Southern Oregon University plastered its campus with posters asking students to check their privileges in various areas — including their “size privilege.”
The posters were placed “all over campus” by the school’s Bias Response Committee, according to an article in The Siskiyou, the school’s newspaper.
The other privileges listed on the posters are: white, male, class, Christian, neuro-typical, cisgender, able-bodied, and heterosexual.
The school even hosted “public meetings for students to air their feelings” about the posters last week.
“[We wanted] to provide awareness that privilege does exist, and explain that privilege does not just pertain to race but that there are other forms of privilege, we wanted to start a dialogue . . . and I would say we succeeded,” said SOU Associate Director of Student Life – Diversity and Inclusion Marjorie Trueblood-Gamble.
Of course, not all of the “dialogue” has been happy.
“I believe they are segregating and dividing the population by targeting certain groups,” SOU student and U.S. Marine Corps veteran Tim Short told The Siskiyou.
#share#Now, I have a problem with the posters, too, but for a different reason: They are very body negative. Seriously, just what in the hell is “size privilege” supposed to mean, anyway? Are they actually suggesting that some sizes of bodies are better than other sizes of bodies?
Get it together, SOU — it’s 2016, and and we are all supposed to know that bodies of all sizes are equally beautiful and special and deserving of the utmost praise and celebration for being just the way they are.
— Katherine Timpf is a reporter for National Review Online.