Bath University under fire for barring these three words from lectures and tutorials
The phrase “as you know” is banned (well, it’s not clear that it has actually been banned… seems more like such a ban is the desire of members of the Junior Totalitarian League) because some students are not only ignorant boobs they are apparently also weak and fragile and incapable of surviving being told that they aught to already know something.
The University of Bath also produced this insanely whiny video about the importance of dropping down to the level of snowflakes. Examples of Very Bad Things include a French language lesson that includes the phrase “The women will be getting together the 6th of July” and then questioning, True or False, whether this was in the summer. The Snowflake Conundrum is… but what about an Argentinian student? For that student from the southern hemisphere, July is in winter. And so this globe trotting exchange student who has found him/her/it/zim/xer/floople/self in Britain apparently purely by chance and without the slightest bit of knowledge of Britain or the northern hemisphere will be utterly flummoxed by the question and could suffer permanent emotional scarring. Also includes complaints from students that in this British university located in Britain, they’ve only had teachers who were white. Students also complain of finding it difficult to find books in the library on African Studies and postcolonial theory. Suggestions include jamming discussions of gender, race and sexuality into the course work.
That latter one intrigues me.
“Q: The rocket engine has a specific impulse of 310 seconds. The initial mass of the vehicle is 15,000 kilograms. The burnout mass is 1,200 kilograms. How does this make Tony feel about post-colonialism?”
“Q: Civic planners need a bridge across the river Thames. Should they build it from cast iron, stainless steel, or critical race theory?”
“Q: A blue hypergiant with a mass of 1,350 Sols goes supernova. In the process, 50% of its mass is expelled in the form of a planetary nebula. The remainder is compressed to a diameter of 10,000 kilometers. Will this stabilize as a neutron star, continue to collapse into a black hole, or is there a more culturally sensitive way to make the star feel better about itself than to apply arbitrary othering labels?”
“Q: On December 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy launched an attack on Pearl Harbor. In 10,000 words or more, describe how this attack was a justifiable response to American colonialism, whether furry culture should be celebrated, or whether you are a racist.”