Uh oh. "White Student Union" proposed at University of Illinois

This may not even be real, and if it is it may be squashed like a bug, but it’s sure to spur a discussion of demographic craziness on America’s college campuses. At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, somebody (still anonymous at this point, apparently) put up a Facebook page announcing the proposed formation of a White Student Union which purports to specifically counter the activities of Black Lives Matter demonstrations on campus. Needless to say, this is going to set some people’s hair on fire. (Washington Post)

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A Facebook page ostensibly created for an audience at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign called “Illini White Students Union” has drawn fire after it characterized the national Black Lives Matter movement as “terrorism.”

Created Wednesday after a protest sympathetic to Black Lives Matter, the page declared itself “for white students of University of Illinois to be able to form a community and discuss our own issues as well as be able to organize against the terrorism we have been facing from Black Lives Matter activists on campus,” as the Daily Illini reported.

The page did not last long in its original incarnation, but was taken down after three hours. It has since been revived here.

First, it’s important to note that as long as the author or authors remain anonymous and don’t come forward with an actual proposal on campus, this may all be vaporware. But with that said, it might also light off a discussion of the bizarre constructs of racism and perceived racism on America’s college campuses as well as the limits of free speech and tolerance. The conversation – if it takes place – is likely to be fairly one sided. The university already weighed in with their official line, as put forward by campus spokeswoman Robin Kaler.

“It is disturbing and cowardly that someone would create an anonymous and senseless social media page specifically designed to intimidate others, including and especially our students. When we became aware of the page, we immediately contacted Facebook and requested that it be removed,” Kaler said in an email. “Facebook has been responsive to our requests, but the page continues to be reposted. We are continuing to work with Facebook to address this matter. We recognize that passions run deep on all sides of many issues, but actions like this are senseless and hurtful and do nothing to foster meaningful dialogue.”

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Is there a need for some sort of White Student Union? I’m sure we could have a debate about that which would drag on for years. In a more existential sense, one might argue that there are problems unique to white students, such as quota systems which undermine merit based acceptance rates or the availability of certain grants and loan programs which are race based and exclude large numbers of people from consideration. But on a day to day basis, complaining that white students are somehow discriminated against by university policy is a bit of a stretch and could set such a hypothetical student union up for ridicule, if not failure, because of the accepted conventional wisdom.

But that’s really the point here, isn’t it? Why is it always accepted that the existence of a black student union or an Asian student union or one for women, Jews, Muslims or anyone else is the routine business of the day, but the suggestion of a white student union is immediately painted as abhorrent? Even if you’re making the argument that “it’s simply not needed” then you have to show us why that’s a disqualifying factor. A football team isn’t “needed” either if the goal of a university is to educate young minds and prepare them for the adult world, but pretty much every college in America has one.

Then there’s the question of Black Lives Matter, which seemed to spur this proposal whether it be fake or real. The creators of the supposed White Student Union overplay their hand considerably when their opening gambit is to label BLM as “terrorists” but the underlying text voices complaints about constant disruptions to studies and the normal affairs of campus life. Is that an unreasonable charge? As we’ve seen with BLM protests all over the country, their primary goal is disruption of white spaces. (Their phrasing, not mine.) Should the campus be regularly disrupted when there are students there who are paying large sums of money to get an education, a degree and hopefully a shot at a good career?

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But perhaps the most challenging prospect of a discussion over a proposal like this would be to have everyone look in the mirror and ask themselves why we focus so heavily on segregating ourselves into all of these demographic pigeonholes to begin with. Rather than asking if we should ban a White Student Union, perhaps someone could ask why colleges encourage all of these other student groups based on race, gender and religion. Wasn’t the goal to have a unified, color-blind society, free of discrimination based on all of these qualifiers? And if we must insist on segregated pride, perhaps it’s also worth asking why anything organized with the word “white” in it is immediately defined as racist and evil when no other qualifier is treated in that fashion.

There probably isn’t really a White Student Union coming to the University of Illinois. It may have all been a drunken prank. But it would make for a fascinating subject for their debate team to take up. I’d probably pony up for a pay-per-view special to watch that.

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