My son earned two degrees at the University of Arizona and also worked as a residence hall assistant while a student. Moreover, a former provost of the university was a client of my management consultancy.
That’s a way of saying that I know something about the good, bad and ugly at the school.
An example of the bad and ugly can be found in the Arizona Daily Star news story at this link (behind a paywall).
The story is about the euphemistically-named “cultural and resource centers” on campus. A more honest name would be “exclusion centers,” or better yet, “segregation centers.”
They are also copycat centers, because they are based on a sophomoric and specious notion that was adopted across academe years ago for selected racial/ethnic groups—the number of which was expanded more recently to include sexual orientation and gender.
The notion is that certain so-called minority groups need paternalism and protection, in a parent-child kind of relationship, in which professors with tenure and administrators with cushy jobs are the benevolent and caring parents, who protect the children from being the helpless victims of White privilege and power, of a racist and sexist society, of the inequalities of capitalism, of the ruling patriarchy, and of the Great Books of Western philosophy and literature, which are seen as synonymous with colonialism and slavery.
As this condescending thinking goes, not only do the chosen “minorities” need paternalism and protection, but they need to form their own segregated support groups, consisting of their own kind, or more accurately, stereotypes of their own kind, in a mockery of true diversity and multiculturalism.
The University of Arizona established seven of these centers: Native American Student Affairs, Asian Pacific American Student Affairs, African American Student Affairs, the Guerrero Student Center, LGBTQ Student Affairs, the Women & Gender Resource Center, and the Disability Cultural Center.
Questions:
My wonderful daughter-in-law is of Filipino and European ancestry. Which center would be appropriate for her if she were to attend the university?
My working-class brother-in-law and his wife, who are of European ancestry, adopted an orphaned girl from China. Because she was of Vietnamese ancestry and had a physical impairment, she was shunned by the Han majority. Which center would be appropriate for her?
The preceding in-laws have another daughter by blood who is White and married to a Black. Which center would be appropriate for the children of this interracial couple?
My wife’s niece is of European ancestry and has two children from her first husband, an East Indian. Which center would be appropriate for the children?
If my wife and I were to host a family reunion of these extended family members, should we sort their accommodations by race and ethnicity?
With my Italian ancestry, which center would be appropriate for me? Do I use the old characterization of Italians as inferior people of color or the contemporary characterization of them as privileged Whites?
Other questions:
Why don’t Armenians who survived the Turkish genocide get their own center? Aren’t they minorities? Aren’t they disadvantaged?
How about the scores of other ethnocultural groups that are in the minority, suffered greatly in history, did not come from privilege, and are of various skin colors, including white? Shouldn’t each of them get its own center?
Given the history of bloodshed between Muslims and Hindus, do Pakistanis and East Indians want to be in the same center together?
Given what the Japanese did to Koreans, Filipinos and the Chinese in the Second World War, do the non-Japanese trust the Japanese enough to be in the same center with them?
Questions like these are verboten on campus for two reasons. First, the centers didn’t come about through scholarship, intellectualism, reason, healthy debate, or knowledge of history, anthropology, the social sciences, and the humanities. They are the product of a political agenda.
Second, those who embrace the underlying fallacies, sophistries and tropes see themselves as enlightened progressives and see anyone who questions their platitudes and inanities as a reactionary or worse.
Wow, has that silencing ever backfired! In a case of illiberalism begetting illiberalism, the silencing of diverse opinions has helped to put Donald Trump in the Oval Office. Now, as described in the aforementioned Arizona Daily Star story, the University of Arizona, responding to pressure by Trump of questionable constitutionality, is consolidating the seven cultural and resource centers into a single multicultural center.
The story didn’t say what is going to happen to the 80 people who currently staff the seven centers.
Maybe they should go back to college to get a true liberal education, in the classical meaning of “liberal,” and to learn how liberalism, humanism and pluralism sprang from Western civilization. Unfortunately, the University of Arizona doesn’t seem to teach that.
Mr. Cantoni resides in Tucson and can be reached at craigcantoni@gmail.com.
This Racial Bias and Racism by College Admissions is nothing new .
Checking Certain Boxes in a College application rule a Student’s destiny.
