The Princeton Review came out with its "best 368 schools" list and Pitzer college ranked #1 in something! What, you might ask?
Race / Class Relations Friendliest - Pitzer College (CA)
Why do they even have this category? Seriously.
But as for gender relations, that has become a hotbed of controversy and sexism. The Masculinist Coalition has had to battle for their recognition while the Women's Center, the Asian American Sponsor Program, the Black Student Union, and the Latino Student Union had no problems gaining acceptance.
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7 comments:
I'd like to say, when Claremont isn't even in the top 30 of party schools in the nation(idk if it was in the Princeton review), how bad are these other schools? Good lord.
What a crappy post.
The category is "Race/Class Interaction", not "Race/Class Relations Friendliest". Seriously.
The organization is the "Masculinist Coalition", not the "Masculinist Club".
It's "Asian American Sponsor Program" not "Asian American Sponsor". There are many sponsors, hence the "program".
"But as for gender relations, that has become a hotbed of controversy and sexism."
Gender relations has become a hotbed of controversy and sexism? How is such a thing possible?
Aside from the syntactical inanity of that sentence, it would be irresponsible to derive any impression of 'gender relations' at Pitzer College from the conduct of the Masculinist Coalition. The MC is a single club with fewer than 30 regular members. It would be no less ridiculous to derive the state of
race relations in the city of Claremont from the conduct of the CLSA.
Finally, the Masculinist Coalition certainly did not have to "battle for their recognition" on campus. The Coalition became immediately notorious and it sparked discussion across Pitzer's student body. This blog links to the national press coverage it received.
If you are referring to Senate recognition, the MC gained Senate approval at the end of the spring semester. Do you have any idea how long it took to get Senate approval for the Women's Center, AASP, BSU and LSU? Me neither, because those organizations were approved years ago at various times. For all you know it could have taken months for all of them. If you don't actually KNOW, you can't make the comparison.
Perhaps you should stick to copying and pasting from the Princeton Review website until you get your facts straight, or, you know, get some facts.
Even if it was (which it isn't) Race/Class Interaction, it wouldn't make much of a difference. Its still a divisive and pointless category to have. Did you click on the link? It says "Race/Class Relations Friendliest."
Fine, Masculinist Coalition not Club. Its the same thing.
And, its the Asian American Sponsor. Check out Pitzers list of Clubs: http://www.pitzer.edu/student_life/student_affairs/clubs.asp
The problem with gender relations stems from the Masculinist Coalition's difficulty in gaining the acceptance of Pitzer College. Does it matter how many students are in a club? If there were only 10 students in any race-based club, they would be accepted immediately without harassment. To deny them would be racist, while denying the Masculinist Coalition (more than once) was not seen as a problem.
Thanks for the comments, Amy.
While we are certain glad to see you elevate the dialogue - though crappy might be pushing our no swear word policy a slight bit too far - and Sam and I, no doubt appreciate the fact-checking, albeit semantic, you’re just flat wrong on the category of “Race/Class Interaction.” Follow the link and you’ll see. As for Masculinist Club, that was a phrase that used multiple times by the group’s founder and also by the radio station on which he spoke.
Sam’s sentence on gender relations was to point out the inanity of groups like the Feminist Coalition that advocate that they are “diverse” or what have you simply by the proliferation of school subsidized groups. Are you really prepared to say that the Masculinists did not have to battle for their recognition? We covered that fight extensively on this blog and kept up a running email correspondence with its founder who reported just that! The reason the group got so much press coverage was being Pitzer’s student government had denied them much of the funds that they freely - and very freely - hand over to other far less attended groups.
Knowing how long it took for something to get recognition is silly at best. Would the suffering of the MC be more if had spent a longer time waiting than say, BSU? And should suffering, as opposed to fairness, be our rubric? Maybe in the quixotic quest for social justice, but certainly not in a society built upon traditional justice.
Let’s check some of your facts now. LSU doesn’t exist. It’s called CSLA. The Women’s Center, AASP, BSU, and CSLA all receive tons of funding from all of the five colleges, irrespective of how many students from each school attend.
I should probably include link from the Princeton Review itself that has "Race / Class Relations Friendliest" so here it is:
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/07-28-2008/0004856826&EDATE=
Okay, first, more fact-checking:
-Your links point to articles from "GetListy.com" and the "PRnewswire.com". The PR Newswire is not, as far as I can tell, a Princeton Review site. If you go to the actual Princeton Review site, http://www.princetonreview.com/schools/college/CollegeBasics.aspx?iid=1023234&uidbadge= , you will see they are calling the category "Lots of Race/Class Interaction" which I believe is substantially different than "Friendliest".
-AASP is correct. If you search the phrase "Asian American Sponsor" on the Pitzer College website, not a single result on the first 3 pages will refer to "AAS" or "Asian American Sponsor" as the program itself. Your link directs to "Asian American Sponsor-AASP" which I think cuts off the word program in order to fit the phrase in a single line. A sponsor is still a sponsor, a program is still a program. Seems like common sense to me.
-If the LSU didn't exist I would hope that an editor of this blog would catch it when it was referenced in the last line of the post we are currently discussing. However, the LSU DOES exist, according to me, Pitzer College, and the New York Times.
But you already know that, because you reproduced a section of the recent NY Times article that is currently on the front page of THIS blog making reference to the Latino Student Union. (For future reference, CLSA is the 5 College Chicano-Latino student group.)
Second, what we should really be talking about:
It's fine with me if you think "Race/Class Interaction" is a stupid category, and I'd love to hear why you think that's so. I think the ways in which we perceive, evaluate and quantify race in this country, especially in our colleges and universities, deserve a long and thoughtful conversation. This very blog has tried in the past to delve a little deeper into the conduct of some of Claremont's organizations and has generally done an admirable job of at least evoking relevant issues of race, class, and gender. But to call the category "divisive and pointless" with no explanation (and only in the comments section) is just poor form.
The Masculinist Coalition is another organization that should yield interesting discussion, but the post goes for the cheap comparison between the approval process of the MC and that of other organizations. Charles, if "knowing how long it took for something to get recognition is silly at best", then why was the conclusion of the original post a direct comparison of exactly that? And I'm well aware of the MC's fight for Senate approval last year. But to arbitrarily equate the MC with these other clubs leaves out the most important obstacle in official recognition, which was the offensive conduct of the MC's founding members.
Charles, the introduction of the concept of 'suffering' is an obvious straw-man argument. What we're talking about has nothing to do with suffering or models of justice.
I'm not here to cause trouble. I subscribe to this blog and there are posts I have found fascinating, and some I have benefited from intellectually. This is not one of those posts.
...fine... go here then:
http://ir.princetonreview.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=324932
This is as of July 28, 2008.
As for the AASP, you're right, it is the AASP. Its not my fault that whoever made pitzer's website put the wrong name on there. But did you at least get the point? Your argument seems a little trivial...
It's divisive and pointless because when you impose racial and class quotas above all else, it divides people. Although winning "Race/Class Relations Friendliest" is not about racial and class quotas on its face, it still promotes the idea.
I'm also glad to hear that you like the blog.
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