What is happening at Indiana’s private DePauw University is the collapse of a university into collective madness, paranoia, and racial hatred. Whether it can recover remains to be seen.

Here’s the background, according to the Indianapolis Star:

Racist messages were left in campus restrooms and at the DePauw Nature Park. DePauw Spokesman Ken Owen said the first incident occurred April 11, when a racist threat was found in a men’s bathroom stall at The Inn at DePauw and Event Center. Photos of the message, written in black marker, were circulated later that night through social media. McCoy described four separate incidents that the university is investigating:

• The racist threat in a restroom at The Inn at DePauw.

• A homophobic and an anti-Semitic message also found in a restroom.

• An incident of a student engaging in offensive behavior at the restaurant and event center called The Fluttering Duck.

• The “n-word” formed by rocks in the nature park.

Bathroom graffiti off campus. Racist rocks in a park. A student (identified later as Ellie Locke) engaging in nondescript “offensive” behavior. And now the campus is convulsing.

On Wednesday, university president Mark McCoy and vice president Alan Hill held a press conference on campus, the day after a student mob disrupted an appearance by an actress.

“I’m hurting too, but nowhere near like our students are hurting today,” said Alan Hill, who is black. The language is remarkable. You would think by the way he was talking that these students had witnessed a massacre. President McCoy mewled about “this time of pain on our campus.”

At just past the five minute mark during the press conference, the president agrees to let a student mob into the event. Bad move. The group, mostly black students, took the thing over, chanting, “Meet our demands! We’re not safe!” Look:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgJuTSbRW9k]

The students bullied McCoy and Hill, some screaming hysterically at them. Among their taunts:

“As a black man, how could you?!” “You WILL listen to us!”

And so forth. The men just stood there and took it. Hill looks like he’s about to cry. It is a stunning tableau of the abdication of adult authority at DePauw University. I don’t know what would make me angrier or more ashamed if I was a parent of one of those kids: my child behaving like a petulant brat, or an authority figure letting her get away with it.

A DePauw source describes the event captured on video:

In the video, [McCoy] does not call for respectful discussion. He fails to adequately defend a colleague from being called a liar. He fails to defend the university from general allegations of racism. He also fails to defend the student Ellie Locke whose “blackface” can be seen in photographs to be dark glitter. Moreover, her “Blackie” name tag was a jest in reference to a friend who blacks out when drinking. Finally, the president should never have let the protesters in, as the video shows he does. This puts people’s safety at risk and, since it would be filmed, paints the worse of pictures of DePauw. Both are in the university’s worst interests. Additionally, the president has not conveyed to the students the need to wait for the results of the university’s own investigations. He offers no defense of anything like due process. The graffiti incidents are being investigated, but nobody reasonable believes these investigations will show who wrote graffiti on a bathroom stall or when. Yet the university has already caved to several protester “demands” despite the fact the university’s own investigation has yet to conclude. What’s more is that the individual who initially reported the graffiti is known to be unreliable and prone to promulgating racist conspiracy theories of the most vicious sort. It is widely believed he is the likely culprit, but the administration refuses to indicate that the graffiti may be phony. This is shocking since if phony, the students would not have to feel unsafe. The IndyStar has an article declaring that the protesting students aren’t brats. I am not sure what video the IndyStar reviewed or whom they interviewed to arrive at this conclusion. The protesters make demands rather than suggestions, unreasonable demands. The protesters refuse to extend courtesy and respect to others including the university president. There are reports to faculty that the protesters menace non-protesters in public spaces with impunity. There are also reports that protesters are intimidating sorority members associated with Ms. Locke’s sorority. People can draw their own conclusions as to whether the term “brat” is appropriate. I hope that this email finds you and that you can bring some light to the darkness here. A lot of faculty, staff and students are assailed and in positions too precarious to speak out.

Here are e-mails sent to faculty. The all-caps are in the originals:

DEAR COLLEAGUES, EVERY CLASS TOMORROW NEEDS TO GIVE TIME TO TALK ABOUT THE PROTESTS THAT TOOK PLACE IN KRESGE, AND TO CONFRONT THE SYSTEMIC RACISM, ANTI-SEMITISM, ISLAMOPHOBIA, AND HOMOPHOBIA THAT MAKE THE HATE-FILLED WORDS THAT HAVE VIOLATED OUR CAMPUS SPACES POSSIBLE AND THAT MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE FOR STUDENTS OF COLOR, JEWISH STUDENTS, MUSLIM STUDENTS AND LGBTQ STUDENTS TO FEEL SAFE.

