NEW YORK, NY Nov. 18 (DPI) – NYT Readers 1, Wesleyan University’sPresident 0.
The New York Times gave Wesleyan’s Michael Roth space to explain that his students are merely victims of stereotyping and are scapegoats in the nation’s backlash against woke doctrine.
“In the current climate of political pessimism and manufactured outrage, we can work with students to reject the tired tropes of the past and embrace what many in the older generations have forgotten: how to engage with and, yes, debate people who have a variety of points of view and who imagine the future with a mix of hopes sometimes very different from their own. No scapegoats required,” Roth wrote.
But readers – to a surprising degree in the usually friendly confines of nytimes.com – took exception to the college president’s suggestion that campuses remain bastions of open-mindedness, and woke students are merely misunderstood.
All of the most popular comments from readers ripped into Roth’s nuanced take on his students, suggesting that progressives’ support for campus wokism has largely disappeared.
The site’s editors pushed the link down – and then off – the front page faster than usual.
The top comments:
When my daughter was in high school, the teacher and the students of color in her psychology class all agreed that there is no such thing as free will for young black men. That when young black men commit crimes, it is out of the desperation brought on by lack opportunity compounded over generations. My 16 year old daughter argued that individuals always have a choice and the opportunity to exert free will. She was loudly called a racist. The teacher allowed that comment and encouraged discussion of her racism. How much more courageous should she have been? How many more similar stories does this author need to hear before they’re no longer dismissed as “anecdotal, and instead seen a portrayal of life in “progressive” institutions?
Right. Let’s be sure not to mention the profs who have lost their jobs as a result of crossing the microaggression line in totally innocent ways and offending the truly hypersensitive students of the woke mob. I believe these students have found that they can find ways to complain about almost anything and get their complaints supported by university administrations who are terrified of being cancelled by not supporting the woke agenda aggressively enough.
Just toured colleges with my son. It’s clear that only one shade of political thought is acceptable. The idea that this is not the case is gaslighting to the extreme.
What would happen to a Wesleyan student who stood on a soapbox and said, for example:
“Biological sex is real.”
“There are average differences, among different populations, in various traits including intelligence.”
“Climate change is not an economic calamity and solutions such as geoengineering and nuclear should be pursued.”
“All lives matter.”
“The Second Amendment was correctly interpreted by the Supreme Court to affirm a personal right to own and keep guns for self defense.”
“MTF transgender athletes should not be allowed to participate in women’s sports where their physiology provides unfair advantages.”
“Roe v. Wade and progeny were wrongly decided and the Supreme Court should now affirm there is no federal constitutional right to abortion and leave the issue to state legislatures.”
“There is no systemic racism.”
“The college admission process as well as hiring and advancement in the working world disadvantage straight white males because of what is now reverse discrimination in favor of other groups.”
“Whites are not inherently racist or oppressive.”
“An important reason for the relative underperformance of some minority groups lack of an intact family.”
The list could go on and on. Each of these statements is a perfectly valid topic for discussion and debate. But we all know the answer. None of these topics can be discussed openly at Wesleyan or pretty much any other college or university.