#tyler austin harper

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Tyler Austin Harper

Published: Aug 14, 2023

The hotel was soulless, like all conference hotels. I had arrived a few hours before check-in, hoping to drop off my bags before I met a friend for lunch. The employees were clearly frazzled, overwhelmed by the sudden influx of several hundred impatient academics. When I asked where I could put my luggage, the guy at the front desk simply pointed to a nearby hallway. “Wait over there with her; he’s coming back.”

Who “he” was remained unclear, but I saw the woman he was referring to. She was white and about my age. She had a conference badge and a large suitcase that she was rolling back and forth in obvious exasperation. “Been waiting long?” I asked, taking up a position on the other side of the narrow hallway. “Very,” she replied. For a while, we stood in silence, minding our phones. Eventually, we began chatting.

The conversation was wide-ranging: the papers we were presenting, the bad A/V at the hotel, our favorite things to do in the city. At some point, we began talking about our jobs. She told me that—like so many academics—she was juggling a temporary teaching gig while also looking for a tenure-track position.

“It’s hard,” she said, “too many classes, too many students, too many papers to grade. No time for your own work. Barely any time to apply to real jobs.”

When I nodded sympathetically, she asked about my job and whether it was tenure-track. I admitted, a little sheepishly, that it was.

“I’d love to teach at a small college like that,” she said. “I feel like none of my students wants to learn. It’s exhausting.”

Then, out of nowhere, she said something that caught me completely off guard: “But I shouldn’t be complaining to you about this. I know how hard BIPOC faculty have it. You’re the last person I should be whining to.”

I was taken aback, but I shouldn’t have been. It was the kind of awkward comment I’ve grown used to over the past few years, as “anti-racism” has become the reigning ideology of progressive political culture. Until recently, calling attention to a stranger’s race in such a way would have been considered a social faux pas. That she made the remark without thinking twice—a remark, it should be noted, that assumes being a Black tenure-track professor is worse than being a marginally employed white one—shows how profoundly interracial social etiquette has changed since 2020’s “summer of racial reckoning.” That’s when anti-racism—focused on combating “color-blindness” in both policy and personal conduct—grabbed ahold of the liberal mainstream.

Though this “reckoning” brought increased public attention to the deep embeddedness of racism in supposedly color-blind American institutions, it also made instant celebrities of a number of race experts and “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) consultants who believe that being anti-racist means undergoing a “journey” of radical personal transformation. In their righteous crusade against the bad color-blindness of policies such as race-neutral college admissions, these contemporary anti-racists have also jettisoned the kind of good color-blindness that holds that we are more than our race, and that we should conduct our social life according to that idealized principle. Rather than balance a critique of color-blind law and policy with a continuing embrace of interpersonal color-blindness as a social etiquette, contemporary anti-racists throw the baby out with the bathwater. In place of the old color-blind ideal, they have foisted upon well-meaning white liberals a successor social etiquette predicated on the necessity of foregrounding racial difference rather than minimizing it.

As a Black guy who grew up in a politically purple area—where being a good person meant adhering to the kind of civil-rights-era color-blindness that is now passé—I find this emergent anti-racist culture jarring. Many of my liberal friends and acquaintances now seem to believe that being a good person means constantly reminding Black people that you are aware of their Blackness. Difference, no longer to be politely ignored, is insisted upon at all times under the guise of acknowledging “positionality.” Though I am rarely made to feel excessively aware of my race when hanging out with more conservative friends or visiting my hometown, in the more liberal social circles in which I typically travel, my race is constantly invoked—“acknowledged” and “centered”—by well-intentioned anti-racist “allies.”

This “acknowledgement” tends to take one of two forms. The first is the song and dance in which white people not-so-subtly let you know that they know that race and racism exist. This includes finding ways to interject discussion of some (bad) news item about race or racism into casual conversation, apologizing for having problems while white (“You’re the last person I should be whining to”), or inversely, offering “support” by attributing any normal human problem you have to racism.

The second way good white liberals often “center” racial difference in everyday interactions with minorities is by trying, always clumsily, to ensure that their “marginalized” friends and familiars are “culturally” comfortable. My favorite personal experiences of this include an acquaintance who invariably steers dinner or lunch meetups to Black-owned restaurants, and the time that a friend of a friend invited me over to go swimming in their pool before apologizing for assuming that I know how to swim (“I know that’s a culturally specific thing”). It is a peculiar quirk of the 2020s’ racial discourse that this kind of “acknowledgement” and “centering” is viewed as progress.

My point is not that conservatives have better racial politics—they do not—but rather that something about current progressive racial discourse has become warped and distorted. The anti-racist culture that is ascendant seems to me to have little to do with combatting structural racism or cultivating better relationships between white and Black Americans. And its rejection of color-blindness as a social ethos is not a new frontier of radical political action.

No, at the core of today’s anti-racism is little more than a vibe shift—a soft matrix of conciliatory gestures and hip phraseology that give adherents the feeling that there has been a cultural change, when in fact we have merely put carpet over the rotting floorboards. Although this push to center rather than sidestep racial difference in our interpersonal relationships comes from a good place, it tends to rest on a troubling, even racist subtext: that white and Black Americans are so radically different that interracial relationships require careful management, constant eggshell-walking, and even expert guidance from professional anti-racists. Rather than producing racial harmony, this new ethos frequently has the opposite effect, making white-Black interactions stressful, unpleasant, or, perhaps most often, simply weird.

Since the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, progressive anti-racism has centered on two concepts that helped Americans make sense of his senseless death: “structural racism” and “implicit bias.” The first of these is a sociopolitical concept that highlights how certain institutions—maternity wards, police barracks, lending companies, housing authorities, etc.—produce and replicate racial inequalities, such as the disproportionate killing of Black men by the cops. The second is a psychologicalconcept that describes the way that all individuals—from bleeding-heart liberals to murderers such as Derek Chauvin—harbor varying degrees of subconscious racial prejudice.

Though “structural racism” and “implicit bias” target different scales of the social order—institutions on the one hand, individuals on the other—underlying both of these ideas is a critique of so-called color-blind ideology, or what the sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva calls “color-blind racism”: the idea that policies, interactions, and rhetoric can be explicitly race-neutral but implicitly racist. As concepts, both “structural racism” and “implicit bias” rest on the presupposition that racism is an enduring feature of institutional and social life, and that so-called race neutrality is a covertly racist myth that perpetuates inequality. Some anti-racist scholars such as Uma Mazyck Jayakumar and Ibram X. Kendi have put this even more bluntly: “‘Race neutral’ is the new “separate but equal.’” Yet, although anti-racist academics and activists are right to argue that race-neutral policies can’t solve racial inequities—that supposedly color-blind laws and policies are often anything but—over the past few years, this line of criticism has also been bizarrely extended to color-blindness as a personal ethos governing behavior at the individual level.

The most famous proponent of dismantling color-blindness in everyday interactions is Robin DiAngelo, who has made an entire (very condescending) career out of asserting that if white people are not uncomfortable, anti-racism is not happening. “White comfort maintains the racial status quo, so discomfort is necessary and important,” the corporate anti-racist guru advises. Over the past three years, this kind of anti-color-blind, pro-discomfort rhetoric has become the norm in anti-racist discourse. On the final day of the 28-day challenge in Layla Saad’s viral Me and White Supremacy, budding anti-racists are tasked with taking “out-of-your-comfort-zone actions,” such as apologizing to people of color in their life and having “uncomfortable conversations.” Frederick Joseph’s best-selling book The Black Friend takes a similar tack. The problem with color-blindness, Joseph counsels, is it allows “white people to continue to be comfortable.” The NFL analyst Emmanuel Acho wrote an entire book, simply called Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Man, that admonishes readers to “stop celebrating color-blindness.” And, of course, there are endless how-to guides for having these “uncomfortable conversations” with your Black friends.