WE, AND I REFER ESPECIALLY TO WHITE, DOMINANT-RELIGION, CIS-GENDERED FACULTY WHO EXPERIENCE THE PRIVILEGE OF SAFETY, MUST ALL ASSUME RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE SAFETY OF OUR STUDENTS THROUGH VIGILANCE OF OUR SPACES AND FOR THE WORK THAT WE SO DIRELY NEED TO DO IN OUR INSTITUTION. TALKING ABOUT RACE, RELIGION, AND SEXUAL IDENTITY IS PART OF THE JOB DESCRIPTION. IF WE DID NOT RECEIVE TRAINING TO TALK ABOUT IDENTITY, SOCIETY, AND SYSTEMIC OPPRESSION IN OUR DEGREE-GRANTING INSTITUTIONS, WE WERE ILL-SERVED BY THEM FOR THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF A CONTEMPORARY FACULTY MEMBER. AND SO WE HAVE TO ACT. CLASSROOM BIAS INCIDENT TRAINING IS A NECESSARY SKILL FOR A FACULTY MEMBER TODAY. TRAINING WILL BE AVAILABLE AT DEPAUW DIALOGUE (WORKING ON EARLIER) AND ALL FACULTY MEMBERS WILL RECEIVE TRAINING WITHIN THE NEXT ACADEMIC YEAR. IN THE MEANTIME, THE DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION LIBGUIDE PROVIDES RESOURCES – THE “PEDAGOGY” TAB WILL HAVE RESOURCE ON CLASSROOM DISCUSSION.​ IF YOU NEED ADDITIONAL SUPPORT FOR A STUDENT(S) IN DISTRESS, YOU CAN CALL EXT. 4270​. EDUCATION THAT BREAKS DOWN WHITE DEFENSIVENESS AND CRITICALLY ANALYZES PRIVILEGE IS NECESSARY. “WHITE FRAGILITY” (ATTACHED) AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE WHITE?, BOTH BY ROBIN DIANGELO WILL BE NECESSARY READS TO UNDERSTAND THE RADICAL DIFFERENCE OF EXPERIENCES PROTECTED BY PRIVILEGE AND THOSE NOT PROTECTED BY IT. WE ALL HAVE CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS TO BRING TO THESE CRUCIAL TEXTS. THE ONLY WAY THAT THINGS WILL CHANGE AT DEPAUW IS IF WE CHANGE. CANNOT BE BUSINESS AS USUAL – IF YOU WERE IN KRESGE TONIGHT, YOU KNOW THE INTENSITY OF THE PAIN AND FRUSTRATION AND THE ABSOLUTE NECESSITY OF A SUSTAINED RESPONSE TO THE SYSTEMIC OPPRESSION THAT TOO MANY OF OUR STUDENTS LIVE WITH; IF YOU WERE NOT, PLEASE HONOR THE EXPERIENCES AND LISTEN TO LEARN​ MORE​. DIFFERENT STUDENTS WILL NEED DIFFERENT KINDS OF ROOM TOMORROW – PLEASE BE SENSITIVE TO THEIR NEEDS. AND PLEASE TALK TO EACH OTHER, AND ACT. THANK YOU,

ANNE ANNE F. HARRIS

VICE PRESIDENT FOR ACADEMIC AFFAIRS, DEPAUW UNIVERSITY

JOHNSON FAMILY UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR OF ART AND ART HISTORY

Another:

