"Treatment" for Blue Hen Fever

The University of Delaware mascot is the Blue Hen. They are not likely to be sanctioned by the NCAA for cultural insensitivity because of their mascot, but the culture they are trying to instill in their students is worthy of condemnation and Mike Adams is up to the job.

The University of Delaware has just become one of the most Orwellian campuses in America. Students in its residence halls are now being subjected to a re-education program that is actually dubbed - in the university’s own tax-payer funded materials - as “treatment” for students who have incorrect attitudes and beliefs.

Delaware now requires nearly 7,000 students in its residence halls to adopt specific public university-approved (read: government-approved) views on issues ranging from race, to sexuality, to philosophy. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (see www.TheFire.org) is calling for the total dismantling of the program. Readers of this column should call (302-831-2111) or write president@udel.edu to Patrick Harker President of The University of Delaware asking him to do the same.

It is not at all uncommon for a university to establish official views and try to force them on students in the residence hall environment. Students living in the university housing complexes are often required to attend training sessions, floor meetings, and one-on-one meetings with their Resident Assistants (RAs).

But, at Delaware, the RA who facilitates these meetings has already received his own training, including a “diversity facilitation training” session. There, he is taught that at “[a] racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system. The term applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture or sexuality.”

The Delaware RA is also taught that the term “reverse racism” is created by whites to deny their privilege. An official Delaware training manual says that “those in denial use the term reverse racism to refer to hostile behavior by people of color toward whites, and to affirmative action policies, which allegedly give ‘preferential treatment’ to people of color over whites.” Then, after defining the term “reverse racism” the manual claims that “there is no such thing as ‘reverse racism.’” Later, it says the non-existent term “reverse racism” is an example of “racism.”

Lewis Carroll would have been proud.

The university also suggests that during one-on-one sessions with students, the RA should ask intrusive personal questions such as the following:

“When did you discover your sexual identity?” “When was the last time you felt oppressed?” “Who was oppressing you?” “How did it feel?”

“Can you think of a time when someone was offended by what you said?” How did it make you feel?” “How do you think it made them feel?”

Students who express discomfort with the questioning often meet with disapproval from the RA, who often writes a report on the student and delivers it to a superior. One student was identified in a write-up as the “worst” one-on-one session stating that she was tired of “having diversity shoved down her throat.”

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FIRE is on fire about this indoctrination exercise. Parents and students should also be indignant. Where is that champion of civil liberties Joe Biden, senator from Delaware on this issue? The University will probably get an opportunity to defend this indoctrination program in court soon, if it does not drop it.

BTW, the University of Delaware used to have a slogan, "Blue Hen fever, catch it." They may want to rethink that one now.