Ken Berwitz
Here is the latest example of Academic Brownshirts stifling any semblance of freedom of speech, in the name of never ever offending anyone (except whomever the University considers OK to offend, that is).
Administrators at a private college in Coloradohave suspended a student for almost two years because he responded to thecomment “#blackwomenmatter” by saying “They matter, they\’re just not hot.”
The student, Thaddeus Pryor, is also banned fromcampus until August 28, 2017, as a letter from associate dean of studentsRochelle T. Mason makes clear.
In her letter, Mason explains that the reasonfor Pryor\’s two-year suspension and total campus ban is to “educate oneanother”and to “provide an opportunity for growth and development.”
Pryor\’s six-word Yik Yak statement concerninghis view that black women are not attractive was not directed at any particularperson. Also, he says it was a joke.
“Colorado College\’s disciplinary action towardPryor – a 21-month suspension – for posting what was intended to be a joke onsocial media completely contradicts the school\’s promises of freedom ofspeech,” FIRE spokesman Ari Cohn said in a statement sent to The Daily Caller. “The college\’s punitive and heavy-handed overreaction to Pryor\’s social mediapost will have a chilling effect on campus discourse.”
“In anacademic climate that has become increasingly censored, the expression of apreference, in my case even a joking preference, is being squashed withimpunity,” (Pryor) said.
Pryor has appealed his two-year suspension andcampus ban.
What Thaddeus Pryor said – that Black women do matter, but they are not hot – was, I suppose, offensive.
And???????
In the immortal words of former NBAer Derrick Coleman, whose opinion of Black women I do not know, whoop dee damn doo.
Pryor\’s apparently joking comment did not include any pejorative expression regarding women or Black people. He did not use bad language.
This is an offense worthy of being told it isn\’t nice to say that and a suggestion that he not say it again. Period. It is not worthy of two minute\’s suspension, let alone almost two years.
Did Associate Dean of Students Mason find supporters of #blackwomenmatter offensive, on the grounds that they specifically exclude non-Black people and men – a dramatically more egregious offense than what Pryor said? I didn\’t think so.
Should Ms. Mason and the rest of the Colorado College hierarchy be suspended for almost two years because Black students at this school make up only 1/7th of their incidence in the general population? I didn\’t think so either.
This is another of the seemingly countless examples of Academic Brownshirts on parade – intent on molding the college/university experience to their own parochial view of how things should be and which thoughts are/are not acceptable. All in the name of…uh, what was that she said….oh yeah, “growth and development”.
If I were Thaddeus Pryor, and his parents, I would not think of this as two years lost, I would think of it as $120,000 saved.
