Turning back the clock
By Bruce McQuain
Remember when white supremacists required literacy tests to keep black voters away from the polls?
Well, everything old is new again:
A Clemson administrator has proposed requiring student government candidates to pass an “intercultural competency” test before being permitted to run for or hold office.
Several student senators objected to the “awful” plan, saying it amounts to an ideological purity test that contradicts the very purpose of having a democratically-elected student government.
The fact that I’m siding with the students in this and against the administration tells you how screwed up our public colleges and universities have become. By the way, in case you are wondering, the administrator in question is the Director of the Gantt Multicultural Center. I know, it’s that shocked, shocked look, you have on your face.
As one student noted:
“Ms. Richardson’s comments about multiculturalism at the last Senate meeting unnerved me,” Sen. Samuel Thompson told Campus Reform. “Vetting the candidates ideologically before elections even happen, through a process of measuring their level of commitment to ‘inclusivity’ and ‘multiculturalism,’ represents a kind of creepy totalitarianism that has no place at a true university.
“It reminds me of the kind of political totalitarianism that one sees in modern-day fascist and communist regimes,” he concluded, noting that “the purpose of having a student government is so that ALL views of students are represented—not just the ones that fit your ideology.”
Spot on. The irony, of course, is that you have someone in this day and age calling for a litmus test – an arbitrary one at that (who gets to decide what a passing mark in “intercultural competency” looks like and what it includes?) given the history of such litmus tests.
But then, it’s the left we’re talking about. Didn’t the new DNC chair claim that in order to identify with the Democratic party that one must fully and completely support abortion on demand? Well, yes, of course he did. Is Ms. Richardson doing anything different in suggesting an ideological purity test be administered to candidates for office? How long after that will such a test be required of all who want to vote, for heaven sake.
Glad to see, in this case, the students pushing back hard.
qando.net |
