Evergreen professor at center of protests resigns; college will pay $500,000

[alp227]

Source: Seattle Times

The Evergreen State College professor at the center of campus protests this spring will receive $500,000 in a settlement that was announced Friday.

Bret Weinstein and his wife, Heather Heying, resigned from their faculty positions effective Friday. The couple filed a $3.85 million tort claim in July alleging the college failed to “protect its employees from repeated provocative and corrosive verbal and written hostility based on race, as well as threats of physical violence,” according to the claim.

Weinstein had criticized changes to the school’s annual Day of Absence after white students who chose to participate were asked to go off campus to talk about race issues. He called the event “an act of oppression,” according to emails obtained by The Olympian. Weinstein later appeared on Fox News and wrote an Op-Ed in The Wall Street Journal.

The incident led to protests and threats over allegations of racism and intolerance, pulling Evergreen into a national debate over free speech on college campuses. The campus was closed for three days in June and graduation was moved to Cheney Stadium in Tacoma.

Read more: http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/evergreen-professor-at-center-of-protests-resigns-college-will-pay-500000/

[exboyfil]

1. No word on the professor

who Tweeted about Heying

"Could some white woman at Evergreen come and collect Heather Heying's racist ass."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-evergreen-state-college-implosion-are-there-lessons_us_5959507ee4b0f078efd98b0e

Quote has been attributed to Naima Lowe.

[Baconator]

2. What a dumpster fire of a school...

Who would want to send their kid there?

There is a small percentage of the population who will flock there though and it's just going to get worse.

I think Mizzou took a hit after all of their shenanigans as well.

[Yupster]

7. Their enrollment was down 5 % this year

I thought it would be more. Still, it has led to pay freezes and layoffs.

I hire people from time to time. Seeing Evergreen College on a resume would be a negative mark to me.

[Baconator]

8. Evergreen or Mizzou?

[Yupster]

35. Evergreen

That's their enrollment for this current semester. It's only a difference of about 70 students but what made it worse was there was a large drop in out of state students who pay much more than the locals.

The drop was both new students who sent in letters saying they would not be coming after acceptance and some out of town current students didn't return.

The difference was partly made up of local students who took advantage of Evergreen's 97 % acceptance rate.

[pnwmom]

21. It shouldn't be a negative mark. My husband had some great grad students from Evergreen.

Highly motivated and bright.

This rightwing professor has brought a lot of unfair negative attention to the college. Here was the issue: there has been a recent tradition where black students would stay home for a day, to show what the campus was like without their presence. It was called "Day of Absence." So this year, someone suggested they do the opposite: that white students would stay off campus -- IF THEY CHOSE TO, COMPLETELY VOLUNTARILY -- and black students would find out what it would be like to be predominant on the campus.

This is what the white professor was protesting: a day when white students could, if they were willing, meet off campus and talk about and consider white privilege.

Do you agree that that would have been such a terrible thing?

[romanic]

23. The professor is far from right-wing, wtf makes you think he was?

Because he went on Fox News? Hell many liberals have gone on Fox, that doesn't make them right-wing. Cmon now.

[pnwmom]

53. He's the kind of "progressive" that would argue that we shouldn't say "Black Lives Matter,"

we should say "All Lives Matter."

Anyone who doesn't understand why he'd be wrong about that is part of the problem.

[Yupster]

36. Yeah, sorry, but if I run a company that makes tires or appraise insurance claims

I don't need new workers who believe in shutting down my business because of some social cause, be it good or bad. I just want to make tires. I would do a lot of questioning about college experiences before ever hiring anyone with an Evergreen diploma.

The 97 % acceptance rate is already a strike against them. The nonsense of last year is something I wouldn't want anywhere near my business. While at work, I just want to make tires.

BTW - making tires is not my business. I just used that as a simple example.

[hunter]

102. Don't be silly. Tires are made in China.

As older workers get worn out the tire factories replace them with new workers, same as you replace old tires.

[hack89]

63. He is a Bernie support and an outspoken supporter for Occupy Wall Street

you have a strange definition of right wing.

[pnwmom]

65. He's an "All Lives Matter" kind of progressive then. He doesn't understand

or care about white privilege. That was the purpose of the day -- for everyone to think about what it means to live in this culture.

