Macalester College tries to square its relentlessly liberal image with its students’ growing sanctimony fatigue after some Mac students were found throwing a party with racist overtones:

Macalester is just the latest in a string of colleges nationwide to investigate student parties and incidents this year that have involved racial overtones.

Officials are checking to see exactly what happened at the party, and Macalester will have a campuswide discussion on issues of stereotyping on Tuesday.

“We hope to take the teachable moment and engage our campus community a little bit more deeply,” said Jim Hoppe, Macalesters associate dean of students. “We hope we can start a deeper dialogue on … why these types of activities hurt people and why they get the kind of response they do.”

I’m pretty un-PC; I’ve always figured tact and manners were enough in this world.  While the professionally-indignant crowd has done this nation – especially this nation’s colleges and universities – immense damage in the past 25 years, I’ve never seen much humor in intentionally picking at other peoples’ emotional scabs.  And so even I cocked an eyebrow at what the kid involved were alleged to have done – some wore “costumes depicting negative stereotypes of race, religion and gender”, according to Mac’s president.

Of course, Macalester does more than cock its eyebrows at this sort of thing:

“Several of the attendees allegedly wore costumes depicting negative stereotypes of race, religion and gender,” [Mac prez Brian Rosenberg] wrote. “It is important to understand that the college condemns and will not tolerate activities of this type. It is deeply disappointing that Macalester students would be so insensitive and demonstrate such a lack of understanding of the colleges values and mission.”

Earlier this school year, two other very selective colleges — Trinity College in Connecticut and Whitman College in Washington state — had parties where students showed up in racially offensive costumes or blackface.

“PC for thee, but not for me”, apparently. 

I have to wonder – if a school adopts a relentlessly PC attitude about society’s seemier historical aspects, and drives all non-“PC” thought  underground (as, indeed, Mac has – they have a notable-repressive speech code), does it have to find some way to get out?

Because maybe it’s just me, but I don’t see so much of this at less-PC schools…

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Monday, February 12th, 2007 at 1:42 pm and is filed under Culture War, Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.