In a recent column for the Huffington Post, the former Provost of Evergreen State College claims campus administrators, led by President George Bridges, lost control of the campus community.
Michael Zimmerman, former provost and vice president for academic affairs at Evergreen State College, claims that “identity politics” was at the center of the chaos that forced Biology Professor Bret Weinstein aoff campus due to safety concerns.
Coupled with administrators who were allegedly driven by politics to relinquish control over the campus community, the resulting chaos became the center of national news media stories.
“Videos of students and faculty members using foul language and abusing fellow community members have gone viral,” Zimmerman writes. “Stills of students wielding baseball bats and acting as a vigilante police force can be found on all corners of the internet. Images of scores of armed members of the Washington State Patrol, clad in riot gear, patrolling campus offer a frightening look at what happens when campus administrators lose control of a college.”
He claims the root of the chaos began with a decision by freshly installed President George Bridges to establish an Equity Council which would be tasked with making Evergreen a more inclusive educational community. The council reportedly produced a strategic equity plan that would have drastically altered faculty hiring practices as well as the structure of the curriculum.
After a faculty member allegedly took to Facebook to state that white community members should speak “only when spoken to,” Zimmerman claims that Bridges chose to do nothing publicly.
Zimmerman claims that Bridges’ refusal to control those who were acting out only served to escalate the chaos. He argues that the escalation of the students’ behavior (such as roaming campus with baseball bats) was a natural consequence of Bridges’ refusal to condemn their actions.
Given all of this, can there be any surprise that students acted as extremely as they did? Given their role models, can there be any surprise that they refused to let President Bridges speak, even when they asked him a direct question? Given that, very early in the process, President Bridges used foul language when discussing Professor Weinstein with students (and then immediately said, “Don’t put this on tape!), can there be any surprise that students used similar language in response? Given that President Bridges praised them for their courage for demonstrating, capitulated to virtually all of their demands and promised that no one would be punished for their behavior, can there be any surprise that the protesters continued to make additional demands?
Tom Ciccotta is a libertarian who writes about economics and higher education for Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter @tciccotta or email him at tciccotta@breitbart.com
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