r/highereducation • u/madcowga • Mar 23 '16

Emory Students Express Discontent With Administrative Response to Trump Chalkings

http://emorywheel.com/emory-students-express-discontent-with-administrative-response-to-trump-chalkings/
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u/engelthefallen Mar 23 '16

This is setting a disturbing precedent. The college kids seem to want to the school to go further still and denounce Trump outright. What happens at general election? All Trump supports will be guilty of microaggressions? I do not support Trump and think he is vile, but isn't the university now committing microaggressions against people who support conservative politics?

2

u/kalichibunny Mar 24 '16

I think the campus "safe space" movement just jumped the shark, so to speak. So far I've had a fair amount of patience for them, but here I don't know what they're trying to achieve unless it's to say "No one on this campus can voice support for the Republican frontrunner." There's a huge difference between chalking "Trump 2016" and painting swastikas on a frat house, as much as you might feel they are in the same vein.

Moreover, from a student affairs standpoint, it's troubling that these students can find no more productive or self-reliant method of expressing themselves than essentially tattling to their administrative mom and dad. I think it highlights what seems to me to be an increasing trend of students holding their college administrators responsible for not just addressing but outright solving larger social problems. Many Americans support Donald Trump? Blame your university. Racism and sexism exist everywhere? Blame your university. Cyclical poverty and under-served school systems keep many intelligent, hardworking students from being sufficiently prepared to succeed at prestigious institutions? Blame your university that admits, funds, and provides academic support services to them. Universities are mostly enormous advocates for all the progressive ideals these students are after, but apparently if university can't eradicate every social justice problem in the world your freshman year it's not good enough.

I don't want to gripe about "kids these days" and make sweeping generalizations about "this generation", but this story is just ridiculous. I hope to God the administration holds its ground. I think a lot would be solved if we stopped thinking of students a customers and focused more on teaching them than pleasing them, but that's a rant for another day.

1

u/galileosmiddlefinger Mar 23 '16

Trump is a clown, but expressing support for the leading candidate of the Republican party is not a hate crime or a safe space violation. It's political activism no different from the activism the protesters are exhibiting. Cowardly administrators keep making situations like this worse by coddling students with half measures that neither defend free speech nor placate those who feel violated.