Why did it take four years for someone’s head to explode over this? Well, as they say, if it’s new to you, it’s news, and this is new to me.
Campus Reform reveals an earlier report by The Chicago Thinker showed that student-run debate organizations at Northeastern University and Boston College co-hosted the American Parliamentary Debate Association’s “inaugural BIPOC tournament” and explicitly prohibited white students from competing. Huh. Why would this make sense? Whites are too articulate? Too quick on their feet and skilled in rhetorical flair, are they? This is the equivalent of prohibiting black basketball players from competing in an all-white tournament; after all, as the movie says, “White Guys Can’t Jump.” The existence of such a discriminatory tournament is an insult to non-whites.
It’s also illegal, but the Biden Administration doesn’t care unless the wrong people are being discriminated against.
The University of Chicago informed students the BIPOC debate was only open to anyone who “does not identify as white.” An email obtained by Campus Reform revealed Devesh Kodnani, president of the Chicago Debate Society, explaining “The goal of this tournament is to promote affinity among non-white APDA debaters and cultivate racial diversity on the league.” Wait: how does discriminating by race promote racial diversity? Never mind: this kind of deranged wokeness doesn’t have to make sense.
White students were ineligible to compete in the event but were able to apply for a judging position (!) This is mind-blowing. Judges are authority figures: so debaters of color have to please white judges? Oh, not necessarily: the university clarified that white students would be “selected with lower priority” than students of color. Ah. That’s okay then. So at least the theme of racial discrimination remained consistent. Integrity!
I don’t think these schools know the meaning of that word, though, or the ethical values it describes. According to Northeastern University’s Policy and Procedures, “Northeastern University strictly prohibits discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, color, religion, religious creed, genetic information, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, national origin, ancestry, veteran, or disability status.” Boston College’s University Notice on Nondiscrimination explicitly prohibits discrimination based on race, stating “federal laws and regulations require the University not to discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, disability, sex, or age in treatment, employment, admission or access to Boston College and its educational programs and activities.”
Naturally, the Biden Administration’s equal opportunity and civil rights enforcers were on this like a shot. Well, okay, not really. In fact, no.
Asked to explain how the debate competition’s exclusion of white students doesn’t violate these these rules, neither Northeastern University, Boston College, the Northeastern Debate Society, nor event organizers responded. The Chicago Debate Society, the University of Chicago’s competitive debate team that participated in the no whites, dogs or Irish allowed tournament issued this ridiculous rationalization after the Chicago Thinker exposé:
“The Chicago Debate Society supports our members’ participation in the tournament and the tournament itself for combatting the ongoing legacy of racism in all levels of American competitive debate. We believe in creating spaces for discourse about race and social justice, especially those that actively promote the voices of marginalized debaters….White debaters are invited to participate without restriction at 20+ tournaments throughout the academic year and were also allowed to participate in the BIPOC tournament by training and preparing their teammates, spectating rounds, or judging rounds.”
Oh. Well, as long as you put it that way…WHAT? We don’t discriminate on the basis of race the rest of the year, so we have a bigoted debate competition coming? We let the whites train and judge, they just can’t actually compete, so it’s all good!? What kind of logic is that? It doesn’t even makes sense as a DEI policy!
Now explain to me why we have to rely on obscure news organs like the Chicago Thinker and Campus Reform (and Ethics Alarms) to learn about this…
Ethics Alarms 
I really don’t know why psychological approach toward combatting the progressive agenda is not taken.
Campus Reform should merely report the activity and then editorialize why it believes such events occur.
I would expect significant outrage from participants if the editorial content suggested the reason for the BIPOC event was that too often that demographic has been marginalized given their poor performances against white debaters and why it us important for less capable debaters to win occasionally to gain confidence.
That would end that crap toot sweet.
Want to reduce the number of abortions stop trying to prevent abortions and start promoting it in black and poor communities using the very rational progressive use about being born into poverty and these women simply would be poor mothers.
If the goal is to stop or limit a behavior do that which is the opposite of the goal but attach a stigma to it. When they gripe say prove me wrong and I will retract my statements.
It may work. But that is a very poisoned blade to wield. The reason I hate that language is because the weapon is too terrible to use. Using it only grants that sort of malarky authority, signals that you agree with it – so long as you can use the blade against your foes. That kind of Faustian bargain is the epitome of winning the battle to lose the war. Soon, we’d all be spending our time arguing who has the biggest legitimate grievances against which other groups, instead of just freaking getting along with each other.
Plus, they’re really good with that blade. They’ve been practicing for years. One hit, maybe two, and it would inevitably be right back where it belongs – at our throats. You can’t fight darkness with darkness, or evil with evil. Because that’s what this is. Evil. It serves no purpose other than to beat people down, force them to comply, and isolate them. It’s a weapon of fear, manipulation, and hatred. I know I’m no good with demonic weapons like that, and I don’t want to be. You can’t use weapons like that against THEM without becoming them.
