Oppressed Oberlin

I have gotten a bunch of emails, tweets, and facebook messages all pointing me at the same New Yorker story about Oberlin.  As an alum of Oberlin, I am very familiar with all the aspects of this story:

• the holier than thou far left folks who see oppression and offense everywhere who then want to, um, oppress others
• the real problems facing a place that tries to be diverse and tolerant
• the smug media who love to generalize about all of academia from the selected samplings of some not entirely representative students who are at a school that is not at all representative
• the basic "these kids" stuff that Dan Drezner delineates so well. [No, Dan, you do not have to fear about how Williams will be covered because the reporters know that they will always have Oberlin when they want to tell a story about those crazy kids]

I kept refusing to read the article because I knew it would be painful. Why?  First, I identify with Oberlin, so attacks upon it are attacks upon my self-esteem (I have read enough social psychology to understand this process).  Second, I knew that the article would take the most annoying stuff uttered by some young students and run with that, rather than put it into context.  There are plenty of Obies now as there were then in my time who were not far left.  Sure, the place is super-liberal, but many of those liberals have both real concerns about the existence of white supremacy and other challenges but also real concern that one can go too far.  Third, I knew that the discussion of this story would distract people from some of the legitimate concerns of the folks involved.

As an Obie, I am familiar with the salient events of the past year or so--the list of demands (which appall me as an academic--tenure to be granted or denied by the whims of some selection of mobilized students), the anti-semitic writings of a prof, and the responses of the administration and on and on.  I knew that this stuff would get played in the most annoying ways possible.

Let me take one example: the part of students wanting no sub-C grades.  There is so much wrong about this particular point.  First, the students were not demanding the end of sub-C grades forever--they just wanted these grades not to count during a particularly turbulent semester, and had an historical precedent (the spring of Kent State--which is not that far away from Oberlin) that suggested this is not an unrealistic policy.  Second, I have no clue why the students would demand this since Oberlin's grading system already wipes out an sub-C minus grades (maybe they just wanted to get rid of C-'s for the year?).  That's right--if you get a grade below C-, you get a "No Entry" which means it disappears from the transcript.  The point of this is to encourage students to take risks and experiment.  In my time, this was the system, and students tended not to bail on the final in hopes of turning a C into an NE--I wish I had done so for Micro-economics.  This one bit of the story thus illustrates why the students are so confusing--why are they seeking something they already have--and how the outsiders have no clue about Oberlin.
Update: In 2004, the school changed the grading system so that sub C-'s would remain as real grades.  Too bad.  I liked the old system as it was very Oberlin--encourage experimentation.  I guess pass/nopass still facilitates that somewhat.

I get that the students have real concerns--that students of color feel that they have less support than they should.  In my time, there was some racist graffiti that was found on campus, which led to a day or two of activities including much discussion by the non-white students about what they were experiencing and I learned a great deal.  This self-examination is not a bad thing--one reason places like Oberlin want diverse student bodies is that we can all learn from each other about our varied experiences and perspectives in ways that don't require individual students to be asked "so, what do you as an African-American student can tell us about everyone of your race?"  At Texas Tech, I had very white classes with only one or two Latinos and African-Americans.  Each day, they knew that whatever they said would be taken as what their entire ethnic group believes, which is quite a burden.

These students have grown up at a time of both an African-American president and a resurgence of racism (birthers and all that), so it is understandable that they are confused, challenged and outraged.  One of the two major parties is in the process of nominating someone who appeals to white supremacists, misogynists and xenophobes.  These students have observed that the justice system in the US is unjust--mass incarceration, the deaths of many unarmed people of color at the hands of the police, and on and on.  If they were not outraged, then I would think that there is a significant problem.

What to do with that passion, that frustration?  That is hard to figure out.  On the bright side, I have recently learned that the Obies of my time are achieving great things: winning Pulitzer Prizes,  rebuilding schools, etc.  As always, I blame Lena Dunham (joking!)


 

Free Speech, Conspiracy Crap, Anti-Semitism and Oberlin

A caveat: I have not followed closely the events at Oberlin nor have I been back in quite a while.

But people are asking me my take on my alma mater as a professor, as an alum, as someone who posts stuff online quite a bit, and perhaps someone who was raised Jewish (I am not a believer).  So, what is the story and what is my take?

Seems like there is a lot of tension at Oberlin about Palestine and about anti-semitism and various other overlapping identity conflicts that are coming to a head with one prof in the middle: Joy Karega, who is an Assistant Professor Rhetoric and Composition.  She has posted various things on her facebook page that are quite offensive to many folks, including supporting 9/11 truther stuff and suggesting Israel was behind the various attacks in Paris.

