“I get frustrated sometimes when I don’t understand things,” I acknowledged with a straight face, “but then I dig in, and I do my best to figure them out.” I don’t know why interviewers bother with that question, since the trick is always to turn the weakness into a hidden strength. The only challenge is not being completely obvious about it.
My final interview was with the Civic Circle. Amit had helpfully volunteered to assist Professor Gomulka with all the arrangements for the interviewer. Unfortunately, the interviewer refused to stay at the Berkshire Inn just south of campus, where Amit and I could monitor their Internet traffic. Only a suite at the Westin Peachtree Plaza downtown was good enough. Professor Gomulka had arranged for me, Amit, Madison, and a couple of his other social justice students to interview. It was a couple of stops down from the North Avenue MARTA station to get there.
A few days later, Amit used Professor Gomulka’s password to access the professor’s email. “What is it with these Civic Circle goons and hookuplandings.com?” He asked, sifting through Viagra ads and the email updates the adult relationship site had delivered to the professor’s Omnimail inbox. Finally, he found the report from the Civic Circle interviewer.
The interviewer recommended Amit for the internship at the Civic Circle, and the rest of us were rejected. I was rated as “too idealistic.” I must have overdone it. Madison was “vacuous.” Curiously, Amit refused to share his evaluation with me. “I gave them what they wanted to hear,” was all he would say. We got the official notice a few days later.
I was surprised to receive a summer internship offer from Omnitia. I’d figured it for a long shot, particularly after how my interview went. The job was in Silicon Valley, and even though the offer was excellent, the high cost of living would make it tough to save any money. I turned them down, and accepted the offer I got from TAGS. Even though the money wasn’t as good, the cost of living in Huntsville, Alabama was much lower, and I’d have the opportunity to get to the Civic Circle meeting and the G-8 Summit in the summer.
By the middle of February, Professor Gomulka’s “Engineering 4 Everyone” campaign was in full swing, but the results were not what he’d expected. His “social justice warriors” – the term was getting awkward to use, so by then we usually just abbreviated it: “SJWs” – had no idea what hit them. Amit and I had unleashed the Friends of George. We encouraged the “FOG” to get involved and fed them a steady stream of updates through our encrypted emails. When the SJWs teamed with a bunch of proglodyte student groups to post flyers, the FOG was right behind them, tearing down “Diversity Now!” flyers and replacing them with “Earn Your Place!” When the SJW’s were up half the night scrawling and scribbling “Engineering 4 Everyone!” in chalk on the sidewalks, the FOG were up early in the morning wiping the sidewalks clean and writing “Engineering 4 Engineers!” everywhere.
That last stunt amazed me, because we had nothing directly to do with it. Marcus sent George P. an encrypted note saying he’d take care of it. Somehow he managed to wipe out the SJW chalk scribbles nearly a dozen of us spent four hours creating. He replaced them with twice as many FOG chalkings. Unlike the scrawls or scribbles of the SJWs, the FOG chalkings looked like works of art.
“It’s exactly like the one in front of the dorm,” Amit commented as we stood admiring the three-color “Engineering 4 Engineers!” doodle outside the Student Center. The precise craftsmanship made the SJW slogans look like the inept scribblings they were. “That’s got to be some kind of stencil or template.”
“It looks machine drawn. Even so,” I noted, “it would take quite a team to pull that off. Marcus couldn’t have done it all, even if Ryan is helping him.”
“George P. Burdell has friends,” Amit smiled, “and apparently, his friends have friends, too.”
The impact was demoralizing. None of the SJWs were expecting the pushback. Professor Gomulka was convinced – correctly – that someone was funneling information to the counter-protesters. Marcus and Ryan were his prime suspects, but even when he didn’t share flyering plans with them, somehow the Friends of George – thanks to Amit and me – stayed a step ahead. We didn’t even have to dispatch the FOG to tear down flyers once Muldoon and some of his other engineering professor allies announced an extra-credit bounty on their exams for every SJW flyer turned in by a student. “This is my way of inspiring you to help these so-called social justice warriors be environmentally aware and recycle” one professor told several hundred of his freshman students. With that encouragement, the campus was immediately stripped of SJW flyers and they stayed down. By the time Gomulka discovered what was going on and complained to the dean, it was too late.