AP
Your rebuttal is well taken however the entire implied message is that BIPOC debaters are less talented. I also agree that you would have to have a way to show after the fact that your intentions were to prove the point that BIPOC populations are not well served by isolating them to themselves.
What is evil is that the colleges are evil and manipulative. I am simply suggesting that evil be confronted and not masked as being helpful.
It won’t work because you think you are being funny, but you are not. You think you are attaching a negative reason for the policy, but what if that is the actual reason for the policy? Remember, the affirmative action people truly believe in white supremacy. They believe that non-white people can never achieve and never compete on a level playing field with whites. Since the actual reason for the policy is that the people in charge are white supremacists, what would this do except make it look like you are included in that group?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev373c7wSRg
Michael
I am not trying to be funny at all I am trying to point out the dishonesty and condescending attitudes of these programs.
Cloaking the condescension in positive terms like promoting affinity among like groups is damaging to all. Blacks are not stupid. They see through the smoke and mirrors of preferential treatment for what it is but they use it to their advantage. The faster we find a way to eliminate preferential programs the faster claims of systemic racism will fade away.
I will admit there would be better language that would get the message across without creating or reinforcing the message of whites being racially superior but simply claiming reverse racism is not the answer.
Having worked as a teacher/counselor in a correctional setting I have first hand experience getting people with anti-social and racially focused perspectives to adopt a more positive image of themselves not by reinforcing the idea they need protection but to letting them succeed by tackling the challenges from which they sought to be protected.
What I am trying to say is that the people behind these programs believe firmly in white supremacy as an unchangeable fact and these programs are there to reinforce that ideology. From the studies I have seen, less than 10% of people can think independently, the rest do as they are told by anyone they view as authority. The only way to fix this is to get all of the people promoting this stuff out of positions of power and authority. So, what would that require?
That will require:
Firing ALL current public schoolteachers
Firing almost all the professor in the humanities and the “<insert aggrieved group here> studies
Getting rid of almost all Democratic politicians
Removing almost all of the federal and state employees in the ‘Civil Rights’ sphere
Getting rid of most of the judges
Making the mainstream media obsolete
Michael, I agree with the concept of getting rid of the “virus vectors” for lack of a better term.
One of the things that crossed my mind after reading both rebuttals to my initial comment – which was intended to create some push back – is that we continually point out this ” good discrimination” but offer few if any ways to combat it. Simply claiming it is reverse racism is ineffective.
In some ways it is as impossible to change the belief that discrimination in favor of those who were once discriminated against is a good thing as diplomacy will be to create a two state solution in the middle east. In both cases one side benefits from playing the victim. Thus, if our current practice of simply calling it out will not effectuate a change then the effort is as unethical as trying to get the Palestinians to accept Israel through mere words.
Right now the only answer I have is to make the supposed victim acknowledge they do not need special treatment by giving them a choice. They can claim they are equal both physically and intellectually in every way or they simply can say they are not. My bet is that they would choose the former. Everything is a choice. The solution will lie with a method that helps those needing a boost to face reality by holding them to as high a standard as anyone else while simultaneously reinforcing in their minds that they do not need special favors because no one can hold them back unless they let them.
Simply Put: You Won’t Have EQUAL RIGHTS Until You Give Up SPECIAL RIGHTS
PWS
Why not just have a separate but equal debate organization for black students. They could compete against each other in blacks only debates for the entire season. They would be kind of like the freshman team or a junior varsity team or a minor league or development league. And maybe if some of them were deemed to be pretty good, they could be promoted to the varsity or the major league teams! They could call it the Frederick Douglass Debate Society!
In our public elementary schools, there there has been a long history of district-level programs that funneled money, staffing and resources toward discriminatory programs, including funding positions for mentors, teachers and administrators explicitly reserved for, say black men to be paid to mentor black boys. Program might entail much fist-bumping and a trip to a ball game, plus bonus admonitions to be this way or that, or not to be this way or that, and some branded sports swag.
The stated goals of such programs are to raise performance, correct discriminatory practices or bring opportunity where none existed. In reality, they are siphons and typically of poor quality, or poorly run. And I have lost count of how many times I’ve been tapped to help “brainstorm some ideas” for content, or help design, recruit, or support in some other (unpaid and unrecognized) way.
The bloom is off the rose, and any rationalizing by way of some perceived benefit to some children is long gone. My decades in teaching has shown me the kids served got little to nothing in so many cases anyway, and over generations of this are arguably devolving.
In others, such as the old symphony Young Strings program, it was a zero-sum game, providing thousands of dollars in quality music education to kids of color while refusing to serve white children, regardless of need.
Just last month, my principal tried to enlist my support for a University Interscholastic League team (unpaid). She can and did funnel all of the paid tutoring and club sponsor roles into the, well, funnel, but was shameless enough to try bringing the help in through the back door to polish the silver and lend a veneer of credibility (quality, gentility) to what is typically heading for a crash-and-burn.
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