Marquette to Students: Rat Out “Bias Incidents”

From Marquette Wire:

“Marquette, along with a lot of colleges and universities around the country, and in particular Jesuit universities, created a bias incident reporting system as a place for students to go when they have either experienced or witnessed an act of bias on campus,” William Welburn, associate provost for diversity and inclusion, said in an email.

While the decision to implement a bias incident reporting system may have been influenced by other colleges, the initial idea and final format came from an introspective approach.

“Bias incidents have historically fallen between the cracks, especially when they don’t rise to the level of being hate crimes or blatant violations of conduct,” Welburn said. “But that doesn’t lessen the sting of aggressive or even micro-aggressive behavior toward a student because of that student’s social identity or group association.”

If a student feels victimized by a biased incident or has witnessed biased actions affecting others negatively, they have the option to fill out a bias incident report which is then sent directly to the Office of the Provost for review.

“When we get them, our interest is in support, referral or just information-gathering,” Welburn said.

So Welburn implies this is quite benign. But then the article goes on:

The system is not meant to directly handle all proceedings associated with a possible hate crime or conduct violation, but instead the Bias Incident Review Team has the ability to make appropriate referrals to other departments based upon the severity of a reported action.

Translation: if you are a Marquette student and say something that some student with a chip on his or her shoulder thinks is “biased” or a “micro-aggression” or feels “stung” by, you can be in big trouble.

Of course, on a modern university campus, comments that are merely politically incorrect are routinely condemned as racist or sexist or homophobic and punished. Statements such as “America is the land of opportunity” or “I believe the most qualified person should get the job” are condemned.  At the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, terms such as “man up” and “third world” are condemned.

At Marquette, leftist activists have labelled as “racist” a variety of comments on Yik Yak, most of which are not at all racist (Facebook login is necessary to see the page).

This, combined with the new rules about “harassment,” send a clear message to students: if you have any politically incorrect ideas, stifle. You can get in trouble if you disagree with the race and gender and gay hustlers on campus.