[hack89]

66. No. He opposes moral bullying

he knew that the "invitation" to stay away from campus was also a threat to be labeled a racist if one declined. You are very aptly demonstrating his point for him.

[pnwmom]

67. He ENGAGED in moral bullying. The invitation was to participate by meeting in a building

that holds only 200 students -- out of more than 2000 white students. The student organizers understood the only a fraction of white students would participate, just as only a fraction of black students participated in past years.

You are on his side because he was a Bernie supporter. I didn't even know till now that he was a Bernie supporter -- I judged him by his actions in response to the students' proposed Day of Absence. Well, he might be a progressive, in his own mind at least. But he has a lot to learn about white privilege.

[hack89]

68. And all he did was express his opinion to the administration.

how is that bullying? Is any disagreement with campus orthodoxy automatically bullying in your eyes?

[pnwmom]

69. Oh right. Like no one exercising his right to free speech could ever be bullying.

[hack89]

73. So stating a personal opinion is bullying if it offends anyone?

interesting perspective. Doesn't bullying have to have an element of threat or insult? Is saying "I think you are wrong" really bullying?

[cabot]

89. I can see having such a discussion when classes aren't in session during the day

But other than that, no. If you have a class, you go. ESC is expensive (most American universities are)..if I'm a student there, I'm not going to miss a class unless I'm sick. I'm paying to get an education. After classes are over for the day or on a weekend, I think it is great to have such a discussion.

[pnwmom]

9. It was a good school. This faculty member deserved to be fired for helping to trash it. n/t

[Baconator]

12. Weinstein should be fired?

[pnwmom]

15. Not under faculty rules, no. But I'm glad he resigned. Good riddance.

He was leading a charge against the idea of white students taking a day to talk about white privilege.

[pnwmom]

18. My husband had some excellent grad students with degrees from Evergreen.

It attracts a wide variety of highly motivated students who want to help design their education.

[Baconator]

20. Not anymore...

Now they're going to get a class of students who specialize in victimization...

I wouldn't hire anyone with a degree from there starting in about 2021 without an intensive interview process...

[pnwmom]

28. It is the white students who were behaving like victims, not the black students.

All because they were asked to support their black classmates and think about white privilege for a day. I'm still wondering how any progressive could be making your arguments.

[Yupster]

37. I'll help

If I was ever told not to come somewhere because of the color of my skin, my answer would be to fuck off.

[pnwmom]

60. No one TOLD anyone. The building they suggested interested white students could meet in

only holds 200 students and there are more than 2000 white students on campus.

They were INVITED to participate -- or not.

Why do you keep talking about a situation you know nothing about?

[Inkfreak]

95. The correct response. "Invited" or "told".

[SonofDonald]

83. I agree

I live 50 miles away, the college is always in the news locally and it's never a good thing being reported, it seems there's always some kind of disagreement going on and you wonder what the school is actually teaching other than ways to hate each other, kind of self defeating when the school is advertised as being a place of peace and understanding.

All I ever hear coming out of there is strife and protest of one thing or another, I'm as liberal as the day is long but there's no way in hell I'd send any of my kids there.

Turning a cause into a militant cause is not teaching, there will always be those who take up a cause for the betterment of the world but the message is lost when it's delivered with confrontation and not reasoned debate.

This is not how you spread a message that people will want to hear.

Just my two cents.

[jcmaine72]

3. Weinstein impresses me as an enormous attention hound.

Then again, I'm naturally suspicious of any self-proclaimed liberal who appears on Faux News to "set the record straight". That's like a sheep going into a wolf's den to complain about how the other sheep are mistreating him. Maybe he was just tired of teaching and saw the opportunity for a big payday and seized it.

[Baconator]

10. He was eaten by his own...

... and has gone to the folks who are praising and supporting him.

Not too surprising...

He was treated like shit and he deserves compensation.

[pnwmom]

16. He was treating black students and their issues like shit, and encouraging white students

to think that the concerns of black students weren't justified.

He deserves nothing.

[jcmaine72]

17. Exactly!

[Baconator]

19. The students were acting like entitled scumbags...

They don't have the right to kick anyone off of campus...

