Bret Weinstein, a biology professor, gained notoriety when he declined to leave his college campus after being told to do so due to his skin color. Evergreen State College, a tiny liberal arts institution in Washington state, started it all with a campus-wide event called “Day of Absence.”
The event aimed to exclude all white individuals from school for one day in order to provide a safe environment for non-white students to discuss injustice. Weinstein questioned the school’s proposal that all white individuals leave campus for the day-long diversity program, issued a statement opposing the idea, and declined to comply. What happened next prompted the professor and his wife to file a lawsuit.
Students challenged the lecturer, who refused to leave campus because of his white skin tone, accusing him of racism and demanding his resignation. Weinstein was mocked by both his pupils and his coworkers. Moreover, his safety was jeopardized when demonstrators prevented campus police from entering a building where they had surrounded him. He was even compelled to teach class in a parking lot on one occasion since people blocked the entrance to his classroom.
Weinstein told the host of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on Fox News that the protesters were harassing the school and that the school’s president was giving in to their demands, like letting students off the hook for their homework. The school’s president even directed police to refrain from taking any action against the protestors.
Weinstein and his wife, professor Heather Heying, filed a lawsuit, saying that the university permitted, nurtured, and maintained a racially hostile and punitive work environment. Weinstein claimed that school officials sent the unmistakable message that the school will endure and even endorse egregious violations and even crimes ostensibly to advance racial social goals, undermining the collegiate experience for all, and fostering a racially hostile work and retaliatory environment for faculty and staff.
Weinstein is seeking $3.85 million in damages and claims that the college has denied to safeguard its employees from repeated provocative and corrosive verbal and written hostility based on race, as well as threats of physical violence” through “a series of decisions made at the highest levels, including to formally support a day of racial segregation. Students did, in fact, take over the school.
The above video footage was shot at the height of the protests. It depicts students taking over the school and making demands, as well as campus administrators cringing in response to those requests, including agreeing not to punish protesting students for failing to finish homework.
The bulk of the demonstrators’ requests were met, according to a statement issued by Evergreen State President George Bridges and published by the Cooper Point Journal. Bridges said that the institution will not sanction the students for their protests after clarifying that he uses him/he pronouns and acknowledges the indigenous people of the Medicine Creek Treaty, whose land was taken and on which the college sits.
Bridges went on to say that the institution will enhance police training, commit to constructing a new and enlarged equity and multicultural center, and require more cultural sensitivity training for school staff. The school also committed to recruiting transgender and lesbian student coordinators, as well as an undocumented student liaison. Weinstein, on the other hand, was not going to shrink in front of the school or the demonstrators.
Nevertheless, the professor fought the bigotry he encountered—and triumphed. While Bret Weinstein and his wife did not get the $3.85 million in damages that they sought, they did win a significant victory against their company. Evergreen State College reported in a faculty email that they had resolved a tort action filed by the professor and his wife for $500,000.
Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying resigned from the institution as part of the arrangement with the duo, according to the College Fix. The email claimed that they had resigned from their teaching posts at Evergreen, effective today. The college will pay them $450,000 in total and donate an extra $50,000 towards their legal bills. In reaching this agreement, the institution accepts no culpability and denies the tort claim’s assertions.
These students are not combating racism; rather, they are exacerbating it. Do you disagree? Watch the video above and consider if this is what Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights activists battled for. “Hey, hey, ho, ho, this conduct has got to stop,” these demonstrators would say. College is for education, and this one needs a refresher on terms like discrimination, segregation, racism, irony, and hypocrisy. The activists present several instances. If they could only learn to show real tolerance, inclusivity, and respect.
