Posted on 04/07/2025 11:47:45 AM PDT by John Semmens
Inspired by the exploits of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), 20-year-old sophomore Alex Shieh sent emails to all 3,805 administrators at Brown University asking them to "describe what tasks you performed in the past week."
Shieh said "I expected some level of engagement, but only 20 people got back to me, one of whom only replied with a 'bleep you,' and another of whom suggested I 'stick a cactus up my ass.' Remember, these responses weren't from smart aleck college teenagers. These were from 'Dean of this' 'Vice-president of that' at a highly touted ivy league school that charges each student $93,000 a year for just tuition and received more than $250 million in federal aid last year. I think both students and taxpayers have a right to know what their money buys."
A Brown University spokesperson asserted "it is not a student's prerogative to interrogate the University's leadership or question its policies. No one forced Mr. Shieh to attend this school. He voluntarily applied for admission, enrolled when he was accepted, and came to the campus. If he suspects he made an error in judgment by doing these things he is free to leave. How the 3800 employees who got his email spend their time is none of his business. His unauthorized mass email to them invades their privacy. Fortunately, only a minuscule fraction deigned to reply before receiving our instruction to ignore it. His imitation of the tactics used by the Trump Administration's infamous DOGE invasion of government offices discredits his survey and argues for his expulsion from the University."
When I was a college student, there were several administration buildings. Enter them and there were huge bullpens of desks and dividers, plus offices along the walls with windows. The bullpens were staffed by predominantly extremely obese black women with a smattering of white women. Walk in at any time of the day and there was lots of socializing going on, and not much obvious work. The women I had to deal spoke mostly “blacklish.”
I had a job working for a professor. I wasn’t getting checks. I went to speak to the woman at the desk. She turned to another woman and said, “Why he gettin’ paid! He white!” My boss had to go to his boss who called someone in a window office, and I eventually got paid. But each check was a challenge and finally, I said (expletive!) and quit.
Follow-up question: What are you planning to do next week to improve student life, faculty professionalism, or protect your phoney-baloney job?
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