The social justice campaign was centralized and sclerotic. We had to wait until Professor Gomulka found out what was happening and told us – usually in class a day or two later – what to do in response. The FOG thrived on improvisation, making tactical decisions at the grassroots and reacting instantly. By the time Professor Gomulka thought to emulate FOG tactics and encourage the SJWs and their allies to tear down FOG flyers, an enterprising Friend of George came up with a way to tack or tape flyers up high, using a ten-foot pole – out of reach of the ill-prepared SJWs. Another had an older brother in a band who taught him how to paste posters directly to surfaces so they were next to impossible to remove. He passed his insights on to the rest of us. The SJWs surrendered. The dean encouraged the campus police to arrest anyone caught posting flyers. That put an end to the aggressive flyering, but the campus remained peppered with FOG flyers simply due to the difficulty of removing them. The Friends of George and our allies won the Battle of the Flyers decisively.
The rallies and protests were a different story. Professor Gomulka’s allies on the faculty gave extra credit to their students for participating in the protests and rallies. Any number of psychology, or history, or literature, or philosophy, or public policy undergraduates made up the SJW contingent. What really surprised me was the fact that some Friends of George managed to organize counter-protests at all. FOG was always outnumbered, but never outdone when it came to protesting. Even though the FOG contingent was always much smaller than the SJW crew, they made up for it with their creativity. A few even brought poster and sign materials and made up rebuttal signs on the spot.
The SJWs would chant, “Two, four, six, eight! End misogyny and hate!” That would prompt a chorus of “You’re a disgrace! Everyone should earn their place!” An SJW held up a sign reading “This is a Hate-Free Zone!” One of the FOG maneuvered into place beside them with a “Logic-Free Zone?” sign. Another took a photo. The picture was all over the Internet.
Another enterprising FOG got wise to how few actual engineering students cared enough to protest on the SJW side. He put on a “Diversity Now!” T-shirt to look at home among the SJWs, and he circulated among them shooting video and asking them why they were there and what their major was. A surprising number acknowledged outright that they were only there for the extra credit and that they weren’t engineers at all. The video went viral, and really reinforced the “Engineering 4 Engineers” theme of the counter-protests.
One of our social justice classes was actually interrupted by a handful of protestors chanting “No more indoctrination in our education!” from the hallway, and Professor Gomulka had to call the campus police to remove them.
Professor Gomulka remained calm, insisting that the opposition “only demonstrated how desperately the campus needed our advocacy.” It was hard to keep up with the mandatory social justice protests, coordinating and sharing ideas and information with FOG, and with homework. The SJWs were feeling the pressure, too and morale began to suffer. They thrived on consensus and were particularly discouraged to discover that that not everyone agreed with them. “We put up all the flyers and those Nazis just tear them down.” One girl was near tears. Amit and I sabotaged morale further with defeatist remarks. “There’s too many reactionaries – we can’t expect to be able to keep up with them,” and, “We just
have to keep trying, even though it’s not working, because it’s the right thing to do.” The protests and rallies got smaller and smaller.
One day after class, Professor Fries called me aside.
“Have you heard about Professor Muldoon?” he asked.
“No what?”
“Apparently a team from the administration is busy auditing his lab,” Professor Fries replied. “They think he may have stolen some equipment.”
So, Gomulka finally decided to spring his ambush. I gathered all the contempt I could into my voice. “Couldn’t happen to nicer guy.” Then, I realized we had no “Friends of George” among the faculty, except, possibly, for Professor Muldoon. Might Professor Fries be willing to take a stand in support of his colleague?