I wish he'd held class in the main quad and invited anyone who wanted to join in.

The students acted like entitled brats and the administration is facilitating it. Guy is lucky to get out of there...

[pnwmom]

22. The students weren't kicking a single person off campus. The protesting students and this professor

were the ones who were acting like "entitled brats."

I don't see how any progressive could object to the idea that this year, for a change, on a single day, the Day of Absence, white students could VOLUNTARILY decide to stay home instead of the black students.

As a white parent in WA, I wouldn't have had any objection at all to one of my students deciding to stay home that day in support of the black students on campus. I think this professor was a grandstanding jerk.

[Baconator]

25. That's the point...

They weren't kicking a single person off... Just white people...

It's not really a voluntary decision if those who choose not to be barred from their college (either as a place of employment or as a paying student) are harassed and vilified.

[pnwmom]

27. They weren't kicking ANY white people off campus. Period.

It was entirely a voluntarily decision; the black students who organized the event weren't harassing and vilifying white students. It was quite the reverse.

[Baconator]

40. Except when you 'choose' not to leave...

Last edited Tue Sep 19, 2017, 12:25 PM - Edit history (1)

... They show up en masse and shout you down.

There was video... Maybe you missed it...

PS. The idea itself is racist victimizing bullshit too btw...

[brush]

80. Open your mind a little. If white students who stayed on campus...

were "shouted down" and victimized as you say, they learned for one, single, brief, fucking day what Black people and other POCs experience all the time.

I'd say the experience worked out for them and for the black students on campus who experienced being the majority and how that can lead to bullying, cruel behavior in and of itself, and the day of absence perhaps opened a new perspective for the white students who stayed off campus to discuss white privilege only to find non-privilege and disadvantage in a building able to accommodate only 200 people out of 2000 students.

Quite a learning experience all around I'd say, except for maybe the thick-headed.

BTW, "Day of Absence" is the name of a play by Douglas Turner War. It's premise being what would happen in the country if Blacks and other POCs were absent from their jobs and schools and other parts of life for a day.

Pretty sure that play was the inspiration for the project and perhaps appreciation of the African American literary canon was another benefit of the experience.

The school is probably better off without a prof who didn't get that all of that, or chose to ignore it.

[Baconator]

87. I know what it's from...

... and the tradition had been that some black students and faculty would not show up for the day.

It was their choice and a perfectly legitimate one.

The new demand was that black students and faculty come but white people were told not to come to school that day. That's a big load of bullshit.

[brush]

92. Wasn't it voluntary for the white students to not come to campus?

And wasn't part of the experience to illustrate lack of privilege to those white students (for a single day for God's sake. What a humongous sacrifice )?

Part of a college education is to open and broaden perspectives, get you out of comfort zones, expose you to others from different cultural backgrounds and learn to appreciate and see things from those other perspectives — educate you.

That's not bullshit IMO.

[Baconator]

93. Is it really voluntary if you choose not to go...

... and your office gets stormed?

&t=122s

This is as far from open and broad perspectives as you can get. This is a demand for conformity and undeserved accommodation.

[brush]

94. It's college not work.

[Baconator]

97. It is if you are faculty (who helped facilitate this terrible idea)...

... and if you are a student, you are literally paying to go there.

What's your point?

[brush]

98. I made my points in my other posts in response to your not apparently getting...

the educational value of the day of absence for both black students being the majority on campus for once with some falling into bullying like some whites do, and the white students who stayed being the minority for once and the whites who didn't come to campus in order to discuss white privilege but ironically being dennied privilege by having to crowd into an under sized building.

Lessons all around but some don't get it.

It's college where you get an education in things other than your own privileged self.

[Baconator]

99. Ahh...

Someone somewhere acted terribly so it's only fair that all the white students at this school receive that same feeling from the students of color?

That's the one you are going with?

Folks are free to take part or not in whatever they like. The line was crossed when they demanded that others cater to them and freaked out when it didn't happen.

A real lesson would have been a responsible adult telling them that they need to be responsible and not demand that the world turns around their individual axes.

