A university released a 20-page guide suggesting students say “ouch” when offended, criticizing debates, and encouraging students to share their feelings.
The “Diversity and Inclusiveness in the Classroom” guidelines, which have numerous grammatical errors, were released by the University of Arizona and written by Jesús Treviño, the vice provost for inclusive excellence. Treviño gets paid $214,000 a year, reports Fox News.
“If a student feels hurt or offended by another student’s comment, the hurt student can say ‘ouch,'” suggests Treviño, describing one exercise to promote diversity and inclusion. “In acknowledgement, the student who made the hurtful comment says ‘oops.'”
“Students enter higher education without the tools to engage in classroom discussions or to interact with other students, in particular with students from diverse backgrounds,” explains the guide.
The guidelines supposedly promote emotion and dialogue, and yet, explicitly discourage debate.
“Encourage students to avoid getting tied up in debate and argument,” instructs the vice provost. “It rarely changes anything or anyone and tends to ultimately inhibit open sharing.”
“Discourage the devaluation of emotions and feelings. We may laugh and cry together, share pain, joy, fear and anger.”
A couple of pages suggest that dialogue is better than debate, telling students that those engaging in dialogue are trying to find common ground, whereas those engaging in debate are trying to win.
“Dialogue involves a real concern for the other person and seeks to not alienate or offend,” notes Treviño. “Debate involves countering other positions without considering another person’s feelings and how the interaction belittles or deprecates the other person.”
The guidelines differentiate between three types of microaggressions: microaggressions, microinsults, and microinvalidations.
“I think illegal aliens are criminals because they are breaking the law and need to be rounded up and sent back to Mexico,” says Treviño, highlighting a so-called microaggression.
Questioning a student for never seeing “The Cosby Show,” or assuming all millennials have Facebook, are provided as additional examples of microaggressions. The guidelines even suggest professors police students for microaggressions.
The Daily Caller News Foundation reached out to the University of Arizona for comment, but received no response.
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