From our university email list over the weekend, another report on a "bias-motivated, hateful act" (not a "hate crime" this time) on our campus.

Shortly before 2:30 p.m. Thursday, January 24, 2008, University officials were alerted to the marking of a swastika and a partial swastika on an interior wall of a stairwell in Shoemaker Residence Hall.

Assuming we know the distinguishing features of a "partial swastika"... But what is really interesting is the next paragraph, which I reprint in the type used:

RESISTANCE REQUIRED!

All members of the SCSU community must respond to another hateful threat to our learning environment. Every voice of resistance is needed IMMEDIATELY. If you have seen or know anything about these acts or persons committing such acts please call Public Safety (320) 308-3333.

What "resistance"? It might be tempting to have fun with this in the sense of wearing berets and sounding like LeBeau on Hogan's Heroes, but the next word, "required", is ominous. Required by whom? What are the penalties for failing to meet this requirement? One faculty member on the campus, reacting to the comments on a letter at the St. Cloud Times this AM, suggests that this is why we need racial issues courses in the curriculum. But we already require nine "diversity credits" out of 120 needed for a bachelor's degree. If it turns out the perpetrators of this are in fact students, what's to be done? Increase the number to 12? 18? Sounds like the Racial Issues Instructor Full Employment Act of 2008.

The Resistance Required tag is inappropriate in a public safety announcement. It smacks of vigilantism. It smacks of thought control, that all of us must act from some centralized control. Once centralization happens, it becomes used by our academic left for infiltration of other forms of indoctrination. On the university's new site called "Voices of Resistance", which was to inform the campus about these incidents, we have advertising of faculty talks on Hurricane Katrina and Martin Luther King. Is it out of bounds for me to suggest that these faculty are using the incidents to further their own agendas? Is it too much to ask "cui bono?" from exhortations that "every voice of resistance is required immediately"?

Meanwhile, as of the time of this writing, I have not seen a campus safety alert on this:

A St. Cloud man was attacked and robbed by multiple suspects shortly after 6 a.m. Sunday.

The man was approached by seven to eight men while walking home from St. Cloud State University on Fifth Street South. One of the men struck him in the face, knocking him to the ground, according to police reports.

The other men began punching him while he was on the ground and one of the assailants took his laptop computer and brown book bag.

The victim escaped his attackers and contacted police, but was unable to give a description of the suspects. The victim was taken to St. Cloud Hospital and treated for injuries.

Nor has "resistance" been "required", nor has there been any calls for changes in the university curriculum like a self-defense course, let alone some consideration of allowing students concealed carry to protect themselves as they return home.

Ask again, cui bono?

Labels: higher education, SCSU