The dean of Seattle University has retired after a public outcry from university students who accused her of allowing a curriculum that they feel is “too white.”
Students were angry that the dean suggested they read a book entitled “Nigger.” The book was written as an autobiography by Dick Gregory, a prominent civil rights activist. Gregory wrote an essay in defense of Dean Jodi Kelly, but nevertheless, students staged a three week sit-in outside of Kelly’s office at Seattle University’s Matteo Ricci College.
Kelly eventually agreed to discuss the “campus climate” with the students and the university decided to review the curriculum. Students claimed that the curriculum fed into “systematic oppression” and demanded the school promote a style of learning focused on “the evolution of systems of oppression such as racism, capitalism, colonialism, etc.”
“This institution of learning can and must center the people most vulnerable to institutional violence and empower us to leverage our many privileges towards collective liberation,” the MRC Student Coalition wrote in response to Kelly’s resignation.
Protestors said their time as students at the school had been marked by “being ridiculed, traumatized, othered, tokenized, and pathologized.” One student told the Seattle Times that the only thing the university is teaching them is about “dead white dudes.”
Seattle University placed Kelly on leave in late June and in July, she officially resigned.
Never mind that a book recommendation has never been categorized as “institutional violence” or that these students have no concept of what real oppression looks like. The students wanted her gone and, as usual, when Generation Snowflake speaks, older generations jump to obey.
When “Nigger” was first published, The New York Times referred to it as “a moving story of a man who deeply wants a world without malice and hate and is doing something about it.”
Unfortunately, it appears as though malice and hate are still alive in the hearts of college students who have nothing better to do than go on oppression witch hunts.
