Recruited to Play Sports, and Win a Culture War
February 13, 2024 1:17 PM Subscribe
The kids are alright; the politicians not so much.
Sadly hilarious that mutual appreciation and understanding was always the likely result, and exactly the opposite of what was intended.
posted by leotrotsky at 1:34 PM on February 13 [31 favorites]
Sadly hilarious that mutual appreciation and understanding was always the likely result, and exactly the opposite of what was intended.
posted by leotrotsky at 1:34 PM on February 13 [31 favorites]
Couldn't make it through until it got better...
Christ, what an asshole
posted by Windopaene at 1:54 PM on February 13 [2 favorites]
Christ, what an asshole
posted by Windopaene at 1:54 PM on February 13 [2 favorites]
Previously on MeFi, with a main post linking to an August 2023 Tampa Bay Times article (which is now available here), and other links in the comments, such as Chaos at New College.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 1:55 PM on February 13 [5 favorites]
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 1:55 PM on February 13 [5 favorites]
From the article:
Garcia, the softball player, was happily reigniting her high school interest in theater and set design. As a result, she was one of the rare athletes who was spending a lot of time with returning students, some of whom were fascinated by what she did as a catcher on a softball team, even if it was clear that they didn’t totally understand it. How exactly was softball different from baseball? they asked her. How on Earth did she squat for that long? Was she OK? Their curiosity was touching to her, and a little funny. She answered all their questions, and she knew they came to appreciate her dedication to her sport. Now she wanted the athletes to appreciate a little bit more of what the theater students were about. “I’m going to try to force all the athletes to come to the play,” she told me in January.posted by spamandkimchi at 2:02 PM on February 13 [30 favorites]
Child of far-right-wing lawyer, that created student Turning Point USA group at school: "I AM NOT YOUR ENEMY"
I lol'ed
posted by AzraelBrown at 2:19 PM on February 13 [10 favorites]
I lol'ed
posted by AzraelBrown at 2:19 PM on February 13 [10 favorites]
Everything is awful but the queer rom-com opportunities are significant.
posted by Artw at 2:22 PM on February 13 [57 favorites]
posted by Artw at 2:22 PM on February 13 [57 favorites]
yeah my initial take was this would be a great Hollywood movie in the Revenge of the Nerds vein.
posted by torokunai at 2:29 PM on February 13 [6 favorites]
posted by torokunai at 2:29 PM on February 13 [6 favorites]
Right? I was just thinking that there's a great hook for a fish-out-of-water college comedy. Jocks show up at arts college, they butt heads, realize who the real villains are, then team up to party hard and join forces.
posted by Rudy_Wiser at 2:30 PM on February 13 [36 favorites]
posted by Rudy_Wiser at 2:30 PM on February 13 [36 favorites]
Wait, to combat a "woke pro LGBTQ+ campus", he brought softball players?
posted by NotAYakk at 2:36 PM on February 13 [141 favorites]
posted by NotAYakk at 2:36 PM on February 13 [141 favorites]
Apropos of nothing, part of me wants to see an all gay football team called Da Bears.
posted by BrotherCaine at 2:55 PM on February 13 [18 favorites]
posted by BrotherCaine at 2:55 PM on February 13 [18 favorites]
I essentially live at Reed College and the concept of this scares the hell out of me (though I don't think Reed faces the danger of the Oregon Governor packing the board as happened at New College.) Just the idea that the athletes are being brought there to specifically be told that the returning students hate them, and that jocks bullying LGBTQ+ students is just part of the aim. Fucking hell.
