A $500,000 Taxpayer-funded Settlement has Finally Awakened State Lawmakers

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Friday, October 6, 2017: 

When Washington State lawmakers Matt Manweller and Phil Fortunato learned about what was passing for “education” at taxpayer-funded Evergreen State College (ESC), they started applying the correct remedies: they offered bills to cut its funding and then sell it. Whether such radical ideas will gain traction among their colleagues remains to be seen. In the meantime, delays in doing so are costing Washington taxpayers a pretty penny.

When a liberal college professor not only calls his school radical and then sues it for restitution over its radical policies, one can only assume he is correct. Writing in the Wall Street Journal in May, biology professor Bret Weinstein at ESC, said:

Evergreen is arguably the most radical college in the country … it does lean far to the left in a political sense….

The [college’s] plan [to promote its “equity agenda”] and the way it is being forced on the college are both deeply authoritarian, and [its] attempt to mandate equality of outcome is unwise in the extreme.

For a college professor who proudly proclaims that he is a progressive – he teaches evolutionary biology at ESC – that’s saying a lot. In those two paragraphs, Weinstein used “radical,” “far to the left,” and “authoritarian” – concepts which affirm what’s going on at ESC.

It’s been an annual tradition at ESC to celebrate something called a Day of Absence when students “of color” leave the campus and discuss how they are being discriminated against by society. Then there’s the Day of Presence when they return to campus and regular programming resumes.

In 2017, however, “whites” on campus were urged to leave instead. This was too much for Weinstein, who complained in an email. This resulted in such outrage among the students that they shut down the campus for three days, confronted administration officials with outrageous demands and searing expletives to the point where YouTube videos of their behavior became a national disgrace.

The radical offended students shut down Weinstein’s biology class, which forced him to move it to a local city park. In the Journal, Weinstein told what that day was like:

An angry mob of about 50 students disrupted my class, called me a racist, and demanded that I resign. My “racist” offense? I had challenged coercive segregation by race. Specifically, I had objected to a planned “Day of Absence” in which white people were asked to leave campus on April 12….

On a college campus, one’s right to speak – or to be – must never be based on skin color.

So outrageous was their behavior, and the wimpy response he got from the administration when he complained, that Weinstein and his wife, also a professor at ESC, decided to sue the college. They complained that:

(Evergreen) has permitted, cultivated, and perpetuated a racially hostile and retaliatory work environment. Through a series of decisions made at the highest levels, including to officially support a day of racial segregation, the college has refused to protect its employees from repeated provocative and corrosive verbal and written hostility based on race, as well as threats of physical violence.

TESC consistently has failed to set and enforce necessary boundaries in the workplace on campus, selectively has chosen not to enforce its student Code of Conduct, and sent the unmistakable message that the school will tolerate (and even endorse) egregious violations (and even crimes) purportedly to advance racial social goals, diminishing the collegiate experience for all, and fostering a racially hostile work and retaliatory environment for faculty and staff.

So strong was their case that the college decided to settle, claiming of course that they were innocent of any wrongdoing:

In making this agreement, the college admits no liability, and rejects the allegations made in the tort claim. The educational activities of Day of Absence/Day of Presence were not discriminatory. The college took reasonable and appropriate steps to engage with protestors during spring quarter, de-escalate conflict, and keep the campus safe.

It also helped that the administration officials weren’t spending their own money, but the taxpayers’, and decided to get out while the getting was good. In an ironic twist, the settlement of $500,000 – $450,000 to the Weinsteins and $50,000 to their attorneys – came on the same day that their resignation from the college became effective. So, on both sides it was good bye, so long, and good riddance.

It is hoped that moves by those state legislators to cut off taxpayer funding for this insanity and then sell the college to private interests for whatever it might be worth succeeds. It would send a message to other state legislators who are tired of funding revolutionaries on their own taxpayer-funded campuses.

Sources:

TheOlympian.com: Evergreen settles with Weinstein, professor at the center of campus protests

TheOlympian.com:  Embattled Evergreen professor Bret Weinstein plans to sue college

TheOlympian.com: Evergreen State College board speaks out about campus’ racial tensions, unrest

The Wall Street Journal: The Campus Mob Came for Me—and You, Professor, Could Be Next by Bret Weinstein

Background on Evergreen State College 2017 protests