Thursday, October 24, 2013

'Thank you, but I won't be attending the re-education camp this semester'



Vox Day posts a great public e-mail from a grad student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has had it with mandatory re-education camps:

Dear Graduate Director Prof. Kantrowitz, 
Please forgive this sudden e-mail. I am writing to you today about the “diversity” training that new teaching assistants (TAs) are required to undergo. In keeping with the spirit of the Wisconsin Idea, I am also blind-copying on this e-mail several journalistic outlets and state government officials, because the taxpayers who support this university deserve to know how their money is being spent. 
As you are probably aware, all new TAs in the History Department are required to attend one orientation session, two TA training sessions, and two diversity sessions. Yesterday (Friday, September 20th), we new TAs attended the first of the diversity sessions. To be quite blunt, I was appalled. What we were given, under the rubric of “diversity,” was an avalanche of insinuations, outright accusations, and suffocating political indoctrination (or, as some of the worksheets revealingly put it, “re-education”) entirely unbecoming a university of our stature. 
Students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and students at probably every other public institution of higher education in this country, have long since grown accustomed to incessant leftism. It is in the very air that we breathe. Bascom Hill, for example, is roped off and the university is shut down so that Barack Obama (D), Mark Pocan (D), and Tammy Baldwin (D) can deliver campaign speeches before election day. (The university kindly helped direct student traffic to these campaign events by sending out a mass e-mail encouraging the student body to go to the Barack Obama for President website and click “I’m In for Barack!” in order to attend.) Marxist diatribes denouncing Christianity, Christians, the United States, and conservatives (I am happy to provide as many examples of this as might be required) are assigned as serious scholarship in seminars. The Teaching Assistants Association (TAA)–which sent out mass e-mails, using History Department list-servs, during the attempt to recall Governor Scott Walker, accusing Gov. Walker of, among other things, being “Nero”–is allowed to address TA and graduate student sessions as a “non-partisan organization”. The History Department sponsors a leftist political rally, along with the Socialist Party of Wisconsin, and advertises for the rally via a departmental e-mail (sent, one presumes, using state computers by employees drawing salaries from a state institution). In short, this university finds it convenient to pretend that it is an apolitical entity, but one need not be particularly astute to perceive that the Madison campus is little more than a think tank for the hard left. Even those who wholeheartedly support this political agenda might in all candor admit that the contours of the leftism here are somewhat less than subtle. 
At the “diversity” training yesterday, though, even this fig leaf of apoliticism was discarded. In an utterly unprofessional way, the overriding presumption of the session was that the people whom the History Department has chosen to employ as teaching assistants are probably racists. In true “diversity” style, the language in which the presentation was couched was marbled with words like “inclusive”, “respect”, and “justice”. But the tone was unmistakably accusatory and radical. Our facilitator spoke openly of politicizing her classrooms in order to right (take revenge for?) past wrongs. We opened the session with chapter-and-verse quotes from diversity theorists who rehearsed the same tired “power and privilege” cant that so dominates seminar readings and official university hand-wringing over unmet race quotas. Indeed, one mild-mannered Korean woman yesterday felt compelled to insist that she wasn’t a racist. I never imagined that she was, but the atmosphere of the meeting had been so poisoned that even we traditional quarries of the diversity Furies were forced to share our collective guilt with those from continents far across the wine-dark sea. 
It is hardly surprising that any of us hectorees would feel thusly. For example, in one of the handouts that our facilitator asked us to read (“Detour-Spotting: for white anti-racists,” by joan olsson [sic]), we learned things like, “As white infants we were fed a pabulum of racist propaganda,” “…there was no escaping the daily racist propaganda,” and, perhaps most even-handed of all, “Racism continues in the name of all white people.” Perhaps the Korean woman did not read carefully enough to realize that only white people (all of them, in fact) are racist. Nevertheless, in a manner stunningly redolent of “self-criticism” during the Cultural Revolution in communist China, the implication of the entire session was that everyone was suspect, and everyone had some explaining to do. 
