Posted on 12/15/2023 9:57:22 AM PST by billorites
It may be no coincidence that colleges are abandoning SATs at the same time three university presidents were flunking questions in public about genocide. After receiving Fs for insisting that the answer to any direct question is “It depends on the context,” University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill lost her job and Harvard’s board of governors retained Claudine Gay with a limp vote of confidence—“she is the right leader to help our community heal.” Uh-huh.
This may be the moment to bring back vocabulary tests.
Question: What six-syllable word describes the three university presidents who testified before Congress?
Answer: Pusillanimity.
Next: Name as many synonyms as you can for “pusillanimity.”
Answer, by way of the Merriam-Webster dictionary (remember those?): Cowardice, cravenness, gutlessness, spinelessness and—my favorite—poltroonery.
In those plain words is written the history of academia’s plummet the past 50 years from respectability to antisemitic riots.
First came the speech codes. No, those came second. What began the long downhill roll in the 1970s was grade inflation. Students whose work deserved a C demanded an A or B. Professors who resisted this threat to standards gave up.
That was an early inkling that traditional college norms could be pushed around and politicized. Speech codes emerged at many schools, not least Harvard, arguing that certain words were—another new vocabulary addition—“hurtful.”
After establishing that words alone could bring reprimand by the university, the speech coders expanded the prohibitions to include something new called microaggressions, or inadvertent slights. Microaggressions had a fraternal twin, trigger warnings, which required profs to warn students that a text or even a thought might distress them.
It sounds like a joke now, but we know it was no joke. This was the moment when the adults in the room—presumably the universities’ presidents—should have intervened to protect free speech...
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
I would have guessed “plagiarism” but it’s hard to make that a 6-syllable word. “Puh-lay-jee-ar-iz-um”? Anyway I don’t think Magill has been accused of plagiarism.
The promoters of “safe spaces” became advocates for genocide.
Steve Kelley’s cartoon on December 12 has an interviewer asking a job applicant, “And can you assure me that the company’s background check won’t turn up anything reprehensible, like substance abuse, domestic violence, or a Harvard diploma?”
This is how it worked: if you toe the left wing line, you get an “A”. If you disagree with the line, you flunk out.
I have a very hard-won PhD in science from Harvard. So I am offended by Gay’s completely undeserved degree and presidency, as well as by her extremely poor performance as dean and president!!!!
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But but but Hahvuhd is so cool having a black female gay President, don’t you care about that?
1. She’s named “Gay”, but she’s not gay!
2. I don’t care a whit! I just care about having Harvard (and MIT) back the way they used to be!
Oh that’s right, she is married to a white guy, but we know nothing about her personally.
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