But I like that these are still college students, and folks of student age are generally going to acclimate eventually. I'm scared for the faculty forced to either try to fight back against this or else give up on New College and try to head elsewhere (itself never an easy thing to do in academia.) And it cracks me up a bit that of course Hampshire is offering kids an exit strategy (even if that's also exactly what DeSantis & Co. are hoping for.)
posted by Navelgazer at 2:57 PM on February 13 [12 favorites]
But I like that these are still college students, and folks of student age are generally going to acclimate eventually. I'm scared for the faculty forced to either try to fight back against this or else give up on New College and try to head elsewhere (itself never an easy thing to do in academia.) And it cracks me up a bit that of course Hampshire is offering kids an exit strategy (even if that's also exactly what DeSantis & Co. are hoping for.)
posted by Navelgazer at 2:57 PM on February 13 [12 favorites]
Right? I was just thinking that there's a great hook for a fish-out-of-water college comedy. Jocks show up at arts college, they butt heads, realize who the real villains are, then team up to party hard and join forces.
*opens new doc in Word*
posted by ZenMasterThis at 3:12 PM on February 13 [16 favorites]
*opens new doc in Word*
posted by ZenMasterThis at 3:12 PM on February 13 [16 favorites]
Wait, to combat a "woke pro LGBTQ+ campus", he brought softball players?
Given the school previously had no sports program, they may not have the facilities for anything else.
posted by dg at 4:16 PM on February 13 [3 favorites]
Given the school previously had no sports program, they may not have the facilities for anything else.
posted by dg at 4:16 PM on February 13 [3 favorites]
Child of far-right-wing lawyer, that created student Turning Point USA group at school: "I AM NOT YOUR ENEMY"
I’d cut the kid some slack; she’s grown up in a hothouse of nonsense and is only now out on her own. College does a great job of broadening folks’ horizons.
Mitch McConnell’s daughter was in grad school at the same time as me, and her apple has landed pretty far from his rotten tree.
posted by leotrotsky at 4:21 PM on February 13 [22 favorites]
I’d cut the kid some slack; she’s grown up in a hothouse of nonsense and is only now out on her own. College does a great job of broadening folks’ horizons.
Mitch McConnell’s daughter was in grad school at the same time as me, and her apple has landed pretty far from his rotten tree.
posted by leotrotsky at 4:21 PM on February 13 [22 favorites]
The ending of that was so sweet and heartwarming. I'm glad to hear it.
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:45 PM on February 13 [2 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:45 PM on February 13 [2 favorites]
Given the school previously had no sports program, they may not have the facilities for anything else.
One of the crazy parts of this story as they absolutely have not let lack of facilities stop them whatsoever. They’ve been scooping up whoever they can, telling them whatever lie they can to get them on board, then just dumping them in the college no promises met.
posted by Artw at 4:50 PM on February 13 [13 favorites]
One of the crazy parts of this story as they absolutely have not let lack of facilities stop them whatsoever. They’ve been scooping up whoever they can, telling them whatever lie they can to get them on board, then just dumping them in the college no promises met.
posted by Artw at 4:50 PM on February 13 [13 favorites]
though I don't think Reed faces the danger of the Oregon Governor packing the board as happened at New CollegeI don’t think so either. Reed is an independent private college. New College is a public college, part of the State University System of Florida.
posted by Songdog at 5:21 PM on February 13 [3 favorites]
The kids are alright, the Board of Trustees;, less so.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 5:24 PM on February 13
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 5:24 PM on February 13
It's like a microcosm of the Republican political strategy for Florida... the Viktor Orban strategy, be so hostile to progressives that they all leave and you can win elections with the conservative hardliners that stay. Even the transfer rate is similar (according to the article 10% of New College students decamped to Hampshire).
posted by subdee at 5:38 PM on February 13 [7 favorites]
posted by subdee at 5:38 PM on February 13 [7 favorites]
I'm hopeful New College's hostile takeover will continue to result in stories of shared understanding. Relevant: Derek Black's departure from white nationalism whie a NCF student.
posted by ajarbaday at 5:40 PM on February 13 [8 favorites]
posted by ajarbaday at 5:40 PM on February 13 [8 favorites]
Mitch McConnell’s daughter was in grad school at the same time as me, and her apple has landed pretty far from his rotten tree.