You have always been very kind to me, Prof. Kantrowitz, so it pains me to ask you this, but is this really what the History Department thinks of me? Is this what you think of me? I am not sure who selected the readings or crafted the itinerary for the diversity session, but, as they must have done so with the full sanction of the History Department, one can only conclude that the Department agrees with such wild accusations, and supports them. Am I to understand that this is how the white people who work in this Department are viewed? If so, I cannot help but wonder why in the world the Department hired any of us in the first place. Would not anyone be better? 
There is one further issue. At the end of yesterday’s diversity “re-education,” we were told that our next session would include a presentation on “Trans Students”. At that coming session, according to the handout we were given, we will learn how to let students ‘choose their own pronouns’, how to correct other students who mistakenly use the wrong pronouns, and how to ask people which pronouns they prefer (“I use the pronouns he/him/his. I want to make sure I address you correctly. What pronouns do you use?”). Also on the agenda for next week are “important trans struggles, as well as those of the intersexed and other gender-variant communities,” “stand[ing] up to the rules of gender,” and a very helpful glossary of related terms and acronyms, to wit: “Trans”: for those who “identify along the gender-variant spectrum,” and “Genderqueer”: “for those who consider their gender outside the binary gender system”. I hasten to reiterate that I am quoting from diversity handouts; I am not making any of this up. 
Please allow me to be quite frank. My job, which I love, is to teach students Japanese history. This week, for example, I have been busy explaining the intricacies of the Genpei War (1180-1185), during which time Japan underwent a transition from an earlier, imperial-rule system under regents and cloistered emperors to a medieval, feudal system run by warriors and estate managers. It is an honor and a great joy to teach students the history of Japan. I take my job very seriously, and I look forward to coming to work each day. 
It is most certainly not my job, though, to cheer along anyone, student or otherwise, in their psychological confusion. I am not in graduate school to learn how to encourage poor souls in their sexual experimentation, nor am I receiving generous stipends of taxpayer monies from the good people of the Great State of Wisconsin to play along with fantasies or accommodate public cross-dressing. To all and sundry alike I explicate, as best I can, such things as the clash between the Taira and the Minamoto, the rise of the Kamakura shogunate, and the decline of the imperial house in twelfth-century Japan. Everyone is welcome in my classroom, but, whether directly or indirectly, I will not implicate myself in my students’ fetishes, whatever those might be. What they do on their own time is their business; I will not be a party to it. I am exercising my right here to say, “Enough is enough.” One grows used to being thought a snarling racist–after all, others’ opinions are not my affair–but one draws the line at assisting students in their private proclivities. That is a bridge too far, and one that I, at least, will not cross. 
I regret that this leaves us in an awkward situation. After having been accused of virulent racism and, now, assured that I will next learn how to parse the taxonomy of “Genderqueers”, I am afraid that I will disappoint those who expect me to attend any further diversity sessions. When a Virginia-based research firm came to campus a couple of years ago to present findings from their study of campus diversity, then-Diversity Officer Damon Williams sent a gaggle of shouting, sign-waving undergraduates to the meeting, disrupting the proceedings so badly that the meeting was cancelled. In a final break with such so-called “diversity”, I will not be storming your office or shouting into a megaphone outside your window. Instead, I respectfully inform you hereby that I am disinclined to join in any more mandatory radicalism. I have, thank God, many more important things to do. I also request that diversity training be made optional for all TAs, effective immediately. In my humble opinion, neither the Department nor the university has any right to subject anyone to such intellectual tyranny. 
Thank you for your patience in reading this long e-mail. 
Sincerely, 
Jason Morgan

