Fix Features

Butler Univ. Criticizes Student Who Exposed Attack on ‘American-ness, maleness, whiteness, heterosexuality’

by Nathan Harden - Fix Editor on December 4, 2012

Butler University is striking back at the student whose recent article exposing anti-male, anti-white, anti-heterosexual bias at the university has gained national attention.

In the original article, Ryan Lovelace, Butler student and Fix contributor, explained how he was presumed guilty of racism, sexism and homophobia when he enrolled in a political science class taught by a black female professor:

Butler University asks students to disregard their “American-ness, maleness, whiteness, heterosexuality, middle-class status” when writing and speaking in the classroom – a practice the school’s arts and sciences dean defended as a way to negate students’ inherent prejudices…

Clearly, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Butler University believes its students were raised as racist and misogynist homophobes who have grown to harbor many prejudices, a stance that is both offensive and hostile to any student’s ability to learn.

As a student at an institution predominantly focused on the liberal arts, I expected to hear professors express opinions different from my own. I did not expect to be judged before I ever walked through the door, and did not think I would be forced to agree with my teachers’ worldviews or suffer the consequences…

Presumably, Lovelace did not expect to be singled out and publicly criticized on his university’s website either, simply for expressing his views.

Penned by fellow student Andrew Erlandson, and published on the university admissions office blog, two articles on the university’s official website take aim at Lovelace for blowing the situation “out of proportion” and for failing to be “adaptable.”

One article, entitled “The Real Problem is the Student,” takes direct aim at Lovelace. “’To write and speak in a way that does not assume American-ness, maleness, whiteness, heterosexuality, middle-class status, etc. to be the norm…’ is rather reasonable for a political science class,” the article states.

The university seems to have missed the point of Lovelace’s complaint, which had to do with presumption of guilt inherent in the above statement–as well as the hypocrisy behind the idea that American-ness, maleness, whiteness, etc. must be singled out as invalid in an academic world that creates entire departments dedicated to narrow world views such as black studies, chicano studies, women’s studies, or gay and lesbian studies.

The failure of left-wing academics to recognize the hypocrisy of continually talking about the need for “diversity” while simultaneously seeking to suppress or discredit people who happen fall outside the left’s list of favorite victim groups shows that diversity is the last thing on their minds. This is about class warfare, gender warfare, and perpetuating racial grievance.

Nevertheless, Lovelace’s article has helped focus national attention on the issue of liberal bias and reverse discrimination in the classroom. (See here, and here, and here, for just a few examples.) In so doing, Lovelace has advanced the true and proper goals of higher education, which are to advance knowledge and provide a forum for free academic expression–not to demonize white male heterosexual Americans or enforce speech codes.

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Tagged as: american-ness, attacks student, Butler University, critiques, free speech, hetersexuality, maleness, ryan lovelace, university's offical response, whiteness

  • sunj

    Just think, the environment therein is subsidized.

  • http://mstrrick.wordpress.com/about/ Mstr Rick

    The demonization of the white male is sweeping this nation at epidemic proportions. From the board room to the pool room, the gym club, the 5th grade classrooms, to our centers of higher learning, anyone who even speaks of being white other than as a cross to bear is publicly shamed, excluded, and can easily be fired from his or her job or expelled from school. What is this sickness that infects our nation’s soul?

    A new realization is forming in the hearts and minds of white males that have for many generations been taught to hold a personal contempt and disdain for themselves based on a history long past and from those that no longer walk this earth. A spiritual and cultural connection they have no link to.

    An identity. White men are awakening to their right to also have a cultural and ethnic identity as other groups assert. A white identity. We know we are not evil, we are men like any others, some good, some bad, but with a right to live, to live freely, and to exist as a unique ethnic and racial group with a common heritage.

    Every ethnic group in America is taught to be proud of their race and ethnicity, except white people. These other groups recognize that they share some common ancestry and some common interests, and they organize to assert those interests. A multicultural, multiracial, melting pot society that forbids only one ethnic group from recognizing its own identity with pride and dignity is culturally hypocritical.

    Well done Mr. Lovelace. “The only thing necessary for evil to flourish is that good men do nothing.” You sir, are a good man.

