The University of Missouri has eliminated Respect and Excellence. I have to write this in a hurry because it won’t be long before others will seize on this gift. Respect and Excellence are the names for two residence halls at the University. They are being closed because the University suddenly finds that its enrollments are plummeting. Two other dorms were closed already in light of the crisis.
Let’s bask in the irony for a moment or two longer. The University of Missouri arrived at this juncture by cravenly submitting to the demands of activists and the threats of football players who decided to abet the activists. On November 9, System President Tim Wolfe and Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin resigned rather than face down those threats.
Respect—respect for the abiding values of higher education, respect for civic disagreement, respect for intellectual freedom—went on an unpaid leave of absence from the University of Missouri that day. As for Excellence, it wasn’t all that clear that the University of Missouri was a congenial place for Excellence before November 9. But on receiving the news that Demands were moving in, Excellence cancelled her lease and moved out.
Rumors are that she transferred to the Oklahoma Wesleyan University or possibly Ohio State.
I wouldn’t call this irony; I would call it logic.
When student & parents see a campus saturated with social justice lunacy, of course they’re going to cancel enrollment and transfer to another school that will happily take their money.
I feel bad for those Mizzou students who aren’t part of this cultural Marxism but have to endure it nonetheless in the course of getting their academic degrees.
I recently visited Columbia, Mo. One probable reason for closing the dorms is, as you explain, the fiasco last fall. Fewer students have applied to Mizzou for entry next fall. Another factor in the closing is the relentless construction of apartment housing for students. Suddenly the downtown is filled with new apartment buildings, and more are in the planning stage.