Two years ago, after mockery in the right-wing press, UCLA scuttled plans for a center to teach illegal aliens how to become labor- and immigration-rights organizers. But the desire to induct the illegal population into the growing roster of preferred academic victim groups remains strong at UCLA and elsewhere. Being brought under the aegis of “queer theory” is as royal a reception as one could hope for. Beltrán approvingly notes an irony in illegals’ “queer” campaign against the state: illegal-alien activists simultaneously denounce the state while seeking to gain its resources. As for that latter effort, do they ever! According to the New York Times, communities across the country are “still struggling to accommodate” last summer’s surge of illegal aliens, which has taxed local health-care and educational systems to the breaking point.
Beltrán’s talk highlights two key aspects of today’s university culture. First, the concept of personal responsibility is wholly taboo when applied to officially approved victim groups: if illegal aliens don’t yet enjoy all the rights and privileges of individuals lawfully in the country, that has nothing to do with their own decision to break U.S. immigration laws. Their law-breaking was the product of forces larger than themselves, and any impediments that flow from their illegal status are the result of “government inaction and indifference,” in Beltrán’s words. This reflexive denial of individual responsibility is particularly pernicious when used to explain racial achievement and incarceration gaps.
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