Once the dominant progressive ideology, professing “I don’t see color” is now viewed as a kind of dog whistle that papers over implicit bias. Instead, current anti-racist wisdom holds that we must acknowledge racial difference in our interactions with others, rather than assume that race needn’t be at the center of every interracial conversation or encounter. Coming to grips with the transition we have undergone over the past decade—color-blind etiquette’s swing from de rigueur to racist—requires a longer view of an American cultural transition. Civil-rights-era color-blindness was replaced with an individualistic, corporatized anti-racism, one focused on the purification of white psyches through racial discomfort, guilt, and “doing the work” as a road to self-improvement.

Writing in 1959, the social critic Philip Rieff argued that postwar America was transforming from a religious and economic culture—one oriented around common institutions such as the church and the market—to a psychological culture, one oriented around the self and its emotional fulfillment. By the 1960s, Rieff had given this shift a name: “the triumph of the therapeutic,” which he defined as an emergent worldview according to which the “self, improved, is the ultimate concern of modern culture.” Yet, even as he diagnosed our culture with self-obsession, Rieff also noticed something peculiar and even paradoxical. Therapeutic culture demanded that we reflect our self-actualization outward. Sharing our innermost selves with the world—good, bad, and ugly—became a new social mandate under the guise that authenticity and open self-expression are necessary for social cohesion.

Recent anti-racist mantras like “White silence is violence” reflect this same sentiment: exhibitionist displays of “racist” guilt are viewed as a necessary precursor to racial healing and community building. In this way, today’s attacks on interpersonal color-blindness—and progressives’ growing fixation on implicit bias, public confession, and race-conscious social etiquette—are only the most recent manifestations of the cultural shift Rieff described. Indeed, the seeds of the current backlash against color-blindness began decades ago, with the application of a New Age, therapeutic outlook to race relations: so-called racial-sensitivity training, the forefather of today’s equally spurious DEI programming.

In her 2001 book, Race Experts, the historian Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn painstakingly details how racial-sensitivity training emerged from the 1960s’ human-potential movement and its infamous “encounter groups.” As she explains, what began as a more or less countercultural phenomenon was later corporatized in the form of the anemic, pointless workshops controversially lampooned on The Office. Not surprisingly, this shift reflected the ebb and flow of corporate interests: Whereas early workplace training emphasized compliance with the newly minted Civil Rights Act of 1964, later incarnations would focus on improving employee relations and, later still, leveraging diversity to secure better business outcomes.

If there is something distinctive about the anti-color-blind racial etiquette that has emerged since George Floyd’s death, it is that these sites of encounter have shifted from official institutional spaces to more intimate ones where white people and minorities interact as friends, neighbors, colleagues, and acquaintances. Racial-awareness raising is a dynamic no longer quarantined to formalized, compulsory settings like the boardroom or freshman orientation. Instead, every interracial interaction is a potential scene of (one-way) racial edification and supplication, encounters in which good white liberals are expected to be transparent about their “positionality,” confront their “whiteness,” and—if the situation calls for it—confess their “implicit bias.”

In a vacuum, many of the prescriptions advocated by the anti-color-blind crowd are reasonable: We should all think more about our privileges and our place in the world. An uncomfortable conversation or an honest look in the mirror can be precursors to personal growth. We all carry around harmful, implicit biases and we do need to examine the subconscious assumptions and prejudices that underlie the actions we take and the things we say. My objection is not to these ideas themselves, which are sensible enough. No, my objection is that anti-racism offers little more than a Marie Kondo–ism for the white soul, promising to declutter racial baggage and clear a way to white fulfillment without doing anything meaningful to combat structural racism. As Lasch-Quinn correctly foresaw, “Casting interracial problems as issues of etiquette [puts] a premium on superficial symbols of good intentions and good motivations as well as on style and appearance rather than on the substance of change.”

Yet the problem with the therapeutics of contemporary anti-racism is not just that they are politically sterile. When anti-color-blindness and its ideology of insistent “race consciousness” are translated into the sphere of private life—to the domain of friendships, block parties, and backyard barbecues—they assault the very idea of a multiracial society, producing new forms of racism in the process. The fact that our media environment is inundated with an endless stream of books, articles, and social-media tutorials that promise to teach white people how to simply interact with the Black people in their life is not a sign of anti-racist progress, but of profound regression.

The subtext that undergirds this new anti-racist discourse—that Black-white relationships are inherently fraught and must be navigated with the help of professionals and technical experts—testifies to the impoverishment of our interracial imagination, not to its enrichment. More gravely, anti-color-blind etiquette treats Black Americans as exotic others, permanent strangers whose racial difference is so chasmic that it must be continually managed, whose mode of humanness is so foreign that it requires white people to adopt a special set of manners and “race conscious” ritualistic practices to even have a simple conversation.

If we are going to find a way out of the racial discord that has defined American life post-Trump and post-Charlottesville and post-Floyd, we have to begin with a more sophisticated understanding of color-blindness, one that rejects the bad color-blindness on offer from the Republican Party and its partisans, as well as the anti-color-blindness of the anti-racist consultants. Instead, we should embrace the good color-blindness of not too long ago. At the heart of that color-blindness was a radical claim, one imperfectly realized but perfect as an ideal: that despite the weight of a racist past that isn’t even past, we can imagine a world, or at least an interaction between two people, where racial difference doesn’t make a difference.

[ Via: https://archive.today/8zfvc ]

[quotesfrommyreading]

As a Black guy who grew up in a politically purple area—where being a good person meant adhering to the kind of civil-rights-era color-blindness that is now passé—I find this emergent anti-racist culture jarring. Many of my liberal friends and acquaintances now seem to believe that being a good person means constantly reminding Black people that you are aware of their Blackness. Difference, no longer to be politely ignored, is insisted upon at all times under the guise of acknowledging “positionality.” Though I am rarely made to feel excessively aware of my race when hanging out with more conservative friends or visiting my hometown, in the more liberal social circles in which I typically travel, my race is constantly invoked—“acknowledged” and “centered”—by well-intentioned anti-racist “allies.”

This “acknowledgment” tends to take one of two forms. The first is the song and dance in which white people not-so-subtly let you know that they know that race and racism exist. This includes finding ways to interject discussion of some (bad) news item about race or racism into casual conversation, apologizing for having problems while white (“You’re the last person I should be whining to”), or inversely, offering “support” by attributing any normal human problem you have to racism.

The second way good white liberals often “center” racial difference in everyday interactions with minorities is by trying, always clumsily, to ensure that their “marginalized” friends and familiars are “culturally” comfortable. My favorite personal experiences of this include an acquaintance who invariably steers dinner or lunch meetups to Black-owned restaurants, and the time that a friend of a friend invited me over to go swimming in their pool before apologizing for assuming that I know how to swim (“I know that’s a culturally specific thing”). It is a peculiar quirk of the 2020s’ racial discourse that this kind of “acknowledgment” and “centering” is viewed as progress.

My point is not that conservatives have better racial politics—they do not—but rather that something about current progressive racial discourse has become warped and distorted. The anti-racist culture that is ascendant seems to me to have little to do with combatting structural racism or cultivating better relationships between white and Black Americans. And its rejection of color-blindness as a social ethos is not a new frontier of radical political action.

No, at the core of today’s anti-racism is little more than a vibe shift—a soft matrix of conciliatory gestures and hip phraseology that give adherents the feeling that there has been a cultural change, when in fact we have merely put carpet over the rotting floorboards. Although this push to center rather than sidestep racial difference in our interpersonal relationships comes from a good place, it tends to rest on a troubling, even racist subtext: that white and Black Americans are so radically different that interracial relationships require careful management, constant eggshell-walking, and even expert guidance from professional anti-racists. Rather than producing racial harmony, this new ethos frequently has the opposite effect, making white-Black interactions stressful, unpleasant, or, perhaps most often, simply weird.

