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Political Correctness Tag

On May 3, 2015, we started the ball rolling down the hill on the subject, Columbia Multicultural Advisors: Put Trigger Warning on Ovid’s Metamorphoses:
I think we have the 2015 Phrase of the Year: Trigger Warning. But now they’ve gone too far.... Not all is well with The Metamorphoses at Columbia University. In an Op-Ed in The Columbia Spectator, Our identities matter in Core classrooms, four members of the Columbia Multicultural Affairs Advisory Board complain that the study of classic works of Western civilization in general, and The Metamorphoses specifically, are “triggering,” insensitive, and make some students feel “unsafe” .... The solution? First, a rewrite of the Core curriculum.... Then, Trigger Warnings.... And of course, the mandatory re-education training....
The topic has been percolating around the intertubes since our May 3 post. We got a special shout out yesterday from Jerry A. Coyne at The New Republic, Life Is "Triggering." The Best Literature Should Be, Too:

In 2011, the DOJ ordered the Dayton Police Department and the Fire Department of New York to lower the required test scores of minorities after too many failed to pass the existing exams, and in 2013, the Marines changed their fitness requirement for women after the majority of female recruits were unable to perform the required three pull-ups. This week we learn that the FDNY is allowing a woman to become a fire fighter despite failing a crucial fitness exam.  According to The New York Post:
The FDNY for the first time in its history will allow someone who failed its crucial physical fitness test to join the Bravest, The Post has learned. Rebecca Wax, 33, is set to graduate Tuesday from the Fire Academy without passing the Functional Skills Training test, a grueling obstacle course of job-related tasks performed in full gear with a limited air supply, an insider has revealed. “They’re going to allow the first person to graduate without passing because this administration has lowered the standard,” said the insider, who is familiar with the training. Upon graduation, Wax would be assigned to a firehouse and tasked with the full duties of a firefighter.
As you might imagine, not everyone is thrilled with this development.  An FDNY member tells The Post, "We’re being asked to go into a fire with someone who isn’t 100 percent qualified.  Our job is a team effort. If there’s a weak link in the chain, either civilians or our members can die.” This is particularly problematic because Wax is the only female firefighter who has failed the fitness exam and still made the cut.  The female firefighters who passed the fitness and other exams are livid; the Post reports:

Not even basketball is immune from feelings these days. There's an entire discussion to be had about the wussification of sports, but we'll save that for another time. According to CNN, the following video was played during a time out at Wednesday's game against the Chicago Bulls. A poorly produced spoof of "Dirty Dancing," the video certainly elicited a reaction. Though probably not the one producers were going for. Remember this scene? dirty dancing cleveland caveliers Right before attempting the iconic "Dirty Dancing" lift, the gal in the video removes her apron revealing a Chicago Bulls t-shirt. Rather than catching and lifting his girlfriend, the guy tosses her to the side and says, "Bulls fan?! I didn't know you were a Bulls fan!" Take a look:

We've written quite a bit about Trigger Warnings since before it became fashionable:
The fragile college student mind is getting more fragile by the day. As if the normal run of political correctness were not enough, we now have “Trigger Warnings” — the notion that students need to be warned that the material they are about to read in class may “trigger” emotional upset.... Of course, how the trigger is defined says much about the theory behind the movement — it almost always serves left-wing critical race and gender theories .... The Trigger Warning movement is all about enforcing a conformity of thought by forcing faculty and others to identify and warn about politically incorrect ideas.
The Trigger Warning in the Featured Image was displayed at Oberlin when Christina Hoff Sommers spoke: [caption id="attachment_124731" align="alignnone" width="550"]Image credit: Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute Image credit: Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute[/caption] UT-Arlington Philosophy Prof. Keith Burgess-Jackson has come up with a Trigger Warning for his Philosophy of Religion class. He writes:
I've decided to include a trigger warning in each course syllabus, beginning this fall. Here is the trigger warning for my upcoming Philosophy of Religion course. What do you think?
What do I think? I think the precious, fragile souls demanding Trigger Warnings will demand that you put a Trigger Warning on this Trigger Warning. Here we go:

College campuses are meant to be a place where students engage in new perspectives and critical reasoning. Or so they say. But by labeling conservative points of view as “extremist,” “anti-feminist,” and “racist,” feminists are shutting down the dialogue on their college campuses before it even begins. To the leftist student activists, it seemingly doesn't matter whether or not these labels are deserved. They've realized that all they need to do is to stigmatize a talk by a conservative speaker is to condemn the speaker as an oppressing force. For instance, last Thursday, I facilitated a lecture at the Georgetown University on behalf of the conservative organization I work for, the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute, and the Georgetown CRs. As soon as the campus feminists caught wind of the event, they immediately began protesting and demanding trigger warnings in order to silence the talk.

