In case you missed it, journalist Jesse Singal is a liberal. He just so happens to be the kind of liberal who’s absolutely disgusted with cancel culture and the Woke Mob.
For some time now, he’s been fending off the mob as they’ve attempted repeatedly to defame him and assassinate his character. But as busy as he’s been with that, he’s made time to cover other targets of woke culture.
One of those targets is 38-year-old Lake Washington Institute of Technology English Prof. Elisa Parrett. Parrett’s sin? Questioning the merits of a mandatory diversity training session at the session.
Thread! Craziest story I've written in quite some time. https://t.co/QQcZMWAQKh
— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) April 5, 2021
It’s genuinely nuts.
New from me: A tenured community college professor briefly interrupted a white fragility training to express her qualms about it. So her school suspended her from teaching and spent 9 months and perhaps $200,000 'investigating' her:https://t.co/OkFDIuwLNX
— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) April 5, 2021
“Over the past couple of weeks, a lot has happened,” Parrett began. “Protests have occurred, riots have broken out, people have been killed. And across the United States, companies, organizations, and schools have proclaimed their support of a movement called ‘Anti-racism'”—here Parrett was referring to the capital-A variety. Parrett went on to complain about the segregated setting of the training and what she saw as the generally closed-minded nature of the nation’s post-Floyd discourse. “Democracy thrives on conversations, but what we are seeing happening right now in the United States is not a conversation,” she read. “It is a coup. Everyday Americans of all colors, creeds, backgrounds, and beliefs are being held hostage. Zealots are telling us, ‘You’re either with us or against us, and if you’re against us, you’re an evil bigot.’ They are telling us, ‘You’re either part of the solution, or you’re part of the problem.’ They are telling us that all people may be classified into two sides: us or them, Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, people of color or white, righteous or bigoted, oppressed or privileged. I don’t accept such false dichotomies, and I don’t accept the ad hominem implications that come with it. Too often, words like ‘privileged,’ ‘defensive,’ and ‘fragile’ are just ways to dismiss what another person has to say. Too often, words like ‘racist’ are just a way to intimidate someone into silence.” Parrett argued that people should work together to solve “real problems like wealth disparity, poverty, job insecurity, unemployment, the high cost of living, or the fracturing of the nuclear family, whatever form that family takes,” but are waylaid by those who claim the “real problems” are “racism, sexism, transphobia…[and] hateful words.”
“Thank you, Elisa,” said the facilitator, cutting Parrett off about three minutes into her remarks. “No, you don’t get to cut me off—I’m going to finish what I have to say,” she responded. “I’m going to ask that you share the platform with the rest of the 200 nearly people who are here today,” replied the facilitator. But Parrett continued for about another minute, telling the all-white attendees of the mandatory, segregated conversation that universities should be places where “ideas could be discussed, explored, debated, and assessed”—and that “this is not that.”
The whole thing took closer to four minutes than the five Parrett asked for, but it did undeniably disrupt the event and change its tenor. According to Parrett, the chat sidebar lit up during and after her statement, with many of her colleagues saying they were disturbed by what she was saying—sentiments they then expressed vocally after Parrett finished her address. “Yeah, that was awkward,” said one colleague. “It would be wonderful if you could help us with processing that,” another participant told the facilitator. The facilitator in turn referred everyone to an “emotion slide” that the group had been using to indicate what emotions its members were feeling.
You can probably guess how things went from there.
2/ Administrators told me that the professor's four-minute dissent against the mandatory, segregated training was the effective equivalent of dropping an emotional neutron bomb on her colleagues. Their arguments didn't always make sense. pic.twitter.com/MMNZ0YpIfS
— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) April 5, 2021
3/ The president of the college sent out an all-campus email denouncing the accused by name and explaining that students needed to be protected from her. pic.twitter.com/MficwmhksM
— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) April 5, 2021
4/ According to the administrator who filed the complaint — this is her description, on the record — "I observed the college's operations effectively stopping" after the four-minute interruption "because colleagues needed to process what happened." pic.twitter.com/6E1LvSt6cN
— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) April 5, 2021
Ultimately, Singal reports, after the “investigation” concluded, Parrett was punished with a written reprimand and guidelines regarding her future behavior. But that’s very little consolation in the grand scheme of things. Parrett’s treatment by the administration was unwarranted and inexcusable — and, sadly, it’s not an uncommon experience these days for those who choose to have opinions that don’t line up with woke views.
It's a cult. Having seen this both in my own work and in friends' workplaces, there is no other interpretation of the behaviors in play. Massive freakouts over anodyne statements, beliefs that people must be "protected" from heretical beliefs like "help the poor first"…
— gamb (@3piledhyperbole) April 5, 2021
This has some serious “the beatings shall continue until morale improves” vibes pic.twitter.com/zWkYCtwykU
— Jake Correia (@tempest_thunder) April 5, 2021
If a bunch of adults had to 'decompress' following that 4 minute statement, it indicates that college is having some sort of mental health crisis among its faculty and staff. If coping skills are that poor among adults, that issue needs to be addressed.
— Jennifer Capoccia (@jbcapoccia) April 5, 2021
Even in comparison to other recent stories coming out of college campuses, this is BATSH*T CRAZY. https://t.co/bf7rIi7MpV
— Mirabelle Ward (@MirabelleW18) April 5, 2021
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