“We Know What’s Best, So Just Shut the Fuck Up.”
The Emerald today is carrying a guest commentary by Dr. Jerry Rosiek, who expresses concern over the recent controversies over the University’s affirmative action and diveristy hiring programs. Far from being concerned about whether or not the accusations are true, Dr. Rosiek is instead worried that the lawsuit filed by Joseph Wade might “distract” people from more important things — namely heaping accolades upon the diversity program:
The danger is that the University’s new leaders will be distracted by things like Wade’s suit, and will not appreciate the important work that has recently been done by the OIED under Dr. Martinez’s leadership.
Never you mind the man behind the curtain!
Even more astonishlingly, Rosiek opines that Wade’s suit is probably “specious” and in any case constitutes:
…part of a pattern of harassment against the director of the OIED. This harassment has included University professor Bill Harbaugh’s complaints to the U.S. Department of Justice that the University’s Minority Recruitment Program, or UMRP, violates federal law. These complaints resulted in a Department of Justice investigation of the University. [emphasis added]
Have things really come to the point on this campus that questioning the wisdom of “diversity above all” (or even filing suit over possible breaches of the law) is to engage in a “pattern of harassment”?
Rosiek also attempts a little spin, trying to cast Bill Harbaugh as engaging in some sort of insidious skullduggery for taking the time to inquire into the University’s diversity program:
Harbaugh has a long record of attempting to obstruct diversity efforts. Last year, according to the Emerald, after filing nearly 20 public records requests and posing many more questions about University diversity policy by e-mail, Harbaugh received a letter from General Counsel Melinda Grier saying that the University would no longer answer his questions.
It may seem strange to you to qualify as “obstructionist” a professor who made repeated requests to obtain supposedly public documents only to be rejected nearly 20 times, rather than the agency that was… you know… obstructing access to those records, citing only the fact that it would “take a tremendous amount of time” to dig them up.
(You might remember the Commentator’s coverage of the same events.)
Rosiek isn’t done, though. He goes on to claim, in fact, that Harbaugh and Wade have no right to meddle because they have no “mandate from the community”:
What all of this means is that a couple of people – without any mandate from our community – are attempting to obstruct the University’s efforts to make progress where diversity issues are concerned. Exercising free speech and voicing dissent is one thing. Attempting to use grievance processes and lawsuits to undermine the implementation of a diversity plan overwhelmingly approved by the faculty senate, and in which University leadership has invested significant funds, is quite another thing. It is an effort by a few to impose their will on our community through bureaucratic means. [emphasis added]
The message is clear: “Don’t you dare poke your noses where they’re not welcome. Any attempts to hinder the progress of the University’s diversity plan will not be tolerated. How dare you?”
Dr. Rosiek seems barely able to contain his contempt for wreckers like Wade and Harbaugh and urges “[o]ur new University leaders” to be “responsible” and ignore them. What Rosiek’s letter represents is nothing less than a perfect example of the worldview of the “diversity” gang, who slander anyone who questions or interferes with their schemes as “obstructionist” (if not “racist”). And they aren’t making use of their right of free speech; they are instead engaging in “harassment”.
Frankly, it isn’t Harbaugh and Wade that this University should be worried about; it’s Jerry Rosiek and his apparent belief that the right free speech is negotiable when “diversity” is on the table. It’s fundamentally illiberal and it’s dangerous.
