# Mizzou freshman enrollment down 35+% since protests **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 10, 2017, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mizzou-freshman-enrollment-down-35-since-protests/790951 "2017-07-10T21:02:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2017, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mizzou-freshman-enrollment-down-35-since-protests/790951/41 "2017-07-13T17:46:36Z")
> [@Drunky\_Smurf](#): > > Interesting. I don’t remember posting a theory. > > Oh, that’s because I didn’t. Just my own personal inclination. Ok, cool :rolleyes:. Just remember not to apply to Gonzaga then. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2017, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mizzou-freshman-enrollment-down-35-since-protests/790951/42 "2017-07-13T18:51:38Z")
> [@Lightray](#): > > Columbia is surrounded by simple farmers, people of the land, etc. The common clay of the new West? ---
**Author:** ![Lightray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightray/32/391_2.png) [@Lightray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightray)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2017, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mizzou-freshman-enrollment-down-35-since-protests/790951/43 "2017-07-13T20:04:16Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > The common clay of the new West? You know, … ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2017, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mizzou-freshman-enrollment-down-35-since-protests/790951/44 "2017-07-13T20:30:47Z")
It’s weird. This is a bit like the end of the judicial filibuster: both sides seem ok / happy with the outcome. Conservatives are crowing about ivory-tower elitists getting their just desserts, and liberals seem smugly satisfied that those racists in fly-over country are finally getting what’s coming to them. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2017, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mizzou-freshman-enrollment-down-35-since-protests/790951/45 "2017-07-13T20:55:21Z")
> [@Lightray](#): > > Mizzou is a microcosm of the current American political landscape: split between conservative middle class white folks, and extremely liberal but somewhat more diverse types. Columbia is surrounded by simple farmers, people of the land, etc. Including a fair amount of KKK supporters even still. And lots of liberal students, and minorities that the university has been deliberately recruiting. > > There is pretty much no way for a competent administration to reconcile this easily. And the Mizzou administration is far from competent. Alumni just got a weird email complaining about how they were misrepresented in an article in… the NYT? New Yorker? Don’t really recall and I deleted the thing, but it was a long rambling whine. > > Most of Mizzou’s enrollment comes from in-state, and everyone in the state has seen how inept the university has been handling its problems, and how much they keep denying that there _are_ problems. It’s a mess, and not a surprise that no one wants near it – _particularly_ with people who don’t have any knowledge of the system stridently proclaiming their social justice warrior or anti-SJW solutions as the only hope. > > Mizzou has an ingrained racism problem, and the lack of effective response to it from the university has the students up in arms both decrying and denying it. Until that culture gets sorted out, their best bet probably is to lower tuition; Mizzou has a large endowment, so it’ll be fine for a while. You make a lot of interesting points. Mizzou is probably not going to be the last place to deal with enrollment problems and two things come to mind: 1. There is a growing divide in this country between largely white rural/suburban America and multicultural urban America. I don’t want to beat the election results to death – there are other threads for that. But it’s clear that there is a culture war between an ethnic & cultural majority that has a palpable fear of losing its culture to sophisticated and even not-so-sophisticated city dwellers who have a different set of values. Colleges have historically been the place where even conservatives have felt somewhat comfortable subjecting their children to a variety of experiences with the assumption that their thinking can be challenged in ways that don’t assault their value system. A conservative family has typically had no problem sending their children to listen to ‘liberal’ professors because the assumption is that, our little prince or princess, will be able to keep his value system and not feel guilty about it. In recent years, though, probably beginning with the Occupy movement, they perceive that the left has become more aggressive and they feel threatened by it. And to some degree, I understand it. 2. The other problem, though, is that the value of college is increasingly difficult to see – at least in terms to the 20th Century model of industrialized education. People rightly question why they should pay $50-100,000 for a degree that may or may not get them an interview with someone. Skills are becoming more important than “education”. It’s true that a degree is often a pre-requisite for many jobs but that might change as algorithms break down the hiring process and sift through applications more efficiently. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2017, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mizzou-freshman-enrollment-down-35-since-protests/790951/46 "2017-07-14T12:03:12Z")
