I don’t know what to make of this except to scratch my head in incredulity at the “virtue signalling” of today’s college students. As reported by Mediaite and the University of Oregon student paper The Daily Emerald, the student union building has for some time had a quote by Martin Luther King Jr., one you’ll recognize from his famous “I have a dream” speech:

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream…”

When the building was being renovated, there was discussion about maybe deep-sixing those words. As the Emerald reports:

However, this hasn’t always been the quote that filled the entrance of the EMU and there was talk of the quote changing again. The quote is not going to change, but that decision was not made without some hard thought by the Student Union Board. Laurie Woodward, the Director of the Student Union said that when she approached the union with the question of if they wanted to keep the current MLK quote or supplement a new one, one of the students asked, “Does the MLK quote represent us today?” “Diversity is so much more than race. Obviously race still plays a big role. But there are people who identify differently in gender and all sorts of things like that,” sophomore architecture major, Mia Ashley said.

Until 1985, that space was occupied by a quotation from a former dean that referred to “the good life for all men” and “man’s aspiration”; and I can see how, by using “man” instead of “people,” it could be considered offensive to women. But although one might argue that the King quote discriminates against people who are being marginalized for issues other than skin color, in reality it reflects the goal of inclusion of everyone: judging people not by superficialities but by character. Remember how that speech ends?:

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring. And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

So really, do we need quotes about the transgendered, about the Jews and Muslims, about the disabled, about every marginalized group in society? Can’t we use King’s stirring words to represent the goal of equality for everyone? No, because every snowflake must have their day (and their say).

Sadly, it doesn’t look that this is the end of it. The Emerald has a few ominous words:

Woodward says she has no idea if the quote will change again in the near future, but she’s merely excited that important discussions like this are being held on campus again. “What words are is important,” she says, “but what’s more important is that people think about what the words should be.” If it were to happen, this would be a feat that would bring in the entire University of Oregon student population to some extent, which is a big reason she thinks the Student Union wasn’t ready to take it on.

Imagine what a dog’s breakfast it would be when the student body is ready to take it on! When that happens, I suspect that entire building will be covered with competing quotations.