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Posted on 05/13/2019 12:23:00 PM PDT by Liberty7732
Florida’s honors college for the state system may have twisted itself into a verbal knot because it does what apparently is common practice among colleges — adding a layer of review to applying students who had reported mental issues.
This makes eminent sense for college campuses who have been dealing with some tragic violence issues, not to mention the obvious academic reasons where mental issues could impact a student’s ability to be successful. Further, because colleges are legally required to treat students with mental issues, it seems almost imperative they have such policies.
However, in the hyper-diversosphere piloted by college campuses, even this cannot be tolerated.
So New College of Florida, the small, elite liberal honors college, got outed for this second layer of review, and accused of perhaps the worst possible charge for the PC community — discrimination. Once public, the college melted like an ice cream cone in Florida’s August heat and publicly committed to “cognitive diversity.” That phrase has been used to talk about how people think differently and solve problems differently. But that’s not what this seems to be.
Cognitive diversity seems like an awfully large loophole when it comes to admissions. By definition, an honors college is supposed to allow only the most cognitively advanced. It’s for really smart kids. And the kids at New College are really smart, at least book-smart. But with a phrase such as “cognitive diversity,” how fair is that to only have the more cognitively advanced?
New College is this idyllic college campus in Sarasota, Florida, near the Gulf of Mexico, that attracts some of the brightest students in the state for liberal arts education. It is well-known in the conservative region as a hotbed of liberal thinking, but only mild levels of activism — perhaps owing to its small size and academic rigours.
College leadership has generally been proud of the politically liberal students, but they also have a school to run and so the admissions office required students who disclose a mental health issue in their application essay to go through a second review — even if the students’ scores meet the criteria for automatic acceptance.
Some New College alumni thought this unfair and blew the whistle, which sparked the internal investigation. And then the whistleblowers went to the ideologically-friendly newspaper.
“It’s the definition of bias or discrimination to go through an extra barrier to get where someone else is,” Eugenia Quintanilla, one of the former admissions office staffers who exposed the practice, told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.
Once the story went public, New College President Donal O’Shea issued a statement, in which he announced the college’s commitment to “cognitive diversity.”
“We are aware of complaints about the admissions process and the climate in the admissions office,” said O’Shea, who is generally considered a strong college president. “We take these VERY seriously,” he told the newspaper.
Here’s the catch. This is not only legal, it is apparently common practice at colleges.
That’s because universities are legally required to ensure they can provide mental health services to any students they admit. So it is just responsible to ensure they understand and can help with any potential student who discloses mental health issues.
It’s actually standard practice, according to Michael A. Olivas, a professor of higher education law at the University of Houston. He said he saw no discrimination in New College’s policies.
“This sounds to me like garden-variety decision making,” Olivas said.
But because of the rapid back-down, and turn to a potentially loaded phrase of “cognitive diversity,” this may portend problems for other colleges that also must provide mental health services and so further review the applications of students who have known mental issues.
Ain't that what they used to call "Split Personality"???
The famous Bill Gates was known for Asperger’s syndrome. Not all “abnormalities” are utterly negative, and it is said that there is a thin line between genius and madness.
There is a kind of good crazy.
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“cognitive diversity” Your cognitive skills are what allow you to understand the environment abound you and make good informed decisions. Like when driving. Safe driving. I don’t want much diversity there.
Genius and madness are very close together... maybe absent minded professors are bad drivers for all we know, but again this isn’t a driving school.
Paging HR departments nationwide: Here’s another one for the list.
Cognitive diversity.....[eyeroll]
Sounds like they’re upset all the top scorers on OBJECTIVE tests are conservative, so they’re redefining intelligence to make sure liberals can play (and presumably dominate as they feel entitled to do).
Genius is creating something useful and unique. Madness was their life up to that moment.
Shouldn’t an honors college teach the mad how to be geniuses?
But only up to a point.
When the term starts to cover serious mental illness, low IQ, and brain damage (which it will, trust me) then we’ll know it’s just more PC cover for dysfunction.
Well, they will have opened a special education department.
Only thing worse would be “I’m pregnant”
They want “cognitive diversity”, but not diversity of opinions. They don’t care what kind of crazy thinking is going on in your head, as long as it leads to exactly the same opinions as everyone else at the college.
Hey —It’s floree-DUH?
When the “ed colleges” weren’t turning out enuf to fill teaching slots, floree-DUH? lowered the standard so more teachers ‘got graduated’ PROBLEM SOLVED !! (decades ago or so)
I’ve tried to keep up on all th3e psych terms but the last 12 years( or more) has just gone over the top. I’d get pissed off in psych 101 or a medical terminology course nowadays.
That’s largely a romantic fantasy.
Sometimes the disturbed leave us great creations but most of the time their mental demons render them unable to do this.
Several recent studies have actually demonstrated that most accomplished inventors and artists are pretty well adjusted.
I think colleges should have a modicum of existential diversity. It isn’t right to deny someone, especially members of struggling minorities, advanced education simply because they’re no longer alive.
Dead students wouldn’t require dorms so much as stacking, room and board being a room with some boards in it. As far as being ambulatory, life-privileged student should welcome the honor of assisting their fellow learners from class to class.
Some of our greatest cultural contributions are from dead people, such as Thomas Jefferson, Martin Luther, and the guy who ate the first raw oyster.
States such as Michigan, New Jersey, and Illinois are in the vanguard of this inclusive movement with their enlightened tolerance of deceased voting.
Join us, won’t you, in making America not just a melting pot, but a burial plot.
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