What a narrow and reactionary document - nothing about combatting “ageism”, 
which leaves most of us on the list vulnerable to continued oppression!

> On Mar 10, 2016, at 8:25 AM, raghu <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/03/10/western-washington-university-students-push-sweeping-demands
>  
> <https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/03/10/western-washington-university-students-push-sweeping-demands>
> ------------------------------snip
> Now a student group there calling itself the Student Assembly for Power and 
> Liberation has sent a list of far-reaching demands 
> <http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/students-for-power-and-liberation-demands-wwu>
>  to the university’s president after criticizing the administration 
> <http://www.bellinghamherald.com/news/local/article46488630.html> for an 
> inadequate response to threats.
> The list comprises some of the most of the most expansive -- and resource 
> heavy -- demands put to a university’s administration. Among them:
> 
> A new College of Power and Liberation to focus on “the study of histories and 
> communities that continue to be mis- and underrepresented into the mainstream 
> curriculum at Western.” In addition to the college itself, the list calls for 
> “a cluster hire of 10 tenure-track faculty,” a new building to house the 
> college and that the Student Assembly for Power and Liberation have “direct 
> input and decision-making power over the hiring of faculty for the college.”
> That $45,000 be allocated to compensate students and faculty “doing 
> de-colonial work on campus,” which is defined as “providing space and 
> resources to learn alternate histories, supporting students' nonacademic 
> work, emotional and intellectual labor that is not about publishing or 
> service to the institution, providing often unrecognized trainings, workshops 
> and/or interventions on behalf of students.”
> The creation of a 15-person student committee called the Office for Social 
> Transformation “to monitor, document and archive all racist, antiblack, 
> transphobic, cissexist, misogynistic, ableist, homophobic, Islamophobic and 
> otherwise oppressive behavior on campus.” Using a three-strike system, the 
> committee would have the power to take disciplinary action up to and 
> including dismissal against faculty members who receive citations for 
> creating “an unsafe classroom environment.”
> A mandatory online survey conducted by the faculty and administration that 
> would “allow Western Washington University community members to 
> confidentially express concerns of discrimination and safety.”
> A new “multicultural residence building,” applications to which would be 
> overseen by the new Office for Social Transformation.
> And finally that the university provide tuition reimbursement to “any Western 
> Washington University student who has been targeted by, harassed by or has 
> experienced excruciating acts of violence that [were] racialized, sexualized, 
> gendered, based on ability, employment status, citizenship and/or mental 
> health from the university.”
> The petition also included several uses of the words "persxn" and "hxstory," 
> which some online were quick to mock 
> <http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/03/07/the-college-that-wants-to-ban-history.html>.
>  Replacing certain letters in pronouns or some other words (like "Latinx" for 
> Latino or Latina 
> <https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/12/08/students-adopt-gender-nonspecific-term-latinx-be-more-inclusive>)
>  with an X is strategy to avoid gendered language. Changing other words, like 
> "person" and "history," in that way does not appear to be a very common at 
> all, however: neither "hxstory" nor "persxn" have been used often enough to 
> be graphable by Google Trends.
> 
> 
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