“Oppressive and hateful language.”

[Gob]

Multiple professors at Washington State University have explicitly told students their grades will suffer if they use terms such as “illegal alien,” "male," and “female,” or if they fail to “defer” to non-white students.

According to the syllabus for Selena Lester Breikss’ “Women & Popular Culture” class, students risk a failing grade if they use any common descriptors that Breikss considers “oppressive and hateful language.”

"Students will come to recognize how white privilege functions in everyday social structures and institutions.”

The punishment for repeatedly using the banned words, Breikss warns, includes “but [is] not limited to removal from the class without attendance or participation points, failure of the assignment, and— in extreme cases— failure for the semester.”

Breikss is not the only WSU faculty member implementing such policies.

Much like in Selena Breikss’s classroom, students taking Professor Rebecca Fowler’s “ Introduction to Comparative Ethnic Studies” course will see their grades suffer if they use the term “illegal alien” in their assigned writing.

According to her syllabus, students will lose one point every time they use the words “illegal alien” or “illegals” rather than the preferred terms of “‘undocumented’ migrants/immigrants/persons.” Throughout the course, Fowler says, students will “come to recognize how white privilege functions in everyday social structures and institutions.”

In an email to Campus Reform, Fowler complained that “the term ‘illegal alien’ has permeated dominant discourses that circulate in the news to the extent that our society has come to associate ALL unauthorized border crossings with those immigrants originating from countries south of our border (and not with Asian immigrants, for example, many of whom are also in the country without legal documents and make up a considerable portion of undocumented immigrants living in the country).”

“The socio-legal production of migrant illegality works to systematically dehumanize and exploit these brown bodies for their labor,” Fowler continued.

White students in Professor John Streamas’s “ Introduction to Multicultural Literature” class, are expected to “defer” to non-white students, among other community guidelines, if they want “to do well in this class.”

In the guidelines in his syllabus, Streamas elaborates that he requires students to “reflect” on their grasp of history and social relations “by respecting shy and quiet classmates and by deferring to the experiences of people of color.”

Streamas—who previously generated controversy by calling a student a “ white shitbag” and declared that WSU should stand for “White Supremacist University”—also demands that students “understand and consider the rage of people who are victims of systematic injustice.”

Later in the syllabus, Streamas goes even further and accuses Glenn Beck of being an “insensitive white.”

Several other WSU professors require their students to “acknowledge that racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, and other institutionalized forms of oppression exist” or that “ we do not live in a post-racial world.”

Ari Cohn, a lawyer with the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, told Campus Reformhe considers such requirements to be contradictory, even given the sensitive nature of the courses.

"It is notable that one of the syllabus provisions warns: ‘The subject material of this class is sensitive and controversial. Strive to keep an open mind.’ How are students supposed to approach these sensitive and controversial materials at all, let alone to keep an open mind, if they have to fear that a misconstrued statement, or one that unreasonably offends a classmate will lead to a grade reduction or even removal from class?"

Neither Breikss nor Streamas replied to Campus Reform’s request for comment.

[Lord Jim]

My reaction on this may surprise some folks...

If these were university-wide policies being applied to all courses, then it would of course be absolutely outrageous, (especially considering the fact that this is a public, tax-payer funded institution)

But I have to say, that if you're mush-brained enough to sign up for a course that describes its objective as “come to recognize how white privilege functions in everyday social structures and institutions.” you pretty much deserve what you get...

[Gob]

Like!!

[dales]

"It is notable that one of the syllabus provisions warns: ‘The subject material of this class is sensitive and controversial. Strive to keep an open mind.’ How are students supposed to approach these sensitive and controversial materials at all, let alone to keep an open mind, if they have to fear that a misconstrued statement, or one that unreasonably offends a classmate will lead to a grade reduction or even removal from class?"

Cryptic for: no free thinking allowed here, OR ELSE!

Sure a long way from the "Free Speech" movement in Berkeley during the '60's.

[Joe Guy]

“The socio-legal production of migrant illegality works to systematically dehumanize and exploit these brown bodies for their labor,” Fowler continued.

Brown bodies? They aren't brown. They're hispanically flesh colored.

Racist!!!

[rubato]

Merely a technical question about the appropriate use of language. "Illegal alien" is a term of opprobrium because that is how it is used.

If you say "sulfite" when you mean "sulfate" you'll lose points too.

This is college, you are supposed to be learning something new.

yrs,
rubato

[MajGenl.Meade]

"Illegal alien" is a term of appropriateness opprobrium because that is how it is used what they are.

