Segregation returns, George Wallace smiles

My alma mater, Wake Forest University, was founded in 1834, taking its name from the North Carolina town where it was first located. In 1956 it moved to in Winston-Salem, N.C., where it prospered as its reputation for first-class liberal-arts education became established more strongly over the years. By the time I graduated in 1977, WFU was ranked as one of the best universities in the southeastern United States; today as one of the best in the nation in the fabled USNews rankings.

Now, however, Wake Forest has decided to throw that all away and return to its Jim Crow past - in the name of diversity and inclusivity, of course. How? "University hosts no-whites-allowed faculty and staff listening sessions."

The listening sessions come amid ongoing racial tensions on campus, including a protest Monday at which some students decried the “white supremacy” that allegedly runs rampant at the private, North Carolina institution.

“Dear faculty and staff colleagues, this is a reminder about our upcoming listening sessions on inclusion that I am holding for faculty and staff of color over the next several weeks,” stated an April 18 email from Michele Gillespie, dean of the college, to campus employees.

The email, a copy of which was obtained by The College Fix, continued:

Here are the upcoming dates and information:

–For faculty/staff who identify as faculty/staff of color: Monday, April 22 at 4:00 pm in ZSR Room 476 (we will be joined by Associate Dean Erica Still)

–For faculty/staff who identify as faculty/staff of color: Thursday, May 2 at 11:00 am in ZSR 476 (we will be joined by Associate Dean Erica Still)

–For staff who identify as staff of color ONLY: Monday, May 6 at 4:00 pm in ZSR Room 477

Please know that I have requested that all department chairs provide staff release time to be able to attend a listening session.

Thankfully, the faculty is not in lockstep with this (though faculty dissidents will not risk publicity).

One professor at the school who asked for anonymity said the situation is absurd right now.

“It’s hard to respond to the ridiculous accusation that Wake Forest tolerates or encourages ‘white supremacy’ and inflicts ‘trauma on students of color,'” the professor said in an email to The Fix. “I question whether it is worth responding to people who use such hyperbolic and hysterical rhetoric. Though the more you placate them, the more they escalate their rhetoric and demands.”

Well, yeah. Welcome to Leftism. What the school is encountering are what I termed "destructors."

 Understand that demands from destructive persons cannot ever be satisfied. For their real goal is not an actual solution to the putative issue, for as the old SDS slogan explains, "This issue isn't the issue." The real goal, very cleverly concealed behind aggrieved tones of voice and claims of how moral/spiritual/right minded/self-denying/unselfish (the list goes on an on) they are is always the same: "I must get my way, all the time."

But that's not the heart of the issue, either. These persons simply must have an enemy, someone or some group who opposes them. For the "my way" that destructors must get is inextricably linked to triumph over an opponent. That's why anyone who does not agree or assent to their demands is a target: the issue is not the demands, but the opposition.

Every issue is personal for destructors. It is not possible to hold a reasonable, contrary position. To resist a destructor's demand is not mere disagreement. It is to oppose the ordering of the world itself in some sense: the Constitution, human decency, morality, even to defy God himself.

"The issue isn't the issue." Demands are only a pretense to evoke the fight. The fight itself is the goal. It is the only goal. Destructors never consider any issue closed for which they do not achieve total victory. They die in every ditch. Every fight is to the death because their very concept of self is woven into it.

That is why university President Nathan Hatch's appeasement efforts are doomed to failure.

Indeed, a month prior to Monday’s protest, President Hatch had already capitulated to numerous demands regarding the university’s racial unrest, including granting the Black Student Alliance control of an exclusive and highly sought after campus lounge space next to one of the main dorms. He also promised more diversity and “unconscious bias” training.

But there can never be enough concessions or "bias training" to placate the protesters. (To his credit, I will say that President Hatch's statement responding to the Sri Lanka massacre of Christians was excellent.)

Wake Forest is walking where North Carolina State University already trod two years ago: "Now the Left thinks George Wallace was a trailblazer." There, the administration pledged to create a segregated housing option for “women of color” only.

Wallace was first elected governor of Alabama in 1963. In his inaugural address that year, Wallace spoke the words that would come to mark his legacy: "I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny... and I say ... segregation today ... segregation tomorrow ... segregation forever."

And now, in 2019, in keeping with the segregationist tradition and antebellum values of the George Wallace wing of the American Left, I give you Wake Forest University.

"I'm George Wallace and I approve this action!"

Update: The Wall Street Journal weighs in on, "Segregation by Design on Campus, 

How racial separatism become the norm at elite universities like Yale, Brown and Wesleyan."