  —  I’m a Black Professor. You Don’t Need to Bring That Up.

[mariacallous]

[freshlyblaked]

[eludin-realm]

Character Name Ideas (Male)

So I've been browsing through BehindTheName (great resource!) recently and have compiled several name lists. Here are some names, A-Z, that I like. NOTE: If you want to use any of these please verify sources, meanings etc, I just used BehindTheName to browse and find all of these. Under the cut:

A: Austin, Aiden, Adam, Alex, Angus, Anthony, Archie, Argo, Ari, Aric, Arno, Atlas, August, Aurelius, Alexei, Archer, Angelo, Adric, Acarius, Achilou, Alphard, Amelian, Archander B: Bodhi, Bastian, Baz, Beau, Beck, Buck, Basil, Benny, Bentley, Blake, Bowie, Brad, Brady, Brody, Brennan, Brent, Brett, Brycen C: Cab, Cal, Caden, Cáel, Caelan, Caleb, Cameron, Chase, Carlos, Cooper, Carter, Cas, Cash, Cassian, Castiel, Cedric, Cenric, Chance, Chandler, Chaz, Chad, Chester, Chet, Chip, Christian, Cillian, Claude, Cicero, Clint, Cody, Cory, Coy, Cole, Colt, Colton, Colin, Colorado, Colum, Conan, Conrad, Conway, Connor, Cornelius, Creed, Cyneric, Cynric, Cyrano, Cyril, Cyrus, Crestian, Ceric D: Dallas, Damien, Daniel, Darach, Dash, Dax, Dayton, Denver, Derek, Des, Desmond, Devin, Dewey, Dexter, Dietrich, Dion, Dmitri, Dominic, Dorian, Douglas, Draco, Drake, Drew, Dudley, Dustin, Dusty, Dylan, Danièu E: Eadric, Evan, Ethan, Easton, Eddie, Eddy, Einar, Eli, Eilas, Eiljah, Elliott, Elton, Emanuel, Emile, Emmett, Enzo, Erik, Evander, Everett, Ezio F: Faolán, Faron, Ferlin, Felix, Fenrir, Fergus, Finley, Finlay, Finn, Finnian, Finnegan, Flint, Flip, Flynn, Florian, Forrest, Fritz G: Gage, Gabe, Grady, Grant, Gray, Grayson, Gunnar, Gunther, Galahad H: Hale, Harley, Harper, Harvey, Harry, Huey, Hugh, Hunter, Huxley I: Ian, Ianto, Ike, Inigo, Isaac, Isaias, Ivan, Ísak J: Jack, Jacob, Jake, Jason, Jasper, Jax, Jay, Jensen, Jed, Jeremy, Jeremiah, Jesse, Jett, Jimmie, Jonas, Jonas, Jonathan, Jordan, Josh, Julien, Jovian, Jun, Justin, Joseph, Joni, K: Kaden, Kai, Kale, Kane, Kaz, Keane, Keaton, Keith, Kenji, Kenneth, Kent, Kevin, Kieran, Kip, Knox, Kris, Kristian, Kyle, Kay, Kristján, Kristófer L: Lamont, Lance, Landon, Lane, Lars, László, Laurent, Layton, Leander, Leif, Leo, Leonidas, Leopold, Levi, Lewis, Louie, Liam, Liberty, Lincoln, Linc, Linus, Lionel, Logan, Loki, Lucas, Lucian, Lucio, Lucky, Luke, Luther, Lyall, Lycus, Lykos, Lyle, Lyndon, Llewellyn, Landri, Laurian, Lionç M: Major, Manny, Manuel, Marcus, Mason, Matt, Matthew, Matthias, Maverick, Maxim, Memphis, Midas, Mikko, Miles, Mitch, Mordecai, Mordred, Morgan, Macari, Maïus, Maxenci, Micolau, Miro N: Nate, Nathan, Nathaniel, Niall, Nico, Niels, Nik, Noah, Nolan, Niilo, Nikander, Novak, O: Oakley, Octavian, Odin, Orlando, Orrick, Ǫrvar, Othello, Otis, Otto, Ovid, Owain, Owen, Øyvind, Ozzie, Ollie, Oliver, Onni P: Paisley, Palmer, Percival, Percy, Perry, Peyton, Phelan, Phineas, Phoenix, Piers, Pierce, Porter, Presley, Preston, Pacian Q: Quinn, Quincy, Quintin R: Ragnar, Raiden, Ren, Rain, Rainier, Ramos, Ramsey, Ransom, Raul, Ray, Roy, Reagan, Redd, Reese, Rhys, Rhett, Reginald, Remiel, Remy, Ridge, Ridley, Ripley, Rigby, Riggs, Riley, River, Robert, Rocky, Rokas, Roman, Ronan, Ronin, Romeo, Rory, Ross, Ruairí, Rufus, Rusty, Ryder, Ryker, Rylan, Riku, Roni S: Sammie, Sammy, Samuel, Samson, Sanford, Sawyer, Scout, Seán, Seth, Sebastian, Seymour, Shane, Shaun, Shawn, Sheldon, Shiloh, Shun, Sid, Sidney, Silas, Skip, Skipper, Skyler, Slade, Spencer, Spike, Stan, Stanford, Sterling, Stevie, Stijn, Suni, Sylvan, Sylvester T: Tab, Tad, Tanner, Tate, Tennessee, Tero, Terrance, Tevin, Thatcher, Tierno, Tino, Titus, Tobias, Tony, Torin, Trace, Trent, Trenton, Trev, Trevor, Trey, Troy, Tripp, Tristan, Tucker, Turner, Tyler, Ty, Teemu U: Ulric V: Valerius, Valor, Van, Vernon, Vespasian, Vic, Victor, Vico, Vince, Vinny, Vincent W: Wade, Walker, Wallis, Wally, Walt, Wardell, Warwick, Watson, Waylon, Wayne, Wes, Wesley, Weston, Whitley, Wilder, Wiley, William, Wolfe, Wolfgang, Woody, Wulfric, Wyatt, Wynn X: Xander, Xavier Z: Zachary, Zach, Zane, Zeb, Zebediah, Zed, Zeke, Zeph, Zaccai

[castlesrp]

Face Claim List

Below the cut, you will find our list of face claims featured on our canon list. Enjoy this sneak peak at what is coming your way when the canon lists start being released this week!

FC List:

