Dive Summary:
- Incidents such as Jewish students in the University of California system being labeled terrorists for supporting Israel and black high school students being pelted by bananas on a Tennessee campus tour have led to a push for politer discourse on campuses nationwide.
- Institutions including Rutgers University, Johns Hopkins University, North Carolina State University, and the Universities of Missouri, Tennessee and Arizona are among those that have launched civility campaigns and projects.
- Noel English, who heads Missouri's "Show Me Respect" campaign, says the idea is to "remind people of what they already know, to get back in touch with things they probably learned growing up."
From the article:
Jewish students in the University of California system labeled terrorists for their support of Israel. Black high school students pelted by bananas on a Tennessee campus tour. A hostile student in Maryland challenging his professor to a fight after the teacher limited the use of cell phones and laptops during lectures.
In a society where anonymous Internet commenters freely lob insults, and politicians spew partisan barbs, the decline of basic civility isn't limited to academia. But the push for more polite discourse — often as an extension of more entrenched diversity efforts — is firmly taking root on campus. ...