If there's one thing the men and women who bravely put their lives on the line defending America and freedom shouldn't have to worry about, it's whether or not they're offending anyone in the process. Yet according to Bill Whittle, who has interacted with members of our armed forces, that's exactly what's happening under our current commander in chief. Here's a partial transcript of the new edition of Afterburner, via Truth Revolt:
Bill Whittle: 'Sir, I Will Not Obey that Order' Let’s just assume for a moment that you’re a radical, left-wing zealot, who was raised by actual communists, and who, naturally enough views the United States military as the tool of capitalist exploitation and colonial racism. Now, further assume that through a perfect storm of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, fate, money, power and media bias somehow conspired to make you Commander in Chief of those same armed forces.

We continue to investigate the strange cancellation of a mid-year legal seminar in Israel by the Virginia State Bar (VSB).  With the help of Judicial Watch, we have served a FOIA request on VSB, and will pursue the facts no matter how long it takes, including FOIA litigation if there is no alternative. The cancellation of the Israel trip came after an email was sent by 36 VSB members to the VSB Council on Friday morning, March 27, alleging that the members would be prohibited from attending or face discriminatory interrogation by Israeli border officials on the basis of religion and ethnicity. None of the 36 said that they actually wanted to go on the Israel trip; instead they argued that VSB should boycott Israel because of its border security policies. http://myemail.constantcontact.com/42nd-Midyear-Legal-Seminar---JERUSALEM--ISRAEL---REGISTER-BY-APRIL-1-.html?soid=1111187925215&aid=0Z9htbr8awM As we have documented, there never was any evidence that any VSB member would be barred or subjected to unwarranted interrogation. To the contrary, initial claims by VSB suggesting that the Israeli Embassy confirmed that some VSB members might be barred turned out not to be accurate. An Israeli Official with whom I communicated denied such a conversation took place, and that denial was admitted by the only VSB representative to have substantive conversations with the Embassy.

I invite Legal Insurrection readers to pour an ice cold brew and celebrate "Human Achievement Hour", slated to start today at 8:30 pm local time. The event is promoted by the Competitive Enterprise Institute; its website offers the background on today's festivities:
  • Human Achievement Hour is the counter argument to Earth Hour, which is an event where participants symbolically renounce the environmental impacts of modern technology by turning off their lights for an hour...
  • Symbolically or not, Earth Hour does little to protect the environment and is a misguided effort that completely ignores how modern technology allows societies around the world to develop new and more sustainable practices that help humans be more eco-friendly and better conserve our natural resources.
  • Instead of looking to the “dark ages,” as Earth Hour might suggest, Human Achievement Hour promotes the idea that we should be looking to technology and innovation to help solve environmental problems..
CEI would like supporters to share their favorite human achievements on Twitter using @ceidotorg and #HAH2015. There is also a Facebook page for the event.

California's seven Supreme Court judges have voted unanimously to prohibit state judges from holding membership in the Boy Scouts of America; the ruling is based on the grounds that the Scouts discriminate against gays. California is one of several states that has rules on the books banning judges from holding memberships in groups that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation; the court, however, also carved out an exception for non-profit youth groups, including the Boy Scouts. Everything changed, however, when an ethics advisory committee recommended the ban last year. The San Francisco Gate has the history:
California has been among 23 states with an ethical code that prohibits judges from belonging to organizations that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. But the state’s Supreme Court in 1996 approved an exemption, unique to California, for “nonprofit youth organizations” to accommodate judges affiliated with the Boy Scouts. The Bar Association of San Francisco and other legal organizations sought to repeal that exemption in 2003. The court refused, and instead instructed judges to disclose connections to the Boy Scouts when they heard cases involving gay rights and related issues, and to disqualify themselves for any conflicts of interest. At the time, the Scouts also barred gay youths as members, a policy the U.S. Supreme Court had upheld in 2000. The organization repealed that ban at a national meeting in May 2013, effective the following January, but maintained the prohibition on gay and lesbian youth leaders. “The people of California have a right to an impartial and unbiased judiciary,” Richard Fybel, a state appeals court justice in Santa Ana and chairman of the high court’s ethics advisory committee, said Friday. “This is important to accomplishing that.”

