A Good Cautionary Tale for All
Glenn T. Stanton
Anyone paying the least bit of attention to the news of late knows that the university campus has become a red hot cauldron of over-reaction to insensitivity, real or imagined. This latest story is a good cautionary tale to all of us to keep our heads about us when we think we’ve been violated and wait ’til the facts are in. Let me lay out this story by it’s highlights:
- Tuesday afternoon, a bag of feces was found at the front door of Vanderbilt’s Black Cultural Center.
- This was the day after 200 students delivered a demand to the Chancellor for more inclusiveness and diversity on campus.
- The director of the Center cautioned against hasty conclusions and reactions. Let the police investigation play out, he said.
- Regardless, the student organization that delivered the demands deemed the action “deplorable” and “vile” and that it’s “these types of actions” which serve as exhibit #1 of the importance of their work.
- Police investigation concludes.
- Finding: A Vanderbilt junior visited the Center to work on a group project there. Her dog required cleaning up after and she did not see a trash can to deposit her poop pick-up bag. So she left it at the door of the Center, not wanting to take it in with her.
- Oh, our student is visually impaired; the beast is her faithful service dog. She explains her actions were exactly what service dog school instructs is proper in such situation.
- The egg-faced activist group apologizes for jumping the gun in their reactive accusations.
- The junior told the campus newspaper: “The thing that bothered me and upset me was that [the group’s statement] was written very extreme, and what happened was they wrote it without any investigation.”
Takeaway: The director of the center had it right. Don’t automatically default to victimhood, keep a cool head and wait till the actual facts are gathered.
Each of us, of all political and ideological stripes, will do well to go to school on this learning opportunity.