Students berate professor who refused to participate in no-whites ‘Day of Absence’
A mob of students at a Washington state liberal-arts college confronted a professor and demanded his resignation for writing an email questioning the propriety of a race demonstration in which white people were invited to leave campus for a day.
The incident closely mirrors one at Yale University in 2015, in which an email over the right to wear provocative Halloween costumes set off a firestorm and resulted in the resignations of two residential college leaders.
A video of the confrontation at Evergreen State College, recorded by one of the protesters and posted to Facebook on Tuesday, shows biology professor Bret Weinstein attempting to reason with dozens of students who routinely shout him down, curse at him and demand his resignation.
“There’s a difference between debate and dialectic,” Mr. Weinstein says in the video.
“Debate — wait a second — debate means you are trying to win; dialectic means you are using disagreement to discover what is true. I am not interested in debate. I am only interested in dialectic, which does mean I listen to you, and you listen to me.”
One student responds, “We don’t care what terms you want to speak on. This is not about you. We are not speaking on terms—on terms of white privilege. This is not a discussion. You have lost that one.”
The “Day of Absence & Day of Presence” is an annual event at Evergreen that took place the week of April 9 this year, according to the school’s website.
Students and faculty of color have traditionally left campus for the day to hold team-building exercises and demonstrate their importance to the
community through their absence. White students and faculty, meanwhile, have traditionally remained on campus to attend anti-racism
workshops and seminars.
But this year, the school decided to reverse that order, according to campus newspaper the Cooper Point Journal.
In an email to Rashida Love, the director of First Peoples Multicultural Advising Services at Evergreen, Mr. Weinstein, who is white, said he would remain on campus.
“On a college campus, one’s right to speak— or to be —should never be based on skin color,” he wrote in the March 15 email, which was posted to social media Wednesday.
One student in the video accuses Mr. Weinstein of making racist comments.
“Can you apologize?” he asks.
“I did not,” Mr. Weinstein responds. “I did not.”
Another protester asks the professor whether he believes “black students in sciences are targeted.”
After asking for a clarification, Mr. Weinstein says, “I do not believe that anybody on our faculty, with intent, specially targets students of color.” That remark draws shrieks of outrage.
But the professor has some defenders, one of whom calls the protesters “f—ing useless” for refusing to let Mr. Weinstein respond to their questions.
Mr. Weinstein implores him to calm down. “Chill, chill,” he tells him in the video.
One student can be seen crying throughout the protest.
The biology professor attempts to win over the students by appealing to the potential for discussion to bring about positive change.
“Listen to me,” he says in the video. “Yes, I know, history could pivot in the direction of the values that you are standing here for.”
A protester chimes in, “Yeah, resign.”
“I’m not resigning,” Mr. Weinstein responds.
After a few minutes, the protesters leave and march through the campus chanting, “Hey hey! Ho ho! Bret Weinstein has got to go!”
Mr. Weinstein and Ms. Love have not responded to requests for comment.
The Evergreen incident closely resembles a confrontation between students and a professor in 2015 at Yale University.
In that case, an associate master at the Ivy League school, Erika Christakis, set off a firestorm when she wrote an email defending the right to wear provocative Halloween costumes, despite administrative warnings against culturally insensitive outfits.
Her husband, sociologist Nicholas Christakis, attempted to defend the email in a discussion with dozens of students on a campus quad, but was mostly met with anger and ridicule.
One Yale student memorably shouted at the professor, “You should not sleep at night! You are disgusting!”
Evergreen students also held mass demonstrations Wednesday over alleged racism on campus, surrounding the president’s office and barricading themselves in the library with furniture, reported The Olympian.
The catalyst for that protest was a dispute between several students on social media and how campus police responded to it. Students also cited an increasingly hostile atmosphere on campus toward people of color.
But this year, the school decided to reverse that order, according to campus newspaper the Cooper Point Journal.
In an email to Rashida Love, the director of First Peoples Multicultural Advising Services at Evergreen, Mr. Weinstein, who is white, said he would remain on campus.
“On a college campus, one’s right to speak— or to be —should never be based on skin color,” he wrote in the March 15 email, which was posted to social media Wednesday.
One student in the video accuses Mr. Weinstein of making racist comments.
“Can you apologize?” he asks.
“I did not,” Mr. Weinstein responds. “I did not.”
Another protester asks the professor whether he believes “black students in sciences are targeted.”
After asking for a clarification, Mr. Weinstein says, “I do not believe that anybody on our faculty, with intent, specially targets students of color.” That remark draws shrieks of outrage.
But the professor has some defenders, one of whom calls the protesters “f—ing useless” for refusing to let Mr. Weinstein respond to their questions.
Mr. Weinstein implores him to calm down. “Chill, chill,” he tells him in the video.
One student can be seen crying throughout the protest.
The biology professor attempts to win over the students by appealing to the potential for discussion to bring about positive change.
“Listen to me,” he says in the video. “Yes, I know, history could pivot in the direction of the values that you are standing here for.”
A protester chimes in, “Yeah, resign.”
“I’m not resigning,” Mr. Weinstein responds.
After a few minutes, the protesters leave and march through the campus chanting, “Hey hey! Ho ho! Bret Weinstein has got to go!”
Mr. Weinstein and Ms. Love have not responded to requests for comment.
The Evergreen incident closely resembles a confrontation between students and a professor in 2015 at Yale University.
In that case, an associate master at the Ivy League school, Erika Christakis, set off a firestorm when she wrote an email defending the right to wear provocative Halloween costumes, despite administrative warnings against culturally insensitive outfits.
Her husband, sociologist Nicholas Christakis, attempted to defend the email in a discussion with dozens of students on a campus quad, but was mostly met with anger and ridicule.
One Yale student memorably shouted at the professor, “You should not sleep at night! You are disgusting!”
Evergreen students also held mass demonstrations Wednesday over alleged racism on campus, surrounding the president’s office and barricading themselves in the library with furniture, reported The Olympian.
The catalyst for that protest was a dispute between several students on social media and how campus police responded to it. Students also cited an increasingly hostile atmosphere on campus toward people of color.
College spokesman Zach Powers said the college had “intense and useful conversation with a group of students.”
“The college is working with the group to address their issues,” he told The Olympian. “This type of conversation is being replicated across the
country right now. We remain committed to providing a great education to all students.”
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