Abigail Cowen Aishwarya Rai Bachchan Amita Suman Amy Adams Ana de Armas André De Shields Andrew Garfield Angela Bassett Anna Kendrick Anne Hathaway Anthony Anderson Anthony Mackie Anya Chalotra Anya Taylor Joy Aja Naomi King Avan Jogia Avantika Audra McDonald Austin Butler Beanie Feldstein Ben Barnes Beyoncé BD Wong Bette Midler Caleb McLaughlin Camila Mendes Catherine O'Hara Charles Melton Chiwetel Ejiofor Chloe Bennet Chloe Bailey Christina Hendricks Christina Nadin Chrissy Metz Cody Christian Constance Wu Courtney Eaton Dakota Johnson Danai Gurira Daniel Ezra Daniel Wu Danny Trejo David Harbour Deepika Padukone Denzel Washington Dev Patel Diana Silvers Diane Keaton Dianna Agron Dove Cameron Dylan O'Brien Eddie Redmayne Eiza González Emily Alyn Lind Eva Longoria Ewan McGregor Fan Bingbing Felix Mallard Florence Pugh Froy Gutierrez Gabrielle Union Gemma Chan George Takei Gillian Anderson Gina Rodriguez Gina Torres Hailee Steinfeld Halle Bailey Harrison Ford Harry Shum JR Harry Styles Henry Cavill Hero Fiennes Tiffin Hunter Schafer Hugh Jackman Idris Elba J. Cameron-Smith Jacob Artist Jacob Elordi Jameela Jamil James McAvoy Jamie Chung Jamie Lee Curtis Jasmin Savoy Brown Jason Momoa Jason Sudekis Jean Smart Jeff Goldblum Jeffrey Wright Jenna Ortega Jensen Ackles Jesse Williams Jessica Chastain JK Simmons Joe Locke John Boyega John Cho John Krasinski Jon Hamm Jonathan Bailey Jordan Connor Jordan Peele Julianne Moore Justice Smith Kate Winslet Kathryn Hahn Kathryn Newton Keanu Reeves Keith Powers Keke Palmer Kerry Washington Kit Connor [1] Kit Connor [2] KJ Apa Kristen Bell Kumail Nanjiani Lana Condor Laura Harrier Lauren Ridloff Leonardo DiCaprio Letita Wright Lili Reinhart Liv Hewson Logan Browning Logan Lerman Loretta Devine Lupita Nyong'o Mädchen Amick Madelyn Cline Madison Bailey Mahershala Ali Manny Jacinto Manny Montana Margot Robbie Mark Consuelos Mark Hamill Mario Lopez Mason Gooding Maude Apatow Megan thee Stallion Melanie Lynskey Melissa Barrera Michael Cimino Michael Evans Behling Michael Fassbender Michael Peña Michael Shannon Michelle Yeoh Morgan Freeman Naomi Scott Natalia Dyer Natasha Liu Bordizzo Nina Dobrev Noah Centineo Normani Octavia Spencer Olivia Coleman Olivia Rodrigo Oscar Isaac Paul Rudd Pedro Pascal Phoebe Deynover Phoebe Tonkin Phylicia Rashad Priyanka Chopra Rachel Weisz Rachel Zegler Rahul Kohli Reese Witherspoon Regé-Jean Page Renee Rapp [1] Renee Rapp [2] Riz Ahmed Robert Pattinson Robert Downey JR Rome Flynn Rosamund Pike Rose Byrne Rudy Pankow Ryan Gosling Ryan Guzman Ryan Reynolds Sadie Sink Sam Claflin Samantha Logan Samara Weaving Sandra Bullock Sandra Oh Sara Ramirez Sarah Jeffrey Sarah Paulson Sebastian Stan Selena Gomez Sigourney Weaver Simu Liu Shawn Mendes Skeet Ulrich Sophia Ali Sophia Bush Sophie Turner Sonam Kapoor Sophie Thatcher Sterling K. Brown Steve Martin Steven Yeun Storm Reid Sydney Sweeney [1] Sydney Sweeney [2] Taika Waititi Tati Gabrielle Taraji P. Henson Taron Egerton Taye Diggs Taylor Zakhar Perez Ted Danson Timothée Chalamet Thomas Doherty Tom Blyth Tom Ellis Tom Hardy Tom Holland Tony Goldwyn Tyler James Williams Tyler Posey Uzo Adubo Victoria Pedretti Viola Davis Whoopi Goldberg Wolfgang Novogratz Will Smith Willem Dafoe William Jackson Harper Winona Ryder Winston Duke Yasmin Finney Zayn Malik Zendaya Zoey Deutch

[pupsmailbox]

Hi! I don’t know if this was asked before (I’m sorry if you already did this) but do you have names similar to Logan?

LOGAN︰ aiden. alex. alexis. amelia. asher. ashley. austin. ava. avery. blake. boden. bowen. brooke. caleb. carter. charlie. charlotte. chase. chloe. cohan. cole. connor. dani. drew. dylan. elliot. emily. emma. ethan. evan. grayson. hannah. harper. hayden. henry. hudson. hunter. jack. jackson. jacob. james. jensen. johan. jordan. keagan. keegan. laken. lakin. lakshman. lakshmi. landon. lane. lauren. lawson. laxmi. layton. leighanna. leighanne. leighna. lejane. leo. levi. lezane. liam. lian. lisanne. lizina. lochana. lokni. louisiana. lozano. lozen. luca. lucania. lucano. lucas. lucian. luciana. luciano. lucien. lucina. lucine. lujayn. luke. luken. lukyan. luqman. mackenzie. madison. mason. max. megan. meghan. miles. morgan. navy. noah. nolan. ocean. oliver. olivia. owen. paige. parker. payton. peyton. quinn. regan. riley. rohan. roman. ronan. rowan. ryan. sawyer. sophia. spencer. taylor. teagan. theodore. tyler. wyatt.

[jakeluppin]

A long but good read on antisemitism at universities and what could/should be done on campuses. Really good, especially for those of us in academia. Full article below, but a few highlights I wanted to share:

Many students today have little exposure to ideological diversity on campus, and most agree on most politically fraught topics, such as abortion or transgender rights, said Eitan Hersh, a professor of political science at Tufts University. Since issues in the Middle East are so divisive, even among groups that otherwise tend to align politically, students don’t know how to talk about them. They are “not equipped to know how to deal with that,” Hersh said.

“Students have been entirely left alone to sort this out for themselves with zero institutional support, with zero attempts to organize any kind of rational discussion or conversation about the issue,” [Tyler Austin Harper, an assistant professor of environmental studies at Bates College] said. “It’s not a big surprise that they’re floundering when adults have been too cowardly to do their jobs.”

A pro-Palestinian demonstrator asked [Jared Levy, an 18-year-old freshman at the University of Texas at Austin] how he could defend Israel. “I sat there in the rain for an hour and a half talking to students about why I supported Israel,” Levy said. He talked about the importance of a Jewish homeland, about his conviction that Hamas was a terrorist organization, and that Israel had made mistakes but had a right to defend itself. Some of the students with the pro- Palestinian group, he said, didn’t understand what Hamas was and had just been told by friends or social media that Israel was committing genocide and was an apartheid state.

“A lot of students have been eager to engage in dialogue and weren’t just here to yell in my face,” Levy said. At the local Hillel, a Jewish campus-life organization with chapters on many campuses, he said they’ve discussed organizing a “neutral- ground dialogue.” But despite Levy’s success in engaging with students one on one, he doesn’t feel the campus is ready for group discussions. “We came to the conclusion that things need to cool down first,” he said.

A Jewish student’s nose is broken in a melee sparked by attempts to burn an Israeli flag. Messages declaring “Glory to our Martyrs” and “Divestment From Zionist Genocide Now” are projected onto the façade of a campus building. Jewish students huddle inside a campus library while protesters shouting “Free Palestine” bang on the glass walls.

With each new headline and video snippet that goes viral, the pressure on colleges to respond forcefully and quickly to incidents of antisemitism is building. So too is the pressure to resist calls from politicians, donors, and alumni to crack down on protesters in ways that stifle protected speech.

College leaders, who’ve been lambasted over the past few months for failing to tackle antisemitism with the same ardor they’ve confronted other forms of prejudice and hate, are having to make quick judgment calls under the harsh glare of the national spotlight and the war between Israel and Hamas.

The questions are complicated, and backlash is certain. What counts as antisemitism? How can campuses help Jewish students feel safe? And perhaps of greatest consequence for colleges, where is the line between protected speech and prohibited harassment, and how should students who cross it be disciplined?

College leaders today “face tremendous pressures from competing groups of students, faculty, alumni, and administrators,” said Ethan Katz, associate professor of history and Jewish studies at the University of California at Berkeley, one of several universities facing lawsuits over alleged antisemitism. “The number and intensity of those pressures is pretty widely underestimated by the public.”