The guy has balls. The history profession at the college level is a far-left coven, and he's painted a target on his back.

If enough people spoke out against leftist filth like this guy with his eloquence and courage, the little Eichmanns who run these reeducation camps would scatter like roaches.

It's easy for a senior guy like me in a secure professional position in a university to speak out against the leftist-atheist-Darwinist apparatchiks. It takes another level of courage entirely for a history grad student to do so.

God bless him. I hope there are senior faculty who aren't to the left of Trotsky who can have his back. 

36 comments:

  1. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyOctober 24, 2013 at 6:32 AM

    Egnor: "I hope there are senior faculty who aren't to the left of Trotsky who can have his back."

    In Madison? I doubt it. I predict Morgan's history career is history. Progressives - the acolytes of greed and envy - love nothing better than punishment of dissent. They revel in it. Deranged? Yes, but there it is.

    The simple fact that the e-mail was published by Morgan himself suggests to me that he's already moved on in his heart. He's the current academic version of Edward Snowden; instead of a man without a country, he's a man without an academic career.

    He'll do fine in the private sector where the criteria for success are brains, guts, and grit.

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  2. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  3. Fascinating to read the comments on Vox Day's post. A glimpse into the 'conservative' mindset of his readers.

    I especially liked this one:

    @Robert in Arabia:
    This is an example of what has changed (and hardened) my attitude towards jews. When I see how they proliferate in business, 'rights advocacy' groups such as the SPLC and academia despite being such a small minority numerically and yet a large majority of them hold and espouse hard left policies (ex. though I don't have the stats at hand, I think it's safe to say that quite a bit over 50% of jews in America voted not only once but twice for 0bama).
    If jews in America wish to act like a serious enemy to America then it's only proper to treat them as such.
    Makes me go ''hmm, maybe the Germans did indeed have a reason to do what they did''


    Does he get called on his blatant antisemitism by the rest of the crowd populating VD's blog? On the contrary.

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    1. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyOctober 24, 2013 at 7:10 AM

      Let me help you with your English. "[H]is readers" should be "a reader".

      But how about this one, from a political commentator on the Left:

      We’re gonna punish our enemies...
      --- Jeebus McLightworker

      Did he get called on his blatant hate by the Progressive crowd? On the contrary.

      Delete
    2. Troy,
      If censorship was the rule of the day on these blogs, your frequently bigoted and (pathetically so) deliberately offensive comments would never be read by anyone.
      In fact seeing a comment has been removed by the administrator is so rare here that today is only the second time I have ever seen it happen here on Egnorance. So rare it makes me curious as to what line was crossed. Just how nasty was this comment?
      Troy let me be clear: You are no better than that anti-Semitic scumbag, You are kindred spirits; cut of the same foetid cloth spewing exactly the same kind of hate driven libels. The only difference is the relative eloquence (he is better versed) and the target of the vitriol.

      Delete
    3. Crusader, where exactly did I suggest that the antisemitic comment be removed? Hint: nowhere.

      I simply observed that the "anti-Semitic scumbag" wasn't called out on his oh-so eloquent positive evaluation of the mass murder of Jews. That tells me something about the commentariat at VD's blog.

      Delete
    4. Not a True Admiral:

      We’re gonna punish our enemies...
      --- Jeebus McLightworker


      Wow, did 0bama really say that? Calling Republicans "enemies" - definitely same ball park as applauding the Holocaust. According to you, that is.

      Delete
    5. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyOctober 24, 2013 at 1:21 PM

      If you were more than a bootlicking gullitard, you would realize that before Hitler loaded Jews in boxcars, he declared them enemies. And he punished them.

      Delete
    6. So applauding the Holocaust is equivalent to declaring a group of people "enemies". Because.... Hitler declared the Jews to be enemies of the German people, before he loaded them in boxcars. Therefore, when Obama declares Republicans to be enemies of Hispanics or immigrants in general, then he obviously must be planning to send Republicans to the gas chambers.

      You must be a big fan of Vox Day to concoct such a ludicrous defense of his antisemitic readers.

      Delete
    7. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyOctober 24, 2013 at 7:10 PM

      Dhimmi: "Therefore, when Obama...blah, blah"

      First they came for the communists,
      and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist...

      --- Martin Niemöller

      Although Jews were the main target of Nazi hatred, they were not the only group persecuted. Other individuals and groups were considered "undesirable" and "enemies of the state."
      --- US Holocaust Museum website

      Don't try to hide your bootlicking hate behind silly accusations of "defending" anonymous, offshore commenters on Catholic websites. I'm calling you out, dhimmi.

      Delete
    8. Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize that Vox Day's blog is a "Catholic website". Did the Holy Father endorse it? It does explain why antisemites feel at home there. Perhaps Vox Day is a pseudonym of Mel Gibson?

      You be careful now and try to keep that temper under control - losing your temper is bad for your old ticker.

      Delete
  4. This University of Wisconsin sounds like my alma mater.

    Leftists like to brag that being more educated usually translates to being further to the left. Hmmm...let's see. People who spend eight years in brainwashing centers tend to be more "progressive" than people who spend only four, and people who spend four tend to be more "progressive" than people who spend none at all. Imagine that.

