First question:
Are you prepared to rationalize this?
From the Wisconsin State Journal:
UW-Madison’s Multicultural Student Center separated attendees by race to discuss a violent week of news that stirred debates about racism and law enforcement, prompting criticism from conservative news outlets that the arrangement amounted to segregation.
Campus officials said the decision to hold separate meetings Monday for white and minority students, faculty and staff was made to ensure people of color had a place to discuss their concerns, and said the rules were not meant to exclude participants.
“No one was turned away from any session,” UW-Madison spokeswoman Meredith McGlone said in a statement.
A post that has since been deleted from the Multicultural Student Center’s Facebook page described the meetings as a place where students and UW employees could emotionally process the prior week, which included fatal police shootings of black men in Minnesota and Louisiana, followed by the targeted killing of five police officers in Dallas.
Two of the meetings were for white students and UW employees, according to the post, while two meetings were for people of color.
The Daily Caller, a national conservative news site, wrote about the meetings Monday night, posting a story that included a historic photo of a segregated waiting room sign. The site Right Wisconsin also wrote about the meetings.
McGlone said participants wanted “a space to express feelings without the fear of being judged.”
“Our students of color often find such spaces hard to come by,” McGlone said. “It is a best practice in student affairs to allow quiet and reflective space for those who request it.”
Still, McGlone said, the intent behind the different meetings “could have been communicated more clearly to avoid any impression of exclusion.”
McGlone did not respond to a followup question asking whether the Multicultural Student Center would use a similar structure for meetings in the future…
Here is a handy link to the Ethics Alarms Rationalizations List, so those of you choosing to try to justify this have all the necessary arguments in one convenient place..
The second question:
If you are not prepared to rationalize it, do you have the courage and integrity to condemn it?
Astoundingly, depressingly, and…predictably?…UW-Madison spokeswoman McGlone was defending the “separate but equal” response to a race-based controversy that did not directly involve the university, in an educational context.
This response …
…Suggests that black students reasonably do not (and thus should not) trust their white colleagues.
…Asserts that spaces that include whites are presumptively “unsafe” for blacks.
…Endorses apartheid and segregation
…Embraces a double standard, agreeing that blacks demanding to engage in an activity with no whites allowed is reasonable, while whites demanding to engage in an activity with no blacks allowed to participate would be racist oppression.
…Rejects the proposition, long enshrined in law through Brown v. Board of Education, that “separate but equal” is inherently unequal, and that separating the races is “usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of” the non-white group.
…Designates the non-white group as inferior, as it is unable to endure a discussion of a controversial issue that includes the opinions of students with different perspectives.
…Betrays the a core concept underlying higher education, in which students are forced to consider ideas that are uncomfortable, contrary to their world-view or with which they disagree.
…Projects a racist anti-white attitude to white students, who are treated as an unwelcome presence and as a monolithic group.
…Demonstrates abject cowardice, lack of responsibility, abdication of rational supervision and racial bias by the University.
Addressing McGlone’s—I’m sorry, but idiotic is not too strong a word…specific excuses:
- “No one was turned away from any session.”
Deceit and equivocation. If a meeting says that you are not welcome because of your color, the fact that you would not be turned away if you came anyway is hardly mitigation.
- Participants wanted “a space to express feelings without the fear of being judged.”
The correct University response to this desire would be “Tough! Sorry. You’re an adult. Your words and conduct are always going to be judged, which is why we are teaching you to be rational, logical, responsible and accountable.”
- “Our students of color often find such spaces hard to come by.”
Yes, and white racists often complain that they should be able to live somewhere they won’t have to deal with all those damn black people. There is no difference, none, between these two sentiments other than gentile phrasing. One is as un-American, divisive and racist as the other.
- “It is a best practice in student affairs to allow quiet and reflective space for those who request it.”
Wrong. It is best practice in student affairs to refuse to capitulate and endorse racial stereotyping and bias. Any student seeking a quiet and reflective space should be directed to go to their dorm room and lock the door.
- “The intent behind the different meetings “could have been communicated more clearly to avoid any impression of exclusion.”
You mean like in “1984’s” Newspeak, Ms. McGlone? War is Peace, Exclusion is Non-Exclusion? Segregating races for any purpose means excluding individuals based on race, which means that a message in being sent with the imprimatur of a distinguished liberal arts institution that one race is justifiably regarded as a negative presence in the venue that contains the other. No clarification of this is necessary, but obfuscation to avoid well-earned condemnation might be.
So now it’s over to you, fellow Americans who happen to be black, university administrators, democrats, civil rights advocates, liberal pundits, progressives and social justice warriors. Defend this. I dare you. I double-dare you. Your attempts will be fascinating and revealing to all.
Oh, I almost forgot!
I also want to hear Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Loretta Lynch and Barack Obama rationalize this new apartheid too.
Better yet, I’d like to hear them display the integrity necessary to condemn it for what it is.
[Announcement: With this post, Ethics Alarms will begin using a new Category: “This will help elect Donald Trump.”]
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Pointer: Ann Althouse
Facts: Wisconsin State journal
Ethics Alarms 
It amazes me that these supposedly educated university administrators believe that their main purpose is to infantilize students and protect them from hurt feelings. To segregate students based on race should have died out with Strom Thurmond and the other Dixiecrats. But no, these progressive fools continue to promote “separate but equal” all in the best interest of “people of color”.
Just a minor correction, to what “progressives” are promoting now:
It’s more like “separate but some more equal than others” now.
I would also point out that it furthers the assumption made by Liberals that black students are, somehow, less intelligent, aggressive and rational than white students, but are more sensitive and more likely to have their feelings hurt. Obviously, black students are incapable of holding their own in a debate with white students. Personally, I have a great deal of trouble believing that.