The Chronicle spoke with more than 20 scholars, free-speech experts, faculty members, and students — all of whom echoed a similar message: Battling antisemitism is one of the most pressing challenges facing campus leaders today, and it is also one of the most difficult.

Many colleges have taken a typically academic approach to the situation, forming or expanding task forces on antisemitism, and often, Islamophobia. To protect students who feel threatened, these groups have proposed tightening security, clarifying reporting procedures, and improving mental-health supports. They’re examining speech codes and student-conduct policies to ensure they’re being applied evenly and fairly. The task forces themselves are proving controversial, especially when it comes to who should be appointed to them.

When campus leaders are called on to intervene in a dispute, the terrain can turn treacherous. If they discipline pro-Palestinian protesters over chants many consider antisemitic, they’re accused of trampling free-speech rights. If they defend the right to demonstrate, they’re accused of failing to protect Jewish students from antisemitism. Impartial stances are attacked as weak, sparking debates about whether campus leaders should comment at all.

In Utah, Gov. Spencer Cox has made it clear he doesn’t want the leaders of public colleges speaking out about the Israel-Hamas war, or any other current events. “I do not care what your position is on Israel and Palestine. I don’t,” he said on December 1 after the Utah Board of Higher Education passed a resolution requiring colleges and their leaders to remain neutral on such topics. The board also called on colleges to spell out the protections and limitations of their speech policies.

Punishing protesters has only stoked anger on some campuses. When the president of George Washington University, Ellen M. Granberg, denounced pro-Palestinian messages projected onto the library in late October as antisemitic and the university suspended the group responsible, Students for Justice in Palestine, demonstrators formed a new coalition. Declaring that “the student movement won’t be silenced,” they marched to the president’s home.

Tightening restrictions on when and where students could protest has often resulted in even rowdier clashes. At the entrance to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, known as Lobby 7, pro-Palestinian protesters went ahead with a demonstration in November even after the area was left off a list of approved sites that the administration released the night before the planned event. Students clashed, some were suspended, and outrage followed.

In early December, that anger erupted on the national stage, when three university presidents testifying before a House congressional hearing on antisemitism appeared to waffle on a question about whether students should be punished for calling for the genocide of Jewish people. The backlash led to the resignation of one of the presidents, the University of Pennsylvania’s Elizabeth Magill, and was a factor in the resignation of another, Harvard University’s Claudine Gay.

Nationally, colleges have been accused of doing too little, too late. Between October 7 — when Hamas militants attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 240 hostage — and December 7, the Anti-Defamation League recorded more than 2,000 antisemitic incidents in the United States, compared with 465 during that period in 2022. At the same time, the free-expression group PEN America points out that there’s been a significant uptick in harassment of Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian students since the Israel-Hamas war broke out. Students have reported being called terrorists and having hijabs pulled off. Some politicians, including former President Donald J. Trump, have called for international students to forfeit their visas for participating in pro-Palestinian rallies. Three Palestinian American students were shot and injured — one seriously — on November 25 in Burlington, Vt., during their Thanksgiving break.

Pressure is building on colleges, and it’s coming from both Republicans and Democrats. Republicans have seized on rising antisemitism as evidence that the culture of higher education has dangerously liberal leanings. They’ve accused colleges of more aggressively enforcing speech and harassment codes when Black or Hispanic students accuse people of being racist and looking the other way when hateful, or even violent, speech is hurled at Jewish students.

More than two dozen colleges are under investigation by the U.S. Department of Education over complaints of antisemitism or Islamophobia. The vast majority of the investigations began after the October 7 Hamas attacks. The Education Department reminded colleges in November of their legal obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to “take immediate and appropriate action to respond to harassment that creates a hostile environment.” That extends to discrimination against people based on shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics, including Jewish, Arab, Muslim, and Palestinian students.

Students complaining of antisemitism have sued several universities, including the University of Pennsylvania, the University of California system and its Berkeley campus, New York University, and Carnegie Mellon University.

Eyal Yakoby, a senior at the University of Pennsylvania who spoke at a news conference before the House hearing, is one of two students who sued his university, calling it an “incubation lab for virulent anti-Jewish hatred, harassment, and discrimination.” The lawsuit contends that Jewish students have been subjected to antisemitic chants, slurs, and graffiti, including a spray-painted swastika in an academic building.

Yakoby says the university has ignored his complaints, while aggressively disciplining those who harass other minority groups. “When it comes to the protection of Penn’s Jewish students,” the lawsuit states, “the rules do not apply.”

Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties Union joined a pro-Palestinian group in suing Florida higher-education officials and Gov. Ron DeSantis after the Republican governor ordered public colleges in the state to “deactivate” campus chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine, and Chancellor Ray Rodrigues of the State University System of Florida conveyed that message to system presidents. That order, the plaintiffs said, violated the First Amendment.

Threats are also coming from state politicians, including Democrats. On December 9, Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York said in a letter that a call for genocide made on a public-college campus would violate state and federal law, as well as codes of conduct. Colleges that failed to discipline students for engaging in such behavior, she wrote, would face “aggressive enforcement action.”

To Jeffrey Melnick, an American-studies professor at the University of Massachusetts at Boston whose research interests include Black-Jewish relations, reports of antisemitism have turned into a “moral panic”: They have roots in a real situation but have been heightened out of fear. Colleges need to carefully distinguish, he says, between true instances of antisemitism and those he believes shouldn’t be considered antisemitism, such as chanting “Intifada revolution.”

If phrases like that make Jewish students uncomfortable, colleges need to help them understand their history and what they mean to the Palestinian movement, said Melnick, who is Jewish.

“Our main job as university instructors is ‘teaching the conflicts,’” he said. “You don’t shy away from them. You say: ‘This is complicated. A lot of people feel really invested in this, and now we need to kind of drill down and figure out what it all means.’”

While antisemitism needs to be confronted, Melnick said, the “panic” is distracting from the continuing violence in Gaza as well as other forms of hate on campuses. When college presidents are called on to condemn antisemitism and “no questions are asked” about how they’re handling Islamophobia, he said, “that silence speaks really loudly to me.”

Kenneth S. Stern, now director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate, in 2004 drafted what became known as the “working definition” of antisemitism as a way to help data collectors identify trends in such incidents. Stern identifies antisemitism as “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews.” He goes on to say, “Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

The definition also provides examples of antisemitic acts, including “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination,” “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis,” and “holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.”

Though other definitions of antisemitism exist, Stern’s is one of the most widely accepted, having been adopted by the U.S. Department of State and the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. In 2019 then-President Trump required all federal agencies, including the Education Department, to use Stern’s definition when assessing violations to Title VI.

The move drew widespread criticism, especially from Stern, who considered it an attack on free speech. Using the definition in Title VI enforcement has a “chilling effect” on administrators, who may try to over-correct speech violations out of fear of being sued, he told The Chronicle.

Such controversies have surfaced repeatedly in recent months. Chants like “Globalize the Intifada” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” have become staples of pro-Palestinian protests.

Rep. Elise Stefanik, Republican of New York, demanded a yes or no answer during the House hearing in December about whether calling for genocide — which she’d earlier equated with such pro-Palestinian chants — would warrant discipline. None of the presidents pointed out that the meanings of those phrases, and whether or not they’re antisemitic, are contested. The impression they left in those deer-in- the-headlights moments, when they all insisted that context was important, was that they wouldn’t immediately condemn actual, explicit calls for the elimination of the Jewish people.

Many Jews and their supporters do see the chants as calling for violence, the destruction of Israel, and the genocide of Jewish people across the world. But to many of the pro-Palestinian demonstrators, including students, the calls are for the liberation of Palestinians and the return of land they believe belongs to them.