“I understand he’s one of the leaders opposing Professor Ames, that new professor who’s going to reform the College of Engineering.” I hoped he’d take the bait.
“Yes, I know,” Professor Fries said, shaking his head sadly. “The dean asked me to speak with him about it – how his opposition only makes us appear to be sexist and misogynist. Muldoon simply has no concept of academic decorum – spent too much of his career in industry. I told him he was headed for disaster. It’s going to happen. You can’t fight city hall, let alone university administration. I told him he needed to leave it alone and just go with the flow. You know what he told me?”
“What?”
“Only dead fish go with the flow, my dear Fries.” He actually had a pretty good imitation of Muldoon’s voice.
I suppressed a grin and tried my best to appear outraged. “He simply has no respect for authority. Who is he to question the dean when it comes to selecting a new head for the College of Engineering?”
“You wouldn’t believe the vicious things he says about Professor Ames in private,” Professor Fries said, apparently eager to share his concerns with someone who might appreciate them.
“I understand completely,” I replied. “He tried to have me expelled, after all.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Professor Fries confided. “Muldoon really has it in for you. ‘Look out for that Burdell kid,’ he told me. ‘He’s more cunning than the usual social justice viper, and if you don’t watch out for him, he’ll bite you in the ass, like he tried to do to me.’ He was convinced that your academic hearing was some kind of setup, and you were in cahoots with the dean. Can you imagine that?”
“Wow.” Professor Muldoon was way more clued in than I’d given him credit for. That was shockingly close to the truth. Was that why he’d been so hostile? Had he been extra hostile all along because he realized I was involved in the Social Justice Initiative? I learned an important lesson: never underestimate someone just because you don’t like them.
“I know,” Professor Fries was shaking his head. “Isn’t it incredible? The man is paranoid. Almost certifiable.”
“So you’re on board with social justice and with Professor Ames reforming the curriculum?” I asked.
“Actually,” Professor Fries replied, almost guiltily, “I do share a few of Professor Muldoon’s reservations. There isn’t enough time in the curriculum to teach our students everything they need to know to be good engineers. Taking more time out for social justice, well it just isn’t a good idea, no matter how noble or worthy those ideals are. Also, the proposed curriculum seems so – so very one-sided. Maybe we can compromise and have a more balanced treatment of the subject?”
I could see Professor Fries was useless. Worse than useless. He might agree with many of Professor Muldoon’s fundamental objections, but he was more interested in decorum and compromise than in standing up and fighting for his beliefs. Allies like him were as bad as outright enemies.
“Social justice is all about balanced treatment,” I regurgitated. “It’s about equity. It’s about making sure that previously marginalized voices finally get a chance to be heard.” I was shocked how easy it was getting for me to play a vacuous social justice minion and spout the appropriate jargon.
“I suppose so,” Professor Fries acknowledged, happy to concede my “point” with no objection.
After my last class, I swung by the physics building. Professor Graf was inundated with her pre-med students again, but I found Professor Chen in his office.
“Peter! What brings you in this afternoon?”
“I was just wondering what you thought about all the protests.”
His happy mood evaporated. “I have not been a citizen for long,” he explained in a neutral tone, “and I continue to think of myself as a guest in your country. As a guest, it is not my place to tell my host how to run his house.” He was clearly a bit uncomfortable, but we needed more allies on the faculty. I pushed him.
“Free speech is part of how we run the place,” I said with a smile. “Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion.”
“Indeed,” he replied, relaxing a bit, “but wisdom often lies in doing what one should, not what one can.”
“How do you mean?”
“You have no real history in your country,” he explained, “not like in China. The Manchu persecuted the Han when the Manchu-dominated Qing overthrew the Han-dominated Ming. The Han resented that treatment and returned the favor, slaughtering Manchu when they overthrew the last Qing Emperor. The Japanese, they persecuted everyone. During the Cultural Revolution, the least comment could be misinterpreted as disloyalty or regressivism and result in a sentence to a reeducation camp – or worse. That’s just the last few hundred years. Our history goes back for thousands.” He paused as if pondering something.
