What is going on with the University system? Weird totalitarian stuff disguised as diversity training.
What is needed is a recognition of the need to respect people for who they are. So allow everyone their dignity -- don't call people by demeaning titles -- recognize we are all the children of Adam and Eve (at least figuratively) and so no one is naturally better than anyone else.
(Ooops, I'm ranting -- sorry).
Queen's cancels 'dialogue facilitator' program
Joseph Brean, National Post
Calling it "incompatible with the atmosphere required for free speech," Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., on Wednesday scrapped its controversial "dialogue facilitator" program.
It caused a scandal last year when it was revealed the six student "facilitators" were mandated to intervene in private conversations to encourage discussion of social justice issues and discourage offensive language.
In a report to the administration, a panel of experts expressed "strong reservations about unsolicited interventions into the lives of students" because of the risk of "making students feel unsafe or under surveillance because of their opinions."
The panel included Leora Jackson, the school's rector, John Meisel, an emeritus professor of political science, and Keith Norton, the former head of the Ontario Human Rights Commission. They had "serious concerns" with how the program was set up.
The panel faulted Dean of Student Affairs Jason Laker for importing an American model of diversity promotion, from the National Coalition Building Institute, while failing to research any comparable programs at Canadian universities. The panel report also faults him for giving "no thought" to a communications strategy to explain it, and for not involving anyone outside of the Student Affairs office in the program's design. The campus consultations his office did do were "inadequate, ineffective and undertaken too late."
The review was launched in response to "a tempest of negative, sometimes searing, comment in the national press."
James Morton
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