All, I’m off to New Orleans in a moment, to have my chakras realigned over lunch with an old pal, and then to head over to UNO for tonight’s wing-ding with the great Melissa Harris-Perry. But first, I have some raw, juicy Dreherbait to throw to the masses.

You might have heard about the Social Justice Warriors protesting at Sarah Lawrence College, which one fears is headed towards being an advanced day care center for the emotionally fragile daughters of the upwardly mobile. What sparked the protest was a New York Times op-ed written by Samuel Abrams, a conservative professor there, in which he claimed that campus administrators were intolerantly liberal — not only at Sarah Lawrence, but around the nation.Abrams wrote:

This warped ideological distribution among college administrators should give our students and their families pause. To students who are in their first semester at school, I urge you not to accept unthinkingly what your campus administrators are telling you. Their ideological imbalance, coupled with their agenda-setting power, threatens the free and open exchange of ideas, which is precisely what we need to protect in higher education in these politically polarized times.

That frightened the Sarah Lawrence children who call themselves the Diaspora Coalition (they are, it appears, persons of color). They decided to occupy the president’s office for 24 hours. Here is a link to the full slate of their demands. Excerpts:

1. Sarah Lawrence must commit to actualizing the value that housing is a human right.
   1. The College must provide winter housing to students at no charge. This housing must include a communal kitchen with dry goods from the food pantry available for all students.
   2. In the extreme case that housing cannot be provided to students during break due to housing probation, the school must provide a list of local low-cost, free, and/or accessible housing options for students.
2. The College will designate housing with a minimum capacity for thirty students of color that is not contingent on the students expending any work or labor for the college. This housing option will be permanent and increase in space and size based on interest.
3. All campus laundry rooms are to supply laundry detergent and softener on a consistent basis for all students, faculty and staff.

Fabric softener! Just like Rosa Luxemburg demanded!

More:

1. Diasporic Studies
   1. Students of color should not be forced to resort to racist white professors in order to have access to their own history. It is crucial that the College offer courses taught about people of color by people of color so that students may engage in and produce meaningful work that represents them authentically.
   2. We demand there be new tenured faculty of color – at least two in African diasporic studies, one in Asian-American studies, one in Latinx diasporic studies, and one in indigenous/native peoples studies.
   3. We demand there be at least three more courses offered in African diasporic studies taught by Black professors.
   4. We demand that the College offer classes that embody intersectionality, as defined by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, and address the racial diversity of the LGBTQ+ community instead of centering whiteness.
   5. The aforementioned classes must be taught by professors who are a part of the culture they are teaching about.

Segregated teaching. Lester Maddox would have loved it.

Finally:

Mental Health Support for Students of Color

1. 1. We demand the College provide and support at least:
      1. One new Black therapist
      2. One new Asian therapist
      3. One new Latinx therapist
   2. We demand all students have access to unlimited therapy sessions through Health and Wellness.
   3. We demand the College provide transportation to students with weekly therapy in the Westchester area.

Unlimited therapy sessions with Therapists Of Color.

If grown-ups ran Sarah Lawrence College, they would expel these nuts. But grown-ups do not run Sarah Lawrence College. Follow the latest on the Twitter feed of the college newspaper. The most recent tweet:

The Coalition, allies, and students are currently gathered in a Westlands classroom as part of a teach-in taking place by a guest faculty member. This is the second teach-in in two days led by volunteering faculty members.

— The Phoenix (@SLCPhoenix) March 14, 2019

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And there are these doozies from yesterday’s protests:

Dean Trujilo just apologized in front of the room to a Coalition ally regarding an altercation that happened outside his office earlier today where he raised a voice at a student.

— The Phoenix (@SLCPhoenix) March 13, 2019

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The Coalition ally responds, expressing her frustration that she is white and the only student who administration has apologized to. “I am not facing the structural pain that is happening to the people of this movement every single day at… this institution.”

— The Phoenix (@SLCPhoenix) March 13, 2019

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Continued: “I was not the first student to cry in an administrator’s office. I was the first student to receive an apology.”

— The Phoenix (@SLCPhoenix) March 13, 2019

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I would love to say that these snowflakes are going to melt when they get into the real world and have to find a job in industries where they aren’t dealing with marshmallow administrators. But then again, they may be smarter than I am. They can ride this performative fragility all the way to the corner office, I’m guessing.

Anyway, parents who are considering sending your daughters to Sarah Lawrence (tuition + room + board = $72,000/yr) need to bear all this in mind. Everything that is happening now at that school vindicates Prof. Abrams’ critique.