The president of Evergreen State College has announced he will comply with the demands of students who protested professor Bret Weinstein, who refused to participate in a campus event where white students and staff were asked to leave school grounds.
Although Evergreen President George Bridges announced that progressive professor Bret Weinstein wouldn’t be suspended, Bridges announced that he would comply with the long list of demands that the students brought before him.
“I’m George Bridges, I use he/him pronouns,” he began, before stating that he would comply with most of the student protester’s demands.
Bridges went as far to say that he would increase the school’s efforts to fight discrimination in response to the demand that Weinstein be suspended for refusing to participate in the school’s annual “Day of Absence,” in which, this year, all white community members were asked to leave campus for the day.
“We must increase our capacity to investigate instances of alleged discrimination,” Bridges said. “Therefore, we have decided to increase the college’s Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Officer to full-time today. In addition, if we need to hire outside investigators, we will.”
Bridges praised his students, calling them “courageous” for voicing their concerns. He expressed a commitment to meeting most of their demands, claiming that “together we can reach them.”
We are grateful to the courageous students who have voiced their concerns. We understand that the demands presented are evolving. We have worked intensely on this in the past two days. Our responses, too, will evolve to ensure we are attending to the needs you present. Our documents must live and be living, changing with additional issues and concerns as they arise. This work never ends.
We have heard from students very clearly that they experience racism on campus that interferes with their education. We acknowledge that the status quo isn’t acceptable. We don’t know all the answers. We want to come together with you to learn from your experience, to build solutions, and to take action. We are grateful for this catalyst to expedite the work to which we are jointly committed.
For a long time, we’ve been working on the concerns you’ve raised and acknowledge that our results have fallen short. We should have done more to engage students in our work on equity and inclusion. This week, you are inviting us into the struggle you have taken up. We share your goals and together we can reach them.
Tom Ciccotta is a libertarian who writes about economics and higher education for Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter @tciccotta or email him at tciccotta@breitbart.com