[brush]

103. Whatever, dude. It was voluntary for white students to see the other side of the coin...

FOR ONE EFFIN' DAY ONLY, NOT THE REST OF THEIR LIVES.

That certainly has educational value.

[Baconator]

105. Ok "dude"...

A day is ok but then when is it too much? 2 days? A week? The semester?

Since it is, in fact, racist bullshit then the amount of time doesn't really matter...

[RhodeIslandOne]

29. You keep typing VOLUNTARILY in caps

Yet it's pretty clear to me that you're saying that you'd think less of a white student to decided to decline and show up to class by calling them "brats".

[pnwmom]

30. You're wrong. I wouldn't have objected to individual white students going to class that day.

I only object to the ones who had public tantrums about being asked to consider staying home, and decided to play follow the leader with this rightwing professor (as some DUers are doing right now, for some inexplicable reason.)

And when I used the word "brats" I was echoing the word the previous poster chose to call the black students who tried to organize the event.

[RhodeIslandOne]

31. Do you think the black students "organizing the event" would feel the same?

Do you feel they would be fine with a white student who decided to attend class when they were clearly trying to encourage the opposite?

[pnwmom]

85. YES. The building for the white students only held 200 students and they had to ENROLL

in order to participate. The rest of the white students were free to do anything they wanted with their time, including going to class.

Weinstein made much ado about nothing, and too many people fell for his grandstanding on shows like Tucker Carlson's.

[Yupster]

38. How could you say leaving campus was voluntary?

When he said he wouldn't do it, he was surrounded by a bunch of students who were screaming at him.

That's not voluntary.

[pnwmom]

39. You don't know anything about the real situation there. You must be watching too much Fox news,

because that's how Fox was reporting it. But not trustworthy MSM.

This is an article written by three Evergreen faculty. Enlighten yourself.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/evergreen-state-college-another-side_us_598cd293e4b090964295e8fc

A toxic brew of “alt-right” (far right), white supremacist, anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, and anti-Communist ideologies is growing along the West Coast that targets college campuses as a primary enemy, with Evergreen at or near the top of the list. These groups’ primary argument is that their free speech rights are being violated by “Social Justice Warriors” (or “SJWs”), whom they demonize as deranged “mobs” practicing “reverse racism.” But even as they attempt to disassociate themselves from overt bigotry, their followers continue to commit threats and acts of violence.

At the same time, Washington State conservative leaders have targeted the college, denouncing “suppression of free speech,” characterizing student behavior as “violent,” and insisting that our administration show “strength” by taking harsh disciplinary action. These initiatives are occurring as the Trump administration directs its Justice Department to monitor and dismantle rights-based programs in colleges, including affirmative action, and as congressional committees hold hearings on the suppression of conservative views on campuses, while ignoring other forms of exclusion.

In this article we present ten issues that are not being reported, or whose significance has been overlooked or erased. This silencing doesn’t just affect Evergreen, it poses a threat to equity and diversity programs throughout higher education.

[Yupster]

41. Maybe all the video of it was photoshopped

That Weinstein guy has that clever look to him. He probably staged all the video. They probably weren't even students surrounding him. He probably hired right wingers to do it.

[pnwmom]

42. Yeah, it was sliced and diced. It didn't show what happened BEFORE the events recorded there.

He was no victim.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/evergreen-state-college-another-side_us_598cd293e4b090964295e8fc

[Baconator]

43. That author is going to have a rough time in life...

Last edited Tue Sep 19, 2017, 12:26 PM - Edit history (1)

... Outside of a very specific social circle.

[pnwmom]

45. That article was written by three respected faculty members at Evergreen

who know far more about the situation there than some of the ignorant posters here.


Anne Fischel, Faculty, The Evergreen State College
Zoltán Grossman, Faculty, The Evergreen State College
Lin Nelson, Emeritus faculty, The Evergreen State College

[Baconator]

48. Based on that article alone...

They sound like idiots...

These are the people who create the stereotype of the 'snowflake' academic who can't make it in the real world

Grow up...