Problems arise when definitions of antisemitism, such as Stern’s, are used as speech codes, said Will Creeley, legal director at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a free-speech advocacy group. Many of the examples listed under Stern’s definition are protected speech under the First Amendment, as are pro-Palestinian chants, even some cases when one calls for “horrific acts, including genocide.” Other acts, especially ones that are true threats or incitements to violence, go beyond the bounds of the First Amendment, Creeley said.

“To impose a blanket ban on certain sentiments or phrases,” he added, “would imperil a great deal of constitutionally protected expression.”

In an initial hearing on antisemitism, in November, House Republicans spent much of the time blasting campus offices of diversity, equity, and inclusion, accusing them of dividing students and fomenting hatred, especially against Jewish students. Some argued that such offices actually encourage anti-Jewish sentiments by dividing groups of people into oppressors and oppressed and failing to see Jews, whom many regard as relatively privileged white people, as among those oppressed. In the second hearing, with the college presidents, Republican representatives repeatedly raised questions about whether Harvard was disciplining students for racist acts but not antisemitic ones.

A recent article on Jewish Insider.com described deep rifts within the current and former leadership of prominent Jewish communal organizations about whether campus diversity offices can be partners in combating antisemitism. Two former longtime heads of the Anti-Defamation League and American Jewish Committee argued that those offices and the infrastructure they support only worsen problems for Jews. Leaders of those organizations have recently urged members to work with diversity offices to better incorporate Jewish concerns into the DEI structure.

Meanwhile, lawmakers have taken advantage of the spotlight on antisemitism to intensify attacks on campus diversity offices. U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a Republican from Texas, introduced a bill in December that would strip federal funding for any university that requires students to write diversity statements, blaming them for the spread of antisemitism on college campuses.

“Make no mistake — the DEI bureaucracy is directly responsible for a toxic campus culture that separates everyone into oppressor vs. oppressed,” he said in a news release announcing the legislation, which also bans diversity statements as a condition of employment.

Paulette Granberry Russell, president of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education, calls such critiques “an orchestrated attempt to discredit and dismantle diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in higher education.” She added that “these attempts by individuals, well-funded organizations, and legislators who have leveled such criticisms and misrepresentations stand in opposition to higher education’s efforts to create more diverse and inclusive campuses and experiences for all students.”

Many diversity offices, Granberry Russell said, provide opportunities for cross- cultural dialogues and encourage students from various racial and cultural groups to collaborate on community-service and other projects.

Georgina Dodge, vice president for diversity and inclusion at the University of Maryland at College Park, said her office is working closely with a task force on antisemitism and Islamophobia created in November at the main campus in College Park.

“Within our department, we have a unit dedicated to supporting any member of our community who has experienced hate or bias, which includes antisemitism,” Dodge wrote in an email to The Chronicle. “This has been a key element of our work for years, and recent events have only underscored the importance of this kind of care on our campuses.”

Granberry Russell agrees. “What is evident today is that there is much more work ahead,” she wrote in an email to The Chronicle. “But to ignore the work, and the evidence-based research that informs the work, of offices specifically designed to respond to the needs of a diverse campus, and to conclude that such offices” contribute to antisemitism is “ill-informed and short-sighted.”

Some, however, question whether diversity offices are equipped to handle the complexities of antisemitism and Islamophobia, especially at a time when their work is under siege from right-wing groups that have succeeded in getting many banned.

“Antisemitism doesn’t fit with what is generally DEI’s focus today — on structural issues of equity and inclusion,” said Berkeley’s Katz, who’s also faculty director for the UC flagship’s Center for Jewish Studies. In 2019, he co-founded the university’s Antisemitism Education Initiative, which has worked closely with campus groups, including the university’s DEI office, to educate people about the roots and different forms of anti-Jewish bias and hatred. That kind of close cooperation with diversity offices, he said, is somewhat of a rarity across higher education, as well as corporations.

“It’s clearly very difficult for DEI professionals to figure out what to do with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” Katz said. “When attacks are coming from white nationalists shouting ‘Jews will not replace us,’” in Charlottesville, Va., “it’s much easier to wrap your head around it and get on board.” But when the hostile language is coming from the left, and the terminology is disputed, the connections to hatred and exclusion might be harder for diversity officers to grasp without additional training and education, Katz said.

Many students today have little exposure to ideological diversity on campus, and most agree on most politically fraught topics, such as abortion or transgender rights, said Eitan Hersh, a professor of political science at Tufts University. Since issues in the Middle East are so divisive, even among groups that otherwise tend to align politically, students don’t know how to talk about them. They are “not equipped to know how to deal with that,” Hersh said.

Colleges have failed to help students navigate “one of the most complicated geopolitical issues in the 21st century,” said Tyler Austin Harper, an assistant professor of environmental studies at Bates College who frequently writes about issues involving politics, culture, and race.

Part of an administrator’s job is encouraging open debate about complicated topics, he said. Rather than censoring student speech, colleges should be encouraging faculty members to model how to have conversations with people who disagree with them.

“Students have been entirely left alone to sort this out for themselves with zero institutional support, with zero attempts to organize any kind of rational discussion or conversation about the issue,” Harper said. “It’s not a big surprise that they’re floundering when adults have been too cowardly to do their jobs.”

That’s assuming that students are ready to have those conversations. “A lot of campuses are struggling with what to do now,” said Todd Green, director of campus partnerships at Interfaith America, which works to promote greater understanding among people of different religious backgrounds. “Do you try to bring students together now, or wait?”

In a different time, his group might have suggested bringing people from different faiths together in a room to try to find some common ground. To many, though, the issues at a time of daily bloodshed are too fraught, the emotions too raw. People from opposite sides may be shouting at each other, but there’s little talking, Green said.

Interfaith America, he added, “isn’t traditionally a crisis-response group. But we’re in the midst of a crisis that, in my years of higher education, is the most tense it’s ever been on campuses — even compared with post 9/11. In this moment, it’s very difficult to bring students together to try to build relationships.”

Some students, like Jared Levy, an 18-year-old freshman at the University of Texas at Austin, are doing their best to connect. Levy went to a Jewish boarding school in New York City, where his parents are both rabbis. In November, hundreds of UT students walked out of class to join in a large pro-Palestinian demonstration. Levy, with an Israeli flag pinned on his backpack, noticed a small group of Jewish students standing quietly off to the side. “People are being very cautious. You don’t want to be the next student to get punched in the face,” Levy said, referring to an incident at Tulane University where a Jewish student was smacked with a megaphone during a tussle over an Israeli flag.

A pro-Palestinian demonstrator asked him how he could defend Israel. “I sat there in the rain for an hour and a half talking to students about why I supported Israel,” Levy said. He talked about the importance of a Jewish homeland, about his conviction that Hamas was a terrorist organization, and that Israel had made mistakes but had a right to defend itself. Some of the students with the pro- Palestinian group, he said, didn’t understand what Hamas was and had just been told by friends or social media that Israel was committing genocide and was an apartheid state.

“A lot of students have been eager to engage in dialogue and weren’t just here to yell in my face,” Levy said. At the local Hillel, a Jewish campus-life organization with chapters on many campuses, he said they’ve discussed organizing a “neutral- ground dialogue.” But despite Levy’s success in engaging with students one on one, he doesn’t feel the campus is ready for group discussions. “We came to the conclusion that things need to cool down first,” he said.

Other students, like Katie Halushka, a Jewish senior at George Washington University, also wouldn’t be comfortable participating in an open forum or other type of civil discourse. While she hasn’t felt threatened much on campus, even after Students for Justice in Palestine projected messages on a campus building, she’s still tried to avoid talking about the war out of fear that it could permanently sever some of her relationships.

“It’s been sort of a ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ situation,” Halushka said. “If you say anything, someone will be upset with you.”