The kids seem to have taken after their mother. From Wikipedia: "He was married to his first wife, Sherrill Redmon, from 1968 to 1980 and had three daughters, Porter, Eleanor (Elly), and Claire. Porter McConnell is the campaign director for Take on Wall Street, a left-wing advocacy coalition. Following her divorce from McConnell, Redmon became a feminist scholar at Smith College and director of the Sophia Smith Collection."
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 6:00 PM on February 13 [22 favorites]
The kids seem to have taken after their mother. From Wikipedia: "He was married to his first wife, Sherrill Redmon, from 1968 to 1980 and had three daughters, Porter, Eleanor (Elly), and Claire. Porter McConnell is the campaign director for Take on Wall Street, a left-wing advocacy coalition. Following her divorce from McConnell, Redmon became a feminist scholar at Smith College and director of the Sophia Smith Collection."
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 6:00 PM on February 13 [22 favorites]
The student from Oklahoma they profiled reminds me of some of my cousins who grew up there. These cousins grew up with wealthy oil-industry connected parents who voted for conservative politicians, but weren’t tied to fundamentalist churches or engaged with culture war stuff. I don’t 100% know how they vote now, but I can see from social media and what my parents tell me that they’re all supportive of queer people, not deep in conspiracy rabbit holes, and probably at least a little to the left of my aunt and uncle.
If the Jayleighs and my cousins of the world end up at New College and broaden their horizons a bit, bring it on. My concern is that DeSantis et al will see stories like hers and be like “no, that’s not the sheltered white kids we meant, go find the groypers.”
posted by ActionPopulated at 6:10 PM on February 13 [6 favorites]
If the Jayleighs and my cousins of the world end up at New College and broaden their horizons a bit, bring it on. My concern is that DeSantis et al will see stories like hers and be like “no, that’s not the sheltered white kids we meant, go find the groypers.”
posted by ActionPopulated at 6:10 PM on February 13 [6 favorites]
When I was at New College, some guy tried to drum up interest in starting a frat. That went absolutely nowhere real fast. I can’t imagine how someone trying to play baseball and major in sports management could end up there.
But, that said, it could be a great opportunity for some kids to discover parts of life they’ve never been exposed to before and find new paths they’d never even known were there to consider. New College was always very good at that.
posted by Naberius at 6:17 PM on February 13 [13 favorites]
But, that said, it could be a great opportunity for some kids to discover parts of life they’ve never been exposed to before and find new paths they’d never even known were there to consider. New College was always very good at that.
posted by Naberius at 6:17 PM on February 13 [13 favorites]
So Desantis watched some 1980s movies about jocks bullying weirdos and thought "those are the good guys" and "that will work"?
posted by clawsoon at 7:12 PM on February 13 [19 favorites]
posted by clawsoon at 7:12 PM on February 13 [19 favorites]
I'm hopeful New College's hostile takeover will continue to result in stories of shared understanding. Relevant: Derek Black's departure from white nationalism whie a NCF student.
I don't think that's a coincidence. I think New College was in the crosshairs, precisely because the college was successful at getting the son of leading white nationalist to abandon white nationalism.
posted by jonp72 at 8:38 PM on February 13 [23 favorites]
I don't think that's a coincidence. I think New College was in the crosshairs, precisely because the college was successful at getting the son of leading white nationalist to abandon white nationalism.
posted by jonp72 at 8:38 PM on February 13 [23 favorites]
I don’t think the “NOT YOUR ENEMY” kid is going to shift.
posted by Artw at 8:57 PM on February 13 [2 favorites]
posted by Artw at 8:57 PM on February 13 [2 favorites]
Given the school previously had no sports program, they may not have the facilities for anything else.
NotAYakk was just perpetuating the stereotype that high level softball players are all butch lesbians.
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 9:14 PM on February 13
NotAYakk was just perpetuating the stereotype that high level softball players are all butch lesbians.