    • ChaoticWin

      I agree wholeheartedly with your overall sentiment. However, there is one passage with which I take issue:

      “… and to exist as a unique ethnic and racial group with a common heritage.”

      This suggests that all people who are identified in America as “white” do, in fact, share a common heritage. This is simply not the case. The heritage and ethnicity of the Persian Zoroastrian is as dissimilar to that of the Afrikaner Christian as is the heritage and ethnicity of the Irish Pagan is to that of the Andalusian Muslim. White, as it is defined in America, comprises a wide array of ethnic groups, cultural backgrounds, and national origins. In one sense, it might even be said that white is the loss of cultural and ethnic backgrounds — an amalgamation of intense diversity.

      “Most ethnic groups native to Europe might not have been considered White at some point in U.S. history.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_whiteness_in_the_United_States

  • Butch

    I think this article misses the point.

    I am a student at Butler and I know Lovelace personally. I am also privy to how the class operates. All the teacher asked was to write without bias and agenda. To take a step out of our “stereotypical” lives and consider every side. If Lovelace was a proper journalist he would understand that and try to write an article that shed light on both sides of the debate that this created.

    If he wanted to create a conversation about liberal schools he would make the whole syllabus public instead of picking what he wanted to share and forgetting to write about the rest. His original article came off as an attack and not a topic that he thought should be discussed academically.

    In no way is this professor using reverse discrimination and her gender and race have nothing to do with her goals for the class. There were no presumptions of guilt or the idea that whiteness, American-ness, etc is wrong. The professor was saying that it has a time and a place and it isn’t all the time. She was challenging her students to think about political science in all contexts. Not just the white middle class male model.

    The whole thing has been blown out of proportion because of a biased article. Butler is a liberal arts school but like the whole nation it has a population made up of both schools of philosophies. Just the fact that race/ethnicity has a place in politics should be the discussion. Those offended should stop making the argument that “whites are being demonized” and start questioning why the United States is widely considered a “white” nation and no longer a melting pot.

    • Nathan Harden

      Ask yourself this: Why did the professor limit her warnings about harmful bias to the male perspective and not the female perspective? Or to the white perspective and not some other racial perspective? Her instructions singled out certain identity groups. It was by limiting her warning to those specific groups that she became guilty of bias in herself.

      • Butch

        So it was a problem of wording that was in no way intentional. Had US politics been dominated by black females from Uruguay she would ask the students to leave their blackness, femaleness and Uruguay-ness at the door. It has nothing to do with the class and everything to do with politics in the United States. The whole point of her class. Research and Analysis (the name of the class) is meant to be looked at from every point of view. When the time calls for it the students have been asked to consider the point of view of a white American male (some people fit this shoe, others don’t) and at times asked to consider a different view point. A simple practice that challenges students to have a worldly point of view. One that might challenge their original bias.

        • Lex Luther

          We are asked to view the world as white, American males from day one. Look at the literature taught in 10th grade (US Literature courses). Look at our Social Studies curriculum. It is all about white males. Our entire canon and culture (from what it means to dress “professionally” to what is taught in the classroom) seems to focus on the Western, white, male stereotype.

          Sometimes, it’d be nice to have other people’s viewpoints considered as well.

          Also, that section of the syllabus that Lovelace decided to use (and reword, I should note) was taken by Dr. Turner (WITH PERMISSION) from a WHITE, MALE Butler University professor.

          The dean that he supposedly “interviewed,” was done through manipulation and disingenuous questioning.

          Ryan Lovelace manipulated his way through the article without ever attempting to talk things through with the professor he had such a problem with. Wouldn’t that have been the mature thing to do? To attempt to understand her intentions instead of embarrassing his school on a national level for someone so minuscule as a SYLLABUS COMMENT?
          Maybe if he’d been paying attention to the tone of the class instead of tearing the syllabus apart, he might’ve learned something.

          • Jman

            You have a point in that the United States is, at the moment, composed of a white majority. I think where I and other folks get concerned about this sentiment of understanding “other people’s viewpoints” is you seem to express regret for what you argue is the domination of the majority viewpoint, totally missing the point that the majority of any country or group is always going to be… well… the majority viewpoint/culture/etc. It’s not like there’s some sort of conspiracy to crowd out other groups. Would you criticize China for being too Han? Brazil for being too Brazilian? It’s weird that other countries and groups where there is far less diversity, acceptance of opposing viewpoints, etc. are implicitly exemplary for not being white and American while our own highly diverse and accepting society is constantly criticized for containing too much representation of what remains its majority (white Americans). Perhaps you might consider couching such exercises in exploring new cultures rather than framing them in the negative language of throwing out American culture because it is somehow a problem.

