When campus microaggressions are real

Shortly after the election, I noted that colleges and universities seemed to be taking sides, treating Hillary Clinton’s defeat by Donald Trump for the presidency as some sort of national calamity. In fact, with safe spaces, offers of counseling and therapy dogs, and so on, they seemed to be treating Trump’s victory as something more akin to a terrorist attack than an election result.

In particular, I noted a campus email from University of Michigan President Mark Schlissel that, though it spoke of diversity, inclusion and respect for all points of view, made pretty clear that Trump’s victory was a bad thing, and suggested by implication that Trump supporters must be bad people. I thought that this wasn’t very nice, and certainly not within the spirit of diversity and inclusion, given that a large percentage of University of Michigan students had undoubtedly supported Trump, even if they were afraid to say so on campus.

It seems that things haven’t gotten any better at Michigan, and that there are similar problems elsewhere in higher education. A recent New York Times report notes that things are bad enough at Michigan and elsewhere that some conservative students say they need a “safe space” simply to talk about the election.