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Racial Hysteria at UCLA
In a recent article, City Journal’s Heather MacDonald discusses some incidents involving the racial climate at UCLA. The incidents are so fantastic that at times the reader will probably suspect that MacDonald is guilty of hyperbole. However, I taught at UCLA for eleven and a half years. Things really are as bad as she describes.
One incident, which involves education professor Val Rust, illustrates the “eggshell plaintiff” attitude among some of the students at UCLA, how the tiniest slight can become a major racial grievance:
UCLA education professor emeritus Val Rust was involved in multiculturalism long before the concept even existed. A pioneer in the field of comparative education, which studies different countries’ educational systems, Rust has spent over four decades mentoring students from around the world and assisting in international development efforts. He has received virtually every honor awarded by the Society of Comparative and International Education. His former students are unanimous in their praise for his compassion and integrity. “He’s been an amazing mentor to me,” says Cathryn Dhanatya, an assistant dean for research at the USC Rossiter School of Education. “I’ve never experienced anything remotely malicious or negative in terms of how he views students and how he wants them to succeed.” Rosalind Raby, director of the California Colleges for International Education, says that Rust pushes you to “reexamine your own thought processes. There is no one more sensitive to the issue of cross-cultural understanding.” A spring 2013 newsletter from UCLA’s ed school celebrated Rust’s career and featured numerous testimonials about his warmth and support for students.
It was therefore ironic that Rust’s graduate-level class in dissertation preparation was the target of student protest just a few months later — ironic, but in the fevered context of the UCLA education school, not surprising. The school, which trumpets its “social-justice” mission at every opportunity, is a cauldron of simmering racial tensions. Students specializing in “critical race theory” — an intellectually vacuous import from law schools — play the race card incessantly against their fellow students and their professors, leading to an atmosphere of nervous self-censorship. Foreign students are particularly shell-shocked by the school’s climate. “The Asians are just terrified,” says a recent graduate. “They walk into this hyper-racialized environment and have no idea what’s going on. Their attitude in class is: ‘I don’t want to talk. Please don’t make me talk!’ ”
Val Rust’s dissertation-prep class had devolved into a highly charged arena of competing victim ideologies, impenetrable to anyone outside academia. For example: Were white feminists who use “standpoint theory” — a feminist critique of allegedly male-centered epistemology — illegitimately appropriating the “testimonial” genre used by Chicana feminists to narrate their stories of oppression? Rust took little part in these “methodological” disputes — if one can describe “Chicana testimonials” as a scholarly “method” — but let the more theoretically up-to-date students hash it out among themselves. Other debates centered on the political implications of punctuation. Rust had changed a student’s capitalization of the word “indigenous” in her dissertation proposal to the lowercase, thus allegedly showing disrespect for the student’s ideological point of view. Tensions arose over Rust’s insistence that students use the more academic Chicago Manual of Style for citation format; some students felt that the less formal American Psychological Association conventions better reflected their political commitments. During one of these heated discussions, Rust reached over and patted the arm of the class’s most vociferous critical race–theory advocate to try to calm him down — a gesture typical of the physically demonstrative Rust, who is prone to hugs. The student, Kenjus Watson, dramatically jerked his arm away, as a burst of nervous energy coursed through the room.
After each of these debates, the self-professed “students of color” exchanged e-mails about their treatment by the class’s “whites.” (Asians are not considered “persons of color” on college campuses, presumably because they are academically successful.) Finally, on November 14, 2013, the class’s five “students of color,” accompanied by “students of color” from elsewhere at UCLA, as well as by reporters and photographers from the campus newspaper, made their surprise entrance into Rust’s class as a “collective statement of Resistance by Graduate Students of Color.” The protesters formed a circle around Rust and the remaining five students (one American, two Europeans, and two Asian nationals) and read aloud their “Day of Action Statement.” That statement suggests that Rust’s modest efforts to help students with their writing faced obstacles too great to overcome.
The Day of Action Statement contains hardly a sentence without some awkwardness of grammar or usage. “The silence on the repeated assailment of our work by white female colleagues, our professor’s failure to acknowledge and assuage the escalating hostility directed at the only Male of Color in this cohort, as well as his own repeated questioning of this male’s intellectual and professional decisions all support a complacency in this hostile and unsafe climate for Scholars of Color,” the manifesto asserts. The Day of Action Statement denounces the class’s “racial microaggressions,” which it claims have been “directed at our epistemologies, our intellectual rigor and to a misconstruction of the methodological genealogies that we have shared with the class.” (Though it has only caught on in recent years, the “microaggression” concept was first coined in the 1970s by a black psychiatrist.) Reaching its peroration, the statement unleashes a few more linguistic head-scratchers: “It is, at its most benign, disingenuous to the next generations of Scholars of Color to not seek material and systematic changes in this department. It is a toxic, unsafe and intellectually stifling environment at its current worse.”
