Leftists the world over are in tears and hysterics over Donald Trump’s historic victory on Tuesday, but nowhere are they more desolate and depressed these days than on America’s college and university campuses. Students are at an age when passions run high, and as our institutions of higher learning are now little more than indoctrination centers for Antifa, it’s understandable that the mood on campus these days is more than a little dark.
College and university administrators and professors, however, are only making matters worse by pandering to the students’ ridiculous grief, and even encouraging it, rather than reminding them that life is tough and they just have to get on with it. This is largely, of course, because those far-left administrators and professors are just as immature as their students.
The Washington Free Beacon reported Friday that “after Donald Trump’s historic reelection sent despair rippling across college campuses, grieving professors at America’s top universities canceled classes, rescheduled exams, and promised to forgive poor grades. Schools offered students milk, cookies, puzzles, Legos, and ‘destress sessions.’”
Milk and cookies? Puzzles? Legos? Are we talking about universities here, or about kindergarten? Given the academic level of these woke institutions today, it’s essentially the same thing, and even the most elite universities are engaging in this silly grandstanding.
One Columbia University professor wrote to her students: “I hope you are hanging in there. I have been think [sic] of you over the last few days. [If] you don’t feel up for class, absences today will be excused.” A Barnard prof wrote in a similar vein: “In recognition of the increased stressed [sic] some of you might be feeling because of the election results, I will offer to replace your midterm Exam 2 grade with your Final Exam grade if better.”
Another professor canceled class because “it feels a bit tone-deaf to deliver” a “lecture on modern polling methods and their blind spots” at this time of yet another reminder of polling’s blind spots. She added a compassionate note: “Be good to yourselves, check in on your friends.”
Oh, brother. It wasn’t always this way. When I was a sophomore at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the fall of 1980, there were two days, just a few weeks apart, when the entire campus was deathly quiet, and everyone was walking around looking shell-shocked. I lived in Chapel Hill for seven years (four for undergraduate, one working, and two for a master’s degree) and never saw the campus as gloomy and sad as it was on those two days. The first was the day after the assassination of John Lennon, and the second was the day after the election of Ronald Reagan to be president of the United States.
Yet despite the universal grief over Reagan’s election, the university didn’t postpone midterms or cancel classes, much less hand out milk and cookies and Legos. In those days, the universities were already far-left, although not as totally and crazily Marxist as they are now, but they were still trying to maintain their image as institutions where all ideas could be discussed and debated freely. They also (for the most part) treated students as adults. Anyone who suggested that the students should be allowed to sit around in pajamas and color as if they were six-year-olds because Ronald Reagan had won the presidency would have been laughed out of the room.
Now, the world is different. Even Harvard (Harvard!) joined in the madness. An economics (economics!) lecturer, comrade Maxim Boycko, wrote: “As we recover from the eventful election night and process the implications of Trump’s victory, please know that class will proceed as usual today, except that classroom quizzes will not be for credit. Feel free to take time off if needed.”
Physics (physics!) prof Jennifer E. Hoffman wrote: “Many in our community are sleep-deprived, again grieving for glass ceilings that weren’t shattered, fearful for the future, or embarrassed to face our international colleagues. I stress-baked several pans of lemon bars to share.” What the heck are “stress-baked” lemon bars? Can they possibly be anything but nauseating, as nauseating as all this leftist pandering?
Most embarrassing of all, “at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, one of the nation’s top schools for diplomats and policymakers, students spent Wednesday playing with Legos, coloring, drinking milk, eating cookies, and meditating.” Just imagine when these childish leftist clowns are out setting national policy and trying to face down Xi’s boys, who aren’t sitting around coloring right now.
Meanwhile, for all their professed compassion, none of these universities has any program to aid and comfort the most marginalized and vilified group on their campus: the College Republicans, Young America’s Foundation and other patriotic groups. They’re happy this week, but just imagine what they have to endure from day to day on our elite campuses, and no one is stress-baking any lemon bars for them.
So much the better. They’ll come out of college tough and battle-hardened, ready to face down their wimpy, fragile, pajama-clad leftist former classmates in the national political arena. It will be fun to watch.