Posted on 01/02/2023 9:18:40 AM PST by george76
Don’t allow the left to wield DEI unopposed — conservative students should begin filing complaints for speech that attacks their identity categories’
A professor recently began to advance his idea on how to combat onerous progressive ideologies on campus, encouraging students to report professors who bash Christians, white people and conservatives to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Title IX offices for investigation.
Conservative students should file complaints for speech that attacks their identity – especially when it comes from a professor, said Adam Ellwanger, a professor of English at the University of Houston-Downtown, in a recent telephone interview with The College Fix.
white people or Christians to DEI office JENNIFER KABBANY - FIX EDITOR JANUARY 2, 2023 SHARE THIS ARTICLE: The College Fix on Facebook The College Fix on Twitter The College Fix on Reddit Share on Email
‘Don’t allow the left to wield DEI unopposed — conservative students should begin filing complaints for speech that attacks their identity categories’
A professor recently began to advance his idea on how to combat onerous progressive ideologies on campus, encouraging students to report professors who bash Christians, white people and conservatives to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Title IX offices for investigation.
Conservative students should file complaints for speech that attacks their identity – especially when it comes from a professor, said Adam Ellwanger, a professor of English at the University of Houston-Downtown, in a recent telephone interview with The College Fix.
“There is a perception that the DEI and Title IX offices exist just to support leftist activism, but there is nothing keeping students from filing complaints on the basis of their own protected classes,” said Ellwanger (pictured). “You could be a straight white male and it doesn’t mean you can’t be protected by Title IX.”
He said Title IX, as it’s interpreted today, protects from “anything that creates a hostile environment for a student on the basis of the student’s protected class; sex, gender, religion or sexual orientation fall under actionable claims of Title IX.”
For example, if a professor vitriolically bemoans the scourge of heterosexual white Christians during lectures, that can be the basis for a complaint, he said.
Ellwanger said professors have the academic freedom to say what they want, but argued there are several “positives” to filing such a complaint.
For one, he told The Fix, it would force the DEI office to investigate one of their own.
What’s more, he added, “the professor who loves critical race theory and explaining how white people are the worst … it’s going to make them think twice [about saying such things openly] if they have been through a seven-month ordeal with a DEI office.”
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it creates a paper trail, he said.
“You force the DEI office into establishing a track record,” he said. “If they find in favor of a black student or Hindu student, but then when a male says ‘I don’t like how my professor always talks about toxic masculinity’ they are finding no [fault], it exposes the bias at the heart of the DEI agenda that we can really only infer at this point.”
Ellwanger, 44, describes himself and Christian and conservative, and he is no stranger to facing a DEI complaint. One he went through several years ago was filed because he allegedly created a hostile environment for homosexual students by talking about his family too much.
While he was eventually cleared, the process was very stressful, he said. When asked why he would wish such a difficult circumstance on his leftist peers, he told The Fix he does not do so lightly.
However, “these liberal professors think the expanded Title IX is just fine and working toward a more just society. The only way to teach them how corrupt this practice is is for them to be in the center of it,” he said.
“And I really do think it’s the only way for this process to be reformed.”
In a Dec. 27 piece for Minding the Campus headlined “Using Your University’s DEI Office: A Call to Action for Conservative Students and Faculty,” Ellwanger expanded on his idea:
You don’t have to spend too much time at a university to hear someone speaking about the toxicity of masculinity, the backwardness of Christianity or Judaism, or the racism of “white people.” These hateful statements have become so routine (especially in humanities departments) that it never occurs to students that such talk could easily serve as the basis of a DEI or Title IX complaint. If you happen to be a man, or a Christian, or an orthodox Jew, or a heterosexual, or a white person, and your professor speaks in disparaging, generalized ways about those who share your identity, you have a very strong case that you are a victim faced with a “hostile learning environment.”
The best way to fight the excesses of campus wokeness is to use the weapons at your disposal. Your school’s DEI Office is the best weapon you have: you are a protected class. Don’t allow the Left to wield DEI unopposed. Conservative students should begin filing complaints for speech that attacks their identity categories—especially when it comes from a professor. DEI is required to investigate actionable complaints.
In his interview with The College Fix, Ellwanger acknowledged his suggestion is not a quick and easy fix.
“It’s not like it’s going to change anything in the short term,” he said.
But he said it will “tie up DEI offices doing stuff they hate, tie up professors who would usually be in favor of the process, and create a track record of DEI offices’ total disinterest in any complaint that does not confirm to their ideology.”
Absolutely
Whats good for the goose is good for the gander.
Yes, let us truly make it “equitable.”
Hold the left to the standards they set.
“RULE 4: “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.” If the rule is that every letter gets a reply, send 30,000 letters. You can kill them with this because no one can possibly obey all of their own rules. (This is a serious rule. The besieged entity’s very credibility and reputation is at stake, because if activists catch it lying or not living up to its commitments, they can continue to chip away at the damage.)”
Alinsky had it right. Conservatives should embrace Alinksy’s rules and openly apply them to the left.
“conservative students should begin filing complaints for speech that attacks their identity categories......”
Followed by multi million dollar lawsuits!
Exactly right. Instead of just griping about it because odds are there will be no short term relief, it is worth doing to give these people some of their own medicine, while building a long term paper trail for future action.
Yes - Conservatives should embrace Alinksy’s rules and openly apply them to the left.
Good, but I’m guessing this initiative lasts about 48 hours before it’s shot down.
Good for him. Fight the liberals back with their own tools.
You have a keen mind!
Although the DEI office may retaliate against YOU. It’s what leftists do and these offices are filled with them.
Remember, to them, the end justifies the means and should be done by any means necessary.
“You have a keen mind!”
There are ways Republicans can take back elected offices and force Democrats to embrace Conservative values. Since Democrats do the complete opposite of Republicans, we should try this.
Republican: Who cares if gays want to marry? Democrat response: Support of gay marriage will end and Democrats will refer back to Church doctrine.
Republican: If a woman wants to have an abortion, it’s her body. She will just have to face god when she hits the pearly gates. Democrat response: A fetus needs to be protected.
And on and on.... Again, all Alinsky. I wonder if anyone has written a Rules for Conservatives book?
Exactly. A new rule will be made to punish people who file “frivolous” complaints, with the definition of frivolous left up to the discretion of people who hate Christians and conservatives.
“A professor recently began to advance his idea on how to combat onerous progressive ideologies on campus, encouraging students to report professors who bash Christians, white people and conservatives to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Title IX offices for investigation. “
Good to hear, but should have started 50 years, or so, ago.
Absolutely. 2 can play that game.
Alinsky Rule #5: Hold your opponent to his own rules.
bump
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