DEAR ALL, SEVERAL OF YOU HAVE ASKED FOR A LIST OF PARAMETERS FOR TODAY’S CLASSES. I PROVIDE SUGGESTIONS BELOW AND WELCOME FURTHER EXPERTISE. THESE ARE BY NO MEANS EXHAUSTIVE – THERE IS MORE TO DO AND LEARN. DO: GIVE MARGINALIZED STUDENTS THE ROOM TO NOT ATTEND OR NOT PARTICIPATE TODAY; OUR CAMPUS SPACES ARE UNDER SIEGE AND STUDENTS MAY WANT TO STAY OUT OF THE PUBLIC SPHERE TODAY. INSIST THAT WHITE STUDENTS THINK BEYOND THEIR OWN EXPERIENCE (THAT PRINCIPLE IS AT THE HEART OF THE LIBERAL ARTS EDUCATION) AND ENGAGE IN A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE STRUCTURES IN PLACE AT DEPAUW THAT MARGINALIZE STUDENTS AND CREATE EXCLUSION. DO NOT: IF YOU ARE A WHITE FACULTY MEMBER, DO NOT ASK MARGINALIZED STUDENTS “WHAT DO YOU WANT US TO DO?” THAT IS A VERY TRIGGERING QUESTION, AS THE WORK IS ON US, NOT THEM – WE ARE THE ONES WHO BENEFIT FROM THE SYSTEM AND THUS NEED TO CHANGE IT. FOR THE SAME REASONS, SAYING “I AM SORRY” IS ALSO TRIGGERING – IT IS NOT ENOUGH. DO NOT THINK YOU ARE GOING TO FIX THINGS OR MAKE THEM ALL RIGHT – THE ISSUES ARE SYSTEMIC; THEY ARE BOTH SPECIFIC AND CUMULATIVE. NOT BEING DEFENSIVE, NOT EXPLAINING THINGS AWAY, BUT CRITICALLY ANALYZING THE STRUCTURES THAT CREATE FEAR AND ISOLATION WILL BE KEY GOING FORWARD. THANK YOU, ANNE

A third, this one from the Dean of Faculty:

DEAR COLLEAGUES, DESPITE THE SHORT NOTICE, WE HAD ABOUT 45 FACULTY AND STAFF COME OUT TO DISCUSS ROBIN DIANGELO’S ESSAY ON WHITE FRAGILITY. IN THE COURSE OF AN HOUR, WE BEGAN TO FACE AND PROCESS TWO KEY POINTS FROM THE ARTICLE: DEFINING RACISM AS THE INSTITUTIONAL AND SOCIAL POWER THAT WHITES HAVE AND EXERT OVER PEOPLE OF COLOR

NAMING WHITE FRAGILITY AS A SERIES OF EVASIVE MANEUVERS UTILIZED BY WHITES WHEN THE ISSUE OF RACISM COMES UP. WHITE FRAGILITY TAKES THE FORM OF RAGE, ANXIETY, GUILT, FEAR, TEARS, REFUSALS TO ENGAGE, WILLFUL IGNORANCE, SILENCE, INTELLECTUALIZING, SEEKING COMFORT, ARGUMENTATION, AND LEAVING/OPTING OUT OF DIFFICULT DIALOGUES AND SITUATIONS. THIS LONG BUT NOT COMPREHENSIVE LIST OF WHITE DEFENSE MECHANISMS LED US TO THINK ABOUT HOW IN OUR MULTIPLE ROLES ON CAMPUS — E.G, AS TEACHERS, ADVISORS, DEPARTMENT AND SEARCH COMMITTEE MEMBERS — THESE AND OTHER ACTIONS MAY SERVE AS “PROTECTIVE PILLOWS” THAT PRESERVE A HIGHLY UNEQUAL STATUS QUO AS WELL AS PROTECT WHITE INDIVIDUALS’ SELF-PERCEPTIONS AS INNOCENT, GOOD, AND DESERVING OF PRIVILEGES WITHHELD FROM GROUPS OF COLOR. ANNE’S CALL TO ACTION EMAIL FROM TUESDAY WAS A CHARGE TO US, THE FACULTY, NOT TO RETREAT INTO WHITE FRAGILITY. SO, IF YOU HAVEN’T DONE SO ALREADY, READ THE DIANGELO ARTICLE ON WHITE FRAGILITY (ATTACHED). SHARE IT WITH YOUR STUDENTS. MAKE IT THE SUBJECT OF AT LEAST PART OF YOUR CLASS TIME THIS WEEK AND EARLY NEXT. UTILIZE IT AS A RESOURCE IN THE UPCOMING WEEKS TO NAME AND BEGIN DISRUPTING THE HABITS OF THOUGHT AND BEHAVIOR THAT FOSTER RACIST HOSTILITY. BRING IT INTO YOUR DEPARTMENT AND COMMITTEE MEETINGS FOR DISCUSSION. BELOW ARE SOME RESOURCES AND OPPORTUNITIES THAT I HOPE YOU’LL CONSIDER IN YOUR ONGOING WORK OF UNDERSTANDING WHITE DOMINANCE AND RESISTING WHITE FRAGILITY: DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION LIBGUIDE

