The College Fix

At this point we are rather used to the neverending accusations of racism that are a more-or-less normal feature of campus life these days. Few things are more ubiquitous at modern American colleges than a student’s claiming that something inoffensive and unremarkable is, in fact, “racist.” A few recent examples of what might constitute racism these days: not making eye contact, making too much eye contact, burnt toast, and milk.

College and university officials could counteract this hysteria by refusing to indulge, or participate in, these racism witch hunts. Unfortunately, many institutions of higher education are all-too-happy to take part in crying “racism” at every opportunity, as a recent dust-up at a Texas seminary shows.

Last week a professor at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas posted a photograph of himself and several other professors from the seminary. The photograph depicts the men posing in standard “gangster” attire: baggy clothes, bandanas, sideways hats, chains. One professor is even holding a gun. The photograph is supposed to represent the “Notorious S.O.P.,” or “School of Preaching.” It’s a silly, harmless photo, almost embarrassing in its goofiness but, ultimately, wholly inoffensive.

Well. The Internet predictably got itself a little scandalized over the whole thing. A writer at the Huffington Post called the photograph “racist,” while professional activist Shaun King implied the same. A writer at the Washington Post called it “racially insensitive” and compared it to the racist blackface shows of the 19^th century, saying the photograph “harks back to a history of dehumanization.”

You might imagine that SWBTS would stand behind its professors and defend them from these obviously baseless attacks. But that’s not really what happened. The president of the seminary, Paige Patterson, released a statement that more or less threw his faculty under the bus. Patterson wrote that “as all members of the preaching faculty have acknowledged, this was a mistake, and one for which we deeply apologize. Sometimes, Anglo Americans do not recognize the degree that racism has crept into our lives.” The president pledged to “redouble our efforts to put an end to any form of racism on this campus.” All of this over a goofball dress-up photograph!

The College Fix reached out to Patterson for clarification as to how, exactly, he believed the photo perpetuated “racism.” His response was a rather stark departure from his previous statement:

There was not even the first thought in anyone’s mind that the photo was racist.  It was not and all of these men have been notable in combating racism.  What I said was that Anglo sometimes do not have a clear understanding of how something pictured or said may be offensive to others and I hoped that we could learn from this unfortunate incident.

To put it plainly, this is really not at all how Patterson’s original statement framed the situation; by mentioning “the degree that racism has crept into [Anglo Americans’] lives,” and affirming the seminary’s “efforts to put an end to any form of racism on this campus,” Patterson was quite obviously placing the photograph squarely within the context of racist behavior. His reversal suggests a troubling possibility: that perhaps he never believed the photo was racist in the first place, and he merely issued his original statement to save face and try to calm an illogical mob.

In the end this little incident will likely be forgotten and everyone will move on. But that’s kind of the point: these ridiculous “racist” dust-ups have become a near-permanent feature of campus life across the country, something everyone just accepts as a normal part of college life. We shouldn’t be satisfied with such a status quo, however. Neither should presidents, administrations and faculty. The leaders of our institutions of higher learning need to learn to stand up to this outrage machine and stick up for people who have done nothing at all wrong. Every time they don’t, the machine becomes a little more emboldened, and the intellectual and social qualities of our country’s campuses declines just a little bit more.

Like The College Fix on Facebook / Follow us on Twitter