FTFY

[Big RR]

Jim--you hit the nail on the head; if you want a course that has those objectives, you will have to deal with the rules of the course.

[Gob]

Merely a technical question about the appropriate use of language. "Illegal alien" is a term of opprobrium because that is how it is used.

Banning opprobrium censors and curtails free thought and speech.

If you say "sulfite" when you mean "sulfate" you'll lose points too.

On this course saying "illegal alien" when you mean "illegal alien" loses you points. Or did you not get that?

This is college, you are supposed to be learning something new.

yrs,
rubato

Precisely, why not have a go at learning something new for a change Aspergers boy.

[Big RR]

Gob--illegal is commonly used to mean criminal; the so-called "illegal aliens" have committed no criminal offense (by entering or remaining in the US without proper documentation). It is true that they are here in violation of the law, and it is true that they are subject to removal (and detention, not incarceration, pending the removal in some cases), but these are civil violations, not criminal ones. One need only look at the anti-alien movement to see that many use the term "illegal" to connote criminal violations (like "let's put all those illegals in jail"). Undocumented alien is just a more appropriate term that does not carry with it the criminal silliness.

[wesw]

wow. that is some sophistry there RR.

violations of civil law are just as illegal as violations of criminal law, no?

just because you or others commonly say one thing, it does not make another thing untrue.

if you were to argue that your term is just more kind I might agree and support you.

straightforwardness is the dominant word of this election cycle.....

[Guinevere]

Not more kind, more correct.

I thought you were all about the truth?

[MajGenl.Meade]

OK OK - unlegal alien. All right? The opposite of legal alien?

Hmm - Resident Alien used to be my status. But the opposite wouldn't be non-resident alien...

[wesw]

how about "undocumented alien in violation of federal civil law and subject to deportation" or "undocumented immigrant in repeat violation of federal civil law and who is subject to deportation and/or imprisonment"

[rubato]

Those seeking to be understood will search for language which is emotionally neutral and descriptively accurate because for them the goal is clarity and understanding.


Demagogue assholes will use terms like "Illegal aliens" because they like to be assholes and it gets a laugh from their asshole friends.


yrs,
rubato

[wesw]

blowhards will use big pointless words, and way too many of them, to make themselves feel smart.

thank you professora julia

[Gob]

Those seeking to be understood will search for language which is emotionally neutral and descriptively accurate because for them the goal is clarity and understanding.

Bullshit!

It was my thirtieth year to heaven
Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood
And the mussel pooled and the heron
Priested shore
The morning beckon
With water praying and call of seagull and rook
And the knock of sailing boats on the webbed wall
Myself to set foot
That second
In the still sleeping town and set forth.

My birthday began with the water-
Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name
Above the farms and the white horses
And I rose
In a rainy autumn
And walked abroad in shower of all my days
High tide and the heron dived when I took the road
Over the border
And the gates
Of the town closed as the town awoke.

A springful of larks in a rolling
Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling
Blackbirds and the sun of October
Summery
On the hill's shoulder,
Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly
Come in the morning where I wandered and listened
To the rain wringing
Wind blow cold
In the wood faraway under me.

Pale rain over the dwindling harbour
And over the sea wet church the size of a snail
With its horns through mist and the castle
Brown as owls
But all the gardens
Of spring and summer were blooming in the tall tales
Beyond the border and under the lark full cloud.
There could I marvel
My birthday
Away but the weather turned around.

It turned away from the blithe country
And down the other air and the blue altered sky
Streamed again a wonder of summer
With apples
Pears and red currants
And I saw in the turning so clearly a child's
Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother
Through the parables
Of sunlight
And the legends of the green chapels

And the twice told fields of infancy
That his tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine.
These were the woods the river and the sea
Where a boy
In the listening
Summertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joy
To the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide.
And the mystery
Sang alive
Still in the water and singing birds.

And there could I marvel my birthday
Away but the weather turned around. And the true
Joy of the long dead child sang burning
In the sun.
It was my thirtieth
Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon
Though the town below lay leaved with October blood.
O may my heart's truth
Still be sung
On this high hill in a year's turning.

[dales]

Precisely, why not have a go at learning something new for a change Aspergers boy.

In the USA (DSM V) Aspergers is no longer viewed as separate illness, it is under the umbrella of "Autism Spectrum Disorder" which I believe fits our lttle rubato to a tee.