Evergreen State College is apologizing this week after it was revealed that the school used state resources to protest at a local family farm in 2017.
A local farm found itself at the center of a firestorm last year when one of its workers died after a long day in the field. However, the Washington State Department of Labor investigated and cleared the farm of any wrongdoing in the worker’s death. Even though there was no evidence that the farm’s operators contributed to the worker’s death, EvergreenState faculty members loaded up college vans and shipped student protesters out to the farm.
Now, embattled Evergreen State College President George Bridges is apologizing — an act that Bridges has gotten quite used to over the past few years — after a farm advocacy group filed a complaint with the college.
Farm advocacy group Save Family Farming filed a complaint with the college in April after they say photos and videos showed college vehicles at the farm during protests over the death of a seasonal farm worker.
Evergreen President George Bridges says 6 faculty members have been strongly reprimanded and Save Family Farming’s Executive Director Gerald Baron says it’s a good start.
In June 2017, Bridges apologized to Washington state lawmakers for disarming the campus police amidst the campus riots that erupted after former professor Bret Weinstein pushed back against a racist diversity initiative that involved asking white community members to leave campus for a day.
“I was wrong,” said Bridges, referring to his decision to tell the campus police chief to attend campus protests unarmed.“My decision was to de-escalate the conflict…when law enforcement and our police services unit asked whether I wanted them to intervene, I declined. Intervention in those settings by law enforcement from my perspective and experience would have escalated the conflict and possibly resulted in injury and property damage,” he added.
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