In 1980 I applied to several Colleges, as I came from a poor middle class family.
I watched as first-generation, first-born American Citizens of Immigrant Parents (of Hispanic and Asian ethnicity) received “Full Ride Scholarships because they were able to check the Ethnicity boxes of Non-White.
Then I thought; My Parents are Immigrants, I’m a first-generation, first-born American Citizen of Immigrant Parents.
Why am I not chosen or qualify for a Full Ride Scholarship like all my other ethnic Classmates??
Because my Family emigrated from ITALY and we and they called us and our immigrant family considered WHITE.
This is an example of Racism in America. It still is perpetuated today.
Btw, Did you know that Italian Legal Residents and Italian-born U.S. Citizens were sent to internment camps with the Japanese Americans along with German Americans living in the West Coast States during WWII?
They never mention the Whites that were internment along with the Japanese during WWII.
I guess they checked the wrong box?
As a paisano, (half Italian, half Sicilian) I’ve learned that most don’t know that Italy is really not a country as we know. It’s a mosaic of regions and cultures and language. One thing is for sure, our bloodline comes from the north, south, east and west. We’re Mediterranean Mutts. And if from the south, almost guaranteed to have more black blood than Kamala Harris.
“… or more accurately, stereotypes of their own kind, in a mockery of true diversity and multiculturalism.”
Exactly this. The acceptance of the ‘soft’ racism of low expectations and stereotype conformity is astounding. If you don’t ‘act like’ your assigned group you are a “race traitor” or openly called any number of obloquies related to parental male siblingship, fondant-sandwiched chocolate cookies, palm fruit, or cream-filled spongy confections, by both those within and outside of said group. No (il)liberal wants anyone to step off their assigned ethno-racial plantation, and they are just as willing to figuratively execute ‘runaways’ as their pointed-hatted ancestors were to do it physically. I think they would willing revert to the physical given half an excuse (ah, the Summer of Love 2020 edition). They mask their inner “righteous” rage, “virtuous” hatred, and “benevolent” authoritarianism behind a veneer of ‘tolerance’, until their wards dare question their motives, and then the gloves and masks come off with no reserve or apology.
No thinking person can unintentionally participate in their perfidious theatrics. Meaning, those that do are either dupes or malefactors, neither of which has anything to offer to the individual looking to find peace and/or get ahead in this world.
Time to clean house of the liberal sycophant professors and their twisted ideologies.
The democrats have been creating victims for generations, but more and more of these “victims” are realizing that being a victim only works for them until a new victim class is created, and the victims of old get pushed back in priority. The dems are a party that now only care about a very small, but vocal minority, AKA the 80/20 party. Ignoring the 80% to reach the 20%. I say let them trip up on themselves.
Great article.
DEI is simply a guise for hatred. Sad to see how many weak minds embraced racism and sexism in the last few years.
UA is a road to nowhere. Great party school, lots of money in athletics, but very poor performance and with NIL, will cease to be competitive at all. And no jobs in Tucson/Pima County for graduates. Nothing more than a giant money laundering scheme for liberals and their Commie policies to destroy a free America.
Nailed it.
My child majored in Business and paid attention in her classes. She graduated as did her group of friends, she then got a great career out of state that offered her double the money to start, that she would have received here. Many of her friends received job offers around the nation and they took them.
All kids with intelligence graduate and leave, job poor, salary poor Tucson… sad.
destruction of USA will be in an hours time.. won’t be long
I would like to know where ALL the medical school graduates go – they certainly are not in Tucson. There is a serious and dangerous surfeit of MDs here; with the aged hordes piling in, getting good medical attention is a miracle.
Lol. Im not impressed with your qualifications on knowing the university. How many provosts have they had since the one you knew?
Otherwise Im not sure of your point? Left out or missing out?
the ultimate minority – Jewish Christians – and Christians.. where they are equal in – dis – of most of the nation ‘ no longer one’ under God – more like indistinguishable as the nation it once was born to be; soon to be at larger scale uncivil war with itself – again. The DiS n’ Dat’s are burning the cities in the name of freedom and less law seeking disorder.. as the new order.