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 9:14 PM on February 13
Rudy_Wiser: ...they butt heads, realize who the real villains are, then team up to party hard and join forces.
The kids are alright, they'll just "team up and use the power of friendship to destroy god."
It is, after all, why you join a union.
posted by k3ninho at 2:23 AM on February 14 [11 favorites]
The kids are alright, they'll just "team up and use the power of friendship to destroy god."
It is, after all, why you join a union.
posted by k3ninho at 2:23 AM on February 14 [11 favorites]
Just want to reiterate how satisfying it has been to see Ron DeSantis‘ dreams crushed on the national stage. I’m hoping it’s the opening to a spectacular flame out.
posted by ryanshepard at 4:32 AM on February 14 [12 favorites]
posted by ryanshepard at 4:32 AM on February 14 [12 favorites]
so after mojo nixon's passing i swear this connects stay with me for a second after mojo nixon's passing i spent a little time trying to think up what a modern equivalent of his name might be, and after a while i settled on "sex desantis" which i don't care what you think i think is a pretty good name
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 6:38 AM on February 14 [4 favorites]
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 6:38 AM on February 14 [4 favorites]
It never occurred to me that Rondi's Big Experiment would have to suck for the jocks, too. No giant pile of football money to McDuckdive into like student athletes enjoy at [insert whatever traditional athletics-funded school they dreamed of going to all their lives]? No marketing major, even? So... wtf are they doing there?
Wait, to combat a "woke pro LGBTQ+ campus", he brought softball players?
Snurk!
posted by Don Pepino at 7:14 AM on February 14
Wait, to combat a "woke pro LGBTQ+ campus", he brought softball players?
Snurk!
posted by Don Pepino at 7:14 AM on February 14
Liberals are eventually going to have to admit they need to fight back, or they'll be overwhelmed.
Every place with a Democratic governor needs to go on a no holds barred offensive against right leaning colleges in their states. Gov DeSantis replaced the board at a left leaning college with hard right christofascists? Fine, California needs to go total scorched earth and replace the board at any even slighlty right leaning college with the furthest left people they can round up.
You don't fight this shit with heartwarming stories about how, this time, in this specific instance, it maybe didn't work out as well as the villains wanted it to. You fight it by responding in kind and in greater numbers. They have no interest in coexistence or negotiation. Their entire ideology preaches that they must either crush everyone or go extinct.
I said it back when Texas was so successfully gerrymandering the fuck out of its congressional districts: states with Democratic governments needed to respond in kind and explicitly state that they had been willing to play fair until the right started nakedly cheating.
There is only one end to a game where the roles go "what's mine is mine, what's yours is negotiable." They are seeking to eradicate any dissent or disagreement. Their ideology cannot tolerate the existence of diversity.
It isn't a nice realization, but it is the truth we must deal with: some Americans ARE the enemy, and our only options are submission or self defense.
posted by sotonohito at 7:42 AM on February 14 [7 favorites]
Every place with a Democratic governor needs to go on a no holds barred offensive against right leaning colleges in their states. Gov DeSantis replaced the board at a left leaning college with hard right christofascists? Fine, California needs to go total scorched earth and replace the board at any even slighlty right leaning college with the furthest left people they can round up.
You don't fight this shit with heartwarming stories about how, this time, in this specific instance, it maybe didn't work out as well as the villains wanted it to. You fight it by responding in kind and in greater numbers. They have no interest in coexistence or negotiation. Their entire ideology preaches that they must either crush everyone or go extinct.
I said it back when Texas was so successfully gerrymandering the fuck out of its congressional districts: states with Democratic governments needed to respond in kind and explicitly state that they had been willing to play fair until the right started nakedly cheating.
There is only one end to a game where the roles go "what's mine is mine, what's yours is negotiable." They are seeking to eradicate any dissent or disagreement. Their ideology cannot tolerate the existence of diversity.