The ways people try to undermine legitimate protesters never ceases to frustrate me. You can’t argue with their actual points, so you start insisting they are just want to protest. Or they want to be offended. They have anger problems. Do I agree with pro-life protesters? Not at all. Do I pretend they are just choosing to be offended? Not at all. I fully believe they are as devoted as they say they are. I may argue that some of their rhetoric is false, but I don’t try to challenge their sincerity. I don’t posit that they are bad people. People who see the injustice in the world and try to fight it are by default good people. You can’t undermine that. The only way the world ever gets better are these people who fight against the way things are. You can disagree all you want with what they want, but trying to portray protesting itself as bad? That’s just bullshit. If people are avoiding a college because it has protests there, that’s dumb. If they’re worried about being labeled racist, then don’t do racist things so that you won’t, and take the attitude that, if someone calls you racist, you listen to them and fix the issue, whether it was legitimate racism or a misunderstanding. And if you’re avoiding the place because they haven’t really fixed their racism problem, then more power to ya. That’s protesting. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2017, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mizzou-freshman-enrollment-down-35-since-protests/790951/47 "2017-07-14T12:10:19Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > If Stormfront’s message boards are any indicator (I have been there out of curiosity,) quite a few Nazis or neo-Nazis are very much into philosophy, science, astronomy, political science, geography, military tactics and the like. Oh sure. I mean, say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism - at least it’s an ethos. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2017, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mizzou-freshman-enrollment-down-35-since-protests/790951/48 "2017-07-14T13:41:40Z")
> [@moojja](#): > > My wild theory was more towards people who avoid Mizzou due to protest rather than racist environment. > > I suppose since Mizzou has been called out for their racist environment, they suffer it from both end. Non-racist avoid the school as they don’t want to attend a college with perceived racism. Racist avoid the school as they feel attacked by the protests. So, there’s no chance any NON-racist whites were turned off by the protests, huh? Not even a possibility worth mentioning. ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctor_jackson/32/32_2.png) [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2017, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mizzou-freshman-enrollment-down-35-since-protests/790951/49 "2017-07-14T14:59:14Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > Sorry…I apologize . This isn’t a thread about you or me. No problem, I was just genuinely confused. I was (am) pretty sure we agree on the issue overall. I’m married, so I should be more used to being in trouble without understanding why…😛 ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2017, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mizzou-freshman-enrollment-down-35-since-protests/790951/50 "2017-07-14T15:11:56Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > I am convinced that some people \*need \*to protest - that they have protesting in their blood. > > Sure, there is injustice in society. But some people will not be happy or feel fulfilled without marching, or holding a sign, or starting some online petition or attack blog. They need to fight for _something_. For sure, a lot of protests about racial justice (especially several of the really egregious cases of police misconduct) are pretty obvious reasons even reasonable people might protest. Protesting over the University “not doing various things it probably legally can’t do, and almost certainly _shouldn’t do_” because some freak smeared their feces into a swastika is so illegitimate a reason to protest that I question the sincerity of the protesters to begin with and view it as just a form of college recreation for them–which is fine until it extends to things like assault/threatened assault (which is what actually happened to at least two student journalists.) ---
**Author:** ![ShadowFacts](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shadowfacts/32/2934_2.png) [@ShadowFacts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShadowFacts)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2017, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mizzou-freshman-enrollment-down-35-since-protests/790951/51 "2017-07-14T16:24:37Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > For sure, a lot of protests about racial justice (especially several of the really egregious cases of police misconduct) are pretty obvious reasons even reasonable people might protest. Protesting over the University “not doing various things it probably legally can’t do, and almost certainly _shouldn’t do_” because some freak smeared their feces into a swastika is so illegitimate a reason to protest that I question the sincerity of the protesters to begin with and view it as just a form of college recreation for them–which is fine until it extends to things like assault/threatened assault (which is what actually happened to at least two student journalists.) (underlining mine) I don’t know a whole lot of what’s been happening at Mizzou other than some articles I read when the President resigned a couple years ago, but I would suggest that it’s more likely that the ‘swastika feces’ incident was the straw that broke the camel’s back, rather than a single incident that sparked a bunch of protest-happy students and faculty to run amok. Here’s a [WP article](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2015/11/09/the-incidents-that-led-to-the-university-of-missouri-presidents-resignation/?utm_term=.0d3fdcb44263)that backs up that theory. I therefore offer that your underlined statement is reductive, and you may want to revisit it. Note here that I also do not condone assault and threats of assault, just to be clear. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2017, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mizzou-freshman-enrollment-down-35-since-protests/790951/52 "2017-07-14T16:53:24Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > So, there’s no chance any NON-racist whites were turned off by the protests, huh? Not even a possibility worth mentioning. You do bring up a good point. There may have been some white people who are only sympathetic and enabling to racists, not racists themselves, that may have been turned off by the protests. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mizzou-freshman-enrollment-down-35-since-protests/790951.md?page=2)