I am not going to be the first to hang Karega even though I am deeply, deeply hostile to 9/11 truther crap.  Why not?  First, I am not a big fan of taking people's facebook posts and using them to get people fired (although I can be prone to schadenfreude).  Posting on a personal page is distinct from teaching in the classroom or publishing in public outlets.  Second, even teaching/publishing is obviously protected by academic freedom--that professors should be allowed to be provocative.  I have never been confident about whether that applies to stuff that is clearly/factually wrong--like the anti-vaxxer teaching stuff in health classes at U of Toronto.

So what should Oberlin do?  Not fire her, for one.  Although insta-promotion of her (as was apparently on the list of demands that student protesters put together) is also a bad idea.  She should be promoted and kept or dismissed based on whether she is a good teacher and researcher or not.  One can have controversial views and still do those things well.  I do have concerns when people go outside their lane (oops, guilty), so what does a writing prof know about terrorism?  The school has issued statements disassociating from Karega's statements while acknowledging her right to her (awful, awful, awful) views.

The list of things people are raising are a mix.  That the Kosher Halal co-op got kicked out of the student co-op association is strange, but I lack info about the dynamics.  Does the school have any oversight over the co-op association?  It may not, and thus be powerless.  What was the reason for this expulsion?  I find this complaint to be an important one, and that as an alum, I would like to know more about it.

The BDS movement is a real challenge, as students are rightly (in my view) upset about the treatment of Palestinians in Israel and Netanyahu's awful policies BUT both the BDS program (boycotting Israeli universities) and the way it is often conveyed (via threats) are not great.  Still, while Obie Jews can be upset that there were protests during Rosh Hashanah, that is the price of liberty.  People can choose to protest at times that are highly visible, and one just has to deal with that.  So, it might create tension, but I actually don't think this is worthy of complaint--protests on high holidays are just something to deal with.  Now, if there were efforts to block entrances to chapels, that is problematic.  My basic stance as always is that your freedoms are your freedoms unless they impact my freedoms, and then we have to figure stuff out.

One key part the matter is this: one can be anti-Israel without being anti-Jewish; one can be Jewish and not be pro-Israel; one can be pro-Israel and either Jewish or not (I do think that the demise of the one state solution is forcing Israel into the position of being Jewish or democratic but not both). But the reality is that this stuff gets tangled fast.  So, Jews think that folks who are critical of Israel are critical of Jews, and that is sometimes but not always the case.  That Karega cites Louis Farrakahn approvingly puts her on the wrong side of that line, that she approves of conspiracy theory that puts the Jews and/or Israel behind many events puts her on the wrong side of that line.  The protesters at Oberlin?  I have no idea.

What I do remember about my days in Oberlin is that protesters ranged from well informed and thoughtful to knee-jerk and determined to be divisive.  So, I cannot generalize about the students of today.  I know that the college is in a difficult spot, as the African-American students have some serious concerns (I am not a fan of their list of demands), that the Jewish students have serious concerns, and those who are concerned about the Palestinians have legitimate concerns.  Figuring out ways to take all of this seriously without upsetting any one group or violating someone's academic freedom is not easy at all.

All I can say is that I am one embarrassed Obie, but I am used to that, as the student activism is passionate and often finds itself directed in both productive ways and in silly ways.

Distraction Sauce as Main Course?

Lots of squirrel stuff in my life lately, especially with the holidays spent trying to survive the hordes outside my mother-in-law's place.  So, I come home to find that my alma mater decided to supplement its obscure mascot, the Yeoman (and Yeo-variations: women, babes [the ultimate team briefly], and so on) with what?  This:

Yes, the white squirrel.  I guess the athletic department needed some distraction sauce to keep people's minds off of the Yeo-teams.  Yuck.  I would prefer a Banana Slug, Pelicans or Ducks.  This squirrel is nasty.  Count me out of any Obie apparel with this demonic vermin on it.

Parodies Gone Awry

I don't know whether to be proud or embarassed that the Oberlin administrations made a parody of Hangover.

The HangOber from Oberlin College on Vimeo.




It has great production values, mixed acting, and only a few decent jokes but overall disappointing writing.  Too much devotion to the source material?  That the President of the university played two parts pretty decently says good things.  Overall, I give then an A for effort, but only a B for the movie.  A's were not easy to get at Oberlin. 

Best line is towards the end, explaining why the Pres does not have a sunburn.

How to Annoy Your Alumni

Just got the Oberlin Alumni Magazine and the last page refers to a key piece of Oberlin (and other colleges, I suppose) by the wrong name.
They refer to this kind of chair:
As a ball or moon chair.
We knew them as womb chairs.  Featured in the Winter Wonderland of Oberlin I posted a few days ago.

Sure, if you search online, you can only find the right chair via ball chair, but that does not matter.  The magazine had in parentheses "mistakenly called womb chairs."  Are they saying that entire generations of Obies are mistaken about this?  That we were wrong?  Um, no.  You, Mr. Alumni Magazine, are wrong, so very wrong. 

Mrs. Spew is very tempted to write into Oberlin to complain.  Oh yes.

So, try to un-do decades of social construction by changing the meaning of these sacred vessels, if you dare.