It isn't a nice realization, but it is the truth we must deal with: some Americans ARE the enemy, and our only options are submission or self defense.
posted by sotonohito at 7:42 AM on February 14 [7 favorites]
I am not sure the symmetrical equivalents exist to support doing that.
Right leaning religious orgs could do with more tax scrutiny I guess. Also proper investigation of whatever institutional abuse situation they have going on because they all have one.
posted by Artw at 7:54 AM on February 14 [2 favorites]
Right leaning religious orgs could do with more tax scrutiny I guess. Also proper investigation of whatever institutional abuse situation they have going on because they all have one.
posted by Artw at 7:54 AM on February 14 [2 favorites]
Artw I'm talking about public universities where the business department, for example, is run by right wingers as it so often is. Or the board has some Republicans who supposedly aren't so bad. Replace the marketing/business/economics deans with actual, no shit, Marxists. Shitcan the "nice" Republican and replace them with the most rabidly left wing person you can find.
Not even tit-for-tat but retaliation 10x or 100x as strong as their attack. They attacked on left leaning college? We de-Republicanize ten even slightly right leaning colleges.
It won't happen. The Democrats and libearls are pathetic cowards who still imagine they can surrender their way to survival.
I'm also not buying the idea that this is a heartwarming tale of victory over DeSantis.
Those fuckers who "jumpscared" a non-binary student, which stripped of the cute language means aggressive right wing invaders successfully terrified a real studet with threat of violence. Were they expelled? And what about their vicitm, who now doubtless feels unsafe at their university, are they doing OK? How do they feel about the heartwarming acceptance of the very assholes who made them think they were going to be beaten up or murdered?
Fuck heartwarming. This isn't heartwarming, its the story of how in one particular instance a right wing assault on a university didn't succeed as completely as they'd hoped right off the bat. The gender studies program is still gone. The DEI office is still gone. The right wingers on the board are still looking to destroy the university and divert it's limited funds into jock scholarships and giant sports arenas. Do you think they're going to go all after school special and realize the error fo their ways after this heartwarming display of liberal people accepting people who hate them and want them all dead?
No, they're going to learn from this failure and redouble their attack next semester. Fire more liberal professors and hire more right wing hacks. Encourage TP assholes to disrupt liberal classes. Require all students to take athletics where they will be coerced into Christian prayer. And more.
Learn from how they won with Dobbs. They're in this for the long game, not for a semester or two. They are perfectly willing to spend decades on the project of destroying this specific university if that's what it takes. And they'll do the same everywhere else they can.
Like with Israel's genocide this sort of attack gets attention at first, and then we normalize it and forget it despite the evil still going on. They count on us normalizing things and the edge of our upset dulling with time. Andin the darkness of our inattention and exhaustion they keep doing it.
posted by sotonohito at 8:00 AM on February 14 [8 favorites]
Not even tit-for-tat but retaliation 10x or 100x as strong as their attack. They attacked on left leaning college? We de-Republicanize ten even slightly right leaning colleges.
It won't happen. The Democrats and libearls are pathetic cowards who still imagine they can surrender their way to survival.
I'm also not buying the idea that this is a heartwarming tale of victory over DeSantis.
Those fuckers who "jumpscared" a non-binary student, which stripped of the cute language means aggressive right wing invaders successfully terrified a real studet with threat of violence. Were they expelled? And what about their vicitm, who now doubtless feels unsafe at their university, are they doing OK? How do they feel about the heartwarming acceptance of the very assholes who made them think they were going to be beaten up or murdered?
Fuck heartwarming. This isn't heartwarming, its the story of how in one particular instance a right wing assault on a university didn't succeed as completely as they'd hoped right off the bat. The gender studies program is still gone. The DEI office is still gone. The right wingers on the board are still looking to destroy the university and divert it's limited funds into jock scholarships and giant sports arenas. Do you think they're going to go all after school special and realize the error fo their ways after this heartwarming display of liberal people accepting people who hate them and want them all dead?