[pnwmom]

58. Snowflakes? You have a very strange definition of the word.

This was what was happening in WA and Oregon during the time of Weinstein's grandstanding.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/evergreen-state-college-another-side_us_598cd293e4b090964295e8fc

5. Evergreen was targeted by a far-right terrorist threat and rally.

On May 26, the same day Tucker Carlson interviewed Weinstein’s interview, far-right activist Jeremy Christian slashed the throats of three men who had intervened to protect two African American women (one of them Muslim) from his assault on the Portland MAX train. Two of the men died. A month earlier, Christian had attended a protest of “Patriot Prayer,” an anti-Communist, anti-Muslim anti-immigrant group led by Joey Gibson. Only five days after the fatal attack, on May 31, Gibson appeared on the program of Seattle right-wing radio talk show host Dori Monson, promising that his group would come to the defense of Weinstein’s “free speech” by protesting at Evergreen.

The toxic and intimidating atmosphere created by right-wing media inevitably led to a physical threat to Evergreen the next day on June 1st, when an anonymous person called to say he was on his way to “Evergreen University” to “execute as many people on that campus as I can get a hold of... You communist, scumbag town.” When law enforcement officers and the FBI decided the threat was credible, campus was evacuated for two days. It was closed on a third day when new threats were received.

Fears of a school massacre, just a week after the Portland slayings, permeated the campus. While most students left campus, students who lived in the dorms could not leave and did not trust campus police to defend them. The students reported hearing trucks gunning their motors on the back roads behind the dorms, and drivers shouting racist slurs. They describe holing up in dorm rooms for safety and finding it impossible to sleep. In response, they organized a “Community Watch” and armed themselves with baseball bats. Like the disruptions of the previous week, the baseball bats were problematic and counterproductive, and after conversations with administration and faculty, the students put them down. But the threat of a massacre (never even mentioned by Zimmerman) offers some context to understand why some students might have seen the bats as a way to protect themselves. (A New Jersey man was later charged with “making terroristic threats” against the college.)

[Yupster]

57. As an employer, what this article showed me was

the last thing these three Evergreen professors care about is preparing young people for careers in our economy. That's what I'm looking for when I hire people.

[pnwmom]

59. You know nothing about Evergreen. Why do you even care? nt

[Baconator]

72. These 'adults' are going to come out into society at some point...

Then we all have to deal with their victim complex and demands for accommodation.

[pnwmom]

75. What kind of progressive are you? A progressive who thinks black people have a "victim complex"

and are making "demands for accommodation"?

[Baconator]

86. I didn't say black people...

I said those students who made ridiculous demands like "white people out of school for a day" and then had a tantrum when they weren't immediately acceded to.

[pnwmom]

88. They were black students. But there were no DEMANDS that anyone participate in the Day of Absence.

In order to participate, a white student had to choose to ENROLL. And there were only 200 spaces for voluntary enrollees in the building (out of thousands of students).

[Baconator]

90. You're talking about another event...

I'm talking about the change from the "Day of Absence" being a day where black and latino students and teachers choose not to show up to a demand that white people leave for the day instead.

[LisaM]

101. Evergreen is a liberal arts college, not a vocational school.

It's also got some very distinguished and creative alumni, including Matt Groening, Carrie Brownstein, and Lynda Barry, just to name a few. I have some friends who went there.

It's got a good reputation. I don't know what you hire people to do, but I really don't think you should count it against anyone for going there.

[Baconator]

106. Maybe not now...

... but in 4 years or so.

Basically, anyone who has seen what this place is about and said "Yup, that's the place for me"

[Doreen]

4. I have lived 20 minutes from Olympia most of my life

and Evergreen used to be the college where people wanted to fight the bad parts of the government and human rights and in a peaceful manner. What happened? It used to be a loving and peaceful college. I have know people who went there and that is what they said it was like.

[pnwmom]

11. This professor happened. Good riddance. n/t

[Jake Stern]

5. Students throwing a collective temper tantrum has cost Evergreen State College half a million.

Since the College President did everything short of prostrating himself to the protesters instead of taking control of the situation let him pay the settlement.

[pnwmom]

13. A handful of spoiled white students led by this grandstanding professor. n/t

[NobodyHere]

82. Racist much?

[romanic]

6. He should've gotten 500 million for dealing with those failures aka students.

[pnwmom]

14. You have no idea what you are talking about. He encouraged racist white students

who couldn't stand the idea of taking a day to think about how white privilege affects them.

