In this Minding the Campus essay, Mark Bauerlein discusses the latest racial hoax to hit an American campus.
Last week, some people on the University of Buffalo campus saw something out of the segregationist South — signs over the bathrooms and water fountains reading “White Only” and “Black Only.” Of course, the school immediately went into convulsions. But at a meeting of the Black Student Union, a grad student admitted that she had put the signs up, part of a “performance art project” done to fulfill an assignment in a course entitled “Installation in Urban Spaces.”
Sounds a lot like the “performance art” of Mattress Girl at Columbia.
The student went on to write a long letter (link included in the essay) in which she sought to justify her action. White racism made her do it, you see. Grad students in Buffalo have to deal with so much of that.
Bauerlein advises against making a big deal about this incident. “There is nothing to gain from going after this student for posting hate speech, summoning a police investigation, and bringing heaps of bad publicity down on the school.”
I think he has a good point. The more attention we pay to those who obviously revel in victimhood, the more people will do that.