You Can't Use My Standpoint

For John, BLUF:  Higher education is a strange universe, but fun if you approach it with the intention of not taking everyone and everything too seriously.  And you are willing to disagree without being disagreeable.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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From the blog of Law Professor Ann Althouse we have this headline, "At UCLA:  Protesting microaggression, micro aggressively."

One of various charges against [Professor] Rust was that he overdid the marking up of their papers with spelling and grammar corrections. There were other offenses as well, such as failing to intervene in a classroom dialogue between 2 students in which a black male was telling a white female that she's not entitled to use "Standpoint Theory," because she's not a member of an oppressed group.♠

Bear in mind that this was a graduate level course.

The thing that struck me was that one person is denying another the right to use an academic theory, in this case Standpoint Theory.  My quick read of the Wikipedia article is that this is another post-modernist way to deny the existence of ground truth.

Then there are the comments.

Oh well, at least they are off the streets and not out mugging folks.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  By the way, the student picking on the female student needs to go back and read up on who writes about "Standpoint Theory".  Hint.  Males not so much.  But, if you don't take the discussion too seriously, it is interesting and a little humorous.  Maybe he is correct; it needs to be ripped from the hands of feminists and given to more deserving groups.