The University of Michigan, Dearborn, last week showcased two concurrent events that encapsulate almost everything wrong with the Left’s approach to issues of race and higher (supposedly) education. It also shows again how pitiful are the tender sensitivities of too many of today’s college students.
Indeed, the mere language surrounding the events reeked of such outlandishly “woke” jargon as to be an unintentional self-parody of overly fragile, grievance-mongering pseudo-intellectuals in the throes of delayed adolescence. The two events were encouraged to be racially segregated, cafe-style discussions, one for students who are “BIPOC,” meaning black, indigenous, and people of color, and one for “Non-POCs,” apparently meaning a whiter shade of pale.
“The Non-POC (People Of Color) Cafe is a space for students that do not identify as persons of color to gather and to discuss their experience as students on campus and as non-POC in the world,” according to an online notice. “The Cafe will be facilitated by a non-POC faculty/staff member to ensure that discussions are kept safe and respectful.”
The university issued a statement saying the bimonthly BIPOC meetings were meant to provide students from “marginalized communities a space that allowed for them to exist freely without having to normalize their lives and experiences,” while the Non-POC meetings should give white students “the opportunity to deepen their understanding of race and racism without harming or relying on students of color to educate them.”
Actually, the statement didn’t say “white.” It again referred to “students that do not identify as persons of color.” Perhaps that means someone with chocolate skin but who identifies as white, or maybe is transitioning to white, would be welcome at a Non-POC meeting, too. Who knows? Some of us can’t keep track of the intersectionality of it all.
The university did insist that while the cafe titles suggested the meetings would be segregated, they would, of course, technically be “open to all members of the UM-Dearborn campus community.” No word yet on what would happen if a Non-POC student actually did take the university’s word by trying to attend a BIPOC event. Would that mean the BIPOC “space” would then become threateningly “normalized?” Would the students of color be “harmed?”
Colleges have come a long way from the landmark 1954 civil rights case of Brown v. Board of Education, which decided, “To separate [black students] from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone.” Now, apparently, we are to believe exactly the opposite, namely that the mere presence of white people will negatively affect BIPOC hearts and minds.
In truth, the obsession with race that has bedeviled most college administrations and faculty for several decades only exacerbates racial tensions. What’s wrong with just teaching literature or biology to students of all ethnicities living and studying together and letting them interact as their common interests coincide, developing friendships and working relationships naturally and organically?
The real world isn’t a “safe space,” but somehow, humankind has survived thousands upon thousands of years without mollycoddling 18-22-year-olds as if their psyches are delicate as gossamer. And if racial discrimination is a concern, the best answer not just legally but practically came from Chief Justice John Roberts in the 2007 Parents Involved case when he wrote, “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”
Now that is logic, and it darn well ought to be normalized.