The Ph.D. candidates who authored this statement are at the threshold of a career in academia — and not just any career in academia but one teaching teachers. The Day of Action Statement should have been a wake-up call to the school’s authorities — not about UCLA’s “hostile racial climate” but about their own pedagogical failure to prepare students for scholarly writing and advising. Rust is hardly the first professor to be criticized for his efforts to help students write. “Asking for better grammar is inflammatory in the school,” says an occasional T.A. “You have to give an A or you’re a racist.”
If senior administrators at UCLA were honest, they would have publicly declared (i) that Rust did nothing racist or even racial and (ii) that the race-baiting students in his class could have benefited from the grammar instruction he tried to give them. Instead the administrators pandered to the race baiters.
I used to think that such pandering is motivated mostly by ideology — that, in their hearts, senior administrators really agree with the race baiters. In recent years, however, I’ve begun to think that the pandering is motivated mostly by careerism.
One incident is especially revealing. A friend was asked to apply for a deanship at a UC campus. For the penultimate round of the process he and the other candidates were asked to write an essay, which would answer one simple question: “What have you done to increase diversity on your campus?” By “diversity,” of course, the hiring committee meant racial diversity.
I believe that most university administrators constantly think of that question. They fully understand that, if they want to be promoted, they need to have a good answer to that question. Related, if they face a situation where someone is accused of racism, they realize that — again, if they want to be promoted — they must side with accusers of racism, never the accused.
Of course, that’s mainly speculation, and maybe I’m wrong. But regardless, the administrators at UCLA acted as if they are constantly thinking of that question. As MacDonald notes:
As word of the sit-in spread in the press and on the Internet, the administration began its sacrifice of Rust. Dean Marcelo Suárez-Orozco sent around a pandering e-mail to faculty and students, announcing that he had become “aware of the last of a series of troubling racial climate incidents at UCLA, most recently associated with [Rust’s class]” — thus conferring legitimacy on the preposterous claim that there was anything racially “troubling” about Rust’s management of his class. Suárez-Orozco went on: “Rest assured I take this extremely seriously. I humbly dedicate myself to listening and to learning from this experience. As a community, we will work towards just, equitable, and lasting solutions. Together, we shall heal.”
Of course, the very idea of taking “this” “extremely seriously” presupposes that there was something to be taken seriously and solved, as opposed to a mere outburst of narcissistic victimhood. The administration announced that Rust would not teach the remainder of the class by himself but would be joined by three other professors, one of whom, Daniel Solórzano, was the school’s leading proponent of microaggression theory and critical race theory. This reorganization implicitly confirmed the charge that Rust was unfit to supervise “graduate students of color.”
Unsatisfied with the administration’s response, the protesters posted an online petition riddled with a new crop of grammatical puzzlers. “Students consistently report hostile classroom environments in which the effects of white supremacy, patriarchy, heteronormativity, and other forms of institutionalized oppression have manifested within the department and deride our intellectual capacity, methodological rigor, and ideological legitimacy,” limped one typical sentence.
A few weeks later, a town hall convened to discuss the Day of Action’s charge of a “hostile and toxic environment for students of Color.” Professor Solórzano presented his typology of microaggressions to explain the school’s racial tensions. Protest organizer Kenjus Watson read a long bill of particulars justifying the Day of Action. Another black student argued that no reconciliation in the school was possible because Rust had not apologized for his transgressions. Several of Rust’s faculty colleagues in the Division of Social Sciences and Comparative Education attended; none publicly defended him.
After the meeting, Rust approached the student who had berated him for not seeking forgiveness and tried to engage him in conversation. Ever naive, Rust again reached out to touch his interlocutor. The student, a large and robust young man, erupted in anger and eventually filed a criminal charge of battery against the 79-year-old professor. Rust’s employers presented him with a choice: if he agreed to stay off the education-school premises for the remainder of the academic year, they would not pursue disciplinary charges against him. The administration then sent around a letter to students, alerting them that the school would be less dangerous — for a while, at least — with Rust out of the picture.
