I pit the vile Indiana Black Caucus and other racial racketeers

The BBQ Pit
1

Right now Indiana University is in the middle of an upheaval involving the President, Adam Herbert, and the search for a new chancellor. The chancellor position is vacant and a search went underway for a successor to the old one, and the dean of Political Science was the widely touted favorite.

The dean, Kumble Subbaswamy, was offered to the President by a large number of faculty as a worthy new chancellor - and was summarily shot down without any further ado whatsoever. Not even a discussion. The president simply said “no” and refused to talk about it.

This upset the faculty, and what happened next was that the president, Herbert, was put up for review. This amounts to an impeachment. A massive group of high-level faculty (spearheaded in large part by my own father, who shall remain nameless) got together for the meeting and all voiced their opinions on Herbert and his bad policies (I’m not part of university politics but I hear that he is NOT doing a good job) and on this recent rejection of a very worthy candidate for Chancellor. This review was a great big indictment of Herbert and his mismanagement of the University.

Oh, yes, and did I mention that President Adam Herbert is black?

RACISM! RACISM! RACISM!

First the completely baseless accusations of racism thrown at the faculty review came from other black faculty members at IU, and then, what do you know, the Indiana Black Caucus decided to step in and issue an official statement. The statement is this: “The faculty review of President Herbert represents a slap in the face to the black community.” NO proof. NO proof. NO PROOF.

What the Black Caucus is saying is that WE’RE NOT ALLOWED TO CRITICIZE A LEADER IF HE IS BLACK. It doesn’t matter if he’s FUCKED UP THE UNIVERSITY. Take him to task for his ineptitude and you are a racist.

Oh, and did I mention that the supposedly “racist” faculty’s choice for chancellor, Subbaswamy,
IS A FUCKING ASIAN INDIAN WHOSE SKIN MAKES ADAM HERBERT LOOK LIKE JESSE HELMS? Oh, that makes a whole lot of sense, you fools. A whole lot of sense.

Fuck the lot of you, Indiana Black Caucus, PLUS all the people here, black and white, who chose to jump on this ridiculout bandwagon and condemn a completely legitimate evaluation of a lousy leader as being racist.

2

Isn’t the dean new, like, within the last month?

3

Well, looks like the racism dog ain’t going to hunt.

It seems we’ve gotten to the point that playing the race card doesn’t automatically derail a process. Even in Bloomington, perhaps the most self-conscious campus in the country, it appears to be causing rolled eyeballs and little else.

There was an article in the local paper (West Lafayette) about the situation which outlined the basic issues. The racism charge was the final paragraph, and it sounded like even the ones raising that issue were backing away from it.

4

Hopefully you’re right.

5

Isn’t it a President’s prerogative to reject a candidate, if he is in charge of hiring that position? I don’t know their procedure, but does a group of faculty usually just push a candidate forward like that?

6

Yes, it is.

However, the president doesn’t actually have much power over the faculty, yet depends on them to carry on the business of the university.

For that reason, it can be an extremely political position.
Any astute president will tread carefully when considering a popular faculty choice. Most will either state publically the reason why said candidate was not acceptable or at least let it be known through judicious leaks what’s up.

7

Some background.

God, I miss academia.