Political Correctness at College

When my son was shopping for colleges we visited William & Mary, where his mother and I had gone.  We had developed a technique at the time of gauging a college’s culture by looking at the bulletin boards rather than the promotional materials.  We thought the back page of the student newspaper would tell us more than the front, and were not disappointed. There was a defensive essay by a resident of one of the two dormitories that were off-campus, JBT (James Blair Terrace) 42 and 43.  They were on the edge of the grounds of Eastern State Hospital, from which they had been leased or purchased, a mile away. I had a soft spot for this already, as JBT43 was my freshman dormitory, the first year it was not being used as a psychiatric facility.  It suddenly occurs to me – why in the world did they put freshman males there, in the least-supervised, least socially-integrated place?  At any rate, it was a strange place even then, and this seemed to have continued until 1996, at least.  The writer was indignant at how much criticism JBT came in for. They say we don’t have the elevated educational events that other residences do. They all have programs about 19^th Century Opera or discussion about changing roles of women – and we don’t.  Well I say “What about the multicultural food fight?”

I hope they can still write things like that at W&M now.

Jonathan eventually chose against W&M for understandable reasons – everyone seemed to play a sport involving a stick, which they permanently carried around with them, and were majoring in International Relations or some other attempt to run the world. He did think he could have had a home in that JBT niche, however.