Rohini Sethi has beaten the rap at the University of Houston. As vice president of the student government at the University of Houston, she has escaped sanctions and a forced resignation from office. But she had to apologize profusely, take an unpaid leave of absence and serve some time in a diversity workshop to make up for the grossly offensive words she wrote on Facebook last month.
Since we are pretty sure those words are protected by the Constitution, we will risk writing them here, no matter how many maddened Houston students come after us. The words—brace yourselves–were “All lives matter,” or to be complete about it, “Forget #Black Lives Matter, more like # All Lives Matter.”
Under the procedures of the Houston Government Association, the president, Shane A. Smith, was allowed to punish Ms. Sethi. Not to worry, though, Smith is aware of the First Amendment.
Clearing up that point, Smith said, “For those who were upset due to what they considered a violation of the First Amendment, that was never my intention and I apologize for that impression. I have tremendous respect for freedom of speech as a core American value. For those that are disappointed by the change, this is a compromise based in the reality of the situation. My stance on racial injustice has always been clear. For all involved, this is truly the best outcome.”
Ms. Sethi regrets her offense and said “My words at the time didn’t accurately convey my feelings and caused many students to lose their faith in me to advocate for them. I take my responsibility seriously and want to re-earn their trust.” Now, if she doesn’t say anything crazy, like “Cops lives matter too” or “Let’s all vote for Trump” she ought to be all right.
We are a “little people, a silly people, greedy, barbarous, and cruel.”
How else can such idiocy be explained?
Tragic, though, that we, the Academy, have nurtured, nursed, coddled, and fed this unreasoning beast which has now occupied our classrooms and quads and filled our hallowed halls with our new, homegrown Brown Shirt’s. Tragic that we have given platform and voice to our own Red Guard with their secret reporting systems (Callisto!) and Code of Conduct manifestos which forbid “verbal comments that reinforce social structures of domination related to gender, gender identity and expression, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, national origin, or religion.”
We should be ashamed… but to be ashamed requires both an honest self-awareness and a recognition & understanding of the truth.
So where is Diogenes when you need him?