      • katie

        Butch has already taken care of this, but I will reiterate: Her class is a political science course. She uses “white, male, heterosexual” to describe the person most commonly in charge in the United States. Forty-three consecutive white male heterosexual presidents and forty-four consecutive male heterosexual preferences is clear.

    • http://mstrrick.wordpress.com/about/ Mstr Rick

      @Butch & Susan – It’s disingenuous at best and Fallacious at worst to say that this Butler teacher is not using anti-white discrimination to advance her own racial agenda. It’s obvious to me this is exactly her intention, indoctrination of white guilt.

      I have read both of Erlandson’s amateurish and poorly constructed commentaries on the Butler U. WebPages and am not impressed. Mr. Lovelace is described as “attacking” a college professor? Why “attacking”, very incendiary, why not “objecting” to being demeaned and debased?

      This pedestrian Butler journalism major implies that the teachers detractors statements are polemic, that they are one-sided and unfair in nature and he is going to clear all this up with his impartial morally superior perspective?

      I’m immediately offended by Mr. Erlandson and his assumption that just because he is a white male presupposes his unbiased view of whiteness? The most anti-white bigots I have ever encountered have come from other white males trying to prove their not bigots by being bigots?

      Erlandsons true inner racial prejudice is revealed when he proclaims all white males to be ingrained racists and misogynists and it’s quite appropriate for women and blacks (minorities) to harbor a contempt for white males as it comes from their heart (a good place) and is righteously reasonable due to centuries of oppression. Did I get that right? This is VERY offensive.

      Also, I found it incredulous that our political science student Mr. Lovelace is chastised for not accepting his liberal defined status of irrelevancy and unimportance as a member of a new subordinated class of citizen, the heterosexual white male, and any offense he may harbor is just something he needs to get used to, to adapt, to prepare for his marginalization in our new glorious egalitarian society.

      What kind of dystopian thinking is that?

      And I agree with Ms. Susan, this type of hate speech by this Butler teacher and this Erlanger student must be opposed to by all most strenuously, this continual oppressive and inflammatory rhetoric of de-valuing white males is corroding the soul of this nation and must be loudly and cohesively objected to as a united people with one voice.

      • Butch

        Sorry for not responding to everything you typed up Rick, I can see it must have taken you a long time as it is no short response.

        There are only two things that I would wish to say:

        1) The part of the syllabus in question was borrowed from a heterosexual white American male. So to say that she is using it to advance her own agenda is mistaken. If in fact she does have her own agenda and went through all the steps to become a political science professor at a major midwestern private university just to make white heterosexual American males feel bad, then I would assume she could write her own syllabus that follows her agenda.

        2) Erlandson’s post was published on a blog that Butler hosts. The comments on the blog are of Erlandson’s only and not necessarily shared by Butler. It has the same weight as our posts on the comments of this article. It wasn’t perfect and I don’t agree with all of it, but those are his opinions on the subject.

        The way I see it, this country is at a turning point. Equality isn’t achieved over night. Some people have to lose for others to gain and to put everyone on equal footing. I’m not talking about taxes or the house you own being divided up, I’m talking about opportunities and advantages. If we stop looking at each other in terms of demographic labels and, instead, as humans with a desire to live in America this debate wouldn’t be happening.

        • http://mstrrick.wordpress.com/about/ Mstr Rick

          @ Butch – Thanks for your thoughtful and consistent response. I believe your view is highly representative of many at Butler University. We all want the same thing, equality for all.

          It’s clear that you and many of your fellow students believe the road to equality must be paved with the arbitrary use of discrimination and racial policies detrimentally directed at white heterosexual men (WHM). Don’t get excited, that’s OK. I understand. I just think it’s important we put it out there, to be clear so all may understand.