AMERICAN WHITENESS LIB GUIDE (FALL 2015)

ANDREA SMITH’S — HETEROPATRIARCHY AND THE THREE PILLARS OF WHITE SUPREMACY — HELPS TO ACCOUNT FOR SOME OF THE OTHER HOSTILITIES WE’VE SEEN SURFACE ON CAMPUS AGAINST RELIGIOUS MINORITIES AND CERTAIN IMMIGRANT AND INTERNATIONAL GROUPS.

PEGGY MCINTOSH’S 1988 ESSAY ON WHITE PRIVILEGE AND MALE PRIVILEGE: A PERSONAL ACCOUNT OF COMING TO SEE CORRESPONDENCES THROUGH WORK IN WOMEN’S STUDIES (ATTACHED)

MY HANDOUT OF EXCERPTS FROM DIANGELO’S WHITE FRAGILITY AND MCINTOSH’S WHITE PRIVILEGE (ATTACHED)

AY 2018-19 SEED SIGN UP

FALL 2018 PPD SIGN UP TAKE GOOD CARE,

TAMARA TAMARA BEAUBOEUF, ED.D.

DEAN OF FACULTY AND PROFESSOR OF WOMEN’S, GENDER, AND SEXUALITY STUDIES

DEPAUW UNIVERSITY

So, these black students go into hysterical fits of rage over a report of anti-black graffiti in a bar bathroom, and DePauw is worried about white fragility?!

And another from Prof. Beauboeuf:

ON THU, APR 19, 2018 AT 11:42 AM, DEANOFFACULTY AT DEPAUW <[email protected]> WROTE: DEAR COLLEAGUES, MANY OF YOU HAVE SHARED WITH ME CONCERNS ABOUT HOW TO PROCEED IN THIS CONTEXT OF VISCERAL, VISIBLE HATE AND HARM. AS ANNE STATED IN HER EMAIL ON TUESDAY, WE CANNOT ENGAGE IN BUSINESS AS USUAL. FOR THOSE WHO ARE AT A LOSS TO KNOW WHAT NEXT STEPS COULD BE, I INVITE YOU TO AN OPEN MEETING TODAY AT 4 PM. TODAY IN WALLACE-STEWART. WE WILL GATHER TO ENGAGE IN SOME OF THE HOME-WORK THAT IS NEEDED, STARTING WITH A DISCUSSION OF ROBIN DIANGELO’S WHITE FRAGILITY ATTACHED BELOW. TAKE GOOD, CARE,

TAMARA TAMARA BEAUBOEUF, ED.D.

DEAN OF FACULTY AND PROFESSOR OF WOMEN’S, GENDER, AND SEXUALITY STUDIES

DEPAUW UNIVERSITY

Here’s more campus correspondence from professors and administrators. Note well that most of these do not come from just any professor, but from those in positions of leadership. In this one, the Associate VP for Student Academic Life urges faculty to grant students even more time to get their work in, given that they have been too traumatized to study and write:

Dear Colleagues, Academic Affairs and Student Academic Life are hearing from faculty members and students with questions about adjustments to academic requirements such as the timing of exams and due dates for assignments. Anne and I have conferred, and we encourage faculty members to honor requests from individual students for extensions on exams and assignments over the course of the next week. We recognize that the best approach will likely vary based on the structure and pedagogy of specific courses but we do support any flexibility you can provide. We will want to consider subsequent weeks on a week by week basis. If you have questions about options for handling particular situations please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you for your flexibility. Best,

Dave Dr. Dave Berque

Associate Vice President for Student Academic Life,

Dean of Academic Life,

Executive Director of the Hubbard Center, and

Greenleaf Professor of Computer Science

DePauw University

(765) 658-4601 or (765) 658-4735

Pronouns: He/His/Him

“Pronouns: He/His/Him.” That’s beautiful, Dave, but on the basis of your collapse here, I think you’re faking it.

