If you thought campus craziness was a problem confined to the United States, guess again. University students in the UK want to ban whooping and clapping at events because these actions exclude deaf people.
Of course, using ‘Jazz Hands’ instead would exclude blind people but what do you expect in this situation, logic?
The Telegraph UK reported:
Whooping should be banned beause it excludes deaf people, Nation Union of Students sayStudents who whoop, cheer and clap should face “consequences” because they are excluding deaf people, delegates at the National Union of Students conference said.Audience members were repeatedly warned that they must cease whooping to express support for a speaker, because it has a “serious impact” on the accessibility of the conference.Delegates at the NUS annual conference in Brighton were encouraged to use “jazz hands” instead of clapping – where students wave their hands in the air – as this is deemed a more inclusive form of expression.Estelle Hart, an NUS elections committee member who was chairing a session on Thursday, told students: “No whooping, it does have a serious impact on some delegates ability to access conference.”She later gave another “gentle reminder not to whoop”. Shelly Asquith, the NUS vice president for welfare, returned to the theme, telling delegates: “We’ve had a number of requests that people stop whooping”.
The Independent UK reports that a motion was even introduced to ban whooping and clapping:
NUS Motion Proposes Banning Whooping and Cheering At Student ConferencesDelegates from the University of Durham then proposed a motion which said that all clapping and whooping must be banned at all future NUS events. The “access needs of disabled students are disregarded/overlooked in terms of conference member behaviour and NUS structures”, it said, adding that this can lead to the “safety and wellbeing” of disabled students being compromised. So the motion calls for “reduced cheering or unnecessary loud noises on conference floor, including whooping and clapping” and warns of “consequences for those who ignore this requirement”, according to The Daily Telegraph.Last year delegates banned clapping because they said it could trigger “clap-based anxiety”.
My first thought was that this sounded like something out of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. What would the clapping ladies say?
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