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Attention, Weeping Iowan Collegians: “Suck It Up, Buttercup”
Leave it to a sensible Midwestern state to come to terms with this latest outbreak of infantilism on college campuses following last week’s election results.
In Iowa, a state lawmaker plans to introduce a bill he simply calls “suck it up, buttercup”.
The thrust of the pending legislation:
— Target state universities that use taxpayer dollars to fund election-related sit-ins and grief counseling above and beyond what is normally available to students.
— Those that do would be subject to a budget cut for double the amount they spend on such activities.
— And it would establish new criminal penalties for protesters who shut down highways, like those who briefly closed Interstate Highway 80 in Iowa City during an anti-Trump protest last week.
“I’ve seen four or five schools in other states that are establishing ‘cry zones’ where they’re staffed by state grief counselors and kids can come cry out their sensitivity to the election results,” said Rep. Bobby Kaufmann, the bill’s sponsor. “I find this whole hysteria to be incredibly annoying. People have the right to be hysterical . . . on their own time.”
Any other legislative fixes come to mind?
Feel free to guess the first state that gets something like this passed.
I’m going to go out on a limb and predict: not my California.
Published in General
I’m doing a lot of “on the one hand, on the other hand” lately.
Maybe I’m mellowing.
On the one hand, I generally oppose frivolous legislation which this is.
On the other hand, actually reminding publicly funded universities that money shouldn’t be spend on nonsense is a good thing.
Since I am also, admittedly, a jerk I’m highly tempted to go with the other hand. That is Iowa taxpayer money the colleges are wasting on babysitting instead of education.
As a native Iowan who has lived in California for 26 years I’ve become used to bragging about the greatness of my birth state and semi-apologizing for my state of current residence. When I heard that an ISU (husband’s alma mater) prof had cancelled classes due to election trauma I was doubly chagrined. I’m glad the entire state hasn’t gone crazy.
Pass a law requiring state-funded universities to limit the salaries of administrators to the same percentage of the total payroll budget as it was in 1966. Administrative bloat has been one of the chief reasons for skyrocketing tuition rates and the increase in the number of administrators facilitates this type of horse puckey. (Alternatively force state-funded universities to make at least two-thirds of the administrators employed by the school be adjunct administrators with the same pay and benefits that adjunct instructors get.)
Seawriter
I’m not so sure about the highway blocking bit. I’m pretty sure that’s already illegal.
But any time university staff are reminded that they are, in fact, a government institution and that their budgets come from taxpayers is a good thing.
Ugh, this coddling is so destructive. I am learning about PTSD and second-victim support for work, and the latest research indicates that even truly traumatic events are made more so by labeling the event abnormal and focusing on the uniqueness of the experience. By “normalizing” the event, survivors are better able to assimilate the experience and move on. When you consider the whole of human history, a disappointing election is pretty much a day in the park. Suggesting this, in even weaker terms than here, yielded a veritable frenzy of anger from my FB friends and family. I am in deep deep blue suburban Chicago. A college administrator PRIVATE MESSAGED me to express support of this statement, but did not feel comfortable doing so publicly because “the community college really watches Facebook.”
WTH is the world coming to? No wonder Trump won.
Now I have that damn Foundations song in my head. So thanks for that.
It cuts spending, which is never frivolous. That it does so in such a wonderful way is double plus good.
To the extent that they are using public money to wage partisan politics (which is mostly what these riots, safe places and therapy sessions are) I think it is right for the state legislature to take action.
Some years ago when one of the colleges at our university was facing budget cuts at the state level, the dean sent out an e-mail telling staffers that their support was appreciated, but when they contact their legislators they need to write their letters using their own computers, their own stationery, and do it on their own time. They were not to use university resources for such activity. It was obvious that some complaints had come back from legislative offices. The discouraging thing is that so many staffers had had no sense that using public resources for this kind of campaigning was inappropriate, and that they had to be told.
But this sort of thing has happened over and over, not just at our university, but in our local schools, and at other universities.
Double the property tax levied on property given over to safe spaces.
Eric Hines
Great name for the legislation – and all hail the soon-to-be conquering heroes in other state legislatures who follow his example.
Most public universities don’t pay property taxes (though sometimes payments for public services provided by local governments are negotiated).
Great post, and I cannot agree more with @austinmurrey more!
How about a bill allowing hunting of protesters who block highways? I mean, they obviously want to commit suicide, might as well take ’em out quickly rather than with a nice semi-truck.