University of Delaware Halts Controversial Diversity Program
DOVER, Del.
Amid growing public scrutiny, the University of Delaware last week halted a controversial residence hall program that critics say tried to force students to accept university-approved ideologies on moral and social issues.
November 5th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
I’ve followed this developing story and am disturbed by the characterization of learning as brainwashing. Why did these young people come to college if they already know how the world works, if they are unwilling to learn about social facts to which they’ve not previously been exposed? Are they alleging, then, that racism and white supremacy do not exist or are in question? If so, how can the university join ranks with a group of loud and apparently ignorant students and dissolve a program intended to create safe living environments for minority students? Troubling, to say the least. I’m glad I’m not a person of color, or a lesbian, or an international student at the University of Delaware.
November 5th, 2007 at 8:33 pm
I too am disturbed by the power of a few ignorant students, who apparently want to live in an intercultural dorm but are opposed to learning about how racism/White supremacy, sexism, homophobia, and other unfair discrimination may be negatively affecting the “cool different” people with whom the ignorant want to live. I am deeply troubled that a few ignorant students were able to shut down a program designed to create a safe living space for “minority” students who do not enjoy the White supremist, partriarchal, unearned privilege that the ignorant do. People of color and women of all colors can have prejudices but DON’T have the power structure to be racist or sexist respectively. Dr. bell hooks in her cultural criticism and transformation work that White supremacy is a BETTER word to use rather than “race” because it allows for the more complete analysis of, for instance, internalized racism in people of color and power structures/systems rather than people. Until we each identify and extract the White supremist, partriarcal, classist parts of ourselves and the system on whose tit we were raised, we shall never begin to transform the problems into blessings. I encourage the brave people who researched, designed and ran this noble and wonderful program to take heart from the example of former Vice-President Al Gore who was villified and lied about by soooo many for his work on global warming until finally his documentary won the Academy Award AND he just won the Nobel Peace Prize for the work and may have very well saved the world without a cape. Keep doing the right thing! Keep pushing forward no matter how many times small minds may push you back. YOU may one day earn the Nobel Prize for your work on multiculturalism in student campus living! Be praised. Be encouraged. Keep finding a way. South Africa was not liberated with one effort!
November 5th, 2007 at 9:48 pm
Where do universities get the right to indocrorinate students in ultra-liberal ideology? They don’t have the right. They shouldn’t have the right. Let students learn about the world by living in it, not having a floor moniter force it on them. The anti-white socialism displayed at the U of D is sickening and should be banned from all campuses.
November 5th, 2007 at 10:00 pm
I continue to be amazed at how well-meaning people feel comfortable defining certain people on the basis of race as ‘racists’. Obviously, such simple, clearly unfair views are a step backwards.
K
November 6th, 2007 at 3:19 am
There is nothing wrong with multicultural studies and increasing awareness of others in a multicultural society such as our own. Indeed, my wife’s Master’s thesis was devoted to the multicultural dimension of health care (she is an RN), and when I taught a course on diplomacy a few years ago, I devoted one lesson to cultural aspects of diplomacy. I made no attempt to indoctrinate students into an ideological view of the world or to allege, as this program did, that they were racist by dint of being white. What I did try to stress was that people of different nationalities and cultures will
interpret cues in very different ways, and that what the majority population
in thsi country takes for granted desn’t necessarily apply to minorities (e.g. the classic case of “driving while black”).
This program has been criticized, rightly so, for being a kind of “thought reform” that prescribes certain views as given and attempts to push students to accept those views uncritically. That’s where education ends and indoctrination begins. As FIRE pointed out, the whole program violated students’ constitutional rights under the First Amendment. The university was obviously responding to pressure from groups with a certain political agenda and accompanying view of the world.
It’s really wrong to dismiss the criticism of this program as the work of a few “ignorant students.” Professors from UD, who themselves could hardly be labeled as “ignorant,” were the first to sound the alarm. The program has many coercive elements that are incompatible with democratic education. This hardly qualifies as a “brave and noble program,” and instead fits into the rubric of political coercion. This is not the way to create a safe environment for anyone, whether they be minority or majority students.
The students did not “want to live in an intercultural dorm,” but were subject to a compulsory rule that they had to live in residence halls. As far as I understand it, the majority of the UD students are white, and the basic justification of the program was not a response to “wrongful behavior” on the part of students, but rather a feeling that they lived in a culturally insular environment and needed to be exposed to realities beyond their own culture.
November 6th, 2007 at 2:47 pm
I wasn’t going to take pot shots at South Africa but since Abraham started it, what’s the harm. There is little doubt that the aggressive affirmative action and social engineering projects in Sough Africa have all but destroyed the rule of law and economy there. White South Africans take every opportunity to leave as their chances of gainful employment and safety are being stripped away as the government and private entities rigidly enforce their strict quotas.
I agree with Paul that multicultural studies are okay to study, the difference between electing to study them and what the University was doing is staggering. If a student wants to learn about other cultures or it is a relevant part of the curriculum for their degree, then by all means take the courses. Forcing fresmen to sit through one-on-one interviews (interrogations), attend countless workshops and engage in activism all to prove that they really accept the doctorines set forth by the university is flat out wrong. The comparisons to Marxism, Nazism, Maoism and a number of other radical fascist ideals are alarmingly close.