No, they're going to learn from this failure and redouble their attack next semester. Fire more liberal professors and hire more right wing hacks. Encourage TP assholes to disrupt liberal classes. Require all students to take athletics where they will be coerced into Christian prayer. And more.
Learn from how they won with Dobbs. They're in this for the long game, not for a semester or two. They are perfectly willing to spend decades on the project of destroying this specific university if that's what it takes. And they'll do the same everywhere else they can.
Like with Israel's genocide this sort of attack gets attention at first, and then we normalize it and forget it despite the evil still going on. They count on us normalizing things and the edge of our upset dulling with time. Andin the darkness of our inattention and exhaustion they keep doing it.
posted by sotonohito at 8:00 AM on February 14 [8 favorites]
Child of far-right-wing lawyer, that created student Turning Point USA group at school: "I AM NOT YOUR ENEMY"
I’d cut the kid some slack; she’s grown up in a hothouse of nonsense and is only now out on her own. College does a great job of broadening folks’ horizons.
Wouldn't be the first student to get their hard-right views all busted up at New College.
EDIT: Ah, but now I see we've already brought that up.
posted by Naberius at 8:11 AM on February 14 [2 favorites]
I’d cut the kid some slack; she’s grown up in a hothouse of nonsense and is only now out on her own. College does a great job of broadening folks’ horizons.
Wouldn't be the first student to get their hard-right views all busted up at New College.
EDIT: Ah, but now I see we've already brought that up.
posted by Naberius at 8:11 AM on February 14 [2 favorites]
Rufo has celebrated the school’s “new cohort of mostly male student athletes who will begin to rebalance the hormones and the politics on campus.”Rufo has claimed that he is "restoring classical liberal arts education at New College".
I'm not sure if this all reflects badly on Rufo or on classical liberalism.
posted by clawsoon at 11:03 AM on February 14 [2 favorites]
What I’d give to see business students in blue states forced to take “The Excesses of Capitalism” and “Mergers and Acquisitions: Parallels to Imperialism and Genocide”.
posted by caviar2d2 at 11:27 AM on February 14 [6 favorites]
posted by caviar2d2 at 11:27 AM on February 14 [6 favorites]
Its not entirely true that New College didn't have athletics before this past semester. There is (or was) a small, but full, trophy case in the cafeteria. All of them were won by the excellent intramural faculty softball team, The Bones.
Really, there's very little silver lining here. There exist manifold university experiences that would have served the majority of the "athletic" students equally well, or indeed better. Instead, the College will be molded to meet their newly "emergent" needs and desires in terms of academic programming. Meanwhile, most of the types of people who (used to) end up at New College can and will be successful elsewhere. But they'll have missed out on something important.
A few feel good stories about a handful of kids from more conservative backgrounds getting a little bit more open-minded, open-hearted, and curious is a damned poor tradeoff in my book. Not to mention that once all the weirdos are gone by 2026, no one will be left to have this magical influence in the first place.
posted by voiceofreason at 12:21 PM on February 14 [7 favorites]
Really, there's very little silver lining here. There exist manifold university experiences that would have served the majority of the "athletic" students equally well, or indeed better. Instead, the College will be molded to meet their newly "emergent" needs and desires in terms of academic programming. Meanwhile, most of the types of people who (used to) end up at New College can and will be successful elsewhere. But they'll have missed out on something important.
A few feel good stories about a handful of kids from more conservative backgrounds getting a little bit more open-minded, open-hearted, and curious is a damned poor tradeoff in my book. Not to mention that once all the weirdos are gone by 2026, no one will be left to have this magical influence in the first place.
posted by voiceofreason at 12:21 PM on February 14 [7 favorites]
The only thing that would be close to a parallel counterattack would be if Virginia were to flip more permanently blue and the governor were to go after GMU.
