you. If you don’t like my rules, then move the heck out. I am the master and you are not. Only my wife gets to override me. Period.
.
Black Murders in the Street: If you commit a crime, then whether you are black, brown, white, red, yellow, purple, orange or green, you should expect to be shot by the police. And if you are a policeman or policewoman and you purposefully shoot an innocent person, then you can expect to go to court and face the full penalty of the law.
.
And for the kicker, Social Justice: You want social justice? Wait till God Almighty gives it for the unborn. Then you will get more social justice than you can possibly handle.
Thankfully there was such a huge backlash from both Harvard students AND parents, they’ve got their tails between their legs and since had to apologize.
The Harvard Republican Club came up with their own response. It’s great. Check it out:
http://www.weaselzippers.us/246055-harvard-republicans-respond-to-the-colleges-social-justice-warrior-holiday-placemat-and-school-apologizes/
That placemat would make a nice target for the range. I can visualize a four inch grouping on that plate right now.
Mike Rowe is right.
Higher education has become indoctrination for the Left. It is reinforcement for the nonsense shoved at them in public school. I would rather my sons learn to be electricians or auto body shop owners than saddled with a semi useless degree.
@Elizabeth Fitzmaurice.
Great find. Common sense placemat.
@Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus.
Your response is appreciated too.
All of them. Especially the Social Justice remark. When the politically correct face this horrible social injustice at the foot of Almighty God, then and only then, will they finally see the harm they have caused by supporting and promoting abortion on demand. The war on women is nothing until the women wade through miles of rotted corpses, the collateral damage they caused, in their war. Then they will understand why Pro-Life folks value each and every life. Then they will know they were the gas chambers, the starvation bunkers and firing squads in this war on women. They will then understand it was truly a war on humanity, and they were the oppressors.
Rant is over.
Which is more pathetic, the assumption that Harvard students are emotional cripples who need to be coached through the process of having a normal discussion, or the assumption that a particular position on a set of issues is the Harvard position?
I know, I know, I’m stating the obvious, but still: what if a particular student has heard students expressing their experiences of racism and considered it complaining? Should that student say that he didn’t? Were the authors of this piece unable to conceive of the possibility that someone had considered it complaining? Even if you believe that there is one Harvard position on this issue, do you also believe that there’s one Harvard experience on it? If asked to suggest the Catholic position on an issue, say on abortion, I could give you a fairly generic three or four points to hit, but I wouldn’t think of telling you how you should describe your feelings on it, or what you’ve experienced. That’s because Catholicism is nowhere near as rigid and doctrinaire as Harvard.
I vote that the idea they have to be coached (take a breath) thru how to converse with their “loved ones” is by far the most pathetic.
[…] Home, With Propaganda, For the Holidays – Donald R. McClarey J.D., The American Catholic […]