If you’re looking for another fantastic example of how the inmates are running the higher ed asylum, this from UC Berkeley’s newspaper the Daily Californian is pretty hard to beat:
Last weekend, an emergency exit was built near Chancellor Nicholas Dirks’ office as a security measure against potential protesters. The door, which cost $9,000, is located outside a short hallway between his conference room and his office in California Hall. Campus spokesperson Claire Holmes said in an email that the exit in California Hall was installed as a security measure to “provide egress to leave the building.” Construction of the door was requested about a year ago in response to a protest in April 2015 when protesters stormed the chancellor’s suite. During the protest, students staged a sit-in outside Dirks’ office where they banged on desks and chanted loudly. They were eventually escorted out of the building, some in handcuffs, by UCPD officers.
Now there are a number of obvious remedies for a campus administrator in this situation. If students are illegally trapping you in your office, have them arrested for trespassing. A handful of expulsion notices quickly drawn up might also do the trick. But to have an “escape hatch” built into your office is a singularly impressive act of cowardice, and one that sends a clear and unhelpful message to students encouraging malicious and unhelpful protests.