A popular move among college administrators has been to establish advisory groups to combat antisemitism and Islamophobia. They are typically made up of faculty members, experts, and sometimes students.

Most of the groups, often called task forces, lack the authority to make changes or respond directly to incident reports, but they meet multiple times a week to evaluate campus policies and climate.

Following its creation in early November, Columbia University’s 15-person Task Force on Antisemitism first met in full in mid-December. Columbia has been one of the most tumultuous campuses in recent months, with several tense rallies, dueling faculty statements, and clashes between students. It’s one of the colleges under investigation by the Department of Education for incidents of alleged antisemitism and Islamophobia. The university also banned two pro-Palestinian groups — Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace — saying the groups held “unauthorized” events that included “threatening rhetoric and intimidation.” The following week, 400 students and 200 faculty members protested the suspensions.

One of the group’s main goals is to evaluate the university’s policies on free speech and demonstrations, said Nicholas Lemann, a co-chair of the task force. When Columbia suspended the student groups, many on campus were unclear whether it was on the grounds of an existing campus policy or if the administration had created a new one. Once the group understands the specifics of the policies, Lemann said, they’ll recommend how to revise them.

He also hopes the group can study the root cause of discomfort among Jewish students, evaluate where antisemitism is present in classrooms, and include lessons on antisemitism in orientation programs for incoming freshmen.

“This is not an easy moment at our campus and many other campuses,” Lemann said. “But I do think that our charge from the president and the way we have been working so far makes me optimistic that we can produce something useful.”

Some task forces have had a rockier start, though. Ari Kelman recently resigned as co-chair of a Stanford University subcommittee on antisemitism, bias, and communication, after some controversy about his writings on the difficulties of defining antisemitism.

David Wolpe, a rabbi at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, arrived at Harvard University’s Divinity School as a visiting scholar planning to do research and teach a class on Jewish spirituality. But since October 7, combating antisemitism has become his “full-time job.”

Amid a whirlwind of complaints over her response to the war and a highly publicized statement from a coalition of student groups solely blaming Israel for “all unfolding violence,” Gay, who was then Harvard’s president, called Wolpe asking for help. She was “clearly shaken,” Wolpe said, and he agreed to join a new advisory panel to help her respond to antisemitism on campus.

Wolpe’s inbox has since been filled with reports of antisemitism at Harvard, and he’s spent much of his time talking with administrators, donors, and alumni about the problem. But following Gay’s testimony during the House hearing this month, Wolpe met a breaking point. In a now-viral X thread, he announced his resignation from the panel.

While Wolpe anticipated that the university would make changes to campus, he said it wasn’t moving fast enough to discipline students, define antisemitism, enforce current regulations, or begin “serious education about Judaism and antisemitism.” Gay’s testimony was the final straw. “I saw what was going on as a five-alarm fire,” Wolpe said. “The way it was being treated was a sort of slow- burning flame.”

The focus, he said, should be on creating civil discourse and communication. Many campuses have become “screaming echo-chambers” where students find it impossible to have a conversation with someone whose view is different from their own, he said.

“If you can’t model civil discourse at Harvard University, where do you expect it?” Wolpe said.

There’s no sign that the political, cultural, and legal pressures on colleges over their handling of antisemitism will let up anytime soon. In addition to investigating the responses to antisemitism at Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and MIT, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce has set up an email address to report antisemitism on college campuses.

Wealthy donors will continue to flex their muscle, and faculty groups will continue to push back. The president of the American Association of University Professors, Irene Mulvey, issued a statement on December 12 saying that universities are obliged to protect both student safety and free expression. “We must not allow partisan actors to exploit this moment to demand further control over university curriculum and policy in order to shape American higher education to a political agenda,” she wrote.

Student protests continued to reverberate as the semester came to a close. Many of the demonstrators’ tactics have become increasingly disruptive — sit-ins, occupying buildings past normal hours of operation, and directly targeting campus programs and partnerships with Israel.

Colleges have ramped up their consequences as well. On December 11, 41 Brown University students were arrested after holding a pro-Palestinian sit-in at a university building and refusing to leave before 6 p.m. The next day, Rutgers University suspended a chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine on its New Brunswick campus for “disrupting classes, a program, meals, and students studying” and “allegations of vandalism,” according to a letter an administrator sent the organization. The student group accused the university of applying a “racist double standard” and attempting to silence Palestinian voices. Rutgers is the first public college to suspend the group.

As war continues to rage in the Gaza Strip, those who are pleading for a free exchange on campus of even sharply divergent opinions worry it may never come. Melnick, the professor from the University of Massachusetts at Boston, said that despite his “annoyingly optimistic” nature, he’s never seen the campus climate as grim as it has been over the past few months. And, with no easy solutions, some fear the turmoil could deepen in the new year.

An incident at Syracuse University in December underscored just how fraught things have become. Even a seemingly innocuous event — in this case an advertised study session before finals — can become a flashpoint. Students were gathered in the student center on December 14, three days after the university’s chancellor had released a statement saying that calling for the genocide of any group of people would violate the university’s conduct code. One student had taped a flier to her laptop that read “globalize the Intifada.” Some students complained they felt threatened. A campus administrator asked the student to remove it and she refused, a video posted on Instagram showed. The administrator told her the word called for genocide, and constituted harassment. She told him the word meant uprising and did not call for genocide.

A campus spokeswoman said other students had similar fliers that they were told to put away in their notebooks or book bags and that when they didn’t, they were told such refusal violated the student-conduct code. It’ll be up to the university’s Community Standards office to determine what, if any, punishment they’ll face.

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savannah & alastair

@lostxones

micah & carsyn

@headofrdi

xiamara & rick

evelyn & rick

@whileurmine

olivia & liam

tbd & santiago

tbh & johnny

cameron & nash

georgia & xander

@intcxications

charles & kat

@mysteryoflovc

shiloh & freddie

[mariacallous]

tyler austin harper gotta be one of the most insufferable people on the bird app. he said one reason that men were cratering rightward is because they're afraid of the draft, as if that was a reasonable concern and dems' "failure to address it" cost us the election. like dude log off.

Every time he tweets it's like a terrorist attack on my fucking sanity.

[freshlyblaked]

selling the oc season two

[landrysg]

Leaving aside what impact, if any, the protests had on global events, let’s consider the more granular effect the protests will have on the protesters’ job prospects and future careers. ... A desire to protect future professional plans no doubt factored into the protesters’ cloaking themselves in masks and kaffiyehs. According to a recent report in The Times, “The fear of long-term professional consequences has also been a theme among pro-Palestine protesters since the beginning of the war.” ...

“Universities spent years saying that activism is not just welcome but encouraged on their campuses,” Tyler Austin Harper noted recently in The Atlantic. “Students took them at their word.” Imagine the surprise of one freshman who was expelled from Vanderbilt after students forced their way into an administrative building. As he told The Associated Press, protesting in high school was what helped get him into college in the first place; he wrote his admission essay on organizing walkouts, and got a scholarship for activists and organizers. ...

Pro-Palestinian demonstrations lacked the moral clarity of the anti-apartheid demonstrations. Along with protesters demanding that Israel stop killing civilians in Gaza, others stirred fears of antisemitism by justifying the Oct. 7 massacre, tearing down posters of kidnapped Israelis, shoving “Zionists” out of encampments and calling for “globalizing the intifada” and making Palestine “free from the river to the sea.” ...

Employers generally want to hire people who can get along and fit into their company culture, rather than trying to agitate for change. They don’t want politics disrupting the workplace. ...

