More Half-Baked Patronizing Officiousness At William & Mary

One revealing result of many campus anti-affirmative action bake sales is that they often uncover the half-baked, crackpot ideas of many allegedly responsible university officials, and nowhere is this more true than at the College of William and Mary. (I have discussed William & Mary here, here, and here, but the most thorough coverage has been, as usual, from Erin O’Connor, whose most recent post is here.)

In commenting on my most recent post a William & Mary junior calls attention to a remarkable opinion piece by and interview with Prof. Deirdre Royster, the chairman of the Sociology Dept., in The Flat Hat, the W&M student newspaper.

The thrust of Prof. Royster’s opinion piece is, not to put too fine a point on it, that the affirmative action protesters don’t know what they’re talking about, and they have no business hurting other students’ feelings by sounding off on complex subjects without having had the benefit of sociology courses, which would have cured them of their errant and offensive opinions. Indeed, she claims, the very fact that the bake sales were held “demonstrates the need for programs to support students of color, who must endure just those kinds of painful and hostile scenarios.”

Sociologists apparently like “scenarios.” Or at least Prof. Royster does.

The scenario had the effect of deeply disturbing my students, especially those of color, who were made to feel even less welcome on the campus than they already felt. My white students were annoyed and angered by the acts of their co-racials, who seem unaware of the persisting and pressing patterns of racial vulnerability that people of color face in labors markets, housing markets, consumer markets and other spheres within American society. My students don’t understand how people who have not learned about the nature of racial privilege and disadvantage in the United States can smugly assert opinions that are not supported by research. They do not share and cannot understand that sort of arrogance, nor can they imagine that such efforts can actually undermine college policies that try to enhance the experiences of racially vulnerable students. And yet they are watching it happen.

Fortunately, however, help is at hand, as close as your nearest Sociology course.

As chair of the sociology department, I would like to encourage — no, invite — all students who would like to be better informed about patterns of racial inequality and policies that aim to address that inequality to take sociology courses. We have many insights and tools to offer that will enable you to subject the views expressed in columns (and other activities) to serious critical analysis. I challenge the students who have participated in the sorts of activities I’ve mentioned to stop posing as authorities and subject your views to critical analysis….

In her separate interview with The Flat Hat,

Royster said she was disappointed in the group’s actions, which she said hurt and offended many students. She asserted that the Sons of Liberty based their opinions on insufficient information.

“We live in a situation where too much of the conversation is speculation and rhetoric rather than the reason a policy was written,” she said. “Certainly people can disagree, but they ought to do it from an informed position.”

Royster urged student groups to organize forums for discussion. She volunteered her department’s expertise for an educational debate and expressed her disappointment with students who assert opinions on issues without understanding all the factors involved.

….

“We want to make experts available,” she said. “It’s very frustrating when students take a position on an issue when the issue is very complex.”

I’m sure it is frustrating for her. After all, who would want to deal with students who form their own opinions on complex issues, especially when their failure to take one’s own classes so clearly demonstrates not only a lack of knowledge but also a lack of wisdom and maturity?

UPDATE (2/1/04)

The more I think about it, the more Timothy Sullivan’s William & Mary begins to look more like a re-education camp than a center of higher learning.

What I find disturbing is not the fact that the president of the college and one of his department heads support racial preferences, or even that they are vociferous and adamant supporters (although Erin O’Connor does raise serious questions about the propriety of a college president “throwing his own ideological weight around” his campus.) It doesn’t really bother me that President Sullivan and Prof. Royster are outspoken advocates of a principle I reject, since reasonable people can disagree about racial preference. What does bother me enormously, because it is so common among people of their persuasion, is the smugness and sanctimoniously insufferable moral superiority of their certitude that no reasonable people could disagree with them.

Prof. Royster is so confident that she possesses a monopoly on the truth that ignorance of “the facts” is the only reason she can imagine why anyone would disagree with her, unless, I suppose, she regards the ignorance as willful, which would reveal simple evil on the part of the misguided. Could it be that she’s never had a discussion with anyone she respects at William & Mary who disagrees with her?

In his press release that I criticized in my post several days ago, President Sullivan concludes by attempting to wrap himself in the mantle of Jefferson:

As a university community, we take the actions of the Sons of Liberty [the student group that sponsored the bake sales] in the spirit of Jefferson’s comment about freedom of thought: “Here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error, as long as reason is left free to combat it.”

So, Prof. Royster has a monopoly on truth, and President Sullivan has a monopoly on reason. How reassuring it must be for them never to encounter intelligent, informed, reasonable people who disagree.

I wonder if there are no such people at William & Mary, or whether they are simply reluctant to express opinions that will be branded as hateful, hurtful, and beyond the pale by an orthodoxy that is apparently preached in the classrooms and enforced by the Jefferson-spouting college president’s ideological bullying.

Say What? (2)

  1. WM Junior February 1, 2004 at 5:01 pm | | Reply

    “The more I think about it, the more Timothy Sullivan’s William & Mary begins to look more like a re-education camp than a center of higher learning.”

    I brought attention to Professor Royster’s comments because they, quite frankly, made me angry. I wish the College would do something to distance themselves from her views, as she expressed them.

    However, I believe William and Mary is on the whole a lot better (PC-wise) than what this bake-sale matter would suggest. Although I haven’t taken any Sociology classes, my other professors have left politics and PC out of their classes. WM tends to be a more conservative campus, in my opinion. I feel like there are far worse colleges than William and Mary.

  2. Number 2 Pencil February 3, 2004 at 3:48 pm | | Reply

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