American university leadership is ever so eager to leap into any dispute on the side of whatever “progressives” are complaining about. Just think about how Oberlin College officials sided with student protesters who wanted to smear the family that owns Gibson’s Bakery as racists after one of them tried to stop a black student from shoplifting. In the end, Oberlin paid a large price for having done so.
A similar case has arisen at the University of Virginia, where a woman’s casual remark was portrayed by the school as evidence of her racism, making her a threat to fellow students. In today’s Martin Center article, Graham Hillard writes about Morgan Bettinger’s suit against UVA.
Hillard explains:
Caught in a social-media firestorm (the accusation against Bettinger soon went viral), the University of Virginia issued multiple statements that appeared to take the side of Bettinger’s accuser. UVA also hauled Bettinger before the student-run University Judiciary Committee, which found her guilty of “threatening” the protestors, many of whom were fellow UVA students. Despite a later reprieve, in which the university’s civil-rights office concluded separately that the evidence against Bettinger was insufficient, the university failed to publicize her formal acquittal widely. The result, according to Bettinger’s complaint, is that her “character and reputation have been utterly destroyed.”
Read the whole, unpleasant thing.
When will university leaders learn that it’s a bad idea to take sides in ideologically driven disputes?