Finally, this self-loathing professor below has laid down a marker: any professor who accepts this honor thereby declares himself an Enemy Of The People. That professorship will be a poisoned chalice, one taken up only by collaborators with White Supremacy.

Colleagues Today is the deadline for the Johnson Family University Professorship 2018-2022. As an act of solidarity with marginalized members of our community, as a statement against the deeply systemic forms of oppression at DePauw University, and to highlight the perpetual series of crises our institution has been in for at least the past 3-4 years, I will not accept any nomination put forward on my behalf for this merit award. As our current crises has called into question the very legitimacy of our institution I am not able to put forward a self-nomination. While I think the Office of the President is not in the position to evaluate nominations, I foremost recognize the many ways that I have failed our students and have reproduced forms of institutional oppression. Finally, if any faculty member among us is nominated I encourage that we nominate Professor Clarissa Peterson. Sincerely, Glen David Kuecker City Lab

I’ve read these over several times, and find the anti-white racism and ideological bullying from these powerful campus figures to be shocking beyond words. (Note well: Berque, Kuecker, and Harris are all white) They have drunk deeply of the racist left-wing cant, and are stigmatizing white professors and students as thought criminals. If whites (or anybody else) tries to defend themselves, or to respond critically in any way of the claims from activists, university officials denounce it as “white fragility” and “white defensiveness.” This is stone-cold racism exercised by power elites at DePauw University. They are institutionalizing racism. They instruct faculty on how they must behave — on privileges they must extend to students who fit into approved Victim categories, and on the self-loathing and groveling whites must engage as the result of their guilt.

Are white faculty and students — as well as faculty and students of all backgrounds who believe in fairness and open discussion — going to take this? The DePauw University administration has put a target on the backs of every white student and professor, and handed over the classrooms and the university spaces to radical activists. They are destroying the university.

You would have to be insane to be a white person and to want to attend this identity-politics cesspit. There is no way in the world you can ever get a fair shake there under these Orwellian conditions. If you stand accused by an Approved Victim™ of any offense, you will be judged guilty without a trial. Professors who do not accept the ideological hard line will henceforth walk on eggshells in their classrooms. How in the hell are white students, straight students, and any students (and professors and administrators) who dissent in even the slightest way from this militancy supposed to feel safe at DePauw? How can this or any university possibly educate students and conduct research under these ideological conditions?

These radicals have drawn a bright line in the sand. Either professors and students stand up to it, without compromise, or they lose the university. Simple as that. Here’s the thing: the University of Missouri took a big enrollment hit after something similar happened on its campus a few years back. But it’s a state university, so it had a strong funding floor, and its overall enrollment was big enough to survive the hit. Yale suffered not at all from its racist turmoil; Yale has enough prestige that people will still want to go there, no matter how warped its campus may become from identity politics.

But DePauw? With an enrollment of 2,225?

Aside from the practical effects of this display, it’s evil. What they’re doing to DePauw is evil. What the gutless McCoy — this year’s George Bridges — and campus administrators and senior faculty are allowing to happen is a repulsive dereliction of duty. They are allowing these young people to think that if they feel something, it must be true. Are they unsafe, really? Because someone — possibly an agent provocateur from within campus activists — put racist graffiti on the bathroom wall of a bar in town? The students are melting down emotionally and psychologically, and the adults in charge are indulging them, giving them whatever they want. And left-wing radicals on the faculty are taking advantage of this opportunity to impose a fanatically anti-liberal, identity-politics thought regime on the campus.

And no honest-to-god liberals — left-wing liberals and right-wing liberals — have the courage to stand up against this madness.