          “In our current contemporary society of the second decade of the 21st century in order to achieve equality for non-whites, homosexuals, and women it is necessary to institute racial and discriminatory policies in both employment (diversity) and education specifically and exclusively directed at white heterosexual males.”

          Interesting idea. Have you decided how long we should do this and is there going to be some type of board of advisers to decide when “social justice” has been archived?

          Now, as part of this necessary discrimination policy (diversity) will we be lowering the standards for our fellow oppressed classes for degree requirements and then purposefully overlook other more qualified applicants (WHM) in order to fastrack our oppressed classes for say, Political Science Professorships at Major Midwestern Universities? As you stated, there must be inequality and differing criteria, “some must pay” (WHM) so that others may succeed.

          Again, a most interesting paradigm. Does Butler have a Pro-Discrimination Advocacy Coalition on campus (Office of Diversity)?

          • katie

            Butler has no Pro-Discrimination Advocacy Coalition on campus. I think you would actually be hard-pressed to find one on any campus, which seems a misfortune for you. We do, actually, have a Center for Diversity. I believe you are attempting to equate the two, which is entirely unfounded and just plain silly, my friend.
            Here enters the sarcasm:
            Indeed, Butler was founded by an abolitionist. I know! The horror! Ovid Butler believed that white slave-owners must lose in order for African Americans to find success. What a predictably dirty foundation for a school full of mentally ill (aka liberal or anyone else who doesn’t think exactly as I think) nut-jobs! And now they think that considering perspectives from other cultures is okay. Not in America, folks! I have the God-given right to ignore the perspectives of others.

          • Butch

            The plan you laid out is one way to achieve an equal society, without a doubt. But it is the wrong way. And it is in not even close to what I was trying to explain.

            There are always two ways of doing things. What you explained was actively discriminating against (WHM) to achieve a balance. The concept I was theorizing about (I am in no way an expert, just speculating here) was in creating equalities the more fortunate will, inadvertently, have to make sacrifices. It won’t be achieved through making things harder for the (WHM) but by making it easier for those at a disadvantage.

            We use (WHM) but I want to specify that I am not talking reverse discrimination. I am talking about anyone who is at an unexplainable advantage in any situation. This isn’t by making a quota that jobs have to hire a certain number of diverse employees, or anything of the sort. Equality can’t be achieved through laws. It starts with each and every human personally. Everyone has to make a conscious effort to challenge their biases. Are you hiring applicant A because of his qualifications or are you hiring him because applicant B was (enter negative stereotype here.)

            If this way of thinking is applied to every situation then some people will lose opportunities and others will gain. But for reasons better than stereotypes and skin color and sexual orientation and gender and anything else that has no weight on capabilities.

            We are all humans and we are all capable of anything we set our minds to. For fucks sake we went from the first flight ever in 1903 to landing on the moon less than 70 years later. If we can break those barriers why can’t we break the barriers of social inequality after hundreds of years of struggle?

          • Butch

            I just want to say thank you for the thoughtful debate. We have different points of view on a similar solution. We both agree discrimination should be eradicated but have different ideas on at what cost.

            We are pretty set in our ways and I doubt either one of us will concede that the other is right. Just please don’t bash Butler University for this one situation. The college itself is producing some of the smartest men and women I have met and we all have different view points that have been stimulated by the liberal arts curriculum. Not everyone can be a doctor or an engineer. We need the advertisers, the teachers, and the politicians. What would the world be without diversity?

            Thank you again, and have a Merry Christmas.

    • Mister Tea

      I wonder if the professor would acknowledge, much less stipulate in advance, that the norm in the rest of the world (including most of Europe now) is NOT free speech. Canada even has speech bias laws that have been used to prosecute people who wrote things that are historical truths (like how Islamic armies invaded Europe centuries before the Crusades). It isn’t conservatives passing “speech codes” all over higher education, it’s the leftie wingnuts who are obsessed with muzzling anyone who might dare to contradict their demented orthodoxies. (And if you doubt it’s demented, web search for the term “Venona” and wonder why this is NOT reflected in the history texts that still wail about the “Red Scare”.

