Deny yourself

Those are excellecent and well presented points, Peter.
Amy might do well if she took the cource being described.

I disagree Peter, I don't think anyone assuumes that it's all coming from a white male perspective. Where have you been for the past 40 years?

I was also wondering what made a African american woman a professional on being
a Heteraklsexual white male ? How would she know what that is like ? Matter of fact
how can one individual; male consider himself to be a professional on all white
males ? Yet the PDLS's allow such stupid classes to do what ? ...... Teach what ?.....
A perception ? ......

If one does not have the ability to think, write or argue from a perspective other than their own, they will have a hard time succeeding in life.

This situation looks like a typical Liberal Arts professor imposing her style and giving her students fair warning that they will be graded according to that style. This is no different than most employers hold their employees accountable in customer service roles. As long as the professor enforces this policy to make all students from all backgrounds leave their prejudices and ethnic/cultural "niche" attitudes out of the classroom, it sounds like a fair policy. If she does not, it sounds like a tougher class for some than for others, but again, she plainly stated the rules up front.

The author of this article says it all when he proclaimed that he dropped the class and states "I’ll speak as I always have and conduct myself in the way I deem fit. I think paying $40,000 a year should give me that basic right."

Good luck in the real world Ryan Lovelace - Instead of rising to the challenge of dealing with an "oddball" teacher, you quit. Not sure what kind of Liberal Arts education your $40K/yr is going to give you if you only pick easy social studies classes where you don't have to change your thought process, language or attitude. If you can't hack a quirky teacher in Poli-Sci, how are you going to deal with Philosophy, Theology, Foreign Language, or Anthropology courses? If you discard the need to recognize a universal audience in your writing, you won't even be able to write an effective manual for a toaster with your Journalism degree.

Not sure where you were headed with this Blog topic Amy but I don't see much difference with this professor's approach to her class and a Theology Professor telling the Jews and Christians in his/her class that they have to drop their inherent religious perspectives in class in order to best understand the Buddhist and Muslim chapters.

Spot on, Mucho. Never let it be said that you dont have moments of laser clarity.

Mgarber - Perhaps my comments were just a ruse to demonstrate I could get an "A" in that radical anti-white, male hating, Liberal teacher's class. :)

Funny how a conservative will always balk at being viewed as agreeing with a
liberal with most anything.

Mucho: I completely disagree with your comment. What is at play here is liberalism at its finest, nothing more. Goofiness in the classroom to the nth degree. And, Mucho, many students do not know the exact syllabus or what is expected of them until after the class begins. In other words, there were probably no "red flags" at registration that this class was going to be a racist, anti-white exercise - making the white, American male students targets.
In the views of this professor, American white males are racist. (And on the side, our own president puts forth the notion that we should not be proud of our own country. There will be just one world order - and white, American, heterosexual males need not apply.) These white male students somehow deserve the scorn of this prof - why? Because this professor and other liberals nodding their heads in agreement believe they are a racist. Again I must ask - how racist is that very notion?
And again I must ask - just imagine if a white male teacher did this exact same "exercise" with black males? After the university and professor got done being sued by every leftie organization imaginable, the professor would be out of work.

By the way, the comparison of this class and a worker in a customer service department following job descriptions doesn't ring true. Employers have certain expectations of employees which all employees are expected to follow. Employers usually are not out to "negate" a person's pre-assumed viewpoints in the workplace.

What this professor did - or is doing - is wrong on so many levels.

"Employers usually are not out to "negate" a person's pre-assumed viewpoints in the workplace."

What planet is that on?

Obviously you've never worked at any place where the workers were trying to certify a union.

jman99: I still notice that you and the other lefties commenting here have failed to address my following comment:

"Imagine for one moment if a white male professor at Butler, under the guise of "social justice" singled out black heterosexual American males and made them speak and write (and think) in a different way than they were accustomed to. Want to know what would happen (after the ACLU and NAACP got done suing the professor and university?)? That professor would lose his job -for being racist. For being a bigot. He would be run out of town by every leftie group imaginable."

And again, comparing this classroom "excercise" is not a fair or reasonable comparison to the workplace. For one thing, students are paying for an education (if the government isn't picking up the check for them already). They are not paying to be singled out for some leftie experiment at the hands of a bigoted anti-white male teacher.
In the workplace, employees do NOT pay to work. An employer pays them - and expects them to adhere to the rules of employement in a workplace. Very big difference.

"jman99: I still notice that you and the other lefties commenting here have failed to address my following comment:

"Imagine for one moment if a white male professor at Butler, under the guise of "social justice" singled out black heterosexual American males and made them speak and write (and think) in a different way than they were accustomed to. Want to know what would happen (after the ACLU and NAACP got done suing the professor and university?)? That professor would lose his job -for being racist. For being a bigot. He would be run out of town by every leftie group imaginable.""

I wrote:
"Yes Hemmer white middle class people have inherent prejudice (especially white males) and they are homophobic. They see the world through their eyes which are the eyes of the white middle class. They can help it as this is the world most of them have been brought up in. Is it wrong? No, that's just they way they are because of their environment and social standing.

As they are the largest part of who's going to college, having them think outside of their comfort zone is something I highly recommend. Not to belittle them, but to allow them to see further than they have ever seen. How can you possible see a problem or a challenge from the perspective of another if you don't at least try to walk a mile in their shoes?

What this prof wants to do is to have blindfolded students describe the elephant by touch when they don't know it's an elephant.