November 6th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
And I can’t believe that Gilbert is so empty-empty headed to fail to see:
1: that colleges have no right to assume that a student’s sexuality is in any way their business.
2: that colleges cannot preach from the high moral ground while standing in a mudhole of crass, invasive behaviour.
3: That colleges cannot fathom the idea that racism exists in every culture - simply because it is a human failing. There is anti-Japanese amont Chinese. Anti-Russian sentiment among Germans. Anti-White sentiment among American Indians. Anti-Mexican sentiment among European Spaniards. Anti Sikh sentiment among Hindus.
Mr. Gilbert’s lack of worldy experience is showing if he waited this long to discover that the White Anglo Saxon race is the sole purveyor of racism, than he and the University of Delaware itself is ripe for some real educations.
Robert Lahey
November 6th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
Quit censoring my posts. They are not offensive, unless you are offended by FACTS and by the TRUTH. You prove yourself to be INTELLECTUALLY WEAK when you engage in the censorship of OBJECTIVE FACTS. It makes it OBVIOUS that you are WRONG because you can’t deal with the FACTS except by CENSORING THEM. Don’t censor this post! Prove that you are able to deal with FACTS!
One of the problems with the UofD’s program’s definition of “racism”, wherein all whites are declared to be “racist”, included this statement:
“By this definition, people of color cannot be racists, because as peoples within the U.S. system, they do not have the power to back up their prejudices, hostilities, or acts of discrimination….”
This definition is intellectually weak and easy to disprove and destroy.
I was stabbed and almost killed in 1991 by a black man who invaded my car while trying to carjack me while I was stopped at a red light.
While he was stabbing me, he called me a “white motherf*cker”.
This black man stabbing me did not need “state power” or “institutional power” to “back up” (whatever that means) his “prejudices and hostilities”, ALL HE NEEDED WAS A KNIFE.
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For the “Reverend” above, who posted the amusing statement : “South Africa was not liberated with one effort!”
Gosh, South Africa sure is better off now! Pretty soon they will be as “liberated” as Zimbabwe is! Liberated straight into the grave!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/correspondent/2311067.stm
AIDS: A South African horror story
By Allan Little
Reporting from South Africa for Correspondent
South Africa is in the grip of an unprecedented increase in the most despicable crime - baby rape. Allan Little reports for BBC Two’s Correspondent on the devastating phenomenon and talks to the individuals involved in a case that shook the world.
Some surveys suggest that up to a third of South Africans believe in an ancient and bizarre “cure” for AIDS.
This “cure” involves having sex with a virgin in the belief that it will cleanse the body of venereal diseases like AIDS.
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http://iafrica.com/news/sa/414322.htm
Couple appear for ‘muti killing’
Posted Wed, 26 Jan 2005
An elderly couple appeared in the Tugela Ferry Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday in connection with the murders of five children at Molomini reserve near Tugela Ferry (Msinga) over the weekend.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1899609.stm
‘I was forced to kill my baby’
Children in South Africa
Muti originated in sub-Saharan Africa
Last September a boy’s torso was found in the Thames. Police now believe it could have been a “muti” killing, a human sacrifice practiced in southern Africa. Here, as seen in a BBC Two documentary, a mother reflects how she was forced to help kill her own child.
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http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article2698046.ece
October 20, 2007
Lucky Dube’s murder throws spotlight on to crime in South Africa
exerpt:
“For years the Government maintained that crime was not as bad as wealthy people claimed, but recently the statistics, such as 50 murders a day and one rape every 40 seconds, have begun to damage investment and alarm big business.”
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Reggae Superstar “Lucky Dube” killed in carjacking.
http://real-us.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071019/ts_afp/entertainmentsafricacrimemurderdube_071019074704
Quote from article:
“South Africa is one of the world’s most crime-ridden countries, with nearly 20,000 murders recorded in the last year.”
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blacks lynching blacks for rape in South Africa YESTERDAY Nov. 5 2007:
http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=1&newsid=109928
Two lynched over rape cases
Story by NATION Correspondent
Publication Date: 11/5/2007
Two suspected gangsters were yesterday lynched moments after they attacked a family at Fly Over shopping centre on the Nairobi-Naivasha highway.
The two were cornered by a mob when a robbery victim raised the alarm.
Earlier, the group had gang-raped two women after breaking into their houses.
“One of the thugs was beaten to death at about 3 am,” said area assistant chief Simon Kiiru. The other suspect was flushed out from his hideout in the morning.
The mob then led police to Kimbo area where the suspects had rented several rooms and recovered goods suspected to have been stolen.
Narrating their ordeal, the two women said the gang struck at around 9 pm on Saturday just before the two neighbouring families went to sleep.
Shouted orders
“The menacingly shouted orders at us before they forced open the door,” said one of the women.
The attackers then ordered the two families to surrender money and other valuables.
One of the families gave Sh80 while the other parted with Sh200 which the gang claimed was not enough.
“They dragged us behind the house and raped us in turns,” said one of the victims.
Some of the attackers escaped but their two alleged accomplices were stoned to death. Their bodies were later taken to a mortuary in Naivasha.
Meanwhile, two gangsters were shot dead by police responding to a distress call on Thursday night. The gang had attempted to rob a bar in Naivasha town. A third suspect was lynched by a mob.