I know how it goes on this blog: the usual liberal suspects will downplay this. But this institutionalized left-wing bigotry is not just confined to campus. Andrew Sullivan comments on the latest from James Damore’s lawsuit against Google, over its hiring and personnel policies. Google is not a small Midwestern liberal arts college, but one of the most powerful corporations in the world. Excerpts (the Damore/Google stuff is the second item in his column):

Google then provides qualities that are “invisibilized” by white male culture: collective achievement; sustainability; “holding systems accountable for equitable outcomes” (in contrast to meritocracy); being narrative-driven, rather than numbers-driven, and so on. This too implies that a white cis straight man is not, by virtue of his race and gender, given to valuing long-term or collective achievement, or “seeking connections between contexts,” or seeing the value of subjectivity at times. And notice that what was once called racial tolerance is now called an unacceptably white “colorblind racial frame.” What we have here are mass generalizations about races and genders, and a belief in resisting one set of dominant cultural norms in favor of another. This is an invitation to racial and gendered conflict, and when you read the accounts in the Damore suit, the bitterness and anger and resentment overfloweth. Second, an individual seeking to be hired or promoted at Google cannot, it seems, be seen simply as an individual. His race and gender and sexual orientation are integral to the hiring and promotion process. A “Hiring Innovation Manager” posted on an internal board a quote from a widely cited text for the social justice movement: “When you hire a non-marginalized person, you are not just supporting an applicant you like, you are rewarding a person who has been rewarded his entire life. You are justifying the system that makes him look good.” She went on to quote the following: “There is no objectivity. There is no meritocracy. Fight for justice. Fight even yourself.” Now imagine for a second what it must be like to be someone at Google who works hard, believes in meritocracy, believes race is irrelevant to performance, and who aims for objectivity. Whatever race or gender that person is, Google is an uncomfortable place for him and her, one saturated with racial obsessiveness and condescension. Here’s another internal post written by someone on a promotions committee: “2/4 committee members were women: Yay! 4/4 committee members were white: Boo! 12/15 candidates were white men. Boo!” Can you imagine these statements if the race and gender were switched? It is one thing to encourage diverse promotion. It’s another for someone on a promotion committee to “boo” employees entirely because of their race and gender.

More:

What you see here, I suspect, is the effect of the ideology now spreading far beyond left-liberal campuses to the entire corporate world. Crude and negative generalizations about individuals because of their race and gender are becoming quite commonplace – if they are white or cis or male and straight. But because those individuals, regardless of their own history, are the alleged beneficiaries of “structural racism,” this is — according to the ideology — perfectly fine. In fact, judging someone on the basis of their race is vital and moral if we are to overcome these oppressive power-structures. Equally, any system that relies on so-called “objective” criteria for evaluating success with no respect for race is itself racist, because such criteria — like workplace credentials, college or grad school grades or qualifications — are embedded in these white power structures. Where on earth will this lead us? When you can identify the enemy by sight because of the color of their skin or their gender, fighting against a system quickly becomes a fight against individuals, whether that is the intent or not.

Where will it lead us? To four more years of Donald Trump. And after that, Bosnia.

Meanwhile, white students and faculty at DePauw ought to read the handwriting on the wall. They are henceforth considered guilty by virtue of their skin color, and dhimmis. When that college collapses into a shell of itself from the flight of white people and all other students who expect an actual education for the $50,000 per year they’re paying to be there, let the autopsy show that Mark McCoy, Alan Hill, and these woke faculty members of all races were to blame.

In the time between my starting to write this post and completing it, a reader sends in news that Reed College has capitulated to student radicals and revamped its mandatory humanities course to reflect contemporary identity politics. But that’s not enough for the protesters, Reedies Against Racism (RAR). Daniella Greenbaum writes:

RAR is now demanding that Athens and Rome be scrapped from the first semester of the new Humanities 110 syllabus. “We’re calling for the Humanities 110 faculty to pick different cities from the old syllabus for the first two semesters,” the group said. Why? Because “we feel that these cities should be outside of Europe, as reparations for Humanities 110’s history of erasing the histories of people of color, especially black people.” RAR’s reaction to what any dispassionate observer would consider a victory for his or her group is telling. It’s also a harbinger of what universities should expect if they begin reimagining their curriculum to satisfy the identity-politics priorities of their undergraduate charges.

These people at all universities will never be satisfied until they’ve destroyed their universities and grown tired of bouncing the rubble. If it were only universities, that would be bad enough. But as the Google case shows, this bigoted lunacy is spreading to corporations.

UPDATE: A reader comments: