“Inclusive Excellence” – Making Future Generations Incapable of Defending Free Speech

by
Steve MacDonald
freedom_of_speech
UWM’s embrace of Inclusive Excellence should remind us that UNH never really let go

This past July the University of New Hampshire came under fire for its Bias-Free Language Guide. The Guide, produced under the University’s Inclusive Excellence program (which STILL has its Facebook page, don’t-ya-know), was ordered removed by UNH President Mark Huddleston after a national media pig-pile of stories.

You will be hard pressed to find the words inclusive and excellence next to each other and in that order on the UNH website. But you will find them over at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) where their Inclusive Excellence Center is using something called a ‘Just Words’ Campaign to declare the use of terms like ‘Politically Correct’ (or just PC), as microaggressions.

I don’t believe UWM has gone as far as the UNH guide did – which had problems with words like ‘American‘ but it does do its part to intellectually-gang-rape the language and free speech.

Campus Reform | The university also claims the word “lame” is a microaggression that somehow both “ridicules and ignores the lives of amputees” and therefore shouldn’t be used.

UWM also claims that using the phrase “third world” to describe third world countries is a microaggression because it “reinforces heirarchical [sic] attitudes towards nations around the world, [and] establishes Westernized (industrialized) countries and cultures as the ‘standard’ upon which to measure national well-being or economic status.”

It does kind of suck that western countries got hung up on words like free markets, the rule of law, and property rights. These are words whose ideas lifted more people out of poverty than any other bunch of words, like -ever. Had we stuck to the age-old third-world arrangements we’d all be living in arm-pits run by militant despots. Having exchanged the future burden of hierarchical attitudes for the cold, short embrace of disease, pestilence, and poverty with the occasional “side” of petty warlords sparring to be the next dear leader. The near constant threat of civil war.

One thing you can say for Western Democracies, even the more socialist varieties; they are less likely to suffer from revolutions, civil wars, or warring with each other, which must–I’d think–improve whatever calculus defines national well-being and economic status.

But I digress.

UWM, with its warm embrace of speech control, has something UNH did not. It’s Inclusive Excellence diversity game of word-handicapped Scrabble (I meant to say wheelchair mobile not handicapped) is directed by an arrogant, offensive, SOB with a zero tolerance policy for people with ideas he opposes.

Interestingly enough, while the university’s Inclusive Excellence Center has labeled several common-use adjectives harmful, the man running the campaign, Warren Scherer, the director of the university’s Inclusive Excellence Center, has taken to Twitter to express his displeasure with Republican presidential candidates in a non-inclusive manner.

Scherer tweetedf**k every fiber of your being to Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and also accused him ofpandering to Republican Jews.” Scherer, who identifies himself as an UWM employee on his twitter profile, also accused presidential candidate Rand Paul of courting “rich Jews.”

That’s what we call Exclusive Excellence! Do as I F-N say not as I F-N do, damn it!

Meanwhile, back at UNH, they’ve done an excellent job of scrubbing the Inclusive Excellence language from their digital footprint, mostly. The Facebook page I mentioned above is unchanged, but that’s not nearly as promising as the UNH 2010-2020 Inclusive Excellence Strategic Plan (Surprise!).

Yes, they scrubbed the outside of the .edu but the Inclusive Excellence is still there, and what a great document.

It’s the Declaration of Inclusive Excellence, complete with the names of the persons involved in founding the UNH initiative, and those responsible for its implementation. Years from now people will be clamoring to claim they are somehow related to these scions of intolerance disguised as diversity.

If you look under the heading of ‘Campus Climate,’ which would include language management (per the now deleted but saved for posterity Bias-Free Language guide), some of the titles of the persons responsible include the President, Provost, Vice Presidents, and the Vice Provost of Faculty development and Inclusive Excellence. No ducking responsibility anymore. Who knew what when, back in 2010 and are they still there?

And it gets better.  If you use that internet thingy, you can find all sorts of details about how well regarded UNH is on matters of inclusiveness and diversity. This website rates them and provides links to pages on Student inclusiveness, Faculty inclusiveness, Social-justice educator training (under inclusiveness), all of which used to have landing pages but have now been redirected to the former home of Inclusive Excellence; re-branded as CED. Community, Equity and Diversity (No Oxford comma). No, not Community, Equity, and Diversity. Community, equity, and diversity.  And that is deliberate. The Oxford comma shows its face in the very first paragraph, so we know they know how to use it. An item that used to be this (emphasis mine).

UNH is broadening the role of the Office of Diversity Initiatives and advancing the commitment expressed in its Strategic Plan by introducing The Office of Faculty Development and Inclusive Excellence Initiatives.

Provost Aber says, “The name change and initiatives mirror the national focus on inclusive excellence, which requires strategic, ongoing interactions across campus and in all aspects of university life.”

But, post-Bias Guide kerfuffle, is now this,

We are committed to supporting and sustaining an educational community that is inclusive, diverse and equitable. The values of diversity, inclusion and equity are inextricably linked to our mission of teaching and research excellence, and we embrace these values as being critical to development, learning, and success. We expect nothing less than an accessible, multicultural community in which civility and respect are fostered, and discrimination and harassment are not tolerated.

We will ensure that under-represented groups and those who experience systemic inequity will have equal opportunities and feel welcome on our campus. We accept the responsibility of teaching and learning in a diverse democracy where social justice serves as a bridge between a quality liberal education and civic engagement.

Same ideas but stuffed between the cushions of a much bigger couch. Yes, couched.

Now, the original paragraph identifies their agenda as mirroring a national focus regarding interactions across campus and IN ALL ASPECTS OF UNIVERSITY LIFE. That is a lot of aspects, up to and including all of them. All of them includes the words you utter and the microaggressions they create, all of which is still alive and well and on the payroll at UNH.

The new paragraph is essentially the same, just more diplomatic, or more couch if you like.

Over at the UWM Inclusive Excellence Center, where they have not yet backed down from their stand against our “hierarchical attitudes towards nations around the world,” we find this tidbit,

The Inclusive Excellence Center is the next necessary step in the evolutionary process of creating a more equitable campus climate.

And? The Campus climate affects all aspects of campus life.

At UWM that means word games. Where they use inclusion to exclude, limit, and silence (Oxford comma), just like it “used to be” (wink-wink) at UNH. Where, according to the Provost, acting under the umbrella of UNH’s ten year Inclusive Excellence agenda, they intended to “mirror the national focus on inclusive excellence, which requires strategic, ongoing interactions across campus and in all aspects of university life.”

UWM stands naked before that same mirror as UNH back in July. Will they flinch and take the campaign underground or stand their ground?

At NH, after the Bias-Free Language guide kerfuffle, UNH President Mark Huddleston ordered the guide removed, and the website retooled. I am reminded of the joke, “how many diversity chimps does it take to unscrew an Excellence in Diversity light-bulb without putting out the light?”

Sleight of hand and a press release from the University president will do fine. But make sure you also insists that,

“…, the views expressed in the guide are not and never have been the policy of the University of New Hampshire. The only UNH policy on speech is that it is free and unfettered on our campuses. Unfortunately, what was probably a well-meaning effort to be “sensitive” has proven offensive to many people, myself included. While I fully support the principles of equity and diversity at UNH, this was not the way to promote it. Speech guides or codes have no place at any American university.”

Speech guides or codes have no place at any American university. Did you hear that UWM?  Is that a microaggression? Is Warren Scherer going to tweet out “f**k every fiber of your being to UNH President Mark Huddleston? Wouldn’t that be a hoot? Hey, Warren, I’d bet money some of the UNH donors are “rich Jews.”

Jane, stop this crazy thing.

So how do I tie this up? I guess I should reassert that while the Bias-Free Language guide is no longer ever-present on the UNH .edu the campaign it is based upon is. The foundation of the movement to reshape campus life still has a budget and offices at UNH. The prime movers are all the same folks or their ideological clones. Changing the words and pages on the website, don’t forget you missed this one, has not changed the agenda or the strategic plan, which has just erupted into public view over at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee.

Fun and games aside, this is poisoning an entire generation of minds who are at risk of not knowing what free speech is, which will make them incapable of defending it.

That cannot be allowed to continue.

Author

  • Steve MacDonald

    Steve is a long-time New Hampshire resident, blogger, and a member of the Board of directors of The 603 Alliance. He is the owner of Grok Media LLC and the Managing Editor of GraniteGrok.com, a former board member of the Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire, and a past contributor to the Franklin Center for Public Policy.

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