    This isn't education. This is indoctrination. People who have been indoctrinated to the point that they ask men if they want to be called "she" shouldn't brag about how "educated' they are.

    TRISH

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    1. yup, this was my college experience too. luckily i'm brown so i usually escaped accusations of racism. usually i was just pilloried for being a conservative because conservatives are supposed to be white. liberals get pissed when reality differs from their preconceived notions.

      Delete
    2. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyOctober 24, 2013 at 7:26 AM

      Trish,

      These days, university is the opposite of diversity.

      Delete
    3. i should signed that upper comment, the one above boggs.

      naidoo

      Delete
  5. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyOctober 24, 2013 at 7:22 AM

    re: Egnor's comments on whacked-out left-wing academia

    My former home town, Boulder CO, is also the home of the main campus of the University of Colorado (former employer of Ward Churchill). This Halloween, to ensure everyone has a safe, respectful, and non-offensive evening...

    [Students] have been told not to wear "offensive" halloween costumes including cowboys, indians [sic] and anything involving a sombrero.

    Students at the University of Colorado Boulder have also been told to avoid "white trash" costumes and anything that portrays a particular culture as "over-sexualised"- which the university says includes dressing up as a geisha or a "squaw" (indigenous woman).

    They are also asked not to host parties with offensive themes including those with “ghetto” or "hillbilly" themes or those associated with "crime or sex work."

    --- Daily Telegraph (UK)

    Presumably, Tinkerbell is off-limits because she's a fairy.

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    Replies
    1. liberals really have become the halloween costume police. they ruin every holiday.

      naidoo

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    2. Dressing up as a witch might offend the Wiccan community. Don't do it.

      Ben

      Delete
  6. If this guy is so homophobic that he can’t even bring himself to attend a training seminar for fear of upsetting his delicate sensibilities perhaps he should consider another profession.

    -KW

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    1. He just wants to teach Japanese history, not encourage or condone men who suffer from the mental disorder that they are in fact women. He doesn't need another profession. He needs an award for his courage.

      Ben

      Delete
    2. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyOctober 24, 2013 at 7:53 AM

      Popeye, you are one of my favorite Progressives. You're nearly a prototypical version of a left-wing anencephalic: no cognitions going on, but tap the right nerve and you get a reflex.

      "Homophobic", indeed. What a laugh. All you need is an organ-grinder and you'd have a team.

      Delete
    3. The University has standards. They want the faculty to treat all students with respect and provide training to obtain this goal. Buy boycotting the training and complaining that treating people with respect is somehow the same as being party to, and encouraging confused poor souls in their sexual experimentation, this grad student is displaying his bigotry for all to see. Perhaps he should transfer to a Christian school where his homophobia is celebrated and open homosexuality isn’t allowed.


      -KW

      Delete
  7. What exactly does Japanese history have to do with transvestites? Nothing.
    If the young man had been caught attacking cross dressers, or throwing them from his classes, I could see the senior staff taking some sort of remedial action. But this nonsense for ALL TA's? Crazy. Creepy crazy.
    This is way down the rabbit hole, folks.
    These folks are supposed to be preparing young academics for the real world.... and this is their training in turn?
    Mr Morgan has shown some spine in penning this letter. I do not blame him one bit for making a stand, but I would be very surprised if the uber-tolerance people can tolerate any sort of open dissent (ie free will) to their 'program'.
    As Boggs noted: He will do well in the Private Sector.

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    1. Unless he joins at a company that has mandatory diversity training. If he refused the training and penned an open letter critical of the company he would be out of a job in no time.

      -KW

      Delete
    2. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyOctober 24, 2013 at 1:28 PM

      But if he penned an open letter denouncing the company for promoting "white privilege" or "heteronormal oppression", he would immediately be surrounded by left-wing lawyers and the EEOC, both demanding his job be protected. It's always that way with dictatorial left-wing regimes like the Jeebus Administration.

      Delete
  8. "It is most certainly not my job, though, to . . ."

    This is where Morgan goes wrong. It is his job to teach in a manner as directed by the University. And anyone who thinks that ignoring the directions of his employer will somehow serve him well in the private sector, I can only wonder exactly where your delusions come from.

