A group of students at Sarah Lawrence College are staging a sit-in at a major university building along with a massive list of demands for change at the esteemed school. The student group, which calls itself “Diaspora Coalition,” makes absurd requests in reaction to a New York Times op-ed authored by Professor Samuel J. Abrams.
Professor Abrams noted the predominance of liberal-leaning events sponsored by the school, which led him to conduct a research study. He wrote, “I recently surveyed a nationally representative sample of roughly 900 ‘student-facing’ administrators — those whose work concerns the quality and character of a student’s experience on campus. I found that liberal staff members outnumber their conservative counterparts by the astonishing ratio of 12-to-one.”
Abrams did not say that liberal-leaning staff members or events are inherently bad, or that any of them should be stopped. He just made an observation, conducted research, and reported the results. For this, the Diaspora Coalition is demanding that Abrams’ position be brought up for “tenure review.”
As if this is not enough, they also call for groveling: “The College must issue a statement condemning the harm that Abrams has caused to the college community, specifically queer, Black, and female students, whilst apologizing for its refusal to protect marginalized students wounded by his op-ed and the ignorant dialogue that followed.”
Wounded! By an op-ed! If any student would like to be protected from an op-ed, I suggest not reading it.
If students felt personally attacked by a benign op-ed that did not disparage anyone at all, I wonder how Abrams felt when a protester left a sign reading “go teach somewhere else, you racist asshat” at his office door. I wonder how he felt reading another that said “our right to exist is not ‘idealogical’ [sic] asshole.”
Perhaps Abrams felt a bit attacked, too? I suppose they haven’t taken his feelings into consideration, while demanding that their feelings are codified into university policy. Abrams is is part of a minority based on his politics, and social justice warriors are openly persecuting him. (Hello, woke students of Sarah Lawrence. I look forward to your hate mail!)
If Sarah Lawrence accepts the protesters’ demands, they would be proving Abrams right: In response to an op-ed that dared to observe that university staff members are mostly liberal, they would be hiring more liberal staff.
The protesters want the school to hire “new tenured faculty of color” as well as therapists of specific races, which seems to violate the Equal Employment Opportunity Act (which states that someone cannot be denied a job on the basis of race). The list of demands includes “designate[d] housing with a minimum capacity for thirty students of color,” as well as free storage for certain students over the summer, a large food bank, and more, all without mentioning how the college is supposed to pay for it (not with funds from the Charles Koch Institute, which is called out by name in the list of demands).
The Diaspora Coalition claims, “If the College does not accept these demands, it will no longer be hailed as a progressive institution but instead remembered for its inability to truly embody its self-proclaimed progressive ideology and support all students against an international rising tide of white supremacy and fascism.”
One of its demands is for free fabric softener in every laundry room.
This group isn’t about opposing fascism. They claim to be anti-fascist while also trying to fire someone for the crime of stating observable facts. This is not about social justice, it is about exerting control over an institution in which one’s membership is totally voluntary. This is a power grab, nothing more, nothing less.
Let’s not forget the original fact that landed Abrams in the sights of student bullies: university staff members are overwhelmingly left-leaning. Even when liberal administrators are in charge, they cannot satisfy the demands of liberal students. The liberal mob is never satisfied, and instead creates a cycle of demands, outrage, and concessions that never ends.
Angela Morabito (@AngelaLMorabito) writes about politics, media, ethics, and culture. She holds both a bachelor’s and master’s degree from Georgetown University.