[romanic]

24. Throwing the term "racist" willy-nilly isn't ven smart.

[pnwmom]

34. Do you live in Washington? Do you know Evergreen College and the students there?

It's a great college full of open-minded, curious, self-motivated students.

It turns out that many of the "students" supporting Weinstein were actually outside agitators.

http://www.thestranger.com/slog/2017/06/02/25185107/what-we-know-about-the-lockdown-and-racial-tension-at-evergreen-college

Tensions at Evergreen have been running high since mid-April when student organizers with POC Greeners decided to make a change to the campus' annual "Day of Absence," an event that dates back to the 1970s. During past events, students of color were given the option to leave campus "for community building around identity and conversations about issues of difference... to highlight how integral people of color (POC) are to the Evergreen community," reported the college's student newspaper, The Cooper Point Journal.

This year, however, student organizers turned the event on its head and invited white students and college faculty and staff to leave campus for the day to "[reaffirm] the value of having POC in higher education and specifically at Evergreen," Rashida Love, the campus' Director of First Peoples Multicultural Advising Services, wrote in an e-mail to Evergreen staff. About 200 students typically participate in the event, she noted. The decision to flip the script followed students of color voicing concerns of feeling unwelcome on campus since Donald Trump's election. Participants in the "Day of Absence" would then return to Evergreen the following day to continue discussions about race and equity as part of a "Day of Presence," the student newspaper reported.

SNIP

One student, who asked to remain anonymous out of safety concerns, said death threats to campus activists followed Weinstein's media appearances. "A swastika appeared on campus. Student personal information was published on 4chan channels and other neo-Nazi and violent racist internet communities," the student told The Stranger.

Said another student: "Calling these people 'Weinstein supporters' would be irresponsible of me. These people are mostly organized racists from off campus that use internet presence, anonymity, and misinformation to disrupt a narrative, and the threat of violence to suppress those who would fight back."

[Baconator]

46. What the fuck?

Do you even read what you copy and paste?

invited white students and college faculty and staff to leave campus for the day to "[reaffirm] the value of having POC in higher education and specifically at Evergreen

[pnwmom]

49. Do you think taking one sentence out of context proves anything? n/t

[Baconator]

50. What was out of context?

Hmm?

[pnwmom]

51. Read the article. The context is the article. n/t

[Baconator]

52. If you have nothing to add...

... Just be honest

My quote, direct from your post, is accurate.

White people were 'encouraged' to leave for the day and when they didn't all hell broke loose.

What kind of modern civilized institution thinks this is ok?

[pnwmom]

55. "All hell broke lose" because the professor led an insurrection against a very reasonable request.

[metalbot]

61. In other words, the professor shared an opinion...

...and that triggered a violent reaction on campus, which led to a violent reaction when it made national news?

You're conveniently blaming the guy who promoted an _opinion_ and then somehow holding blameless everyone who wanted to shut down that opinion. Had people simply ignored the guy, there would have been no drama. The drama that unfolded here was 100% preventable by the students who decided to loudly shut the guy down.

Did this trigger a huge alt-right talking point? Yes

Did it in some ways legitimize an alt-right talking point? Yes

Who's fault is that? The people who decided to make a big deal out of ONE PROFESSOR'S OPINION

[pnwmom]

62. Why aren't you blaming his followers for their response -- which preceded the reaction

of real students (as opposed to the outsiders who made up most of his supporters)?

[metalbot]

91. Ok - I'll play

What are you using as the basis for the timeline to your narrative. You don't have to type it up - just post a link to your version of the timeline and we'll work from there.

[Baconator]

70. Such as....?

Just saying "It's in there somewhere" doesn't mean squat...

[RhodeIslandOne]

32. Every post of yours I read you make clear you are not into this being VOLUNTARY....

You are clearly hostile not just towards the white students who made a big stink, but towards any of those merely declining and quietly showing up to class.