In research and analysis you must always put your prejudice outside the work, or the work is worthless because it is tainted by the way you perceive the facts. You must gather the facts first and let the data stand on its own. doing anything else is useless, because you get the answer you want rather than the real answer which can be totally different from what you want. "

Now part two of that:
Very often people are assigned personalities to take on when presenting a point of view about a topic. Happens in Political science all the time. It also happens in Law classes when you want young lawyers to be able to step into the shoes of their clients in order to mount their best defence of the client.

It's called empathic thinking. It has been going on for years.

The author of your article ( we have no proof of attending the class or is enrolled at the university, only his word. ) is trying desperately to score points with the right wing establishment and is saying what they want to hear. The article has been linked into a zillion rightie sites by now. No second article, no other information. Just lots of mindless ranting an raving about a perceived injustice to straight white middle class males.

If that's how the right does news, it's no wonder your party is in so much trouble.

"If that's how the right does news,..."
If a bear does it in the woods...
If the Pope's catholic...

"....it's no wonder your party is in so much trouble. "
And the sad part is many of them dont even know that. The "core" still thinks it wasnt conservative enough; which is almost the same as not hysterical enough.

jman99 states: "Very often people are assigned personalities to take on when presenting a point of view about a topic. Happens in Political science all the time. It also happens in Law classes when you want young lawyers to be able to step into the shoes of their clients in order to mount their best defence of the client.
It's called empathic thinking. It has been going on for years."

I have absolutely no problem with "role-playing" in the classroom as a teaching tool. What the Butler prof. was doing wasn't "role-playing." It was picking on certain individuals because the prof. judged them to be racist and telling them to act and think differently, cuz she deemed them to be prejudiced before they even set foot in her classroom.

As for the "news" - the mainstream media of today does not consist of "journalists." Honest, real journalism died decades ago. Todays "news" reporters are little more than "entertainment reporters." And most are card-carrying members of the Obama Fan Club. The news of today is so distorted and spun in such a way that it is no wonder "rightie" sites have sprung up to counter-act the blatant lies and distortions coming from the leftie media. What's really ironic is in the socialist/communist world that Obama is leading us towards, the "journalists" are the first to go - although I would say the current crop of "news" reporters is so far in the leftie tank that they wouldn't mind totally being taken over by the government.

"....cuz she deemed them to be prejudiced before they even set foot in her classroom."

Well its true!

We are all prejudiced by our upbringing and our environment. What she wanted to do is weed out "most privileged" thinking from the discussion.

At no point did she say she thought they were racists.

What a tempest in a tea pot.

Lets see , I keephearing on how white males are a smaller group than females in
colleges ! Not only that but most people who own businesses are white males ! If so
, Why would you make the white males change ? Are they not the leaders in industry
in this country ? Not onlyt that but would it not be better to make the females and
minorities learn to change if they will be imployed by percentages by a white male ?
So your argument that it teaches the white males to adjust is moot . Why does this
class not try to teach those that need it more ? lol...

WFB, thank you for proving the premise that this prof. was setting out in the syllabus.

Amy,

The first paragraph that you quoted isn't supported by the evidence provided in the rest of the article, as I pointed out before. It's meant to be a quick summary of what follows. As I said, a few paragraphs later, the syllabus is quoted to say writing shouldn't assume that being white is the norm (as well as the other identifiers of mainstream America, such as being middle class, American, and heterosexual).

The student talks to the dean of the college of arts and sciences and a journalism professor. The person he doesn't quote is the professor, aside from the syllabus itself. The dean talks about questioning assumptions, then talks about "inclusive language." I'll confess I don't know what inclusive language is, in that I don't know what it means to write a sentence that "affirms" differing racial and ethnic backgrounds. If anything, it looks meaningless rather than subversive.

The journalism professor talks about "writing from a black woman's point of view," which isn't what is required in the syllabus. It only requires that students write as if not everyone is a white man.

The best analogy I can think of at the moment is about religion in the public sphere. Those arguing for displays of the Ten Commandments or for Christian values to be reflected in the laws often argue that the United States is a Christian nation, so Christian values should be reflected. The text of the syllabus wouldn't call for Christian values to be ignored... it would only say that the "Christian nation" argument should be left at the door.

Yert, you're right that no one thinks everything is from a white man's perspective anymore. But the white man is often viewed as outside of identity politics. Granted, that's not the way the left has been describing political identification (especially following the most recent election), but the white guy is seen as a liberal or conservative. They go to a black guy for the black perspective and a woman for a woman's perspective.

A real inquiry of this supposed bias against white men would have spoken to the professor who provided the syllabus. It would have included an example of "inclusive language." At the very least, the article should reflect some attempt to get clarification from the professor, such as "the professor of this class was not available for comment as of the writing of this article."

With regard to Amy's objection about a double standard for white men, it's not relevant at Butler (or UW-Madison or most other universities in this country). If I told a black man that he shouldn't view being a black man as the norm, he would laugh at me. Why? Because unless you're in the African-American studies department, that's obvious. The norm could be race-neutral or white. But it's certainly not black.

Would I support a man in the gender studies or women's studies department saying that his students shouldn't assume being a woman is the norm? Yes. From the reputation of women's studies courses, it would be a brave stand to take, but that's neither here nor there. It would be conducive to productive classroom discussion.

Hemmer -

I'm still missing it. To start off with, foreign exchange students don't get a break on punctuation in grammar class and someone offended by a teacher that expects her students to check their pre-programmed thoughts at the door doesn't belong in an institute of higher learning.

While most university campuses are bastions of liberalism, students should get poor grades if they show up in a poli-sci class and regurgitate conservatism just because "that's how they were brought up". Same goes for lefties.