I consider this meaningless fluff, or at the very least trite marketing. It reminds me of management that claims to welcome criticism with open arms and then proceeds to pay lip service to concerns while changing nothing.

> Would you want anything less in an academic institution? That's the entire point of places of higher learning.

Is it really "higher learning" when LITERAL groupthink is required?

(Maybe you're being sarcastic and I'm just not getting it)

I can’t make sense of it either, in fact I would consider it a negative.

A mayor was once asked what he was doing to help minorities in his city. He replied “I don’t have minorities in my city, we all are all equal”.

Social justice is not an innocent word. It is charged with a political agenda.

So was "abolition".

You can decide you -disagree- with the ideas of 'social justice', or the implementation, or whatever, but I think you'll need a stronger case than "it's political" to warrant the dismissal of an educational institution trying to incorporate the term.

> warrant the dismissal of an educational institution trying to incorporate the term.

Kids are supposed to be in universities to learn and develop their critical thinking, not to be brainwashed by the most fashionable ideology of the time. Sorry if this is such a provocative line of thinking these days.

The problem with wokeism is that it’s more like a religion than an effective movement for change. Being seen to believe/say the right things is vastly more important than actively helping.

Woke Racism is a really good book about that. Don’t worry it’s written by a black guy who’s been fighting for social justice for decades. The fact I have to say that is one of his points/arguments.

This permeates all online discourse and a good chunk of face-to-face ones, too.

Try this sometime - choose a position (in politics or whatever). Use the terminology and dog whistles of the "other camp", but argue the opposite policy.

The author thinks 'the hard left' think Universities are racist, and they are wrong to think that.

Then he wrote a book called "Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America".

So, they were right after all?

Of course justice involves political agendas. How do you think poll taxes and literacy tests were eliminated? We don't even have to go that far back -- the legal recognition (& protection) of same-sex marriages is something even zoomers have a memory of.

People opposed to social justice aren't apolitical or morally neutral. Banning books, getting educators fired, and forcibly de-transitioning children are all charged political agendas in and of themselves. They all fall under the umbrella of "anti-SJW/woke" brigadism.

It is possible to largely be for social justice while disagreeing with some of the beliefs of the modern Social Justice movement. I know scientists that fall on both sides of the debate when it comes to issues like MIT cancelling Dorian Abbot's lecture or Thomas Jefferson HS changing their admissions policies. I don't know any scientists that have any of the "anti-SJW" beliefs that you've listed.

I also know some 18 year old robotics kids that are just truly indifferent about this stuff. I suspect some of them will grow out of it, but even for the ones that don't, I don't think that says much about their qualifications for Yale. Climate change is a massively important issue yet we don't ask random humanities students what they've done to improve climate research.

Banning books and firing teachers is one thing, and I agree we should protect free speech.

However, I'm not sure I'm okay with the idea that feeding complex hormones to children who are not old enough to vote, drive, or get tattoos and/or piercings, or as you so put it is wise, and if this is what you mean by "forcibly de-transitioning children", then I'm actually okay with it.

Hormone therapy, like tattoos and/or piercings has a very permanent effect of the body. I believe such long term changes should only be allowed if the person is old enough to take the decision as an "informed adult".

Put more bluntly, if all of a sudden some new condition is discovered called "un-inked skin skin dysphoria", where not having a tattoo is believed to cause deep psychological trauma, I'd still make my kid wait to be a legal adult before they get a tattoo.

Trying to prevent children from permanent chemical/physical hormone changes to treat a mental condition is also a form of social justice.

But it's not really higher learning is it?

As the parent indicated, they're not willing to even communicate with people who don't parrot their own ideas.

What do you consider higher learning? Learning how to screw in a lightbulb, or how to turn manipulate people into clicking on ads?

> As the parent indicated, they're not willing to even communicate with people who don't parrot their own ideas.

That's the exact opposite of what I quoted. They invite criticism of the status quo, and push for greater justice in the world. Most decent human beings agree with that.

In this particular context we call it "lip service".

I see. I wouldn't know, as I haven't done any research on or looked into the impact of this policy on things at Yale.

Since you seem to know enough to call it lip service, I assume you went there. what do you think should be done to ensure that those in charge actually made changes that you and your peers advocated for?