Many PBC readers have probably heard by now of the disgusting story out of Columbia’s Teachers’ College, where an African American professor had a hangman’s noose put on her door. Lest we forget, these are the actual instances of racism that occur intermittently on campuses across the country. They, rightly, should be condemned.
But also troubling has been the response at Columbia, which is symptomatic of colleges nationwide today. The entire campus, in the wake of such incidents, feel the need to march, and march, and march–as though universities’ maintenance of a racially hospitable environment on campus were ever in doubt. Accompanying these protests are the endless commitments to “diversity,” because that’s the panacea of all acts of racial discrimination on campuses.
No conservative should ever dispute that, yes, racism exists. But it exists in isolated incidents of unfortunate individuals hollering epithets or, even, putting a hangman’s noose on a professor’s door. But these, in aggregate, do not add up to the need for “universal racism” academia bemoans, with the only possible justification being racial preferences and greater minority set-asides.
We should call out wrongheaded decisions wherever we see them: both from the racists, as well as the supposed “anti-racists.”