It was led by current RAs Ciaran Slattery, Nicholas Pulakos and Urenna Nwogwugwu. It was led by a staff member. The material was pro-diversity, not “anti-white”, and the title is a popular Twitter hashtag, not a menacing jeer, he said.
Advertisement
Brian Rose, the school’s Vice President for Student Affairs, defended the optional session Wednesday.
A NY college is under fire for hosting a “Stop White People” student-staff training session – but the school is standing by the program named for a long-running Twitter joke. “Its goal, as conceived, was to facilitate a discussion among the RA’s that would improve their ability to handle conflicts among residents around issues of diversity”.
‘For the rest of the student population, however, the title may come as a bit of a shock, or at the very least spark interest in understanding the hashtag, ‘ Binghamton Review reporter Howard Hect wrote.
“Between 40 and 50 RA’s chose to attend the recent “#StopWhitePeople2K16” program session, which ran concurrently with some other sessions, according to BU officials. The inclusion of the program in the educational session was not driven by any university administration initiative to advocate any specific viewpoint on diversity.
“What we strive to do from an administrative level is cultivate an environment where our students listen to one another, learn from one another and do so in a manner that doesn’t cause unnecessary harm”, Rose said. He said professional staff followed up with “a few participants who had a mixed reaction” to the session.
“Stop White People” and #stopwhitepeople2016.became trending topics on Twitter, as some critics were quick to accuse the course of divisive rhetoric and reverse racism.
“[The #StopWhitePeople2K16] hashtag was used because it’s what people on the Internet used to counter discussions about white privilege, and a lot of the controversy behind black and white conflict is expressed through the internet”, said the RA.
If the session is used again in RA training, the RA told the Review, the presenters should “probably change the name so people get mad less”.
This isn’t the first appearance of a #StopWhitePeople2K16 event on an American college campus. “It was like a, yeah you know”.
Advertisement
According to the Daily Caller, “privilege” is believed to suggest the course will discuss “white privilege” and related topics about race.