Just when you may have given up entirely on the Golden State, news comes about a newspaper in one of the deepest blue enclaves fighting political correctness.
A California newspaper will continue to use the term "illegals" to describe people who enter the U.S. without permission, despite an attack on its building by vandals believed to object to the term. The Santa Barbara News-Press's front entrance was sprayed with the message "The border is illegal, not the people who cross it" in red paint, sometime either Wednesday night or early Thursday, according to the newspaper's director of operations, Donald Katich. The attack came amid wider objections to a News-Press headline that used the word "illegals" alongside a story on California granting driver's licenses to people in the country illegally. ....In addition to the writing on the building, graffiti espousing a no-borders mentality was scribbled on the walkway through Storke Placita and the sidewalk near Santa Barbara City Hall. Police were braced for a protest in front of the paper later this week. Jan said hundreds could show up, and the Police Department is aware of the call for a protest.
Here's the offending paper: You may recall that another of California's newspapers, the Los Angeles Times, jettisoned the phrases “illegal immigrant,” “illegal immigration” and even "undocumented immigrant."

Can federal officials declare you in violation of the law, not for actions that flout the text of a statute, but for failing to parrot the agency’s controversial views about how the statute should be applied in hypothetical situations? Recently, the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) did just that to Harvard Law School. OCR, where I used to work, found Harvard Law School in violation of Title IX for its failure to recite at length OCR officials’ views about the optimal handling of Title IX sexual harassment claims. Ironically, these views were expressed in “guidance” from agency officials that had expressly claimed to “not add requirements to applicable law.” As I explain at this link, this is a violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.
Although the new procedures were adopted precisely to appease the Education Department, OCR nevertheless found them in violation of Title IX, not for what they did, but what they failed to say: For failing to make assertions about sexual harassment made in OCR’s own sexual harassment guidance which are seldom found in any real-world sexual harassment policy, including about obscure procedural or jurisdictional matters that seemingly had nothing to do with any specific harassment case that actually occurred at Harvard Law School. (Title IX is much shorter and less complex than other civil rights laws, like Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, but employers routinely win sexual harassment lawsuits under Title VII despite having a sexual harassment policy that runs only a few sentences, and recites none of the assertions that OCR faulted Harvard for not reciting)....

A Baltimore City police officer was shot and seriously wounded at a traffic stop Sunday night. At a press conference outside the hospital as the officer was being treated, Baltimore City Police Commissioner Anthony Batts said, "I'm not caught on the irony of the timing of the situation. We've had marches nationwide over the fact that we've lost lives in police custody. I wonder if we're going to have the same marches as officers are shot, too." (The remarks are at about 1:25 in the video embedded below.) According to one news report the Baltimore Police Department has gone to great pains to point out that during the whole episode the police on the scene did not fire their weapons at all.
A man in the back seat refused to comply with an order to show his hands, police said. "One officer advised him that if he didn't comply he would be tased. At some point, there was the discharging of the firearm and the firing of a Taser, exactly which event happened first is under investigation," Baltimore City police Maj. Stanley Branford said.
Three shots were reportedly fired and one struck the officer in the abdomen, below his bulletproof vest, injuring him. His partner took him to the hospital. (According to news reports, officers in Baltimore are authorized to take injured colleagues to the hospital and not wait for ambulances. The nearest hospital is about three miles from the scene of the shooting.)

College Insurrection and others recently reported how the President of Smith College apologized to the student body for using the term "All Lives Matter" rather than "Black Lives Matter." A Cornell engineering student just tweeted to me about a similar statement from the Chief of the Cornell University Police, Kathy Zoner, in an all campus email. https://twitter.com/TTimeOnThe19th/status/543545839927693312 I checked my own email, and sure enough, there it was: Cornell Police #ALLLIVESMATTER That original message from the week before was:

God bless Texas. Last year, the Lone Star State passed a bill that allows schools to say things like, "Merry Christmas" and "Happy Hanukah" without retribution. Co-authored by Dwayne Bohac (R-Houston) and Richard Raymond (D-Laredo), the bill, "allows students, parents, teachers and administrators the freedom to acknowledge these traditional winter holidays without fear of litigation or punishment and restores common sense by placing Supreme Court precedent into state law," according to the law's official website.
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