[pnwmom]

33. You're wrong. You can't point to any post where I said that. I'm only objecting to the

racist followers of this racist professor, many of whom aren't even students.


http://www.thestranger.com/slog/2017/06/02/25185107/what-we-know-about-the-lockdown-and-racial-tension-at-evergreen-college

"Calling these people 'Weinstein supporters' would be irresponsible of me. These people are mostly organized racists from off campus that use internet presence, anonymity, and misinformation to disrupt a narrative, and the threat of violence to suppress those who would fight back."

[Baconator]

44. You keep saying that word..

I don't think you understand the meaning of the word racist

[pnwmom]

47. I KNOW you don't know anything about what was happening at Evergreen.

The students who organized the day of absence were NOT the racists in this situation. It was people like Weinstein and his supporters, many of whom weren't even students.

[Baconator]

54. You make the claims...

... But can't provide any evidence

Why is that exactly?

[pnwmom]

56. I've provided more than one link to articles that accurately describe the situation,

including an excellent piece by three faculty there.

You could try reading them. Maybe you would learn something.

[Dr. Strange]

74. The problem is...

you're suggesting articles, while most of us are looking at actual video.

We've seen how the students treated Weinstein and later how they treated the president of the college.

There's no amount of words that can trick people into ignoring what they see with their own eyes.

[pnwmom]

76. But you are seeing a CLIP out of context. Surely you know the danger of that.

The professors who wrote the article had been on campus all year. They understood the context. People who only watch a youtube video do not.

There had been incidents of violence against black students that year. The professor , repeatedly, refused to even consider the issue of white privilege at Evergreen. So the students erupted. I'm not excusing any of their particular behaviors. But their behaviors don't excuse the professor's unwillingness to even consider what he derisively refers to as "identity politics."

[Dr. Strange]

79. But it's not just a clip.

It's multiple videos.

I'm not excusing any of their particular behaviors. But their behaviors don't excuse the professor's unwillingness to even consider what he derisively refers to as "identity politics."

I think the converse is more relevant: This professor's unwillingness to consider the students' politics doesn't excuse these students' behavior.

I don't have a problem with someone (faculty or student) disagreeing with his view on race and politics. But he's not a Trump supporter or Nazi. If we're going to fire someone who's this far to the left for not being pure enough, then we are really fucked. This nonsense plays right into Trump's hands.

And the students and faculty who have taken part in it need to seriously examine their behavior. Congratulations, you've gotten rid of two professors you didn't like. Was it really worth it?

[pnwmom]

84. He resigned. And he won't be missed. He refused to recognize the legitimate grievances that students

at Evergreen had had long before he wrote his email about the Day of Absence.

He is more of a libertarian than a progressive, despite his claims about himself. Before objecting to the entirely voluntary student "Day of Absence" (students had to ENROLL, and the facility could only hold 200 students out of thousands), he had also objected to a faculty vote that required faculty to write reflections on progress in racial diversity, viewing it as discrimination against white people.

Then, by his grandstanding to people like Tucker Carlson, he turned Evergreen campus into a focus of the haters of the ultra-right. Good riddance. I'm glad he's gone.

http://www.cooperpointjournal.com/2017/03/20/re-equity-inclusion-silence-and-fear-faculty-emails-reveal-controversy-over-race-and-diversity-at-evergreen/

Weinstein took particular issue with one policy, put in place to encourage equity at Evergreen “faculty voted to require official, yearly reflections on our individual progress relative to racial diversity.” He appears to conflate this attempt to mend historical inequality and combat racism at Evergreen, with discrimination against white people, writing, “It is hard to imagine a person of color being flagged by a conversion panel, or as an internal hiring candidate, due to their yearly reflections revealing cryptic bias, or insufficient progress with respect to race. But it is all too easy to imagine a white person (whatever that is taken to mean) being challenged on this basis.” He continues that as a result of these and other diversity policies, “We have now imposed on ourselves a de facto hierarchy based on skin color, and hooked it directly to mechanisms of hiring, promotion and dismissal–empowering some, and disempowering others.”

[RhodeIslandOne]

77. Let's see....

You have no idea what you are talking about. He encouraged racist white students

who couldn't stand the idea of taking a day to think about how white privilege affects them.

So any student who quickly decided not to take the day off, MINUS THE PROTEST, would fall into this category as someone who clearly can't be bothered by their black classmates requests, no?

