Wesleyan University will be the site of a new social justice center to promote “gender, queer, students of color” causes — despite the academic institution’s rock bottom rating for its record of defending freedom of speech.
The non-profit Foundation for Individual Rights in Education assessed Wesleyan U as one of the Top 10 worst colleges for free speech in the country in 2016.
The cost of promoting all this social justice will be more than $200,000 a year, The College Fix reports.
The Equity and Inclusion Resource Center, first announced on March 30, was allegedly a response to the high level of “racist, misogynistic and transphobic issues and events” that are said to occur at the university, where annual tuition runs at $65,000. Not yet named for any social justice crusader, the new facility is designed to celebrate diversity, teach students about white privilege and to increase equality on campus.
According to Wesleyan president Michel Roth, “Another important step in our efforts to enhance inclusiveness on campus is the creation of a student Resource Center to advocate for students through a mission grounded in social justice with an awareness of what students require to thrive.”
Roth describes the funding required to build this dream as “modest.” There will be some an initial expense of $33,000 to renovate an existing facility at university for its new role plus the revolving costs of hiring two salaried employees, maintaining a faculty fellow keeping a couple of interns and sustaining programs — all for the “modest” cost of $220,000 a year.
Wesleyan U will be opening its equality and inclusion center after it almost shut down its student newspaper. One of the student journalists had found the courage to criticize Black Lives Matter and the resulting hysteria and rage directed at the article’s author was intense.
Wesleyan student Bryan Stascavage says conservatives are tolerated on campus as long as they remain seen and not heard.
“I personally will not have use for the center, but I am only one vote,” he said.
The social justice center will be conveniently quartered into sections devoted to queer students, students of color, first-generation students and transgender students. Students can either hide in their respective enclaves or meet other oppressed groups in a communal area. There’s even a proposal to include a “healing space” for good measure.
Wesleyan U is already the home of a center that trains students in social change entrepreneurship, an office of equity and inclusion, a queer resource center and support groups for every gender, sexuality and ethnicity.
But all that is secondary for the university’s president, who is evidently very proud of the new addition. Roth says it will “will help to meet the needs of students who are most vulnerable, maintain awareness of matters related to intolerance and inaccessibility, and empower collective work to address root issues of injustice and inequity.”