Not Much Choice

Forget It, Kid

GLENN MCCOY © Belleville News-Democrat. Dist. By UNIVERSAL UCLICK. Reprinted
with permission. All rights reserved.

University Hires Staff to Spy on Students, Confront Politically Incorrect Comments

From the National Post:

Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., has hired six students whose jobs as “dialogue facilitators” will involve intervening in conversations among students in dining halls and common rooms to encourage discussion of such social justice issues as race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, ability and social class.

“If there’s a teachable moment, we’ll take it,” said assistant dean of student affairs Arig Girgrah, who runs the program. “A lot of community building happens around food and dining.”

She gave the example of a conversation about a gay character on television as a good example of such a moment.

“It is all about creating opportunities to dialogue and reflect on issues of social identity,” Ms. Girgrah said. “This is not about preaching. It’s not about advice giving. It’s about hearing where students are at.”

Jason Laker, dean of student affairs, said their activities will also include formal discussion sessions, perhaps after controversial incidents in residence, and open discussions of topical books or movies.

“They’re not disciplinarians. They’re called facilitators for a reason,” he said, adding that such a program is of particular value now that so much communication by young people happens over the Internet.

“It’s not trying to stifle something. It’s trying to foster something,” he said. “We’re not trying to be parental.”

“We are trained to interrupt behaviour in a non-blameful and non-judgmental manner, so it’s not like we’re pulling someone aside and reprimanding them about their behaviour. It is honestly trying to get to the root of what they’re trying to say - seeing if that can be said in a different manner.”

Touting the Intergroup Dialogue Program as “unique among Canadian universities,” but modelled on programs in the United States, an administration newsletter says it will promote “a lasting experience of inclusive community and shared humanity.”

It is just one of many recent efforts to promote diversity - such as gender-neutral washrooms, prayer space, and halal and kosher food service - at a school that is still smarting from a report on systemic racism two years ago that criticized its “culture of whiteness.”

The editorial board of the student newspaper, the Queen’s Journal, acknowledged the good intentions of this latest effort, but was skeptical of a program that “seems to be an inadequate, lack lustre attempt to deal with social inequalities.”

“It’s unlikely six facilitators in a crowd of thousands will have much impact on fostering dialogue in residences,” they write, adding that the facilitators could face “hostility” from students who feel they have been “cornered” or had their privacy violated.

We would certainly hope so.

We wonder whether anybody is being fooled by the rhetoric about being “non-blameful and non-judgmental.” Maybe the administrators who concocted this scheme believe their own rhetoric.

Nobody else will be fooled. As the National Post said editorially:

Just who is Queen’s University trying to kid? The school may call its new political-correctness cops “facilitators.” It may insist they will not be eavesdropping on private conservations, “preaching” to students they overhear using “offending terms,” serving as “disciplinarians” or being judgmental. But administrators are simply deluding themselves with euphemisms if they swallow their own tripe. The half-dozen speech monitors employed by Queen’s dean of student affairs to wander campus and listen for mentions of racist, sexist, homophobic or other “non-inclusive” language, are nothing more than thought police.

The simple act of determining what terms are and are not “offending” is judgmental. Singling students out for “a respectful and educational dialogue” about how their “derogatory terminology” might lead to “marginalization or exclusion” of identifiable groups is the epitome of judgmentalism. Intruding on students’ chats with dorm mates or interrupting their joke telling in the cafeteria is the very definition of eavesdropping, even if Queen’s wants to insist it is not.

The facilitators’ job is to enforce ideas the administration finds acceptable and silence those it finds objectionable, even if the facilitators’ manner and tone is always to be “gentle.” An iron fist in a velvet glove remains an iron fist.

Regardless of how many of these “student-facilitator interactions” end “on a positive note,” their purpose is clear -- intimidation of those whose thoughts do not conform. No doubt being able to put a stint as a Queen’s University “intergroup facilitator” on one’s resume will be a great help in finding employment as a human rights commission investigator after graduation, since both positions require a badly warped sense of free speech and how to protect it.