He was treating black students and their issues like shit, and encouraging white students

to think that the concerns of black students weren't justified.

So how could any white student who shows up to class that day, MINUS THE PROTEST, be doing anything other than acting as if the black students concerns aren't justified?

All because they were asked to support their black classmates and think about white privilege for a day. I'm still wondering how any progressive could be making your arguments.

And if they declined to "support" their black classmates and instead chose to show up to class, MINUS THE PROTEST, what does that make you think of them as people?

[hack89]

64. When the Left Turns on Its Own

Bret Weinstein is a biology professor at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., who supported Bernie Sanders, admiringly retweets Glenn Greenwald and was an outspoken supporter of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

You could be forgiven for thinking that Mr. Weinstein, who identifies himself as “deeply progressive,” is just the kind of teacher that students at one of the most left-wing colleges in the country would admire. Instead, he has become a victim of an increasingly widespread campaign by leftist students against anyone who dares challenge ideological orthodoxy on campus.

This professor’s crime? He had the gall to challenge a day of racial segregation.

Mr. Weinstein thought this was wrong. The biology professor said as much in a letter to Rashida Love, the school’s Director of First Peoples Multicultural Advising Services. “There is a huge difference between a group or coalition deciding to voluntarily absent themselves from a shared space in order to highlight their vital and under-appreciated roles,” he wrote, “and a group or coalition encouraging another group to go away.” The first instance, he argued, “is a forceful call to consciousness.” The second “is a show of force, and an act of oppression in and of itself.” In other words, what purported to be a request for white students and professors to leave campus was something more than that. It was an act of moral bullying — to stay on campus as a white person would mean to be tarred as a racist.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/opinion/when-the-left-turns-on-its-own.html

[pnwmom]

71. LOL. Admiringly retweeting libertarian Glenn Greenwald doesn't make him a good progressive.

And supporting Bernie Sanders doesn't mean this professor understands the problem of white privilege, which was at the bottom of the whole controversy.

http://crosscut.com/2017/06/evergreen-story-highlights-how-white-liberals-get-it-wrong/

What too many of them failed to do was look beyond the white professor, the media-created victim at the center of the story. They seemed completely incurious about the underlying issues that had riled up these students of color. And they insisted on seeing the drama as a simple morality tale: good white prof versus bad students.

But the story is far more complex than what we have learned from Tucker Carlson on Fox News, from Frank Bruni in the New York Times, or from the professor himself in the numerous interviews he has given over the past week.

Here’s what I have learned by digging a little deeper: Race issues have boiled throughout this academic year at Evergreen, with students of color complaining, for example, about being racially profiled by campus police and singled out unfairly for punishment by administrators. A defender of the status quo, Weinstein seemed intent on stirring this racially charged pot with his emails.

In November, he attacked a College committee’s “Strategic Equity Plan” that wanted to help students “whose collective identities have been neglected, under-resourced, and marginalized …” Weinstein was especially unhappy with a proposal for faculty to reflect in their annual reports on their own efforts to promote greater equity at Evergreen. This would only harm white professors, he argued: “We have now imposed on ourselves a de facto hierarchy based on skin color, and hooked it directly to mechanisms of hiring, promotion, and dismissal – empowering some and disempowering others.”

Then, in March, Weinstein wrote his second email. This time he was unhappy about a proposed change in the format of a longstanding campus event, “The Day of Absence.” In the past, faculty, staff and students of color had met off campus to discuss race and other issues at Evergreen, before coming together with others in a “Day of Presence.” This tradition was inspired by a play in which the white residents of a Southern town awaken to find that all of the black residents have disappeared, causing those who remain to find ways to carry on in their absence.


SNIP

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

78. They got off cheap

The lawyers I work with would cum in their pants at the prospect of taking this to trial.

[RelativelyJones]

81. Weinstein deserves quadruple what he got

[Inkfreak]

96. Good. That was straight up bullshit.

And some people's efforts to label him as "right wing" is fucking laughable.

[Baconator]

100. Eating their own who aren't pure enough...

It's ridiculous...

Anyone who goes there has to know that their degree will be seen as a joke by anyone in the know.

[LittleBlue]

104. Good. The students were racist and anyone who supports them is too. nt