One year ago, members of the Evergreen State College community asked white people to leave the campus in a “day of absence.” Those who refused to give into such demands sparked uncontrollable outrage from event planners and a chain of events led to mass chaos, national media coverage, and the exit of a few faculty and staff.
You’ll remember students stormed a faculty meeting, disrupted classes, roamed the campus with baseball bats, blocked students and staff from leaving the library, and successfully demanded that campus police give up their guns.
Eventually, the chief of police resigned, explaining that she had been given all of the responsibility, but none of the authority to keep people safe on campus. Professors Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying, who were endlessly stalked and harassed, resigned from their tenured positions and sued the school. At least four others followed.
“Grief takes many forms, and we feel it, but we also feel that we were paid to leave a burning building. Unfortunately, we can do nothing for our many friends — students, staff, and faculty — still stuck on the inside,” they explained in a piece for the Washington Examiner.
One year later, Evergreen’s enrollment is projected to be down 20 percent and a nearly $6 million budget cut is required because of it. The same administrators who capitulated to the race-focused protesters are now in full damage control mode, which is quite different than restoring the campus back to an institution of plural opinion and idea exploration.
While it is clear that such national attention put a spotlight on the racially charged and frankly anti-white environment at Evergreen State, few stepped in to right the campus culture and recreate an environment fit for academia. This week, while administrators refuse to formally endorse another “day of absence,” students are carrying on the tradition.
Three days’ worth of programming, held on and off campus, started Wednesday and featured an open mic, an art show, a dance, yoga, a film screening, and workshops. According to The College Fix, a poster found at the school says that some of the events are “no-whites-allowed.”
The theme of the three-day event is “Deinstitutionalize/Decolonize.” Ironically, it is programming like this that reinforces racial tension and institutionalizes a hyperconsciousness of race among its students.
While the case at Evergreen State should be alarming and does indicate a culture war currently at play, the numbers don’t lie. A free market is at work and those seeking a true institution of higher education are looking elsewhere, both students and professors.
The @EvergreenStCol students are putting on their own Day of Absence this year. Note they are self segregating now pic.twitter.com/NLPLtpGuLS
— Benjamin?Boyce (@BenjaminABoyce) April 26, 2018
Also Read: Bonfire of the academies: Two professors on how leftist intolerance is killing higher education