Some will read MacDonald’s article and wonder, “Can it really be that bad at UCLA? Surely, she’s exaggerating things.” It is, and she’s not.
When I taught at UCLA, I once asked a liberal colleague if the racial hysteria bothered him personally — that is, whether he worried if he might ever be the target of it. “Yes,” he replied, that’s why my general strategy around here is just to minimize any human interaction. You never know what’s coming.”
Published in General
This is shocking and disgusting stuff. My heart really goes out to Professor Rust, who was trying to give these students something they obviously needed. It is shameful, deeply shameful to treat a kindly old man that way. McCarthyism comes to mind, though ice read that it was justified in many cases. I keep thinking there will be a moment when everybody sees how stupid this is. Your book should have done the trick. Maybe it still will.
The inmates are running the Aslyum.
Exact words that came to my mind. Though I guess using that phrase counts as mental illness-shaming.
Pardon me, I have to go vomit.
Why don’t the targets of these idiots just laugh in their faces and be done with it?
“Students consistently report hostile classroom environments in which the effects of white supremacy, patriarchy, heteronormativity, and other forms of institutionalized oppression have manifested within the department and deride our intellectual capacity, methodological rigor, and ideological legitimacy,”
These obvious answer is to point out that they have no intellectual capacity, methodological rigor or ideological capacity. Again, laugh in their faces and move on with your life.
“A Day of Action Statement” is what, exactly?
These people remind me of the future culture in the movie, Demolition Man, but without the intellectual rigor necessary to collect my garbage (much less, spew their own).
I know that some of the readers are laughing about how ridiculous this is. However, it isn’t just UCLA. I recently finished a education related master’s degree at a state university here in the West, and this sort of bizarro-land action isn’t that rare.
I’m appalled that UCLA wouldn’t defend a 79 year old man. But, maybe his being 79, and male, and white, work against him in the upside-down world of teacher education. I shudder. I’m an older white lady in the teaching world, and it isn’t too friendly to me, either.
“Sensible” isn’t a really important part of modern education.
Tim,
This is about money and power and how to use extortion to gain both. We can not allow the university system to be subverted this way. The university system as you well know is central to the functioning of this society. Huge amounts of capital both monetary and human flow through this system.
It is time for this garbage to stop. It will take us a few more years and a Presidential election victory but we will prevail.
Regards,
Jim
Was “Idiocracy” filmed at UCLA?
This is the most horrifying thing I’ve read in a long time. The world may be not be doomed (well… ), but these thoroughly damaged students could be ruined for life. This is like Stalin’s purges where nobody knew what the rules were, so everybody was potentially guilty and anyone could be shot. This is the fruition of leftism.
This is an example of ageism at UCLA. If Rust could have made it clear that he, too, was a victim of the power structure, perhaps he could still be walking the hallowed ground of the education school.
Speaking seriously, the most discouraging thing about this episode is that the grad students will go on to be professors. The distorted and callow vulgarity of “higher ed” gains one foothold after another.
It’s funny that UCLA and the Alumni Association have chosen this month to call me over and over for donations. I recognize the phone numbers and don’t pick up.
I’m tempted to tell them the truth, which is the money I used to give to UCLA goes to Hillsdale College now.
These are grad students? These are the people who exemplify the top of the intellectual food chain?
I’m guessing that grad students in electrical engineering aren’t forming Day of Action committees. They’re too busy studying, which is what students should be doing, instead of mincing about like offended Victorian-era dandies when a 79 year old man engages them.
I cannot imagine working with one of these clowns out in the real world. Over time, nobody would talk or engage with them at work unless they absolutely had to, which would probably further cement the idea in their warped skulls about what’s going on with the white patriarchy, etc. It’s a self-fulfilling and self-destructive mindset.
When does this ever end?
When we start laughing at them instead of taking them seriously.
As centers for advancing human knowledge our universities are failures. Sometimes I doubt they would even exist if they weren’t de facto minor league feeders to the NFL and NBA.
Sensitivity is like a Star Trek tribble. Once you start feeding it, it multiplies, until you can’t feed it enough.
I have never heard of a dissertation preparation class.
How do you do homework?
The diploma should read —UCLA School of Incomprehensible Jargon
I suppose by saying what I am about to say I am opening myself up to charges of racism. So be it!
