Updating last week’s Clarion Call:
Duke University is seeing another round of We’re-Offended-So-Gimme activism in the wake of a fraternity party:
quote
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Concerned students, faculty, staff and administrators who took “direct and personal offense” to the Sept. 13 party call for a major push by the University to bring its commitment to supporting Latino, Asian-American and Native-American students and faculty up to the same level as that for their black counterparts. …
Foremost among the demands are the creation of programs in Native American studies and Asian American studies, as well as a strengthening of the Latino and Sexual Studies programs.
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Naturally, the phrase “hate crime” has been invoked. Surprisingly (I use the term rhetorically), no one seemed to notice that the fraternity’s president is Hispanic nor pay any attention to his explanation of the event as “themed ‘Viva Mexico’ mainly because ‘X’ appears in the name Mexico [and] designed to be a light-hearted celebration of the Mexican tourism scene.”
In short, this is a very thin basis for demanding major curriculum restructuring, Orwellian speech crackdowns and the like. But campus activists apparently love transparent justifications for significant demands.
