We need to talk about speaking truth to power and the usefulness of anger — or, as any good product of the Bible Belt calls it, righteous indignation. I commend the student leaders for organizing a very well-attended rally in support of Chancellor Jones. It is refreshing to see students take an active interest in their university and speak out in favor of a generally productive leader.
But, the overall timidity of the proceedings was disheartening. In the effort to maintain a “respectable” face, the organizers sacrificed the chance to connect emotionally and prod for further action — or even articulating what that action would look like. Throughout the rally, the words of Buffalo Springfield’s protest song “For What It’s Worth” kept popping back into my head: “There’s something happening here. But what it is ain’t exactly clear.”
After spending an hour with a couple thousand of my best friends in the Grove, I came away feeling depressed that students had failed to express any indignation over the IHL hijacking our university to satisfy their own whims. Instead, I heard speakers reprimand students for booing and explicitly tell the IHL that we don’t think they were “wrong,” just misguided.
Well, the IHL was wrong. And, as Dr. Khayat and others have expressed, it is wrong that the state of Mississippi allows the IHL to exist and have the kind of authority over individual institutions that it currently has. This decision should make people angry—not just because Chancellor Jones is such a nice guy, but because it represents another example of the national politicization of higher education. Sure, anger can be destructive, but it can also be constructive and uniting. Treating the IHL with kid gloves only legitimizes them; it treats them as rational, adult actors instead of calling them out for failing to uphold the same standards of fairness and rationally that we expect of the UM community.
It is one thing to expect people at the rally to behave civilly. It is a wholly other thing—one far more troubling for our community—when we equate civility with passivity and gentility. For those who disagree, those who fetishize manners and politeness, all I can say is, “Boooooo!”
Bryan Kessler
Ph.D. student, History Department
Birmingham, Alabama