This is the ultimate unintended consequence of Affirmative Action. By advancing people based not on proven academic skill, but, rather, based on their race, we have contaminated the pool of higher level academia. When I had to take classes to complete my certification for teaching in the state of Washington in the 1970s I had a professor who on the first day of class described in detail what was considered an appropriate term paper for her class. A given was the absolute absence of spelling and punctuation errors, no typos accepted. A paper containing any such would be returned ungraded to the student. In addition, since computers were unavailable at the time, we were instructed to clean our typewriter keys to insure a clear, clean copy. This was for a masters level class, not for PhDs.
When people are admitted to high level academic classes who are unqualified they will, naturally, feel inadequate. The sense of inadequacy can not be ameliorated by assuming the pose of victim. A scholar would strive to improve his/her skills to meet the higher standard. A victim attempts to force a lower standard based upon his/her victimhood. That is what is going on in UCLA and probably every other public university.
As a department head in special education with a staff of seven teachers under my direction, I was appalled at the level of basic skills demonstrated by my fellow teachers in their preparation of the Individual Educational Programs for their students. Part of the document was a commentary on the student. (In recent years this has been replaced by questions which can be answered with single sentences or words. I wonder why?) I required that all IEPs be given to me in advance of the meetings with parents so that I could scan them for errors. I found innumerable spelling and punctuation errors. These reflected on the absurd standards maintained in many departments of Education of public universities. That the worst offenders were people of color should not be surprising to anyone. They weren’t bad teachers, but they were functional illiterates.
I read aloud student statements to the family over dinner last night, to much eye rolling and laughter. All of my kids were clearer thinkers and writers by the time they left grade school. Sure took the wind out my Bruin husband’s sails after the win last Saturday.
To paraphrase a quote from the movie “Chinatown”, forget about it Tim, it’s the academy. Seriously, the non-technical higher education fields are heading for the ash heap. Soon, no one is going to pay the kinds of tuition charged these days at colleges and universities for this kind of nonsense. The hand wringing angst about, “what is going to happen to the humanities” is a foreshadowing of what is to come. Just take a look at a random sample of dissertation titles for humanities disciplines and you will quickly see that we don’t need nearly as many sociology, etc PhD’s as are currently being minted. I think this stage where they are eating they young is a stage close to the end.
There’s a certain lack of sympathy I feel for this guy. In the “You have sown the wind and reaped the whirlwind” sense. The university, as an institution, is hostile to me and conservatism in general. I shed no tears at it eating it’s own.
If anyone wonders whether I am happy to be at Hillsdale, they can simply read Tim’s post.
The madness he describes is especially evident at the prestigious universities. It was for a long time very nearly absent at the third-tier places, but ten years ago it arrived; and, like many another faculty member now at Hillsdale, I was glad to find a refuge.
The rough and ready rule is this: the more prestigious the places, the more nightmarish it is apt to become. The administration at UCLA is typical in being craven.
As for the question, “When will this all end?”, I think that the answer is that it will end when ordinary folk pull the plug. Academic freedom once protected those who disagreed; now it is a codeword for thuggery.
The truly scary part is that these people already have Master’s degrees
I see two bright sides here. First, any sane student who happens to observe this stuff is going to become a card-carrying conservative for the rest of his/her life. Second, I do not ever have to feel bad about tossing the fundraising letters I get from my alma mater (yes, UCLA) in the trash.
Were white feminists who use “standpoint theory” — a feminist critique of allegedly male-centered epistemology — illegitimately appropriating the “testimonial” genre used by Chicana feminists to narrate their stories of oppression?
Man, let’s hope not.
LOL! , It is the over-arching problem of our age.
The world of “Idiocracy” was touchingly sweet compared to the Leftist Hell at UCLA.
One difference I’ve long observed between conservatives and progressives is that conservatives tend to shun the radicals on their own side, while progressives always end up following theirs. That’s why Al Sharpton is a Democratic Party power broker with his own TV show, and David Duke is a nobody.
The progressives who run the university undoubtedly had nothing against Professor Rust, yet they are so committed, one might say “addicted”, to the idea that left equals good and right equals bad, that they will always find some way to ignore, or explain away, the vileness of leftist activists. To admit that in catering to leftist students they’ve created a monster would require a level of self-examination, and even repentance, that they’re incapable of.
University progressives may all have high IQs and a long list of educational credentials, but they are a spineless, weak-minded bunch. I’m afraid that what this means is that the only way to turn the tide against the Jacobin Left is to match their bellicosity and anger, until the people running the joint feel more intimidated by the other side. Sometimes, you simply have to have a war. Professor Rust’s only real failing is that he’s a gentleman, which is why he has been eaten alive.