Facilitators are the new social busybodies. Such speech and thought police have no place in a free society, but particularly not on a university campus.

But since when have college administrators cared about the standards of a free society?

Big Brother Pediatrics Exam?

Via the Texas Hold ‘Em Blogger, a story that, if accurate, should set off alarm bells among all parents.

They’re watching you right now.

They counted every beer you drank during last night’s Red Sox gams.

They see you sneaking out to the garage for a smoke.

They know if you’ve got a gun, and where you keep it.

They’re your kids, and they’re the National Security Agency of the Nanny State.

I found this out after my 13-year-old daughter’s annual checkup. Her pediatrician grilled her about alcohol and drug abuse.

Not my daughter’s boozing. Mine.

“The doctor wanted to know how much you and mom drink, and if I think it’s too much,” my daughter told us afterward, rolling her eyes in that exasperated 13-year-old way. “She asked if you two did drugs, or if there are drugs in the house.”

“What!” I yelped. “Who told her about my stasher, I mean, ‘It’s an outrage!’ ”

I turned to my wife. “You took her to the doctor. Why didn’t you say something?”

She couldn’t, she told me, because she knew nothing about it. All these questions were asked in private, without my wife’s knowledge or consent.

“The doctor wanted to know how we get along,” my daughter continued. Then she paused. “And if, well, Daddy, if you made me feel uncomfortable.”

Great. I send my daughter to the pediatrician to find out if she’s fit to play lacrosse, and the doctor spends her time trying to find out if her mom and I are drunk, drug-addicted sex criminals.

We’re not alone, either. Thanks to guidelines issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics and supported by the commonwealth, doctors across Massachusetts are interrogating our kids about mom and dad’s “bad” behavior.

We used to be proud parents. Now, thanks to the AAP, we’re “persons of interest.”

The paranoia over parents is so strong that the AAP encourages doctors to ignore “legal barriers and deference to parental involvement” and shake the children down for all the inside information they can get.

And that information doesn’t stay with the doctor, either.

Debbie is a mom from Uxbridge who was in the examination room when the pediatrician asked her 5-year-old, “Does Daddy own a gun?”

When the little girl said yes, the doctor began grilling her and her mom about the number and type of guns, how they are stored, etc.

If the incident had ended there, it would have merely been annoying.

But when a friend in law enforcement let Debbie know that her doctor had filed a report with the police about her family’s (entirely legal) gun ownership, she got mad.

She also got a new doctor.

In fact, the problem of anti-gun advocacy in the examining room has become so widespread that some states are considering legislation to stop it.

We, of course, tried to check this out by calling the Massachusetts Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and we talked to Cathleen Haggerty, the Executive Director. She admitted that pediatricians did mental health screening, and indeed invoked “national guidelines” and a legal case called “Rosie D.” as requiring “mental health screening.”

She had no comment for the record as to whether those particular questions were part of the process, and promised that the organization would, in a day or two, come out with a statement on the issue.

We’ll report that when it happens.

We can’t help but note a comment from another blogger on this issue:

Isn’t this the sort of thing that liberals claim they are against? Isn’t this a lot worse than asking librarians about who has been checking out books about explosives? I thought liberals got excited when the state sticks its nose into the bedroom. But if it turns out that Mom and Dad have their gun safe there, apparently liberals are okay with it.

I am not holding my breath waiting for the ACLU to take up the cause of family privacy. Teachers and school administrators in government schools have been known to try to turn their charges into informants, too. The left’s big boys are cool with it.

Indeed, because it’s “for the children.” But terrorists kill children too. And indeed, they own guns.

But they don’t vote Republican, which may explain the different attitudes.

[Update]

An e-mail correspondent sends us the following:

From Pediatrics: Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, a link to the page where I found the article “Alcohol Use and Abuse: A Pediatric Concern” Published at Pediatrics, 1995; 95; 439-442. Go to page 441 and look at the paragraph numbered “4.” It states “Prenatal visits and preventive child health care provide an opportunity to inquire about a family history of alcoholism and parental attitudes about alcohol use.” We do not need a Nanny State.