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College Insurrection Tag

Alliance Defending Freedom recently visited the campus of UW-Madison and asked students when it's OK to refuse to do business with someone. Two hypothetical situations presented to students sounded fine to most but a third caused quite a bit of discomfort. Should a designer be forced to work with Melania Trump? Of course not, most students respond. Should a Muslim singer be able to refuse a Christian church's request for service. Most students agree.

This is an interesting concept. It seems to be all about getting people to innovate by thinking outside the box. More specifically, by disobeying existing rules and norms. It's also open to multiple disciplines which could make choosing the winner a bit difficult. The announcement was made this week on the MIT Media Lab website:
Rewarding Disobedience On July 21, 2016 we announced the creation of a $250K cash prize award for responsible disobedience. This idea came after a realization that there’s a widespread frustration from people trying to figure out how can we effectively harness responsible, ethical disobedience aimed at challenging our norms, rules, or laws to benefit society...

Student and faculty activists at Barnard College have successfully pushed a measure to divest from companies that "deny" climate change. Oddly, they have yet to define what makes one a denier. Toni Airaksinen of Campus Reform reported:
Barnard College to divest from 'climate deniers' The move comes after years of activism by the student group Divest Barnard, which initially campaigned for Barnard to divest entirely from fossil fuel investments, according to The Columbia Spectator. Yet the college will not be divesting from fossil fuels in the traditional sense.