From a statement by the University of New Hampshire:
The associate vice president for community, equity and diversity removed the webpage this morning after a meeting with President Huddleston. The president fully supports efforts to encourage inclusivity and diversity on our campuses. He does not believe the guide was in any way helpful in achieving those goals. Speech guides or codes have no place at any American university.
Pointer from Alex Tabarrok, who commends President Huddleston.
An even more vertebrate college president would remove not just the web page but also administrators with titles like “associate vice president for community, equity and diversity.”
I note that UNH still has a “red light” free-speech rating from FIRE. (https://www.thefire.org/schools/university-of-new-hampshire/). I’m pretty sure it has been that way for years. With everyone patting him on the back for getting a web page taken down, maybe President Huddleston will be emboldened to get that fixed too.
Live community, equity and diversity or die?
Sinecures are a time-honored means of caring for the reputable useless. In this matter, universities have always been amongst the best corporate citizens in attempting to employ their own waste product. The scarcity of reasonable-sounding titles for these sinecures is a sign that our shadow welfare system is functioning well. Call it the invisible left-hand at work — the spontaneous orderings of society are not always pretty, nor is efficiency their goal.
Where was this much vaunted critical thinking that universities, especially their Liberal Arts, are suppose to instill? At a minimum, this vice president for blah, blah, blah has demonstrated poor judgement. Is this a good trait for those supposedly mentoring young minds?
Can a white guy apply for that job?
I don’t mind any of this if we can transform the university into an open access order. Let’s start with (relatively) universally transferable credits.
We have the internet. Do we even need campus to foster open debate anymore? Maybe that is part of why they don’t seem to view it as part of their jobs now. Maybe this is the stilted transition to focusing entirely on protecting (their jobs and) fragile psyches.