Otherwise it seems okay to admit that universities are institutions where liberals actually do have the upper hand already, with most of the major exceptions being private or in Republican controlled states, and to focus on winning power in places where we don’t have it.
posted by atoxyl at 12:24 PM on February 14
Otherwise it seems okay to admit that universities are institutions where liberals actually do have the upper hand already, with most of the major exceptions being private or in Republican controlled states, and to focus on winning power in places where we don’t have it.
posted by atoxyl at 12:24 PM on February 14
A few feel good stories about a handful of kids from more conservative backgrounds getting a little bit more open-minded, open-hearted, and curious is a damned poor tradeoff in my book. Not to mention that once all the weirdos are gone by 2026, no one will be left to have this magical influence in the first place.
Yeah, good point. That said, it was nice to hear that some kids weren't lockstep assholes. That's a slight something less than 100% awful and in all honesty, not something I would have expected to happen these days.
Liberals are eventually going to have to admit they need to fight back, or they'll be overwhelmed.
Agreed. The number one thing that annoys me about Democrats is that they can't/won't fight dirty right back, AND THEY NEED TO VERY BADLY, because nothing else is working. I keep saying "evil will always triumph because good is dumb," for a reason.
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:42 PM on February 14 [3 favorites]
Yeah, good point. That said, it was nice to hear that some kids weren't lockstep assholes. That's a slight something less than 100% awful and in all honesty, not something I would have expected to happen these days.
Liberals are eventually going to have to admit they need to fight back, or they'll be overwhelmed.
Agreed. The number one thing that annoys me about Democrats is that they can't/won't fight dirty right back, AND THEY NEED TO VERY BADLY, because nothing else is working. I keep saying "evil will always triumph because good is dumb," for a reason.
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:42 PM on February 14 [3 favorites]
I do not trust the NYTimes on this at all. That article is a gooshy feel-good nothing and included zero hard evidence for a theory that New College is beginning a recovery or will be able to hold its own. A couple of bemused athletes are taking sociology classes because there's no business school. Somebody wrote, "Your coaches are lying: we don't hate you" on a sidewalk. What can we conclude from that? Precisely nothing.
universities are institutions where liberals actually do have the upper hand already
Huh? Maybe they used to be, but these days universities are huge machines for turning the underpaid work of researchers and the nearly unpaid work of adjuncts and the entirely unpaid work of student athletes into piles and piles of money.
Colleges are mostly not money-printing machines, and some of them are institutions where liberals can sometimes have the upper hand. New College used to be one of these. Now it isn't. The students whose opportunities have been destroyed by the governor of Florida should have grounds to sue not just on the free speech grounds they're suing on but because they paid to work on degrees they're now not going to be able to complete because the governor deliberately gutted and broke New College. The student athletes who were lured down to Sarasota with a bunch of empty promises and were disappointed should also be able to get some kind of recourse.
posted by Don Pepino at 9:27 AM on February 15 [2 favorites]
universities are institutions where liberals actually do have the upper hand already
Huh? Maybe they used to be, but these days universities are huge machines for turning the underpaid work of researchers and the nearly unpaid work of adjuncts and the entirely unpaid work of student athletes into piles and piles of money.
Colleges are mostly not money-printing machines, and some of them are institutions where liberals can sometimes have the upper hand. New College used to be one of these. Now it isn't. The students whose opportunities have been destroyed by the governor of Florida should have grounds to sue not just on the free speech grounds they're suing on but because they paid to work on degrees they're now not going to be able to complete because the governor deliberately gutted and broke New College. The student athletes who were lured down to Sarasota with a bunch of empty promises and were disappointed should also be able to get some kind of recourse.
posted by Don Pepino at 9:27 AM on February 15 [2 favorites]
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It's heartening to read that the athletes, brought in to sabotage the campus culture, are themselves acculturating -- or bailing out. Seeing lots of students leave a college is a serious problem, because it can often saddle them with debt and damaged self-image, but at least they're out of a bad-fit situation.
posted by wenestvedt at 1:29 PM on February 13 [15 favorites]