    The real irony here is that Morgan aspires to be an educator, and yet balks at sessions that challenge his preconceived notions. In short, he is an wannabe educator who refuses to consider opposing viewpoints and potentially be educated on a subject in a manner he did not anticipate. I wonder how he would react to his students treating his classroom instruction in the same way he has treated these workshops.

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    1. @anon:

      Is accusing him of being a racist because he is white "challenging his preconceived notions"?

      Is involving him in the sexual psychopathology of his students part of his job to teach? Should I be doing that with my students in the medical school-- asking them about their personal sexual feelings and habits?

      Funny, I thought his job was to teach Japanese history.

      Delete
    2. "Is accusing him of being a racist because he is white "challenging his preconceived notions"?"

      First off, we only have his statements that this happened, and given the fact that the letter has been fact-checked and found to be wanting in some areas, I think his contention is dubious. Second, we have no idea what he might have said or done in the seminar, so if they said he was being racist, he may well have been.

      In any event, I don't see anything in there where anyone was accused of being racist, everything he says is that it was "implied", and that other attendees didn't "read carefully enough" to realize that they were somehow being accused of being racist. The only one who has claimed he is a racist appears to be Morgan.

      "Is involving him in the sexual psychopathology of his students part of his job to teach?"

      That's an interesting question for you to ask, since Morgan explicitly didn't attend the seminar that was to address such issues, so anything he says about them is entirely uninformed, as are your comments. Do you know what was in the session? No, you don't. And because he refused to attend them, neither does Morgan.

      And if the University thinks it is important that their instructors deal with their students in that way, then it is part of their job to do so.

      "Funny, I thought his job was to teach Japanese history."

      His job is to teach in the manner directed by the University, no matter the subject.

      Delete
    3. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyOctober 24, 2013 at 1:34 PM

      "His job is to teach in the manner directed by the University, no matter the subject."

      Who said he wasn't teaching Japanese history in the manner directed by the university?

      His job description does not include adopting political opinions promulgated by the University. Unless, of course, we've devolved all the way down to the point where we have political officers to make sure the workers labor in ideologically correct ways.

      Delete
    4. @Anon:

      [And if the University thinks it is important that their instructors deal with their students in that way, then it is part of their job to do so.]

      From your perspective, that's all that counts. You have the power, he doesn't. He'll have to suck it up or you'll destroy his career.

      And in truth, U of W is a public university, and there are stacks of laws and regulations governing what they may and may not do to students, based on the Constitution, state law, federal regs, etc.

      Describing white students as racist and requiring that ta's involve themselves in students' sexual pathology is unlikely to comply with a host of regulations, if this was a rational lawful matter. Which it's not.

      Delete
    5. From your perspective, that's all that counts. You have the power, he doesn't.

      Go into the private sector and try ignoring your employer's directions as to how to do your job. Let's see how far that gets you. Do it at your current job - tenure can't protect you if you violate an objective rule, and if they made it a rule for you to attend this sort of training and you refused, they would be well-within their rights to dismiss you.

      And in truth, U of W is a public university, and there are stacks of laws and regulations governing what they may and may not do to students, based on the Constitution, state law, federal regs, etc.

      Point to anything that says that the University cannot require its employees to attend training of this type as a condition of their employment.

      Describing white students as racist and requiring that ta's involve themselves in students' sexual pathology is unlikely to comply with a host of regulations, if this was a rational lawful matter.

      Point to anything in the law that says that the University cannot require this. Otherwise you're just a know-nothing blowhard.

      Delete
    6. Describing white students as racist

      As has been noted before, there is no evidence that anyone did this. Morgen's letter talks about racism being "implied" and the other attendees somehow not being able to see how they were being accused of racism. The entire tenor of the letter is hysterical, and one is inclined to take Morgen's claims less than seriously as a result.

      Delete
    7. His job description does not include adopting political opinions promulgated by the University.

      It involves carrying out policies in the manner directed by the University. That's what "other duties as assigned" means. And the University wants him to take this training and teach his class in the manner they direct - which includes how to treat students.

      Delete
  9. Great to see you posting regularly again on Evolution News Dr Egnor.

    Chris

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  10. We have to deal with Political correctness gone mad and Its insidious influence in Education, The police force etc in England also.

    The crazies are running the asylum.

    Chris

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