  • Susan

    Andrew Erlandson’s blog on the Butler University Admissions page is very well balanced. He describes the issue and gives the student’s point-of-view as well as the professor’s. He empathizes with both parties and even acknowledges what it feels like to be in Ryan’s position. Andrew’s blog in no way represents “Butler striking back,” as the editor of the College Fix implies. It is a student blog, one of several on the Admissions page, and Andrew is expressing his own opinion, as Ryan was expressing his. Andrew is not expressing the position of the university as Ryan was not expressing the opinion of all students. Seriously, do go to the Admissions page. Read Andrew’s blog. Then read Nathan Harden’s editorial again and find the hyperbole. What has been extraordinarily disturbing to me is not the students expressing their opinions in the best tradition of student journalism, with both its passion and its inevitable mis-statements. These are, after all, apprentice journalists operating without the advice of experienced editors. I’m showing my age here. What is disturbing is the hate speech in the comments following Ryan’s article. It became personal so quickly. Where does this come from? Reasoned arguments can be made about inclusive language. That would be worth talking about. I would love to see all parties “disavow” the personal attacks against this young professor and engage instead with the ideas. Please.

    • Anon.

      The problem is that Anthony Erlandson graduated a year and a half ago, and has no first hand information about any of this. He’s home from China right now.

  • RenatiusBarton

    Butler University has blown this whole thing out of proportion. The teacher is obviously a racist and a sexist. Why pick on the messenger?

    • JAM

      Have you met the Professor? Have you been in the class? No and no. Or else you would know both of those things aren’t true. Butler never would have known about it had the STUDENT not blown his misinterpretation of the syllabus out of proportion.

    • JustRead

      Butler University’s views are not represented by Erlandson’s article. Both are clearly marked with a disclaimer.
      This is not a difficult concept.

      • RenatiusBarton

        Jay Howard, dean of Butler’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, “said students must be told not to assume such prejudices because such assumptions are ingrained into the culture and remain there until questioned.”

        Does anyone question the racism coming from black people? Does anyone object to the sexism aimed at white males and Asians? And what does “ingrained into the culture” mean? Sounds like Leftist, academic babble.

        • katie

          To be ingrained is to be firmly fixed. A culture is the encompassing collection of ideas, beliefs, and values contained within a specific community.
          Therefore, a proper inference as to the dean’s meaning would be that many students at Butler come from backgrounds which never caused them to question their perspectives or considers those of others. He is not implying that Butler students are incapable–rather, they simply have not been offered the opportunity.
          Also, at Butler we are concerned about racism and sexism regardless of their victims. So, to answer your questions, yes, we do question racism from black people. Yes, we do object to sexism aimed at white males and Asians (also neither white nor Asian is a gender, so your statement is a bit confusing).
          Anyways, I hope I made clear the “academic babble”!

  • iowacitydissenter

    Blame the victim. Really classy, Butler!

    • katie

      Ryan Lovelace is not the victim.

      Would you like to know who is?

      The political science professor attacked by Ryan Lovelace’s article has been receiving voicemails and emails with racial slurs, telling her that she is ignorant and has no place as a professor. Our political science department has been on lockdown, with police officers strolling the surrounding halls.

      Ryan Lovelace is not the victim. He knew where he was posting. He has read articles on the College Fix and he has seen comments on those articles. He knew the type of community to which he was posting. Further, if he had merely wanted to discuss the issue, he might have talked to the professor or perhaps had a more constructive conversation with the dean (rather than lie to the dean about the purpose of the interview). Instead, he saw the opportunity to stir passions within a racist community and get his name out there.

  • MIster Tea

    Look around the world, not just historically but NOW. How do women fare? Outside the nations with white majorities and traditions rooted in Christianity, it’s pretty bad. Anybody notice the story about the 15-year-old shot in the head by the Pakistani Taliban for wanting an education? And where did twas she taken for what will probably add up to a million dollars or more of free medical care and rehabilitation? Britain, and what do you want to be the whole family winds up in the U.S.?

    • Lex Luther

      That’s interesting, because I could’ve sworn that India had a female president before the United States ever did. (OH wait. The United States STILL hasn’t had a female president. Australia’s got us there.)

      • Really?

        Not to mention Germany, Liberia, Argentina, Bangledesh, Lithuania, Costa Rica, Slovakia, Brazil, Kosovo, Thailand, Jamaica, and Serbia, just to name a few. Not to mention this only represents a portion of the countries who CURRENTLY have female Presidents or Prime ministers, therefore not including those who have in the past.
        Oh, please. Tell me more about how women owe all of their rights to white males!

