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Political Correctness Tag

The CATO Institute has released a new study which confirms what a growing number of Americans already know. Our colleges and universities have serious free speech issues. From the report: Freedom of Speech under Assault on Campus Freedom of speech has been severely criticized at many American universities. Meanwhile,...

Progressive students at the University of Oklahoma are unhappy about the current level of diversity at the school, which just won an award for promoting diversity. In response, some students have taken to Twitter to complain about the problem. Fox News reports, Oklahoma University students mount protest over 'otherization,' use of gender pronouns:
Students at Oklahoma University have taken to Twitter to share what they are describing as incidents of discrimination and harassment and draw attention to the university’s failed efforts to promote diversity and inclusion.
The school newspaper, OU Daily, has the story:

I would say this is THE dumbest thing I've seen in a long time, but that's impossible to determine in 2016. Regardless, it's one of the dumbest things I've seen lately. Social Justice Warriors killed an emoji (the irony is not lost on me), because they're known for tackling the important things in life. Apple has replaced its pistol emoji with a less threatening water gun. Because using a water gun in a text message is less threatening? Equally as dumb is yet another emoji update that will show women doing jobs typically done by men. SO PROGRESSIVE.

Bill Whittle's new Firewall video is pretty intense. In four minutes of commentary, he offers the straight dope to Obama and other Democrats who refuse to recognize the threat of radical Islam while trying to blame guns. Whittle's message is largely a response to the terror attack in Orlando and he addresses it with unvarnished and sometimes harsh truths. Here's a partial transcript via Frontpage Mag:
Bill Whittle's Firewall: Guns, Islam And Orlando 49 people are dead in Orlando, in the worst mass shooting in the nation’s history. Barack Obama's initial public statement concerning this latest unspeakable horror can be summed up in a few sentences: First: Islam? What’s that?

You may remember a story we wrote about back in 2013 which detailed the school suspension of a 7 year old boy for biting a Pop-Tart into the shape of a gun. We also covered his first appeal, which he lost. Now a judge has upheld the suspension. Reason reports:
Judge Upholds Suspension of the Pop-Tart Gun Kid Remember the Pop-Tart gun kid? He was 7 years old when he was suspended for chewing his breakfast (not actually a Pop-Tart, as it turned out) into the shape of a weapon and pretending to fire it at his classmates. Now he's 11, and Anne Arundel County Circuit Court Judge Ronald A. Silkworth just upheld his suspension.

Heaven forbid one of these special snow flakes feels excluded for not working as hard as some of their classmates. Plano Senior High School, located north of Dallas, has decided National Honor Society students will not be able to wear the iconic white satin stoles to their upcoming graduation. Local news reported:
National Honor Society (NHS) stoles are frequent sight at high school graduation ceremonies around the country, but one Plano Senior High School student is frustrated that he won't be allowed to wear one when he puts on his cap and gown next month. According to school practices, students are not allowed to wear NHS regalia.

Last fall, Yale sent out an email which encouraged students to show sensitivity in their choice of Halloween costumes. Erika Christakis, Associate Master of Silliman College responded to the email by reminding students of the importance of free expression. Her husband Nicholas Christakis, Master of Silliman College, defended his wife's email. My colleague Fuzzy Slippers covered the story at the time. Angry Yale students confronted Nicholas Christakis on campus and screamed at him, demanding that Yale must make them feel comfortable and safe on campus.

It was the selfie heard round the world. Zakia Belkhari, a young Belgian Muslim woman of Morrocan descent, took a series of selfies in front of a group of anti-immigration protesters last week. The images went viral on social media and across the progressive media. Vox.com termee it a "brilliant" symbol of peace and defiance in the face of "Islamophobia" and "hate." http://www.vox.com/2016/5/17/11692306/muslim-selfies-islamophobia-protest-antwerp-belgium

Elizabeth Warren is not Native American, but she played one for the law professor directory used for hiring in the 1980s as she was climbing the ladder to Harvard Law School. After she got tenure at HLS, she stopped filling out her forms that way. In 2014, Warren signed a letter to the NFL Commissions, along with dozens of other Democratic Senators, calling on the league to take action against the Washington Redskins for using the name "Redskins":
The NFL can no longer ignore this and perpetuate the use of this name as anything but what it is: a racial slur. We urge the NFL to formally support and push for a name change for the Washington football team.
https://www.scribd.com/doc/225634644/Letter-to-NFL-commissioner I understand why some people may view the name as offensive. But according to a Washington Post poll just released, almost all actual Native Americans don't oppose the use of the name:

