Seattle University Dean Placed on Administrative Leave Amid Student Protests

This is actually horrifying to me.

And from a personal standpoint, I'm lucky I'm teaching at the community college level. Some, but not too much, of the radical campaign activism has seeped down to the two-year colleges. If I was at a university I'd have been hounded out by now, or I'd have self-censored my classes so much I'd by now be a shamed, fading hulk of a man. It's a terrible prospect.

At the Seattle Times, "Student protest: SU president says some in faculty also wanted dean to resign":

The sit-in started in mid-May with a group of students who demanded changes to a curriculum that emphasizes Western history and philosophy, and a climate they describe as hostile and condescending to students of color. They say they were influenced by alumni who graduated nearly a decade ago who told them they also tried to make changes to the school, to no effect...

And at Heat Street, "University Puts Dean on Leave Over ‘Too Western’ Curriculum":

Seattle University student occupiers: "We want a liberatory education" https://t.co/wl1GADVzQo pic.twitter.com/JNlNO3SfZZ

— KUOW Public Radio (@KUOW) May 22, 2016

For more than three weeks, a group of students have staged a sit-in at Seattle University’s Matteo Ricci College. One student complained to the Seattle Times that “the only thing they’re teaching us is dead white dudes.” They have demanded the resignation of Dean Jodi Kelly.

In a written statement, the protestors said that “dissatisfaction, traumatization and boredom” have characterized their time as students, “as well as being ridiculed, traumatized, othered, tokenized and pathologized.” They claim “these experiences have been profoundly damaging and erasing, with lasting effects on our mental and emotional well-being.” 

The protestors, who call themselves the MRC Coalition and say they’re “led by queer folx, womxn of color, and people of color,” issued a lengthy list of demands, including an overhaul of the college’s curriculum that “decentralizes whiteness and has a critical focus on the evolution of systems of oppression.”

Still more.