        • Aly

          Pakistan has also had an elected female prime minister from 1998-1990 and again from 1993-1996.

  • Jordan

    The title and content of this article is INCREDIBLY misleading.

    It’s written throughout as if the University itself has criticized Lovelace or has somehow sanctioned Erlandson’s posts to the student perspectives blog.

    Click the links to Erlandson’s posts in the article. They are written in a blog section of the admission’s website entitled “Student Perspectives,” a collection of student posts written by students who wish to share their experiences at Butler. Students have free range of the topics about which they choose to write as long as they are representative of the student’s life at Butler.

    Not only that, but Butler began BOTH articles with a disclaimer stating that the opinions expressed in the articles belonged solely to the author and did not represent the views of Butler University.

    His posts are an example of a student expressing his opinion on the issue and in no way represent the stance the University has taken. How does that constitute “Butler University criticizes…” or “Butler University strikes back…”? Why is the author attributing ONE student’s views to the entire university?

    There are only two explanations: Either extremely poor journalism or Mr. Harden is being intentionally misleading. You decide.

  • Guest

    Why is this article tagged “University’s official response” when it solely discusses the opinion of a student blogger?

    Mr. Hardesty, if you’d like to correct this disingenuous article so that it could represent any semblance of proper journalism, the actual University response can be found here: http://thebutlercollegian.com/2012/12/letter-to-the-editor-a-message-to-butler-from-president-danko-about-inclusivity/

    Incidentally, the president of the university defends Mr. Lovelace’s article, saying that the university honors students’ right to express concerns about their classes.

  • Aly

    Why is this article tagged as “University’s official response” when it solely discusses the opinion of one student who clearly indicated this views were not representative of Butler University?

    Mr. Harden, if you wish to correct this disingenuous article so that it could reflect any semblance of honest journalism, an actual statement from the University’s president can be found here: http://thebutlercollegian.com/2012/12/letter-to-the-editor-a-message-to-butler-from-president-danko-about-inclusivity/

    Incidentally, the president states that the university defends its students’ right to express concern about their classes. Please correct your article to accurately reflect Butler University’s stance on this issue.

  • JakeMillettButlerStudent

    This whole situation is beyond ridiculous. The student, Ryan Lovelace, voiced his opinion because he is about to graduate and hopes to work for Fox News or the Wall Street Journal. By creating this controversy over a small snippet in the class syllabus that the teacher never stressed as important, he has gotten his wish. End this crap now!

  • JakeMillettButlerStudent

    Ryan Lovelace dropped the class after the first day, he has know idea what the dynamic of the class involves.

  • ChaoticWin

    I think it is rather presumptuous of this professor to assume that the students have an existing bias based on her perception that the students were white, male, heterosexual, and American. Regardless of whether she drew the reference from another professor, she implicitly endorsed it by repeating it.

    How exactly does one inform oneself that a person has an American bias? How exactly does one inform oneself that a person has a heterosexual bias? White, and male, are evidently the respective results of a bias of vision — believing that the information delivered to the brain by the visual cortex is accurate. But to presume that a student who is evidently white and male must also necessarily identify as heterosexual and American? And that such identification naturally results in a personal bias? Preposterous!

    How about giving the students a writing assignment first, without presumption. Then, if some students portray an existing bias in their writing, address those students specifically.

    Of course, it should be noted that all journalism is biased in some facet. Bias does not have to exemplify a favorable or unfavorable quality, but only exhibit tendencies of a writer to portray information which seems relevant to the writer’s personal experience. For example, a house fire. One writer may portray the fire in humanistic terms: the loss of the family, how many firefighters responded, traffic that needed to be rerouted, etc.. Another writer may portray the fire in financial terms: how much damage was done, how much money was spent fighting the fire, how the fire may affect property values in the area. Both writers present information that is true, and neither contradicts the other. But each one presents the information with a bias of the perspective which is most applicable to their own experience. And there is nothing wrong with that!

  • http://www.Xenu.net simkatu

    Rich white male heterosexuals that are prejudiced? In Texas? I call shenanigans!