“Would you be offended if I told you how American student protesters are viewed by some in China?”
“No,” I assured him.
“There is a term for these student protestors and their supporters. We call them ‘baizuo.’ It literally means ‘white-left.’ The perception is that they are hypocritical humanitarians who advocate peace and equality only to satisfy their own feelings of moral superiority. They care only about equality and do not understand the real problems facing the rest of the world. They are arrogant Westerners who pity the rest of the world and think themselves saviors. At least, that is the perception.” I couldn’t tell him, of course, but he – or his countrymen – had my fellow social justice warriors nailed.
Professor Chen paused, looking me straight in the eye. “The lesson of history is one should keep quiet or risk offending the powers that are or the powers that will be. I know you are involved in what’s going on. You should think through the consequences, carefully. Newton told us every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Already, you can see there is a reaction forming against your protests. You should ask yourself, ‘what form will the reaction take and what will happen to you?’”
I thanked him for his advice. He seemed to have the right ideas about what was going on. I still didn’t know exactly where he stood, but it was very clear he had no interest in activism of any flavor. In any event, it was getting too late to recruit more Friends of George for the current battle. Professor Gomulka’s showdown with Professor Muldoon was right around the corner.
Chapter 8: A Failure to De-Platform
Professor Fries filled me in on the details later. The audit showed exactly what Professor Muldoon wanted it to show. All equipment was present along with a surprising amount of cobbled together, second-hand, and hand-built hardware that was not on the official books. “You see what good stewards we are with what we’ve been given to work with,” Muldoon told the investigators. “We have to take good care of what little we have and improvise the rest. Now about that increase we requested in our equipment budget…”
I think Professor Gomulka would have backed out of his “Discussion on Diversity” if he could have. His knockout blow missed. The protests had been a fizzle and actually inspired additional opposition. No way could the administration justify hiring Professor Ames by claiming it met with the universal approval of the student body. Not anymore.
It
was too late for Professor Gomulka to withdraw. Professor Muldoon had doubled-down, inviting important alums, donors, and even a couple of the regents to the discussion. A state senator had agreed to moderate the discussion. The auditorium was packed to overflowing. Professor Gomulka won the coin toss, so the program began with his opening statement.
“For too long we have refrained from interrogating power structures and investigating social possibilities in engineering. We uncritically replicated patriarchal authoritarian attitudes and dismissed as naïve the idea of providing students with a genuine voice in their own education. For too long, we have excluded many of our best and brightest from the benefits of an engineering education. We in turn have missed out from the fruits of their labors, and the contributions they may have made to society.
“That changes next year, and Professor Cindy Ames will be the agent of that change as the new head of the College of Engineering. I regret she was not able to share her vision in person with us this evening, but I have had many conversations with this dedicated, hard-working scholar, and I’ll attempt to provide you with a small sample of her innovative ideas.
“Each student is unique – an individual snowflake – requiring the correct culturally-aware engagement and respect for their personhood in order to thrive and flourish. Professor Ames’ scholarship focuses on culturally inclusive pedagogy that makes historically underrepresented students feel more welcome in the classroom. She has taken the best practices from women’s studies and ethnic studies to engage students in a more inclusive and democratic classroom that encourages all voices.
“She will be the catalyst to implement the new paradigm these more open and comprehensive pedagogies demand. She will reposition us away from the bean-counting status quo in which we superficially evaluate equality in terms of headcounts. She will de-center Western civilization, and move us toward a more genuine engagement with all students, letting all students equalize their reality to what they deserve by emphasizing justice and ethical behavior as the concrete that binds together the engineering curriculum.
A Rambling Wreck: Book 2 of The Hidden Truth Page 19