As a liberal, I condemn this stupidity and unethical conduct. These people don’t seem to have the intelligence and/or fortitude to do what was necessary to organize what could have been a worthwhile series of meetings.
I had no doubt whatsoever that you would have the ethical and rational reaction to this, Patrice. And you don’t do rationalizations, at least not with your heart in them.
Did UWM hire Dr. David Duke to run the Diversity Office?
The funny thing is, in these cases, I would bet the “white” person has a lot more trouble being able to find a location on campus to pose his thoughts that don’t fit the mainstream there (and not be called a racist because of it) than a “black” person.
Isn’t the whole thing everyone wants is to further MORE conversation so that everyone can understand MORE about why some groups feel they are more targeted? Unless we whiteys are in the room where people tell the stories we haven’t lived, we whiteys can’t ‘get woke’ and understand what is NOT our experience. Segregating is exactly opposite from what everyone NEEDS to be hearing.
Jeez…why don’t you start a college?
First question: No.
Second question: Yes.
Two for two!
The presumption made by UW is that all people of color come from the same experiences and have the same opinions and views. That there would be no challenges to the presumption of victim status.
Nice post.
My theory on the BLM movement which I’ll use as shorthand for all this racial theory being tossed around these days is that the Afro-American studies industrial complex has been frustrated to the point of inanity by the continued, intractable poverty of now generations of black people. No one’s figured out how to raise these poor people out of poverty so they’ve decided to completely re-define the problem. It’s analogous to me saying “I was over-served” after I’ve had too much to drink and am hung over.
For example, there doesn’t seem to be any solution to the horrific amount of crime in poor neighborhoods, so the problem must be the concept of crime. These people are not committing crimes, they are being victimized by the penal and judicial system. The problem is “over-incarceration.” Black students are not getting jobs at Goldman Sachs after they acquire a degree in Afro-American Studies with a minor in Gender Studies, therefore, they need to be given a salary equal to what they would make if they had been hired by Goldman Sachs. Poor kids are having kids out of wedlock and struggling to get an education and take care of themselves and their chilcren. But we can’t say there’s another better way to conduct your late childhood and early adulthood. No, we have to glamorize unwed mothers and bounder fathers so everyone feels good. Let’s call them “Baby Mamas.” That’s sweet and cute.
In short, there’s a huge number of poor, bereft people who evidently can’t compete in contemporary American society notwithstanding the War on Poverty having been declared three generations ago, therefore, we have to lower the standards of our society to make the problem goes away immediately. Everybody will get a trophy and a coke and a pizza. Who cares if we throw out free speech or equality before the law or free enterprise in its most rudimentary and essential aspects or civil order or basic civility, there are poor people and they aren’t at fault, it’s society’s fault. These poor people need to be made to feel good about themselves as they are.
I find this is an incredibly pernicious development in American society. And am I glad I graduated from college in the 1970s. I feel bad about the minefield my grand kids are going to have to navigate since they’re not people of color.
Funny thing is, was there not a period time mid-20th century that the black community was upwardly mobile and rapidly carving out its place in the greater community, without help and without their culture being appropriated by the left to become a big voting plantation bloc?
Unfortunately, integration had the unintended consequence of destroying tons of black owned enterprises. However, I think a very significant majority of black families are doing very well. (See, eg., all the black police officers and police chiefs on TV during all these events attacking the police as racist.) I bet generally “people of color” have flourished since the ’60s. I don’t think their achievement gets much, if any, attention. Which is unfortunate to the point of downright deceptive. But the bereft poor continue to struggle and no one seems willing to do anything to effectively address the issue other than shit stir all this Marxist stuff BLM is spouting and the other standard issue Jesse Jackson off-the-self grievance mongering for fun and profit.
Good post yourself, by the way.
I think this highlights a split on the left, where a generation of well intentioned but naive liberal professors taught a generation of critically left leaning, but not critically thinking progressives who raised a generation of fucking crazy kids.
You have some of the more reasonable liberals like Patrice, Becky, Chris, and Beth, who will at least listen, attempt an understanding and sometimes even change their minds, and then you have people like deery and Charles, who have never found a progressive issue they didn’t agree with, couldn’t defend or wouldn’t silently condone.
The left IS eating itself, and it WILL help elect Trump. God help us all.
Lenin’s (or Trotsky’s?) term “useful idiots” is the only thing that comes to mind when I see earnest young white kids protesting with black BLM kids.
“Queers for Palestine” have got to be some of the stupidest people on the fact of the planet.
It hits me often that these positions can only be held from a place of either unfortunate ignorance, or deep deep bias.
It hits me that especially on the second amendment debate, the people calling for control don’t actually know what they’re asking for. control of automatic weapons? You’re about 30 years too late. The average Joe can’t own an automatic rile unless they’re grandfathered in from the 80’s. Semi automatic assault rifles? No such classification exists, “semi-automatic” just means one trigger squeeze, one bullet fired, making a six-shooter revolver technically semi-automatic, non-automatic are things like muzzle loaders or bolt actions. And “assault rifle”? That just means it looks scary and is painted black. But to hear the pundits talk about it, these assault rifles from hell are spraying thousands of bullets in seconds!
I think I have a better understanding of the disdain in which the left treated creationists for the longest time, how they thumbed their noses at the lack of knowledge, logic and reason, how they stigmatised blind faith and ideology.
I understand it better now because I feel it. The left has lost legitimacy, they’ve lost the backing of science, and reason and should be ushered to the kids table until they grow up. For my part, I’ll try to treat them better than they treated the evangelicals.