[swldx]

BBC 0408 3 Aug 2024

12095Khz 0359 3 AUG 2024 - BBC (UNITED KINGDOM) in ENGLISH from TALATA VOLONONDRY. SINPO = 55334. English, dead carrier s/on @0358z then ID@0359z pips and newsroom preview. @0401z World News anchored by David Harper. US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin has revoked a pre-trial agreement reached with men accused of plotting the 11 September 2001 attacks. The original deal, which would reportedly have spared the alleged attackers the death penalty, was criticised by some families of victims. The US will deploy additional warships and fighter jets to the Middle East to help defend Israel from possible attacks by Iran and its proxies, the Pentagon said. Tensions remain high in the region over the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran and a key commander of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro says ‘perverse and macabre’ electoral rivals are stoking protests as US official calls for governments to acknowledge Edmundo González Urrutia as election winner. Vice President Kamala Harris had secured enough votes from Democratic delegates to become the party’s nominee for president, Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison said Friday. Guatemala’s government announced Monday that it has given temporary residency to 207 Mexicans, mostly children, on humanitarian grounds, after they fled across the border last week to escape drug violence. Saturday marked exactly 10 years since Islamic State (IS) entered Iraq’s Sinjar province, displacing, killing and enslaving hundreds of thousands of Yazidis. On Saturday morning, crowds gathered for a ceremony to remember victims of the genocide at the “grave of the mothers”, where 111 elderly women were shot dead or buried alive after being separated from their family members. Aerosmith retire from touring due to permanent damage to Steven Tyler's voice. @0406z "The Newsroom" begins. Built-in Whip Antenna, XHData D-219, 250kW, beamAz 315°, bearing 63°. Received at Plymouth, MN, United States, 15359KM from transmitter at Talata Volonondry. Local time: 2259.

[heavenlyhoundoom]

We're gonna go further back with the grandparents' childhoods.(next gen fnaf x Willy's Wonderland au)

1.Astra grew up in Syracuse, New York with her mother, Starla, her father, Apollo, and her big brother, Sirius. Their childhood home looks like this.

2.Oswald grew up in Macedon, New York with his Mother, Brooke, his father, Merlin, and his younger identical twin, Harry. Their childhood home looks like this.

3.Skye grew up in Washington, Connecticut with her mother, Madison, her father, Caleb, and her big sister, Ella. Their childhood home looks like this.

4.Jason grew up in Ontario, New York with his mother, Chole, his father, Nathan, his big sister, Riley, and his little brother, Tyler. Their childhood home looks like this.

5.Trisha grew up in Newark, New York with her mother, Nancy, her father, Gabriel, and her big sisters, Lauren and Olivia. Their childhood home looks like this.

6.Leonard grew up as an only child in Waterloo, New York with his mother, Karen, and his father, James. His childhood home looks like this.

7.Maria grew up in Bernal, Mexio with her mother, Isabella, her father, José, her little sister, Camila, and her little brothers, Diego and Luis. Maria inherited her childhood home when her parents decided to move to Mexico City, they gave it to her because she was the first to have kids.

8.Jonathan grew up in Dallas, Texas with his mother Katelin, his father, Anthony, and his big sister, Carol. Their childhood home looks like this.

9.Dixie grew up in Lancaster, New York with her mother, Julia, her father, Gavin, and her big sister, Ava. Their childhood home looks like this.

10.Herbert grew up in Buffalo, New York with his mother, Deborah, his father, Logan, and his little sister, Kayla. Their childhood home looks like this.

11.Lily grew up as an only child in Toronto, Canada with her mother, Susan and her father, Jeffrey. Her childhood home looks like this.

12.Austin grew up in Canandaigua, New York with his mother, Alexis, his father, Cameron, and his big sisters, Sadie and Linda. Their childhood home looks like this.

13.Jasmine grew up as an only child in Newark, New York with her mother, Clover and her father, Ryan. Her childhood home looks like this.

14.Adam grew up in Waterloo, New York with his mother, Barbara, his father, Lincoln, his big sister, Kimberly, and his little brother, Jack. Their childhood home looks like this.

15.Michelle grew up in Naperville, Illinois with her mother, Amelia, her father, Donald, and her older identical twin, Makayla. Their childhood home looks like this.

16.Robert grew up in Chicago, Illinois with his mother, Harper, his father, Benjamin, and his little brother, Lucas. Their childhood home looks like this.

17.Sherry grew up in Brisbane, Australia with her mother, Abigail, her father, Hudson, and her little brother, Warren. Their childhood home looks like this.

18.Daniel grew up as an only child with his mother, Sophia and his father, Gary. His childhood home looks like this.

[mintysmp]

kinlist

this is huge!

otherkin

wolves

angels

faeries

changelings

androids

aliens

giants

zombie

tabby cats

dogs

dolls - teddy bears & fashion dolls

ghosts

vampires

bees - coping

dinos - copinglink

fictionkin & songkin

crybaby - k-12 album

shoyo ishida - a silent voice

denki - my hero academia

todoroki - my hero academia

dawn harper - nicky ricky dicky & dawn

draco malfoy - JUST ME - DNI DOUBLES

eleven - stranger things - JUST ME - DNI DOUBLES

jude - the fosters - on season 2!

suga - haikyuu - haven’t finished yet

beast boy - teen titans go + comics

heesung - given taken music video

carlos de vil - ID - descendants

evie - higher- descendants

arthur curry - aquaman + comics - medium kin

angela moss - medium kin

badlands by halsey

misha - oc

ice bear - we bare bears

charlie spring - heartstopper - tv

alexander lightwood - the mortal instruments movies

anakin skywalker - just me - no doubles

austin moon - austin & ally - JUST ME - NO DOUBLES

hunter 🐾 - nonfandom or teen wolf

baby - baby driver - a mix of both spiritual & coping

justin foley - 13 reasons why

sayori - doki doki literature club

landon callahan & piper callahan - no fandom

lexi caford - OC

mason and lucy - no fandom

peter parker - spider-man mcu + comics - NO DOUBLES

Philip “Lip” gallagher - shameless us - so far just coping

spencer reid - criminal minds - no doubles

spot - across the spiderverse

tyler - mako mermaids

alexander chase davenport - lab rats - highest

chase davenport - lab rats - higher kin

silco - arcane

jinx - arcane - highest kin

a bunch of characters - andi mack

aaron hotchner - the hotchner kids - ao3

adrien agreste - stopped at s3ep26 the miracle queen

antonio madrigal - encanto

alex standall - 13 reasons why

ender - enders game film

alex mercer - julie and the phantoms

luke patterson - julie and the phantoms

most of the cells - cells at work

alfie lewis - house of anubis

alice kingsley - tim burton 2011

ally - austin and ally - doubles iffy

america chavez - mcu - lowest kin

andi cruz - every witch way - low kin

andre kriegman - zero day au

cal gabriel - zero day - higher kin

kazuha - genshin impact

bakugo - my hero academia au

COPING KINS

derek morgan - criminal minds - body dysphoria - highest coping kin

grizzly bear - we bare bears - a mix of coping and spiritual - pet regression

bears - otherkin - lgbt + unlearning toxic masculinity

nerd - boyfriends fictionkin - haircare struggles

deku - my hero academia

icarus - greek mythology - please just let apollo adore me!

mason “dipper” pines - i want to be adored + paranoia episodes

maze - malcom in the middle oc

sam winchester - mostly coping - i need to eat more salads

adam davenport - lab rats

camilo madrigal - encanto

pepa madrigal - encanton

amethyst - steven universe

kaz + oliver short - mighty med

chonghyun - genshin impact

enid sinclair - wednesday

killua - hxh - started s1ep6

questioning kin:

jane — twilight

meredith grey — greys anatomy

hunter - the owl house

unknown - the big bang theory

unknown pirate - our flag means death

captain hook - book + once upon a time

synpath:

vi - arcane