We have seen this picture many times before. Zero tolerance insanity taking political correctness out on school children: The latest is from Brighton, Colorado, Kindergartner suspended for bringing bubble gun to class:

Political correctness gets crazier and crazier, but it does so in a way that seems to  represent the development of something that was there right at the beginning. I've been trying to make sense of it, from a psychoanalytic point of view, and the theory has, gratifyingly, developed apace with what it is trying to explain. The current edge of the theory is what I call the "pristine self," which is a self touched by nothing but love, and I am pleased to suggest that it gives us some insight into the current edge of political correctness, which is built around the concept of "microaggression.' In this post, I'd like to lay out that connection. Microaggression is a key element of what has been called the "new pc," whose newness Megan McArdle renders this way:

Earlier today I asked Kemberlee if we were all Melissa-Clicked out. She said we were. I disagree. The most famous redheaded muscle prof in the world is the blog post gift that keeps on giving. Slow news day? Click. Scrambling to fill blog post time slot? Click. Want people to click? Click. The latest screaming clickbait (actually, it's double clickbait because if you are seeing this near the top of the homepage, you have to Click a second time to see what the story is about -- see what I did there?):

She's not redheaded, and she didn't demand some "muscle" to help her out. But this American University official (not clear if administrator or Prof., or both) decided to play the role of Melissa Click, threatening to call the police on Washington Examiner reporter Ashe Schow and others who were covering the progressive outrage over the appearance of Breitbart's Milo Yiannopoulos. Reason reports, At Milo Yiannopoulos Protest, Prof's Hassling of Journalists Backfires After She Calls Cops:

In a world in which universities apologize for serving Mexican food because doing so smacks of cultural appropriation and is deemed culturally insensitive, the student-organized "Wear a Hijab Day" at a Paris university was bound to cause controversy. Although February 1st is the "official" World Hijab Day, these students were apparently not interested in waiting until early next year to express their "solidarity" with women who "choose" to wear the hijab; unfortunately for them, their gesture backfired. The Telegraph reports:
Students at an elite Paris university sparked fierce debate on Wednesday by inviting classmates to wear the Muslim veil for a day in a bid to "demystify" a practice that is highly divisive in France. Students at Sciences Po urged women to take part in Hijab Day "if you too think all women should have the right to dress as they wish and have their choice respected". A dozen students handed out flyers at the university by a table covered in colourful headscarves with a sign reading: "France got 99 problems but Hijab ain't one", adapted from a hit by US rapper Jay Z.

Tuesday, Tennessee's General Assembly passed a bill that would defund the University of Tennesee's Office For Diversity and Inclusion. The bill has been passed to the state Senate. Legislators would divert funds currently allocated to the Office of Diversity, "to minority scholarships for engineering students. It would also bar the university from using state funds to support the annual Sex Week programming or gender-neutral pronouns," reports The Tennessean. This year's Sex Week agenda:

Earlier this week, I blogged about the ongoing $10 bill saga and what looked to be its conclusion -- the Treasury would leave Alexander Hamilton alone, or at least on the $10 bill. Wednesday, that was confirmed. Tremendous backlash, and the assistance of a widely popular musical about Alexander Hamilton caused the Treasury to reconsider their original plans. Hamilton will stay on the front of the $10, but changes will be made to the back of the bill. While Jackson is getting booted off the front of the $20 bill, he'll likely be sticking around on its flipped.

Student protesters at Ohio State University recently learned a valuable lesson. Mainly because the administration drew a line in the sand and told them calmly that if they persisted, they would be arrested and possibly expelled. The way it was handled was brilliant. An administrator explained to the students that the people who work in the building they were occupying deserve to feel safe too, a concept which blew their minds. The Atlantic reported:
Ohio State Turns the Concept of 'Safe Space' Against Student Protesters At Ohio State last week, a sit-in and protest inside a university building was cut short when students were warned that they would be forcibly removed by police, arrested, and possibly expelled if they did not vacate the premises within a few hours, by 5 a.m.

Monday morning, the Associated Press reported that despite his segregationist views, President Woodrow Wilson's name would stay on the public policy school building at Princeton University.